Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Political Community and Just War in the City of Lima
- 2 Republicanism, Rebellion and Empire in Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana
- 3 The Golden Mean of Colonial Governance in Pedro de Oña’s Arauco domado
- 4 Defence, Desire and Community in Juan de Miramontes Zuázola's Armas antárticas
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Republicanism, Rebellion and Empire in Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Political Community and Just War in the City of Lima
- 2 Republicanism, Rebellion and Empire in Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana
- 3 The Golden Mean of Colonial Governance in Pedro de Oña’s Arauco domado
- 4 Defence, Desire and Community in Juan de Miramontes Zuázola's Armas antárticas
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the first canto of the Primera parte of La Araucana, as Alonso de Ercilla first introduces the Araucanian people, he briefly mentions a beautiful spot where the caciques gather to vote on resolutions in times of crisis:
Hácese este concilio en un gracioso
asiento de mil florestas escogido,
donde se muestra el campo más hermoso
de infinidad de flores guarnecido;
allí de un viento fresco y amoroso
los árboles se mueven con ruido,
cruzando muchas veces por el prado
un claro arroyo limpio y sosegado,
do una fresca y altísima alameda
por orden y artificio tienen puesta
en torno de la plaza y ancha rueda,
capaz de cualquier junta y grande fiesta,
que convida a descanso, y al sol veda
la entrada y paso en la enojosa siesta;
allí se oye la dulce melodía
del canto de las aves y armonía. (I. 39–40)
[This council takes place in an attractive site favoured with a thousand glades, where the countryside is at its most beautiful adorned with an infinity of flowers; there in a cool and pleasant breeze the trees rustle and sway, while criss-crossing the meadow flows a clear, clean and calm stream, where a cool and tall poplar grove through order and artifice they have planted around the plaza and broad circle, spacious enough for any assembly and great celebration, restful and inviting, which prohibits the sun from entering and passing through in the wearisome siesta; there is heard the sweet melody of the song of the birds in harmony.]
While Chile is defined at the outset as a ‘fértil provincia’ (I. 6), this is no ordinary geographical description. All its features, as a contemporary reader would instantly recognise, are highly stylised and recall similarly Arcadian landscapes in the eclogues of Garcilaso de la Vega, Ercilla's much-admired lyric predecessor. Poplar trees, native to the northern hemisphere, are rather out of place in southern Chile, but very much at home in European bucolic, where they are often inscribed by sorrowful lovers. Sandwiched in between a terse summary of the cartographical, political and military features of Arauco, and a survey of Araucanian religion and physiology, the intrusion of this pastoral idyll into what Ercilla describes in the proem as a relación (I. 3) is something of a jolt.
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- Information
- The Epic MirrorPoetry, Conflict Ethics and Political Community in Colonial Peru, pp. 39 - 95Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022