MARTÍN FIERRO FOR STUDENTS · THE GAUCHO · 1872
Canto 6 Explained: Desertion, Homecoming, and the Loss of Family
A source-linked English study guide alongside José Hernández’s original Spanish poem.
What happens in Canto 6?
After hearing plans for another military expedition, Fierro decides that remaining at the frontier may destroy him. One night, while the commander and justice of the peace are drinking and playing cards, he escapes on horseback. He returns to his home district after three years, but finds his rancho reduced to ruins. A neighbor tells him his livestock has been sold and his children have gone to work. His wife has left, apparently in search of food and survival. Fierro blesses his children from afar, grieves his family, and resolves to live as a fugitive gaucho.
Original verses: three passages worth studying
The following stanzas are taken directly from the repository's original-text corpus, without modernization. Explanations elsewhere on this page are interpretation, not translation.
Una noche que riunidosestaban en la carpetaempinando una limetael jefe y el juez de paz,yo no quise aguardar más,y me hice humo en un sotreta.
No hallé ni rastro del rancho:¡sólo estaba la tapera!¡Por cristo si aquello erapa enlutar el corazón!¡Yo juré en esa ocasiónser mas malo que una fiera!
¡Tal vez no te vuelva a ver,prienda de mi corazón!Dios te dé su proteciónya que no me la dio a mí,y a mis hijos dende aquíles echo mi bendición.
Main characters and voices
Martín Fierro; the absent wife and children he recalls; a neighbor who provides news; the commanding officer and justice of the peace mentioned before the escape.
Literary themes to identify
Desertion and freedom; the destruction of home; grief and paternal responsibility; poverty and displacement; the beginning of the outlaw's identity.
Gaucho vocabulary in context
desertor/resertor (deserter, represented in gauchesque speech); pago (home district); tapera (ruined or abandoned dwelling); matrero (fugitive/outlaw gaucho); gauchaje (gaucho community); toldería (Indigenous settlement, in the army's planned expedition).
What to notice in the narration
This canto closes the gap between the earlier image of a settled rural worker and the man who calls himself a fugitive. It is tempting to summarize the wife as having simply 'abandoned' the family, but Fierro himself relates that extreme hunger may have driven her away. His later moral advice to his sons gains weight from this separation. The poem's narration remains one man's perspective, even when the suffering is moving.
Reading-comprehension and discussion questions
- Which events immediately precede Fierro's escape, and what reasons does he give for leaving?
- What does Fierro know firsthand on returning, and what does the neighbor tell him?
- How does he speak about his wife's departure? Is his account accusatory or sympathetic?
- Why does the ruined home matter for the shift from working gaucho to matrero?
- What is the connection between his blessing to the children and his later advice in the 1879 sequel?
Support answers with details from the original canto. Different interpretations may be justified if the quoted passages and narrative context support them.
Sources and further reading
Primary source: José Hernández, El gaucho Martín Fierro (1872), Canto 6, reproduced from the site's structured Spanish corpus. Summary and questions are original English educational commentary, not quoted authorial explanations.
Original canto · Summary of both parts · Character guide · All study guides