Xosé Manuel Cabada Vázquez (1902-1936) was a Galician poet and teacher, also a deacon, with a brief life and, but very intense, work. Galician nationalist and Catholic, he was very worried about the great social troubles of Galicia, as testify it this “Berros de loita” (“Struggle cries”), that narrates the fight of a peasants against a gang of wolves: probably, police or army. This poem is from his unique poem-book Vagalumes (Fireflies, 1931).
Berros de loita
Alá ven cara os eidos baixando
a xauría de lobos famentos.
Alá ven cal enchente que arrasa
as colleitas nos meses de inverno.
Non se contan. E avantan en ringla
cara a aldea choutando lixeiros
aprestados cos cans a loitar
a facer na facenda estragueiro.
¡Upade, mociños! ¡petrucios, ergueivos
e á loita aprestádeos con paus e fungueiros!.
Alá ven, son os lobos. Nos ollos
tran da nosa ruina o refrexo
¡Cómo alampan na noite!. Miraios.
a preada cheirando nos ventos.
Detéñense, Parece que entre eles
deliberan e toman consello.
Esparexen e a aldean rodean
pra asaltála mellor dise xeito.
¡Pillade as forcadas!, ¡soltade lixeiros
os cans e apurrádeos!. ¡Á loita, galegos!
¡Cómo os cans ós seus donos defenden!
¡Cómo a xente choutóu xa do leito!
¡Cómo loitan os homes con fouces!
¡Cómo xuntan xa pedras os nenos!.
iXa recúan!. Avante, mociños.
¡Ouh petrucios, mulleres e nenos.
Sempre avante! O vindeiro que atope
roxo o campo de lobos cuberto.
¡Upade, mociños! ¡petrucios, ergueivos!
¡que o sol do porvir alumée
ó pobo galego xa ceibo!
Struggle cries
There they come down towards the fields/ the pack of hungry wolves./ There they come as a stream that razes/ the crops in winter months.// They are unnumbered. And they go straight/ towards the village lightly leaping/ readies to fight with the dogs,/ to make ruin in village./ Stand up, youngsters! Get up, lads/ and get ready to struggle with sticks and stakes.// There they come, it’s wolves. They carry/ in their eyes the reflect of our ruin./ How it’s lightning in the night! Look at them/ sniffing the damages in the winds.// They stop, it seems/ they are deliberating and taking advice among them./ They are spreading and rounding the village/for better storm it in that way.// Let’s take the gallows!, drop lightly/ the dogs and whip up them! To the struggle, Galicians!// How the dogs defend their owners!/ How the people leap out already of their beds!/ How are fighting the men with sickles!/ How the kids get stones together!// They are recoiling! Forward, boys. Oh, youngsters, women and children,/ forward always! May the next day finds/ the red field covered with wolves.// Stand up, youngsters! Get up, lads!/ may the sun of the future shine/ on the Galician People now free!
Xosé Manuel Cabada Vázquez
You can read the Spanish translation/
Puedes leer la traducción castellana
Cabada Vázquez was almost forgotten, until Benedicto García rescued this poem for his first LP:
Benedicto (Benedicto García Villar) is one of the best songwriters in Galician language on Spain at he last 60’s and swinging 70’s. He was one of the founders of the collective Voces Ceibes (Free Voices), a collective of Galician songwriters, leaded by poet Manuel María Fernández, which objective was the vindication of Galician as language, and the culture and literature of Galicia (North-West of Spain). His style, instead his "French-Catalan" beginnings, has a root in Galician folklore. His 1st work was a EP with four songs at the fall of 60s decade, also recitals and concerts by Galicia and Madrid and other places. At the beginning of the 70s decade, he went to Portugal for meeting the great Portuguese songwriter José Afonso; since that moment, Benedicto accompany with guitar to Jose Afonso in his tours around Portugal, Paris, Galicia and some other places. In 1974, Benedicto back to Galicia and records his 1st album with the production of Argentine songwriter Alberto Gambino: Pola unión (For the union) released in 1977. To this, will follows Os nomes das cousas (The things names). But later he won’t record no more albums, although his career was very intense. He alternates his own writings with the writings of the greater poets of Galicia as Celso Emilio Ferreiro, Manuel Curros Enríquez or Manuel Cabada Vázquez; also he alternates in the 70’s his own music with traditional Galicians ballads.
Here you have two versions of the song:
Live in Santiago, 1976, in benefit for Santiago Álvarez, with Bibiano: http://aregueifa.net/Benedicto%20e%20Bibiano/06%20-%20Benedicto%20e%20Bibiano%20-%20Berros%20de%20loita.mp3
From his LP, Pola unión (1977): http://www.blogoteca.com/chiscandounollo/index.php?cod=9865