LA VICTORIA DE JUNIN, la da hoo' nin by Joaquin Olmedo. During the Peninsular War in Spain the poet, Quintana, cried out in his heroic odes against the conquest attempted by the tyrant, Napoleon. In similar fashion the Spanish-American poet, Joaquin Olmedo (1780-1847), voiced the spirit of revolt in the Spanish colonies which rose against the tyrannous exactions of the mother land and combatted the Spaniard as a tyran nous dominator. On 6 Aug. 1824, the forces of the Liberator, Bolivar, won a signal victory over the Spaniards at Junin in the vice-royalty of Peru. This triumph was followed on 9 December of the same year by the decisive bat tle of Ayacucho, in which Sucre, a lieutenant of Bolivar, vanquished a Spanish army with his smaller body of American patriots. As a result of the two victories, the independence of Peru, and ultimately of all Spanish America, was achieved. The Liberator requested Olmedo to celebrate the two battles and he responded with the long ode entitled 'La Victoria de Junin, Canto a Bolivar,' which was published at London in 1826, while Olmedo was there as the diplomatic representative of Peru. With Quintana's odes as his model — and he doubt less had Gallege's heroic verse in mind also, Olmedo has written a noble man to Bolivar, which bears witness to the magnitude of that warrior's whole military career and not merely to the significance of the two military exploits which the poet was asked to commemorate.
The magnificent scenery of the American forests provides a background; the poet's reminiscences of Horace, Virgil and other classic writers supply no small part of the imagery abounding throurthout the 800 verses of the Canto. Unfortunately, the supernatural is introduced without the support of a vision or dream and there is all too much hyperbole in the terms of praise lavished upon Bolivar and his generals. This latter fact was stressed by Bolivar himself in a letter to the poet, which shows that the Liberator was a man of sur prising modesty in his conception of himself and of wonderful good taste in matters of literary criticism. The ode opens with an ac count of the thunderous effect of the victory of Junin and of the revelry in which the Spanish-American camp is engaged on the night following it. Suddenly there appears in the clouds the shade of the Inca, Huayna-Capac, who apostrophizes and vilifies the Spaniards and, prophesying the approaching victory of Ayacucho, gives good counsel to Bolivar. When the Inca has ended his long address, the Vir gins of the Sun surround him and break out into beautiful choral song. Then, as all are still listening in rapt wonder, the supernatural visitors disappear. Critics agree in finding the ode a work of freshness and vigor, containing brilliant passages of an epic and a lyric nature.