Quinto Centenario (Gallego) - Frank Delgado traduction en anglais

Quinto Centenario (Gallego)

Gallego, leí en un libro
La historia del exterminio,
Cuando en menos de dos siglos
Acabaron con los indios.
Les fumaron el tabaco
Y en el nombre del pudor
Les hicieron usar ropa
Y morirse de calor.
Gallego, a mí me contaron
De inquisitivas hogueras,
De arcabuces y de espadas,
Y enfermedades venéreas.
Gallego, a mí me contaron
Que acabaron con sus ritos
Y no dejaron ni a uno
Pa'bailar el areíto.
Gallego, sino es porque la ira no me ciega
Ya te hubiera incendiado la bodega
Como en los tiempos remotos, y al amparo de la ley
Quemaron en la hoguera al indio Hatuey.
Gallego, sino fuera gente civilizada,
Ahora mismo asaltaba tu embajada
Y a todos los funcionarios los tomara de rehenes
Y los mandara a construir los pedraplenes.
Gallego, a mí me contaron
Sobre la trata negrera
Y de tu ancestral manía
De amancebarte con negras.
Del cepo, de la tortura,
El látigo y barracones
Y safaris con jaurías
Para cazar cimarrones.
Gallego, a mí me contaron
Que a pesar de las golpizas
Nunca pudieron tus cuadros
Contra las cargas mambisas.
Y me dijeron que cuando
Se puso la cosa dura
Nos vendieron a los yanquis
Como una fruta madura.
Gallego, la historia es espiral que nunca acaba:
Uno la lleva alante, otro la caga.
Si Maceo resucita y va a entrar al Sol Meliá,
Yo creo que se arma otro Baraguá.
Ay, gallego, y te preguntarás por qué yo atizo
Cenizas con espíritu enfermizo.
Yo andaba con mi ignorancia y con mi mala memoria,
Pero es que justo ayer leí el libro de historia
Nacional.

Fifth Centenary (English)

Galician, I read in a book
The story of the extermination,
When in less than two centuries
They wiped out the Indians.
They smoked their tobacco
And in the name of modesty
They made them wear clothes
And die of heat.
Galician, they told me
Of inquisitorial bonfires,
Of arquebuses and swords,
And venereal diseases.
Galician, they told me
That they wiped out their rituals
And didn't leave a single one
To dance the areíto.
Galician, if it weren't for the fact that my anger blinds me
I would have already burned down your warehouse
As in ancient times, and under the protection of the law
They burned the Indian Hatuey at the stake.
Galician, if it weren't that I am a civilized person,
I would now storm your embassy
And I would take all the officials hostage
And send them to build the stone roads.
Galician, they told me
About the slave trade
And your ancestral habit
Of sleeping with black women.
Of the stocks, of the torture,
The whip and the barracks
And safaris with packs of hounds
To hunt runaway slaves.
Galician, they told me
That despite the beatings
Your troops were never able
To defeat the Mambisa charges.
And they told me that when
Things got tough
They sold us to the Yankees
Like ripe fruit.
Galician, history is a spiral that never ends:
One moves it forward, another messes it up.
If Maceo were to resurrect and go into the Sol Meliá,
I believe another Baraguá would break out.
Oh, Galician, and you'll wonder why I stir up
Ashes with a sick spirit.
I walked with my ignorance and my bad memory,
But it is that just yesterday I read the history book
National.