Diario La Nación
- Columbus
- The Discoverers
- «ECO» Soap
On 12 October 1926, the anniversary of Columbus's landfall, Santiago's La Nación filled this page with two poems about the discovery of America. An excerpt from Ramón de Campoamor's long poem 'Colón' compares Columbus to Alexander the Great, praises him for opening his book 'in the name of God' and hails him for giving the 'greedy old continent' mountains of gold on coral islands. A poem signed J. M. de Heredia, 'Los descubridores', shows captains and labourers leaving Palos de Moguer for the gold of Cipango and watching unfamiliar stars rise over the tropical sea. The page also carried small advertisements: one for ECO soap and a short notice urging mothers who cannot breastfeed to use dried milk.
This reading covers part of the page: the two commemorative poems, the ECO soap advertisement, and the short dried-milk notice that follows Heredia's poem. The date comes from the page image, which reads Tuesday 12 October 1926; the supplied OCR wrongly gives 13 October 1920. The opening lines of 'Colón' are partly hidden at the left edge, and the first lines of 'Los descubridores' and the start of its last stanza are cut off at the tile edges, so those lines are missing from the translation; [?] marks illegible words. The SOCIO CAPITALISTA and DRYCO advertisements and fragments of the facing page are only partly legible and are not translated.
Translation
Columbus
Columbus, by RAMÓN de CAMPOAMOR.
"Mad!" So too, when an immense idea [?] Alexander, victorious, to Asia, the world scorned his project as madness, and he gloriously subdued the whole world. Perhaps Columbus, like Alexander, may be [?] than Hanno and the valiant Nearchus. — Are you aghast? — I share your dread in full: he goes to erase the limits of the world.........................................
What is Columbus doing meanwhile? Opening a book — "In the name of God!..." — his hand writes. A good beginning! Now I understand why the Ocean should bend its fury to such a man. And I, who mean to follow the course of a man so brave and so Christian, with my muse boldly singing his greatness, begin, as Columbus did, in the name of God.........................................
In the name of God! I sing of him who daringly blew away, with his almighty breath, the enchanted palace of shadows where the Sun slept in the West! I sing of him who sated the dropsical craving of the greedy old continent, giving its longing, as an everlasting treasure, mountains of gold upon islands of coral!
R. de C.
The Discoverers
The Discoverers, by J. M. de HEREDIA.
Like a flock of falcons leaving the feudal perch, weary of proud sorrows, captains and labourers were leaving Palos de Moguer, their souls filled with a bold and brutal dream.
They set out to conquer the mythical metal that runs through the fertile veins of Cipango, and the trade winds carried their yards to the mysterious edge of the western world [?]
Each night, as they awaited utopian twilights, the sparkling blue of the tropical sea enchanted their sleep with a golden hue; or, at the bows of their ships, watching the white wakes, they gazed in astonishment as new stars rose through an unknown sky from the depths of the Ocean.
J. M. de H.
MOTHERS: If you cannot breastfeed your baby, use dried milk [?]
«ECO» Soap
«ECO» Soap. Reg. Trademark. For the dressing table and the bath.
Context
How 12 October became a day of Hispanic kinship
The two poems ran on 12 October, a commemoration that in 1926 was only a little more than a decade old in its modern form. The Spanish former minister Faustino Rodríguez-San Pedro, as president of the Unión Ibero-Americana, coined its name, and the Unión's 1913 campaign proposed that the anniversary should honour Columbus while also serving to express 'the spiritual intimacy' between 'the discovering and civilizing Nation' and the states formed on American soil. The historian Ilan Rachum traces how the holiday took shape between 1912 and 1921, its introduction hastened by the circumstances of the First World War, and notes that it was particularly promoted by Spanish immigrant communities in Cuba, Chile and Argentina. He also argues that the Spanish American version was a response to, and a rejection of, the Columbus Day celebration that had become prominent in the United States. Campoamor's praise for 'a man so brave and so Christian' who begins 'in the name of God' fits this programme of spiritual kinship with Spain closely. The poems present the voyage as the commemoration wished it to be seen, not as a neutral account of 1492.
