Note 6 — IV OLAVO BILAC

Far from you, if peradventure I hear your name, murmured by an indifferent mouth amidst other women’s names, the tears come suddenly to my eyes.… Such is he who suffers in bitter exile and sadly, hears his native tongue, so pure and beautiful, spoken by foreign lips.… For your name is to me the name of a distant, worshipped fatherland, the longing for which consumes me. And to hear it is to behold eternal springtime, and the everlasting light of the blessed land, where, amidst flowers, your love awaits me.

An excellent example of a similar identification of sweetheart and fatherland occurs in the sonnet Desterro (Exile), in the section Alma Inquieta, in which his beloved is called “patria do meu desejo” (land of my desire).