Poetry
Yandubayú y Liropeya
Not translated into English
Adolfo Berro · 1842
Synopsis
In 1574, in the time of the conquest, a Spanish soldier, Carvallo, pursues the Charrúa cacique Yandubayú. Just as the cacique is about to kill him, the Spaniard catches sight of Liropeya, his adversary's betrothed, and is seized by a desire for her that changes the meaning of the fight. The poem contrasts the chaste love of the two young people with the conqueror's greed.
Context
The poem was written in 1840 and appeared in 1842 in its author's posthumous collection, reissued in Montevideo in 1864 and then in 1884. It takes up a legend reported by Martín del Barco Centenera in Argentina (1602), and one also hears in it an echo of an episode from La Araucana; the author keeps the old form of the name, Yanduballo, which later versions change to Abayubá. The subtitle dates the action to 1574, or to 1571 in the index of one reissue. The figure of Liropeya later returns in a drama of 1853, a novel of 1873 and an opera of 1912.
Who it is for
A narrative poem in Spanish, with the Romantic vocabulary of the nineteenth century; there is no French translation of it.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's most notable work; critics read in it a “mythology of absence” of the Charrúa and Guaraní peoples.
Sources for this page 7
The pages consulted to check this page.