Chile's 'Anniversary of the Discovery of America'
Chile made 12 October a public holiday through Law 3810 of 1922, which named it the 'Anniversary of the Discovery of America'. Informally the day was known as Día de la Raza, the name Spain used for its own celebration at the time. When La Nación printed these poems in 1926, the holiday had been in Chilean law for only four years. Both selected poems put the discovery and the discoverers at their centre: one shows Columbus writing 'in the name of God' as he sets out, the other shows captains and labourers leaving Palos de Moguer and sailing towards Cipango. The page's titles match the 'discovery' named in the law, while Campoamor's verse carries the language of spiritual kinship with Spain that the Spanish name of the day promoted.
Ramón de Campoamor and his long poem 'Colón'
Ramón de Campoamor (Navia, 1817 – Madrid, 1901) was a Spanish poet who enjoyed great esteem and popularity in his lifetime, and his biography names Colón among his extended poems, alongside El drama universal and El licenciado Torralba. La Nación printed stanzas from it signed 'R. de C.', separating them with rows of dots, and set on the right of the same page a poem signed J. M. de Heredia on the departure of the discoverers. The same biography notes that Campoamor's work did not survive the reassessment carried out by the modernista generation and the Generation of '98. That makes the choice notable, because in the 1920s La Nación was also the paper through which Juan Emar promoted the artistic avant-gardes. Turning to a celebrated nineteenth-century poet for a commemorative page suggests that the occasion called for familiar religious and patriotic verse rather than new writing; this is an inference from the page itself, not a documented editorial decision.
La Nación in 1926, a year before the state took it over
La Nación was founded on 14 January 1917 by a group of liberal parliamentarians led by Eliodoro Yáñez Ponce de León. Chile's national library describes Yáñez's paper as one of the outlets that promoted a new model in which information took precedence over open political advocacy, a break with the partisan press of the nineteenth century. In the 1920s it also spread the artistic avant-gardes, with Juan Emar leading that work, so literary and artistic material was a regular part of its pages. The commemorative poems of 12 October 1926 therefore appeared in a privately owned, independent daily. That phase was close to its end: in 1927 La Nación became the official organ of the Chilean state after Carlos Ibáñez del Campo's dictatorship expropriated it.
Original
Colón
Colón por RAMON de CAMPOAMOR. ¡ Loco! También cuando una inmensa idea [?] a Alejandro al Asia victorioso por loco el orbe su proyecto afea, y al orbe todo sometió glorioso. Tal vez Colón, como Alejandro, sea [?] que Hannón y Nearco valeroso. - ¿ Os espantáis? - Yo en vuestro espanto abundo: marcha a borrar los límites del mundo......................................... ¿ Qué hace, en tanto Colón? Un libro abriendo - ¡ En el nombre de Dios!... - traza su mano ¡ Buen principio! A ese hombre ya comprendo que doblegue su furia el Oceano Y yo, que el curso proseguir pretendo de un varón tan valiente y tan cristiano, cantando audaz mi musa su grandeza, de Dios en nombre, cual Colón empieza......................................... ¡ En el nombre de Dios! canto al que osado aventó con su soplo omnipotente el palacio de sombras encantado donde dormía el Sol en Occidente! ¡ Canto al que el ansia hidrópica ha saciado del codicioso y viejo continente, dando a su afán en perennal tesoro sobre islas de coral montañas de oro! R. de C.
Los descubridores
Los descubridores por J. M. de HEREDIA. Cual bandada de halcones la alcándara feudal, a Palos de Moguer, hartos de altivas penas dejaban capitanes y labradores, llenas las almas de un ensueño hazañoso y brutal. A conquistar salían el mítico metal que corre de Cipango por las fecundas venas, y los vientos alisios llevaban sus entenas al borde misterioso del mundo occidenta [?] Cada noche, esperando crepúsculos utópicos, el azul chispeante de la mar de los trópicos encantaba su sueño con un matiz dorado; o, a proa de sus naves viendo las blancas huellas, atónitos miraban por un cielo ignorado del fondo del Océano subir nuevas estrellas. J. M. de H. MADRES: Si no podéis amamantar vuestro nene, usad la leche desecada [?]
Jabón «ECO»
Jabón «ECO» M. R. Para el tocador y el baño
Source: Source: Internet Archive