Prelate Pedro Agustín Morell de Santa Cruz y de Lora is considered the first historian of the Island. He consciously demonstrated the need to create a historical memory of Cuban society of his time. He rescued from oblivion the work ” Espejo de Paciencia ” by the hitherto unknown Silvestre de Balboa Troya y Quesada.
When Morell de Santa Cruz wrote Historia de la Isla y Catedral de Cuba, he reported one of the oldest stories of Cuba. The Cuban intellectual Eduardo Torres-Cuevas refers that in this work he not only transmits a rich historical information, but also rescues a lost culture. Well, Cuban culture owes him the knowledge of the work in verses, Espejo…and its accompanying sonnets.
A Creole work
The work Espejo de Paciencia was abandoned in the archive of the cathedral church of Santiago de Cuba. Morell found it and included it entirety in his History of the Island… Torres-Cuevas stressed.
The work is demonstrative of the sentiments of the Creole, a man of the land, planted in it. As a distinctive element, definitions of concepts such as Creole and homeland appear. It is an epic-literary text. The date of 1608 is the one that at the beginning of the work appears in the “Dedication Letter!
It is composed of a prologue: “To the reader” which explains the author’s decision motivated by the integrity with which the Altamirano abyss assumed the misfortunes and offenses he suffered when he was captured by pirates. Then appears a “Dedication Letter” to the bishop and followed by the laudatory sonnets dedicated to Balboa.
Who are the authors of the laudatory poems?
Captain Pedro de las Torres Sifontes, a resident of the town: Puerto Príncipe; Ensign Cristobal de la Coba Machicao, Regidor of the town; Bartolomé Sánchez, ordinary mayor; Juan Rodríguez de Sifuentes, Regidor of the town; Antonio Hernández, the old native of the Canary Islands; Ensign Lorenzo Lazo de la Vega y Cerda.
Main characters
When the wolf Gilberto, this is how the author describes Gilberto Girón, the French captain; while Gregorio Ramos becomes the ‘typical hero, the good Gregorio Ramos, of whom he sang.
Salvador Galomón, black slave, the most important of the secondary characters, is responsible for the death of Girón in a single combat:
Andaba entre los nuestros diligente
Un etíope digno de alabanza,
Llamado Salvador, negro, valiente,
De los que tiene Yara en su alabanza,
Hijo de Golomón, viejo prudente:
El cual, armado de machete y lanza,
Cuando vio a Gilberto andar brioso,
Arremete contra él cual león furioso.
…
¡Oh, Salvador criollo, negro honrado!
¡Vuelve tu fama, y nunca se consuma;
Que en la alabanza de tan buen soldado
Es bien que no se cansen lengua y pluma!
Y no porque te doy dictado,
Ningún mordaz entienda ni presuma
Que es ficción que tengo en lo que escribo
A un negro esclavo, y sin razón cautivo.
As a matter of fact, this work is an ethnic cultural map of the Island in forge. Regardless of the influences of Spanish and Italian literature, it already presents profiles of the Creole to stand out: the island’s nature, social life, social layers and groups, its characteristics, economic, mercantile, political, religious life, smuggling as a backdrop and main axis of the poem. The presence of the autochthonous as the Indian links the poem with the natural.
Teachings
The poem puts through the characters a teaching of honesty. The smuggler who outrages the people is executed by an enslaved person who earned his freedom as a price directly proportional to his actions. This pristine work of Puerto Príncipe, Camagüey deserves to be part of the intangible cultural heritage and allows the designation of Cradle City of Literature.
Bibliography
Obras y personajes de la Literatura Cubana TI (2016) Editorial Letras Cubanas, LA Habana, Cuba.
Torres-Cuevas, Eduardo (2006) En busca de la cubanidad, TI. Editorial Ciencias Sociales, La Habana, Cuba.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
