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Literary Contributions of Catholics in Nineteenth-Century Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Francis Borgia Steck O.F.M.
Francis Borgia Steck O.F.M.*
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of America
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Extract

Two Poets, both laymen, stand out like brilliant stars on Mexico’s firmament, shedding the luster of the faith they loyally professed on the land they loved with equal loyalty, unfolding for Mexico’s glory the wealth of their poetic genius at a time when the storm clouds were gathering visibly and days of gloom and sorrow lowered over the Church and the faith to which their native land owed so much of her high and enviable culture. The two laymen in question are Manuel Carpio, who died in 1860, and José Joaquín Pesado, whose death occurred a year later. It is generally granted that Carpio and Pesado will always be cited in the history of Mexican literature as the leading revivers and exponents of classicism in their native land, without breaking away completely from the more popular and appealing forms of romanticism. It may be said that, as classicists, Carpio and Pesado took up and brought to fruition the movement begun by Martinez de Navarette and Sánchez de Tagle a half century earlier.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , October 1944 , pp. 179 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1944

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References

39 Pimentel, op. cit., devoted Chapter XVI (702–736) to Manuel Carpio.

40 See Pimentel, op. cit., 735.

41 See Sosa, op. cit., 207.

42 Pimentel, 712, 720, 724.

43 Quoted from Pimentel, op. cit., 710. Translation:

There was born a girl in saddened Judea
A lovely child and her name was Maria
She was beautiful: more than the glistening rose
Which dampened freshness of dewy morning clothes.
Her blue eyes matched the color of the Heaven,
Red were her lips of smoothest scarlet drawn,
And she was so white and tender, tressed golden,
Surely as lovable as a gentle fawn.

44 Ibidem, 713. Translation:

The Garden of Eden’s pleasant, joyful hours
Both Adam and Eve lived innocently,
Among the flowers of the bowers shady,
To the tinkling tune of the rippling waters.
They were deceived by the seductive words
That the Serpent spoke from the tree one day;
O unhappy race of Adam! today,
The sin of my father still disturbs.
They are sent from there by their outraged God,
Who seeing their frightful crime as a test,
Makes them depart, Oh! like birds from their nest:
They breathe a soft sigh from their breasts athrob,
Their eyes again to Eden are turning,
Until at length, they’ve gone away weeping.

45 Quoted from Castro Leal, op. cit., 74, 79. Translation:

(a) It was night, the circular face of the moon,
From the magnitude of the vaults of heaven,
Illumined the willows by the Euphrates
And the great Babylon in its enjoyments,
The Fortresses, the Gardens and the Castles,
And the temples of Belial so solemn.
* * *
(b) Who had ever returned from the dreadful tomb,
To recount the story of what lies beyond?
Let us enjoy life for today, with aplomb;
Who will live to see tomorrow’s sun around?

46 Pimentel, op. cit., devotes Chapter XV (664–701) to Pesado.

47 Sosa, op. cit., 820.

48 Namely, the Antología de Poetas Mexicanos.

49 See Pimentel, op. cit., 733–736.

50 Quoted from Antología de Poetas Mexicanos, 83–127, where the entire poem is printed. Translation of selected portion: (Text of footnote on page 184.)

There is gathering of a hastening throng,
Mid canticles of happiness and pleasure,
And to the angelic choirs happily one
All enjoy the blessings of content and peace,
That for His Jehovah benignly bestows.
Therein is never night nor misery’s grief,
All is delight and peace, pleasure and repose.
The throne of the Lamb stands in the center,
From which flows a fountain of living water,
And a tree of prodigious size and power,
That gives every month fruit in full measure.
There may not enter the proud man, nor haughty,
The violent, the murderer, nor greedy:
The corruption of vice or impurity,
Nay, never will its chastened brilliance sully.

