The United Fruit Co.
(1950)
Pablo Neruda
(1950)
Pablo Neruda
When the trumpet sounded, it was
all prepared on the earth,
and Jehovah parceled out the earth
to Coca-Cola, Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, and other entities:
The Fruit Company, Inc.
reserved for itself the most succulent,
the central coast of my own land,
the delicate waist of America.
It rechristened its territories
as the "Banana Republics"
and over the sleeping dead,
over the restless heroes
who brought about the greatness,
the liberty and the flags,
it established the comic opera:
abolished the independencies,
presented crowns of Caesar,
unsheathed envy, attracted
the dictatorship of the flies,
Trujillo flies, Tacho flies,
Carias flies, Martinez flies,
Ubico flies, damp flies
of modest blood and marmalade,
drunken flies who zoom
over the ordinary graves,
circus flies, wise flies
well trained in tyranny.
Among the bloodthirsty flies
the Fruit Company lands its ships,
taking off the coffee and the fruit;
the treasure of our submerged
territories flows as though
on plates into the ships.
Meanwhile Indians are falling
into the sugared chasms
of the harbors, wrapped
for burial in the mist of the dawn:
a body rolls, a thing
that has no name, a fallen cipher,
a cluster of dead fruit
thrown down on the dump.
Translated by Robert Bly
Notes:
The United Fruit Co. is a real company incorporated in New Jersey in 1899 by Andrew Preston and Minor C. Keith. United Fruit became the major force in growing, transporting, and merchandising Latin American produce, especially bananas. The company is also notorious for its involvement in politics and is a symbol for many people of "Yankee" imperialism and oppression.
Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Tacho (Nicaragua), Carias (Honduras), Martinez (El Salvador), and Ubico (Guatemala) were all political dictators.
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971
Source: (Kirszner&Mandell Eds., Literature: Reading Reacting Writing, Compact 4th ed., p818-819)
all prepared on the earth,
and Jehovah parceled out the earth
to Coca-Cola, Inc., Anaconda,
Ford Motors, and other entities:
The Fruit Company, Inc.
reserved for itself the most succulent,
the central coast of my own land,
the delicate waist of America.
It rechristened its territories
as the "Banana Republics"
and over the sleeping dead,
over the restless heroes
who brought about the greatness,
the liberty and the flags,
it established the comic opera:
abolished the independencies,
presented crowns of Caesar,
unsheathed envy, attracted
the dictatorship of the flies,
Trujillo flies, Tacho flies,
Carias flies, Martinez flies,
Ubico flies, damp flies
of modest blood and marmalade,
drunken flies who zoom
over the ordinary graves,
circus flies, wise flies
well trained in tyranny.
Among the bloodthirsty flies
the Fruit Company lands its ships,
taking off the coffee and the fruit;
the treasure of our submerged
territories flows as though
on plates into the ships.
Meanwhile Indians are falling
into the sugared chasms
of the harbors, wrapped
for burial in the mist of the dawn:
a body rolls, a thing
that has no name, a fallen cipher,
a cluster of dead fruit
thrown down on the dump.
Translated by Robert Bly
Notes:
The United Fruit Co. is a real company incorporated in New Jersey in 1899 by Andrew Preston and Minor C. Keith. United Fruit became the major force in growing, transporting, and merchandising Latin American produce, especially bananas. The company is also notorious for its involvement in politics and is a symbol for many people of "Yankee" imperialism and oppression.
Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Tacho (Nicaragua), Carias (Honduras), Martinez (El Salvador), and Ubico (Guatemala) were all political dictators.
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971
Source: (Kirszner&Mandell Eds., Literature: Reading Reacting Writing, Compact 4th ed., p818-819)
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