Where it is still free
Read the full text in our reader
Não é neste lugar que se deve vel-o; é sim tres ou quatro leguas acima de sua foz, onde é livre ainda, como o filho indomito dessa terra da liberdade.
It is not here that one should see it; but rather three or four leagues above its mouth, where it is still free, like the untamed son of that land of liberty.
Alencar stops us: the tamed lower river is not the real Paquequer. To see it truly, go upstream, where it still runs free — 'like the untamed son of that land of liberty.' The wild river is the book's emblem.
Alencar turns and corrects us: forget the docile lower river — that was never the true Paquequer. The real one is upstream, 'livre ainda', still free. And in that one clause the landscape becomes the book's argument: 'the untamed son of that land of liberty.' Brazil as freedom's own country; the wild as the native, rightful state of things. Set against the 'submissive slave' the river became downstream, this is a manifesto in the shape of a river. The hero of the novel, the Indian Peri, is exactly this: the indomitable son of a free land.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open O Guarani 1.5 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
You are reading a page of the O Guarani — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
O Guarani 1.5 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/guarani/1.5/