MARTÍN FIERRO FOR STUDENTS · THE RETURN · 1879
Canto 16 Explained: Old Vizcacha Falls Ill and Dies
A source-linked English study guide alongside José Hernández’s original Spanish poem.
What happens in Canto 16?
The younger son describes Vizcacha becoming seriously ill. He brings a folk healer, and an audience member interrupts the recital to correct a word the speaker attributes to her. The singer resists the interruption and continues. Vizcacha suffers through frightening nights, curses religious figures and dies in the hut with the boy and the dogs nearby. The canto combines bleak imagery with an exchange about language, learning and the right to tell one's own story.
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.
Cuando el viejo cayó enfermo,viendo yo que se empiorabay que esperanza no dabade mejorarse siquiera,le truje una culandreraa ver si lo mejoraba.
No es güeno -dijo el cantor-muchas manos en un platoy diré al que ese baratoha tomao de entrometido,que no creia haber venidoa hablar entre literatos.
Cuando ya no pudo hablarle até en la mano un cencerro,y al ver cercano su entierro,arañando las paredes,espiró allí entre los perrosy este servidor de ustedes.
Main characters and voices
The younger son as the singer; his dying guardian Vizcacha; a healer; an interrupting listener within the performance.
Literary themes to identify
Death and fear; religious imagery; the singer's oral voice; vernacular speech and correction; performance interruptions.
Gaucho vocabulary in context
culandrera (folk pronunciation of curandera, healer); tabernáculo (tabernacle, used in the disputed expression); tubérculo (tubercle); cencerro (bell); cantor (singer).
What to notice in the narration
Do not silently modernize the folk-healer's wording: the disagreement itself is part of the text and its humor. The young narrator is neither an impartial doctor nor an omniscient judge of Vizcacha's conscience. The death closes the period of guardianship without resolving the loss of the boy's inheritance.
Reading-comprehension and discussion questions
- What help does the son try to obtain for his guardian?
- What words does the listener interrupt to correct?
- How does the singer defend his account against the interruption?
- What does the ending convey about Vizcacha's last days?
- Why is the exchange about language important to a poem performed as song?
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, La vuelta de Martín Fierro (1879), Canto 16, 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