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PARTISAN REVIEW
A people who felt this secret urgency and who, from the herded
darkness in which they moved, pined, like an obscure ideal, for that
personal emancipation which marks the birth of the West - from this
people were born the Homeric poems.
The blind and roving bard who, according to legend, gave life
to them, initiated a tradition that would give humankind its funda–
mental jolt, opening the doors of social and individual life to a reserved
lady who, little by little, with her magic wand, would transform his–
tory and the human condition. She did not bring us happiness - per–
haps she took it from us - but she did bring progress, a greater justice,
and a substantial improvement in the quality of life for those peoples
who, enthroning her as their queen and lady, subjected themselves
to her whims and curses. Even under the worst circumstances, our
peoples offer her joyful hospitality, and when they lose her, they long
for her, struggle for her, and in the end always revive her. Knowing
this confirms that, in spite of their dictators and fanatics, in spite of
their material sufferings and their periods of great unbalance, freedom
is inseparable from the culture and the dreams of the Latin Ameri–
can people.
Translated from the Spanish
by
Amanda Powell
