Caupolicán

Rubén Darío(1867–1916)

Azul…, 1888

Es algo formidable que vió la vieja raza:robusto tronco de árbol al hombro de un campeónsalvaje y aguerrido, cuya fornida mazablandiera el brazo de Hércules, o el brazo de Sansón.

Por casco sus cabellos, su pecho por coraza,pudiera tal guerrero, de Arauco en la región,lancero de los bosques, Nenrod que todo caza,desjarretar un toro, o estrangular un león.

Anduvo, anduvo, anduvo. Le vió la luz del día,le vió la tarde pálida, le vió la noche fría,y siempre el tronco de árbol a cuestas del titán.

«¡El Toqui, el Toqui!» clama la conmovida casta.Anduvo, anduvo, anduvo. La Aurora dijo: «Basta»,e irguióse la alta frente del gran Caupolicán.

From Azul… (second edition, 1890; the poem dates from 1888), via the Spanish Wikisource transcription. The source sets the first word in capitals; it has been restored. No other emendation was made.

Public domainThis poem is in the public domain. You may read it, copy it, recite it and publish it without asking anyone.

About the poem

«Caupolicán» belongs to Azul… (1888), the book with which Rubén Darío set modernismo in motion. The sonnet portrays the Mapuche chief who, in the legend Ercilla tells in La Araucana, won command by carrying a huge tree-trunk on his shoulder for a day and a night without rest.

Darío carves him like a statue: the arm of Hercules, of Samson, a «Nimrod» striding through the forest until nature and his own people hail him. It is modernismo turning toward America and toward myth, with its characteristic mix of strength and ornament, of ancient history and new music.

The verse is kept in Spanish. Translating it in passing would replace the work with a paraphrase of it.