Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Jorge Luis Borges' poem "Mythical Founding of Buenos Aires" is a richly imaginative and nostalgic reflection on the origins of his beloved city. The poem blends historical fact with myth, memory, and a deep sense of place, creating a narrative that is both whimsical and profound. Borges contemplates the city’s beginnings not as a precise historical event but as a symbolic and almost eternal occurrence, one that transcends time and place, making Buenos Aires feel as if it has always existed, as natural and essential as the elements themselves.

The poem opens with a question that sets the tone for the rest of the piece: "And was it along this torpid muddy river that the prows came to found my native city?" This line immediately introduces the idea of Buenos Aires as a city born out of both myth and history. The "torpid muddy river" refers to the Río de la Plata, which, according to historical accounts, played a significant role in the founding of Buenos Aires. However, Borges is not merely recounting history; he is reimagining it, infusing it with a sense of wonder and mystery.

Borges imagines the arrival of the first settlers with a mixture of realism and fantasy: "The little painted boats must have suffered the steep surf among the root-clumps of the horse-brown current." This description paints a vivid picture of the challenging conditions the settlers faced, yet it is also tinged with a poetic sensibility that elevates the mundane into the mythical. The river, described as "horse-brown," becomes a living, almost sentient force that the settlers must contend with.

The poet then indulges in a whimsical speculation: "Pondering well, let us suppose that the river was blue then like an extension of the sky." This imaginative leap transforms the muddy river into a pristine and almost celestial body of water, a perfect backdrop for the mythical founding of the city. Borges introduces a small red star, symbolizing the spot where the Spanish explorer Juan Díaz de Solís met his end at the hands of indigenous people—a moment that Borges reimagines with both historical gravity and poetic license.

Borges continues to blend fact with fantasy, describing the journey across "a sea that was five moons wide, still infested with mermaids and sea serpents and magnetic boulders which sent the compass wild." This portrayal of the Atlantic Ocean as a fantastical and dangerous place evokes the myths and legends that often accompanied early explorations of the New World. The settlers' arrival is depicted as both a historical event and a heroic myth, fraught with danger and mystery.

The poem then transitions to the supposed founding of the city: "On the coast they put up a few ramshackle huts and slept uneasily." Borges dismisses the official story of Buenos Aires being founded in the Riachuelo, suggesting instead that the true founding occurred in Palermo, a neighborhood in Buenos Aires that Borges knew intimately. He describes this mythical founding in terms that are both nostalgic and deeply personal, imagining it as taking place in a familiar city block: "Guatemala—Serrano—Paraguay—Gurruchaga."

Borges populates this imagined founding with vibrant details: a general store "pink as the back of a playing card," a local bar with its "bully, already cock of his walk," and the arrival of a "barrel organ" playing habaneras. These details evoke a sense of Buenos Aires as a living, breathing entity, full of color, music, and life. The mention of Yrigoyen, a popular Argentine president, and tangos by Saborido, a famous composer, further grounds the poem in the cultural and political life of the city.

The poem's final lines reflect Borges' deep connection to Buenos Aires and his belief in its timelessness: "Hard to believe Buenos Aires had any beginning. I feel it to be as eternal as air and water." Borges expresses a sentiment that Buenos Aires is not just a city with a specific founding date, but a place that feels eternal, as if it has always been and always will be. This idea of the city’s eternal nature ties back to the poem’s blending of history and myth, where the boundaries between past and present, reality and imagination, are fluid and indistinct.

"Mythical Founding of Buenos Aires" is a poetic meditation on the nature of cities, memory, and identity. Borges uses the imagined founding of Buenos Aires as a way to explore the deeper truths about how we perceive and relate to the places we call home. The poem suggests that cities, like people, are not just the sum of their historical facts, but are imbued with a sense of myth, memory, and imagination that makes them feel eternal and essential. Through his lyrical and evocative language, Borges invites readers to see Buenos Aires not just as a city with a specific past, but as a timeless entity that exists both in history and in the collective imagination.

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