Hamlet

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

La Araucana: ¿Qué es Chile?

(Un Malón, M.Rugendas, 1854).

Chile, fértil provincia y señalada
en la región Antártica famosa,
de remotas naciones respetada
por fuerte, principal y poderosa;
la gente que produce es tan granada,
tan soberbia, gallarda y belicosa,
que no ha sido por rey jamás regida
ni a extranjero dominio sometida.

________________________Alonso de Ercilla, La Araucana I.

Estimados y buenos alumnos,
el tema ya está echado,
si se toman unos segundos
quedará todo explicado.
Sobre Chile preguntamos,
cómo su historia se ha gestado
y creado su identidad nacional
en este poema fundacional.

El ensayo esta vez será distinto,
primero una plana y media como siempre
Y luego siguiendo el instinto
un poema que rima como éste.
Pregunten: ¿Cómo a Chile lo pinto?
Pero con rima como la presente.
En Octava Real será la jugada
aunque a Braulio no le guste nada.

____________________JPM

Elogio a la Locura: "La risa abunda en la cara de los tontos"

"¡Oh! ¡Cuán preferible es la vida de las moscas y de los pájaros, que viven a su capricho y sólo obedecen al instinto de la Naturaleza!"

____________Erasmo de Rotterdam, Elogio a la Locura XXXIV.