Defensa del gaucho

(Milonga To Martín Fierro or Román Giménez)

In this simple troubadour
I will tell you what a gaucho is,
erasing the bad faith
of those who turned him into a knife,
a lazy person, just a scoundrel,
good for spearing
or hamstringing oxen
during the furious corambres,
with hungry dead children
and he with his little guitar and singing.

And the poor man in his condition
of servile and even-handed,
without suspecting the manipulation
of the boss or the master,
he was the first in the function
of civil revolts,
slaughtering by the thousands,
neighbors turned enemies,
with dust as a shroud,
with a cross of rifles.

And believing, thus, to serve
the homeland, its clear paths,
the knife became a profession
and a reason: to wound;
he never knew how to lie,
it was for friendship and courage,
an obstinate thorn
of the crazy horsemen,
with death and the Patriada,
like a blindfold over his eyes.

And then, when he returned,
I have been absent for thirty years
and, among the weeds, the longing
he hardly recognized,
he didn't even dismount,
he planted the lance in the ground
and half-naked, bareback,
he galloped towards the storm.
He who does not feel his pain,
did not born under this sky.

Someone went to ask
the Justice of the Peace or the chief,
he found them chatting,
with fortunes to sign,
and he began to distrust
that in that distribution, nothing,
not even a miserable slice,
would be left in his name,
because he was not a nobleman
with a surname and sword.

And he fought and got drunk,
like the gaucho Martín Fierro,
turned lion, he faced the dogs,
unintentionally he killed them
and in some pass he left
his pursued footprint,
he was a condemned legend,
a tale of horror and theft
and the one who pushed him to be a wolf,
ate the flock.

I want you to understand me well,
this is the simple story
of the gaucho, of his Mansilla,
for so many good people,
and if you understood me, come
without tears, without lament,
I ask for a moment of reflection,
to hear it
in that blackbird's song,
in that lesson of the wind.

(The italicized texts correspond to recited parts)