A Poem on the 400th Anniversary of Don Quixote (In Spanish and English)
"No tienen cultura" (They have no culture) is an observation about U.S. citizens often made in Latin America; therefore, as director of the Instituto Chileno-Norteamericano de Cultura de Valparaíso y Viña del Mar, I couldn't show up at the high-powered tertulia (soirée) at the Viña home of María Luisa Bombal's mother without attempting to exhibit a little, so I wrote this poem. One of Chile's great writers, Maria Luisa was with her Polish count husband in New York City then.
At these tertulias, one guest might exhibit her latest watercolor,* another might play a recent composition on piano or violin. Someone might read from a short story, a novel, or a play in preparation or recite a poem just composed. Refreshments typically included the popular Chilean pisco sour and there was always a non-alcoholic agüita (soft drink or herbal tea) for the abstemious director del instituto.
El gigante en el molino de viento
Cuando el jamás como se debe alabado caballero don Quijote de la Mancha salió de su tierra para cobrarse eterno nombre y fama, eran los molinos de viento una novedad estupenda. No se implantaron en la Mancha hasta 1575, año en que Cervantes, ya manco de Lepanto,** fue hecho prisionero de los moros en Argel. Cinco años más tarde era todavía tanto el espanto que causaban que escribriera Jerónimo Cardano, "no puedo yo pasar en silencio que esto es tan maravilloso que yo antes de verlo no lo hubiera podido creer sin ser tachado de hombre cándido." No es de extrañarse por lo tanto que la fantasía del buen manchego se exaltara ante estas máquinas inauditas. Se hacían admirar por gente de mucha imaginación y de poca, que como Sancho Panza sólo vieron en ellas el molino. Don Quijote vio el gigante.
El gigante en el molino...
¿No lo ves?
Otro esclavo del hombre.
Fuerza de sangre,
fuerza de leña,
fuerza de agua,
fuerza de aire.
Esclava la bestia....
de dos patas y de cuatro.
Luego el fuego....
primero calentando, después explotando.
La lluvia....
corrientes transportadoras, aguas y vapores impulsoras.
Y el viento....
¡Hasta el viento!
El viento....
Corriente de etéreos elementos,
fino, sutil, exquisito...
flúido de átomos ligeros.
Soplo de vida,
exhalación mortífera.
Portador de humedades refrescantes,
abrasador cruel de la tierra.
En la brisa suave caricia,
en el huracán golpe feroz.
Esclavizado,
domado,
subyugado,
explotado
por el hombre....
habiloso,***
triunfante,
imperante,
ufano,
soberbio,
incauto.
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Benigno siervo del hombre que ha cambiado tan asombrosamente vidas y paisajes, ¿por qué lo ataca el ingenioso, valeroso Quijote? Mala simiente lo llama y embiste con furia y denuedo. Todos se mueren de risa. No reparan en el gigante en el molino... y tienen el átomo por delante.
Wendell H. Hall
Viña del Mar, 1962
The Giant in the Windmill
When the never deservedly enough praised knight don Quixote of the Mancha sallied forth from his land to gain eternal name and fame, windmills were a stupendous novelty. They were not established in La Mancha until 1575, the year in which Cervantes, by then the cripple of Lepanto,* was taken prisoner by the Moors in Algiers. Five years later the awe they caused was still so great that Jerónimo Cardano wrote, "I can't let pass by in silence that this is so marvelous if I hadn't seen it I'd have been written off as a simpleton for believing it." Not surprising therefore that the imagination of the good Manchegan should be so inflamed by these astounding machines. They excited amazement in both people of much and of scant imagination who like Sancho Panza only saw in them the mill. Don Quixote saw the giant.
The giant in the windmill...
Don't you see it?
Another slave of man.
Blood power,
wood power,
water power,
air power.
A slave the beast....
with two legs and with four.
Then fire....
warming first, then exploding.
The rain....
transport in streams, power in millstreams and steam.
And wind....
Even the wind!
Wind...
Current of ethereal elements,
fine, tenuous, exquisite...
fluid of light atoms.
Breath of life,
mortiferous exhalation.
Bearer of refreshing humidities,
cruel scorcher of the earth.
In the breeze a soft caress,
in the hurricane a ferocious blow.
Enslaved,
tamed,
subjugated,
exploited
by man....
clever,
triumphant,
dominating,
conceited,
proud,
incautious.
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Benign, astonishing life- and landscape-changing servant of man, why does ingenious, valiant Quixote attack you? Bad seed he calls it and charges bravely and furiously. Everyone dies of laughter... They don't see the giant in the windmill... and they have the atom before them.
*Like Felicia Montaldo. The night before we left Chile for the States, she gave us a watercolor that now hangs high on one of our cabin's cedar log walls. With light, airy strokes, in a seen of scavenged boards and bleak hopes she evokes the unseen.... the best view to be had of Valparaíso's Pacific Ocean coast. Whereas in prosperous lands the wealthy pay dearly for such scenes, in poor ones the destitute possess them. On the high hills, no electricity, no telephones, no water, no disposal of garbage and human wastes, no roads, no schools, no stores save a small kiosko or shack. Water is sold by the liter from twin barrels on a donkey's back.
**Cervantes was severely wounded in one hand in the great sea battle of Lepanto (1571) which prevented the Muslims from converting the Mediterranean into an Islamic lake and occupying Europe past the gates of Vienna and the Pyrenees. Literal meaning of manco: one-handed, one-armed. Best translation: "the cripple of Lepanto." If the Christian fleet had lost, I could have become a professor of Arabic, not Spanish, German, French and Italian. (Univ. of Utah: German; Northland College: German, Spanish, English as a Second Language; Weber College: Spanish, French, Italian, ESL; Univ. of Michigan: Spanish only; Instituto Pedagógico, Universidad de Chile, Valparaíso, Chile: English as a Second Language; Brigham Young University: Spanish Linguistics, Literature, Hispanic Culture, and Foreign Language Teaching Methdology.
***Habiloso is evidence of the poem's link to Chile. It is used only there as an equivalent of hábil (clever, skillful, able, competent).
Don Quixote de la Mancha, the First True Novel
Before Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra wrote his great novel, books of fiction were common enough but they lacked the innovations created by him with respect to plot, setting and the development of characters. Briefly stated, he introduced change. No sameness throughout. Literary evolution sallied forth with the intrepid, ingenious knight.
Every episode contributed to the transformation of the two principal characters, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Quixote, the dreamer and idealist. Sancho Panza, the practical, earthy realist. Panza (a Spanish term for belly or stomach), little by little becomes less materialistic and more idealistic. Don Quixote, with the lumps he gets bumping against hard, unyielding reality, is at length brought down to earth.
The Age of Chivalry and knights in shining armor has ended. Gunpowder, cannon fire have written finis to storied castles, moats, armor, swords, lances, and trusty steeds, war horses, armored stallions. Even in today's crass, materialistic world, however, the concept and ideal of chivalry survives. Good manners aren't totally extinct. Courtesy courageously confronts ridicule. High ideals and dreams of noble achievement live on, as expressed in The Man of La Mancha's "Impossible Dream."
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go.
To right the unrightable wrong,
To love pure and chaste from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star.
This is my quest,
To follow that star,
No matter how hopeless,
No matter how far.
To fight for the right,
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into Hell,
For a heavenly cause.
And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest.
And the world will be better for this,
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star.
Music by Mitch Leigh, lyrics by Joe Darion
Sung by Peter O'Toole
—Courtesy MGM Studios
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