Nessus had just arrived on the other bank and we penetrated 
into a forest where there was no path. 

They do not have so rough and so thick bushes those wild beasts which, 
between Baskatong, Cabonga and Obaska, flee the cultivated lands. 
There is here, no green foliage but dark colors; there is no smooth branches 
but only knotty and twisted ivy; there is no fruits but only poisonous spines. 
There, where hideous Harpies make their nests, who drove out Abitibians and Abenakis 
with their Cries and giving them the lugubrious predictions of sufferings to come. 
They have broad wings, a neck and a human face, a hairy belly, 
legs armed with claws and a long mouth with  sharp-edged teeth; 
they push their mechanical groanings over the impotent trees. 

I heard from all parts, lamentations and I did not see anybody who made them listen; 
so I stopped all distracted: 

"Why do you break me? 
Don't you have any feeling of pity? We, in other times, were men and women, 
but here we are,  becoming trees and bushes; 
your hand should be much less pitiful to us, even if we have had souls of vipers." 


From the broken wood rise, at the same time, words and blood 
same as the green firebrand that burns, who groans on one end and whistles on the other; 
so I dropped the branch and I remained like a deafened man. 

Then my guide, trying to excuse me, says to him: 
"Ho! wounded soul, do not take rigour on him, if he had believed what my verses 
did not teach him he would not have put his hand on you; but, as a reparation, 
tell him who you are so that on his return to earth he gives an account of your memory." 

And the trunk answered: 

"Your words are so soft that they please me and I cannot stay silent; 
do not feel painful  if I englue myself a little in my remarks.
 I am the one who held the keys of the garden and I turned them, closing and opening the door, 
thus, revealing in silence all the secrecies of the treasures it hid;
and I was so faithful to my glorious charge that I lost my sleep and my strength. 
A courtesan, coming from the Capitol in Washington, one day, knocked at the door of the garden; 
she had so beautiful eyes that she ignited my spirit, she diverted me without decency 
so that, in my cupidity, I opened, to her, the doors of the garden which I was in charge. 
Thus, entered into the garden, all her lovers, her friends from Washington 
also, her courtesans coming from my own Capital, to hunt, to fish, to exploit 
the richnesses of the garden that God had allotted to his sons as to his daughters. 

When there was nothing left of the garden to supervise than a vast desert, they took the keys from me
of what was not a garden any more. And my heart remained indignant about it.
 I believed that if I hang myself at this tree 
I could flee from my shame; thus, was I unjust towards the Just that I believed I was. 
 

By the strange roots of this wood, I never violated, I swear it to you, the faith due to my Lord, 
Whom, who was so worthy of honor. If somebody of you returns back to earth, 
let him defend my memory that is still fallen down by the blow thrown by my unconsciousness." 

I asked my guide, begging that he question him because I wanted to know, 
but the disgust binded me so that I could not by myself. 

And he asked him:
 "Imprisoned Spirit, let be still pleased by telling us how 
the soul linked with these knotty trunks; if you can, tell us if anyone of them 
never succeeds to escape from such obstacles." 


Then the trunk blew some air that was transformed into these words: 

"As soon as the cruel soul separates from his body, Minos sends it to the seventh grave.
 It falls into the forest where no place is provided to it; but it germinates where the hasard precipitates it. 
Then it grows and becomes a stem, a reed or a tree; the Harpies then nourrish themselves
from its leaves and from its branches, they then cause a great pain to it. 
As for the other souls, we will come here to seek for our skins, but no one however 
will be able to covered with it, because it is not just that man possess what he wasted.
 Our bodies will be hung in the sad forest, each one at the branch where its enemy shadow dwells." 


The forest was full with black bitches, avid and with sharp-edged hooks. 
They clung to the trunks of trees like leeches and slowly, 
they were immersed in it with fury while making sounds sinister noise of chain saw; 
then the tree was going down crushed into the ground with such a crash 
that a complaint of pain cross over the mountain. Then a harpie, with a disproportionate  neck, 
shredded the trunk scrap by scrap, then it carried away its dolent members. 

My guide then, took me by the hand and he led me to the bushes which cried in vain, 
tortured by these bloody tears. When my Master had stopped close to him, he says: 

"Whoever you were, you who, by so much of breaks, breaths with your blood so painful words?"

 He answered to us: 
"Ho! souls who came by here, 
see the cruel treatment that stripped me like so, from my leaves! 
I was  from the country whose Jean-Baptiste wasted the forest in exchange of factitious returns, 
without leaving any hope to my sons and to my daughters."

From far, a choked complaint made us stand up, it says: 

"The night was sleeping in its Aquarius, the goats drank at the Rio, we went in hazard 
and we lived even stronger, in spite of the cold and the barbarians. 
We knew that one day they would come with large blows of axes, with blows of taxes, 
to cross over the body, from edge to edge, we, the last human on earth. 
Old Achilles said: "Tis evening it is a little too quiet. 
Friends, let me do the watch. Go! Sleep in peace!" 

It is not the noise of the thunder nor the rumour of the river, 
but the gallop of  thousands of racehorses in the eye of the watcher, 
And all this world under the tent who sleeps deeply: 
"Awakes! C'me the Yankees, c'me the Yankees, Easy come, Wisigoths, C'me the Gringos!" 

They crossed the glade they installed their iron toys. 
One of them full of guns, advances and grab the loud-speaker. 
"We come on behalf of the Big Control, its lazer vibrates over the pole, 
we have conquered everything everything, eaven the ice of the galaxies. 
The president ordered me to pacify the whole world. 
We come as friends, beleive-me. Now enough discussion 
and sign to me the reddition because well before the night, we regress to Virginia!" 

Oh c'me the Yankees, c'me the Yankees. Easy come, Wisigoths. C'me the gringos! 
"Then I count up to three and all your girls for our soldiers. 
The grain, the dog and the uranium, the opium and the song of the old, from now on everything belongs to us, 
and so that everyone understand well, I will count twice and for the news of the NBC: 
Tell me my friend, who is the leader here? And let him show up!" 

And the sun rose. Hey Gringo! Escucha me, Gringo! 
We have crossed over continents, oceans without end on rafts braided with dreams, 
and here we are in front all alive, sons of a dazzling sun, life in the reflection of a dagger. 
America! America! Your insane dragon is bored, bring him that I sacrifies him. 
Caligula, its legionaries, your president, his million worth men, are hung at the end of our lips. 
Gringo! wou'll have  nothing  from us. From my memory of tyran, memory of small child: 
That is from a long time that I hear you. Oh gringo! go'way! Go'way. Go gringo and god wounds you. 
The night was sleeping in its Aquarius, the goats drank at the Rio, we went in hazard 
and we lived even stronger, in spite of the cold and the barbarians."