Wanderlino
Arruda
As
Bess Sondel so eloquently states, Words can
evoke every emotion possible: shock, joy, terror,
happiness, nostalgia, peace… Words have
such terrifying power, they can drag one down
to apathy or shoot you up to delirium, they
can exalt to extreme moral and esthetic experiences.
This is the most absolute truth. I don’t
think there is a living soul anywhere that doubts
it. Words have a force, a resistance, a power
that supplants almost everything else that exists
in the world. Armies, Dynasties, Republics…
these all pass, but words, words are never lost.
They are eternal, firmer than the granite of
ancient monuments and palaces. The words of
Socrates, tran scripted by Plato, supplanted
all Greek government with its military and civil
works. The majestic pyramids and sphinx of Egypt
will one day turn to dust, but the words inscribed
in the Book of the Dead will never disappear.
It
is probably because of this, that we have at
our disposition, in the Portuguese language,
a word that, in the entire world, has no equal
in sense, meaning and semantic force, as much
power in the denotative sense (if this is possible)
as well as the connotative sense, as the word
saudade, its origin as murky and obscure as
the depths of the Portuguese oceans, as dark,
deep and mysterious as the virginity of the
Amazon jungle, or as scalding as African Angola
and Mozambique, also speakers of the Lusitanian
language.
So,
then… Let me ask you. Where exactly does
the word saudade come from? From the Latin solitate,
meaning solitude, loneliness? Or from the Arabian
saudah? Perhaps the ancient Spanish soydade,
suydade? Even Antenor Nascentes, who was our
leading expert in etymology, doesn’t quite
convince us in his explanation of the word’s
beginning. Could it have been derived from the
Portuguese word saúde, which means health,
because it looks like a phonetic analogy? I
really doubt it.
So,
not being possible, at the present time, to
define where this strange and magnetic word
came from, we at least have the satisfaction
and honor of having it securely within the domain
of our Portuguese vocabulary. This, we can do
without fear of interference from any language
found in or out of the Latin family of languages.
The French word solitude, exactly the same as
in English, is far from expressing the feeling
that saudade represents to us. The Esperanto
words, (re)sopiro and rememoro are also just
as far from defining what we mean when we use
the word saudade. They are miles away from expressing
the semantic treasure we tap when we use it.
And,
by the way, just what is saudade? It’s
an emotion that should dwell within the heart
of all humanity, of all races, rich or poor,
and in every country of the world. Saudade doesn’t
choose, it doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t
have to beg for permission to present itself.
It can come as softly as a breeze or as terrifying
as a thunderbolt out of the blue, arriving when
we least expect. Saudade is solitude’s
best friend, close companion, inseparable lover,
invisible visit of friendship, sometimes smoldering
coals of passion, and in many cases, a suave
perfume, shared moments of tenderness.
To
tell the truth, it’s not easy to define
the feeling-meaning of saudade. And, it may
be for this alone, that it exists only as an
icon of the mystic Portuguese language. Saudade
is even more exalted in the Brazilian dialect,
this marvelous mixture of three great primordial
races. White European, Black African and Tupi
Amerindian. Saudade is a pain that suffocates
the heart and gratifies the soul. Saudade is
the presence of the absent, the memory of the
loved one, a sort of bittersweet, give and take
arrangement of convenience with distance, a
joyful, pleasant sorrow of the seen-unseen,
of love, in the absence of the beloved.
