Introduction

'Here I come to sing, to the beat of my guitar.' The gaucho Martín Fierro once had a home on the plains, a wife and children, and a free life. One day he is conscripted by the government and sent to the frontier to fight the Indians; in the fort he is abused by his officers, goes unpaid and labours like a slave. After three years he deserts and comes home to find his house in ruins, his wife gone off with another man and his children scattered. He becomes an outlaw, kills a man in a tavern brawl and is hunted by the police. In one manhunt the police sergeant Cruz, moved by his courage, changes sides and fights beside him, and the two flee together to live among the Indians. The sequel, The Return of Martín Fierro, tells of his sufferings among the Indians and his reunion, back in civilised society, with his lost sons. Written in the spoken language of the gauchos, this long narrative poem is hailed as Argentina's national epic.