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Canto General: United Fruit Co.
« on: 2003-04-15 07:20:15 » |
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United Fruit Co.
(from: "Canto General", Pablo Neruda, 1950)
Cuando sonó la trompeta, estuvo
todo preparado en la tierra,
y Jehova repartió el mundo
a Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, y otras entidades
........................
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When the trumpet blared
everything on earth was prepared
and Jehovah distributed the world
to Coca-Cola Inc., Anaconda, Ford Motors
and other entities:
United Fruit Inc.
reserved for itself the juiciest,
the central seaboard of my land,
America's sweet waist.
It rebaptized its lands the "Banana Republics,"
and upon the slumbering corpses,
upon the restless heroes
who conquered renown, freedom and flags,
it established the comic opera:
it alienated self-destiny,
regaled Caesar's crowns,
unsheathed envy,
drew the dictatorship of flies:
Trujillo flies, Tacho flies, Ubico flies,
flies soaked in humble blood and jam,
drunk flies that drone over the common graves,
circus flies, clever flies versed in tyranny.
Among the bloodthirsty flies,
the Fruit Co. disembarks,
ravaging coffee and fruits for its ships
that spirit away our submerged lands' treasures
like serving trays.
Meanwhile, in the seaports' sugary abysses,
Indians collapsed, buried in the morning mist:
a body rolls down, a nameless thing,
a fallen number, a bunch of lifeless fruit
dumped in the rubbish heap.
(trans. Jack Schmitt)
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