51 Quoted from Castro Leal, op. cit., 89, 92. Translation of portion selected:

To the world belongs solemnities and fame,
Like the green willows that grow by the river,
Which are burnt, ever so quickly, by the flame,
Or are stripped by the frigid winds of winter;
The woodsman’s biting axe may start them falling,
Or consuming old-age may aid their rotting.
Who is there that can see this and cease sighing
To enjoy that next life, beyond earthly woes,
Where freely he breathes, no corruption fearing,
Where his soul may dwell in eternal repose?
Apart from the body the soul spreads in flight,
And dwells amidst the stars above in the light.
The bleak, icy tomb, is but a new cradle
For rebirth into resplendence of the sun,
And its shadows, gloomy and unsociable,
Becomes the brilliance of the stars of heaven.
Transmuted into ashes, mortality
Enjoys midst the stars, renewed vitality.
There is no power that can conquer the walls
Of this realm, nor the jewel-studded portals:
There the Creator finds His image mirrored:
Upon them He imprints our fated futures,
Therein a creature can foresee with safety,
His destiny, if he has perspicacity.

52 Quoted from Pimentel, op. cit., 677–678. Translation:

1.
When you are kneeling in the Church;
In the presence of God’s greatness
Mid clouds of incense, that express
The symbolic rise of prayer.
You appear to me an angel
Standing near God, by His throne,
And who, for the sorrows of man,
Art fervently interceding.
2.
The whitened splendour of the gown
That you wear is your innocence,
And a shining intelligence
Gleams forth from your virginal brow.
Hidden in the depths of your heart
Is charity’s pure affection,
In your mind, images thereon,
Are of celestial knowledge
3.
Oh, how much respect you inspire:
You’re beautiful, candid and pure,
And supreme you reign in a sphere,
So far superior to mine.
Dweller of celestial realms,
(Though I know not what to call thee)
Which son born of humanity
Is worthy to draw nigh to thee.
4.
With these features moulded divine,
That you manifest here on earth,
To him who sees you is giveth
A sample of eternal grace.
Now I realize my soul’s worth,
Which my sense now associates,
For it knows and appreciates
The value of thy excellence.
5.
Were I born as a pagan man,
Altars would I erect to thee,
Before thee, I would bend my knee
And you would be my own goddess.
In homage, incense and flowers
I’d sacrifice to thy beauty,
Emblems of thy sweet purity, And of thy most fragrant virtue.
6.
Today thou art to these, mine eyes,
An image that’s all-excelling,
Of the Intelligence Supreme,
For truth, I was born a Christian:
Thou art the spirit that guides me
In the world, along its pathways,
And at sea, over its deep ways,
Thou art the North Star of my life.
7.
What would become of this sad world
So full of fear and sorrow’s threats,
If there shone not upon its breast,
Thy consoling lucidity.
You ostracize all fearfulness,
You make the universe rejoice,
And you transform its gloomy place
Into a nest where love holds sway.

53 Pimentel, op. cit., devotes Chapter XIV (630–663) to Rodriguez Galván.

54 Quoted from Pimentel, op. cit., 652. Translation:

Oh Son of God, who, helpless and pauperous,
Traveled on earth, there were few who believed Thee;
And in Thy last moment of vitality
Made Thy bed upon a cross,
Guide my steps to Church with virtuous design;
Upraise my darkened intellect to heaven,
And my wand’ring heart please deign to illumine,
With thy loving Light divine.

55 Ibidem, 648. Translation:

From the planet of the night,
A moon-beam so soft and light,
Slips over my brow now bright,
All care-worn and wrinkled.
Thus, so like today, the moon
In Mexico blandly shone.
Farewell, Fatherland my own,
Goodbye, land beloved.
Mexico!… Oh memory!…
Thy rich soil, when shall I,
And thy artful azure sky
See again—sad singer.
Away from thee, joy brings piqueness
And virulent weariness.
Farewell, Fatherland, Oh yes,
Goodbye, land beloved.

