Argentina

Argentina. Home of the tango. Let’s thank them by remembering that on 9 July they celebrate their Independence Day—in 1810 there was the May revolution, then in 1816 Argentina declared its independence from Spain. I suppose most people know that the name derives from the Latin for silver. Or maybe that’s most people that either took Latin for some reason or another, or who memorised the periodic table. (I was a fan of both.)

Okay—I want to go to Patagonia. It’s one of those spots that my mind romances about. And I’m fascinated—and a little puzzled—to read that the first signs of human presence in Argentina are in Patagonia. I guess that means they came down through Chile and then wandered across into Argentina. Part of the northwest of the country was conquered by the Incas. In the northeast the Guaraní people did stuff with yuccas and sweet potatoes. And the Pampas and Patagonia were regions for nomads. And I don’t just want to go to Patagonia. I’d love to wander all over the huge area of Argentina.

Buenos Aires was established in 1580. Most immigrants clustered around Buenos Aires or wandered onto the pampas, which the rest of the area was largely the province of the indigenous peoples. These days the country is considered a nation of immigrants—from all over. Only 2 percent of the population identify as Argentine Amerindian, while only a further 8 and a half percent are mestizo. Europeans from all over came in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

I want to go meet gauchos on the pampas.

And Argentina gave the world Jorge Luis Borges—I know most people, when they think of Latin American literature, think of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda. Not to take away from the achievements of either (Neruda, in particular, I love) but Borges is astounding. His stories (now his best-known work) are weird and appropriately labyrinthine; his essays are perceptive and wonderful; and among his poems are some gorgeous, gorgeous pieces. Best of all, all of his work has recently been put out in three lovely volumes, divided among these genres.

And, yes, I’m keeping it short. Go out and read Bruce Chatwin on Patagonia. Read history. Read other travel writers. Lust after your own adventure in the region.

The poem I’ve chosen is—nor surprisingly from what I’ve written above—by Borges. I was introduced to this poem by the teacher, poet and priest Peter Steele, and I’m incredibly grateful to him for that. The last few lines are among my favourite (I should add the caveat that I have a rather large selection of favourites… I’m sure you’ve all figured out by now that I’m a poetry junkie) lines, and such a beautiful, perfect ending to this piece. It is of course available in collections of his poetry, but I also found it online here.



Matthew XXV: 30

The first bridge, Constitution Station. At my feet
the shunting trains trace iron labyrinths.
Steam hisses up and up into the night,
which becomes at a stroke the night of the Last Judgment.


From the unseen horizon
and from the very center of my being,
an infinite voice pronounced these things—
things, not words. This is my feeble translation,
time-bound, of what was a single limitless Word:


“Stars, bread, libraries of East and West,
playing-cards, chessboards, galleries, skylights, cellars,
a human body to walk with on the earth,
fingernails, growing at nighttime and in death,
shadows for forgetting, mirrors busily multiplying,
cascades in music, gentlest of all time's shapes.
Borders of Brazil, Uruguay, horses and mornings,
a bronze weight, a copy of the Grettir Saga,
algebra and fire, the charge at Junin in your blood,
days more crowded than Balzac, scent of the honeysuckle,
love and the imminence of love and intolerable remembering,
dreams like buried treasure, generous luck,
and memory itself, where a glance can make men dizzy—
all this was given to you, and with it
the ancient nourishment of heroes—
treachery, defeat, humiliation.
In vain have oceans been squandered on you,
in vain the sun, wonderfully seen through Whitman’s eyes.
You have used up the years and they have used up you,
and still, and still, you have not written the poem.”


—by Jorge Luis Borges
translated from the Spanish by Alastair Reid