Page:Iracéma, the honey-lips (1886).djvu/86
They mounted by the side of Guaiuba,[1] whence the waters descend into the valley, and they went to the stream where the Pacas are to be found.
The sun shone on the Macaw՚s Beak only when the hunters descended from Pacatuba[2] to the plateau. From afar they saw Iraçéma, who came to wait for them on the margin of her lake, the Porangába. She came towards them with the proud step of the heron stalking by the water՚s edge. Outside her Carioba she wore a belt of Maniva, the flowers of which are an emblem of fruitfulness. A festoon of the same flowers twined round her throat and fell over her marble bosom.
She seized the hand of her husband and carried it to her lips.
"Thy blood lives in the bosom of Iraçéma. She will be the mother of thy son."
"Son saidst thou?" exclaimed the Christian with joy.
Kneeling down, he threw his arm around her and kissed her, mutely thanking God for this great happiness.
When he arose Poty spoke—
"The happiness of the young brave is a wife and a friend; the first gives gladness, the second gives strength. The warrior without a spouse is like a tree lacking leaves and flowers; never shall he behold its fruit. The brave without a friend is like the solitary tree waving in the midst of the prairie with each blast of wind; its fruit never ripens. The happiness of the strong man is the offspring which is born to him, and which is his pride. Every warrior of his blood is one
branch more to raise up his name to the sky, like the
- ↑ Guaiuba, which means "whence come the waters of the valley," is a river rising in the Serra of Aratanha, and crossing the village of the same name, six leagues from the capital.
- ↑ Pacatuba, "bed of the Pacas." There is now a new but important village in a beautiful valley of the Serra of Aratanha.