"Iracema" and Saudade

"The young warrior, leaning against the mast, raises his eyes, which are fixed upon the fleeting outline of the shadowy shore.  From time to time his sight becomes dim, and a tear fall upon the Giráo bnech, where frolic the two innocents, the companions of his misfortune.

But whilst thou sailest thus at the mercy of the winds, graceful barque, waft back to that white beach some of the yearning (saudade) that accompanies thee, but which may not leave the land to which it returns" (Iracema pg 7-8)

This part of the story, though at the very beginning, really spoke to me of some very strong emotions.  Not knowing exactly what the story was about when I read this I put my own experiences to it and translated those emotions as being: regret, a yearning to go back to happier days, a terrible longing, and admitted defeat-that going back is not possible and all that is left is for one to move on with the next stage in life.

This first took my mind to a poem that we recently read and discussed in my Portuguese literature class by Gonçalves Dia called, "Canção do Exílio".  He wrote it through the eyes of Dom Pedro II.  I am not going to include all of it (mainly because I don't think that most of you speak Portuguese, and it goes kind of long...) but here goes:

Minha terra tem palmeiras,

Onde canta o Sabiá;

As aves, que aqui gorjeiam,

Não gorjeiam como lá.

Não permita Deus que eu morra,

Sem que eu volte para lá;

Sem que desfrute of primores

Que não encontro por cá;

Sem qu'inda aviste as palmeiras,

Onde canta o Sabiá.

So this is the first and last of the poem, and basically it is just him comparing where he is now to where he used to be-which in this case is comparing the beautiful and wonderful Brazil, to Portugal.  The poem goes on to describe how the birds don't sing in Portugal like they do in Brazil, and that Brazil has more stars, more trees, more flowers and more love than Portugal.  In the end he is saying that God will not let him die without returning to his land, he land that has palm trees and where the Sabiá (the bird to the right) sings.

This is a video that records the sound that the Sabiá makes as it sings if you are interested in hearing what it sounds like.

The last thing that this quote makes me thing of is how we need to press forward and keep going in life.  Like I mentioned earlier, there is a sort of defeat admitted, the acknowledgement that you can't go back and so you need to press forward.  This reminded me the the song by Andy Grammar "Keep your Head up" because he mentions that no matter what life throws your way you need to keep going.  One line of his song says, "Only rainbows after rain, the sun will always come again," and that applies to life. 

 We will always have good times to look back on and to hold, but they are in the past and it does us no good to pine after them and long for them to come back.  Remembering and reminiscing are great, but do you want to miss the rainbows that have yet to come by dwelling in the past instead of paying attention to the future?