Quisqueya = an english-spanish version of the poetry of Santo Domingo

Abstract

Before the Spanish advent Quisqueya was a tropical paradise of SAMBAS and AREITOS. Poetizers vied for approving nods a t the thrones of plumed chteftans. Epics w ere sung in court and, during the Conquest, Anacaona was forging sonorous stan zas which surprized the European discoverers. Christopher Columbus latinized this Caribbean isle. He changed its ñame. But Quisqueya, beloved of the poets, never lost her identity. Babeque fell into oblivion. Bohío became synonym ous with the thatch huts which bespeckle the verdant countryside. A itievolved into St. Domingue (1697), and lastly Haití (1804) — “them ountainous land". Austere Hispaniola (1942) surrendered to the m elifluous E spañola of the Castilian knights. Santo Domingo seduced the cartographer, tem porarily, until geographers reasserted the oíd Spanish form. Hardly had this taken root when the ñame Dominican Republic (1844) relegated that of Santo Domingo to the mapm akers’ limbo. N evertheless, in the breast cf the lyricist Quisqueya Uves and breathes as she did in the heart of the Golden Flower, and her ingenuous, hospitable copper-huedancestors.