56 Pimentel, op. cit., devotes Chapter XVIII (775–804) to Calderón y Béltrán.

57 Quoted from Pimentel, op. cit., 779. Translation:

The old man could withstand no more,
He embraced the beloved tree
And gave a sigh sorrowfully,
And at the tree’s foot breathed no more.
And later some village-dweller,
Dug for him his humble grave,
And with two sticks fit in a groove,
Made the cross placed o’er his figure.

58 Ibidem, 780. Translation:

So be not fearful, Delia dear,
Of dark death or its vexation;
The souls whom Heaven has joined here,
No power can disunite them.

59 Castro Leal, op. cit., 101–102. Translation:

Gallop, gallop, O my charger,
With bold valour;
Thy great courage cannot flounder
Before the enemies’ squadrons,
And of belching mouth of cannons,
With proud heart, thou hast been a scorner.
A thousand times
Thou must have heard
It thus explode
So frightening,
Like a rhymed word
Of victory,
Of thy glory
Fore-running.

60 González Peña, op. cit., 137.

61 Pimentel, op. cit., 140, 491, 810, 813.

62 González Peña, op. cit., 140.

63 Lepidus, Henry, The History of Mexican Journalism (Columbia: The University of Missouri Bulletin, Vol. 29, No. 4, 1928), 21–22 Google Scholar.

64 See Gonzalez Peña, op. cit., 116.

65 Ibidem, 143–144; see also Pimentel, op. cit., 451, 479.

66 Sosa, op. cit., 1024–1027; also Pimentel, op. cit., 805.

67 Sosa, op. cit., 894–896.

68 González Peña, 198.

69 Sosa, op. cit., 372; see also the “Noticias Biográficas” to the second edition (Guadalajara, 1878) of the friar’s Historia Breve.

70 José Francisco Sotomayor, Historia del Apostólico Colegio de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Zacatecas, 2 vols., (Zacatecas, 1889).

71 González Peña, op. cit., 192.

72 Ibidem, 192.

73 Sosa, op. cit., 14–21.

74 Ibidem, 21.

75 José C. Valadés, Alamán, Estadista e Historiador (México, 1938), 32–33.

76 González Peña, op. cit., 193.

77 For a biographical sketch of Cortina see Sosa, op. cit., 274–28J; also Romero, Manuel de Terreros, Cosas Que Fueron (México, 1937), “Las Aficiones de un Gran Señor” (221–230)Google Scholar.

78 Sosa, op. cit., 278.

79 Jiménez Rueda, op. cit., 161; see also Sosa, op. cit., 278–283.

80 Quoted in Sosa, op. cit., 279.

81 Jiménez Rueda, op. cit., 162.

82 See González Peña, op. cit., 199.

83 Romero de Terreros, op. cit., 230.

84 Sosa, op. cit., 279.

85 Agüeros, op. cit., 26.

86 A biographical sketch of Couto will be found in Garcia Cubas, op. cit., Vol. II.

87 Jiménez Rueda, op. cit., 164.

88 On the merits of this translation see Méndez Planearte, Gabriel, Horacio en México (México, 1938), 105–106 Google Scholar.

89 Concerning this phase of Couto’s activity see Fernandez, Justino, El Arte Moderno en México (México, 1940)Google Scholar, Passim.

90 For a biographical sketch and critical appreciation of Portilla see Agüeros, op. cit., 189–224. It might be noted that Agüeros dedicated this excellent volume of fifteen biographical sketches “To the Memory of the Illustrious Spanish Writer, D. Anselmo de la Portilla” as an “Affectionate Token of Gratitude.” The volume appeared in 1880, one year after Portilla’s death.

91 Agüeros, op. cit., 213–214.

92 The poem was reprinted in La Voz de la Religión, III, 429–431.

93 Agüeros, op. cit., 196.

94 Translation: There was a time when buoyant still, like a dancing barque on placid sea, my fancy afire would fain traverse the flowery eden of hope; a time when, smiling from afar, the stately future held out to me enchanting wreaths of the unspoilt flowers that the flower of my affections twined.

95 Ibidem, 197.

96 Ibidem, 195.

97 Ibidem, 218.