MARTÍN FIERRO FOR STUDENTS · THE RETURN · 1879
Canto 9 Explained: Fierro Defends the Captive Woman in a Deadly Fight
A source-linked English study guide alongside José Hernández’s original Spanish poem.
What happens in Canto 9?
Fierro sees the captive woman wounded and bound, and faces an Indigenous man armed with boleadoras. During the prolonged confrontation Fierro falls and is almost killed, but the woman pulls his attacker away. Fierro resumes fighting and eventually kills the man. The canto ends with the woman gathering the remains of her murdered child while Fierro helps her. This is the narrator's account of a particular encounter, not evidence about entire Indigenous communities.
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.
Alzó los ojos al cieloen sus lágrimas bañada;tenía las manos atadas;su tormento estaba claro;y me clavó una miradacomo pidiéndome amparo.
Esa infeliz tan llorosa,viendo el peligro se anima;como una flecha se arrimay olvidando su aflición,le pegó al indio un tirónque me lo sacó de encima.
Se alzó con pausa de leonacuando acabó de implorar,y, sin dejar de llorar,envolvió en uno trapitoslos pedazos de su hijito,que yo le ayudé a juntar.
Main characters and voices
Martín Fierro; the captive woman who saves Fierro during the fight; the Indigenous man he kills; the woman's deceased child.
Literary themes to identify
The captive woman's agency and courage; violence and moral self-presentation; risk and chance; maternal grief; narratorial prejudice.
Gaucho vocabulary in context
boleadoras (weighted throwing cords); chiripá (wrapped rural garment); facón (large knife); pingo (horse); cautiva (female captive).
What to notice in the narration
The woman is not simply a passive recipient of rescue: she physically saves Fierro, who then kills their assailant. The child's remains and the mother's grief close the canto. The action should be described without treating Fierro's racist descriptions of his opponent as reliable claims about Indigenous people generally.
Related reading: Indigenous peoples and historical frontier accounts ↗
Reading-comprehension and discussion questions
- What does Fierro see when he first approaches the captive woman?
- How does the woman intervene when Fierro falls?
- What causes the attacker's final loss of footing?
- What does the last stanza show about the woman's grief?
- How does Fierro's narration shape the reader's judgment of his violence?
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 9, 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