El Facon Brasilero

I have a Brazilian facón
That scares with its presence
It cost me to keep it
Many mouths on the leather
It belonged to a fighter
With whom I fought one day
A bayano who had
Reason to be scared
In the town of Yaguarón
And putting the police in check

I’m not a coward gaucho
Nor am I weak, not at all
But I rise up with very little
When they’re showing off
Like I said, it was one afternoon
Of those unfortunate afternoons
Alcohol, women, glances
And as a final epilogue
A facón against a knife
And a world of stabbings

Of seventy stabbings
They say we threw at each other
On my body, we only found
Ten bloody mouths
Mine were really messed up
(I was in bad shape that time)
But they said later
The same ones who healed me
That they found the bayano
With nothing but twenty-three

What a brave man the bayano
And noble even in his agony
Dying, he asked me
To shake his hand
I die a Castilian
For me, there’s no salvation
But give me your forgiveness
Forgive me, brother, and forget
I, in return, give you my life
And with my life, the facón

I’d like to tell you, friend
Why I longed for this fate
Now that I feel death
Pulling at me
This facón, as I say
Was my faithful companion
And though it’s cruel to say
The crosses you’ll see on it
Count them, and you’ll know
The deaths I caused with it

Well, from the stabbings
That the bayano gave me
One day I thought
To count the mentioned crosses
There they were drawn
With savage symmetry
There were twenty-three crosses
Twenty-three men I killed
But the Devil failed
When he tried to engrave mine

For every life cut short
By that cursed arm
Like an unheard-of punishment
I gave him a stab
This is the wicked story
Of my tremendous facón
I don’t know why, for what reason
Why this crazy coincidence
Filled my leather with mouths
Without touching my heart