The O.E.D. defines the acronym S-O-S as ‘The international radio code-signal of extreme distress, used esp. by ships at sea’. However, in the book Chapapote (‘Tar’ 2022), Galician writer Manuel Rivas analyses some of the symbols related to Galicia’s nature and environmentalism concerning the Prestige and other maritime disasters. He focuses on the words ‘Mayday’ and ‘S.O.S.’, both a call for help in an emergency. Rivas explains how the word ‘Mayday’ comes from the French ‘venez m’aider’ (‘Come to my help’), and it is repeated three times from a ship at sea to alert about an imminent disaster. The word ‘Mayday’ substituted the acronym S.O.S. by 1927, making Mayday the spoken equivalent of the radio call.

Rivas remembers how the Mayday call for the Prestige was at 15:15 on November 13^th, 2002, but he differentiates the Prestige Mayday from the community Mayday that will come later. The Mayday call released by the ship needed to be attended to more quickly. The Galician community Mayday was ignored, concluding in a chaotic and disgraceful situation. It is in this instance when Manuel Rivas, in his introduction to the book Chapapote recalls Manuel Antonio’s poems ‘S.O.S.’ and ‘Sós’ (‘Alone’)

Manuel Antonio (b. Rianxo, 1900-30) was a Galician poet, merchant marine pilot, radical politician, and based all his work around the importance of the sea for Galicia and the survival of sailors and fishermen. Manuel Antonio was a key figure of the avant-garde movement in Galicia. In his manifesto Mais ala (‘Further Beyond’, 1922), he criticizes the previous generations of Galician writers who would focus mainly on the topics of the countryside, the rural, and the tendency toward folklore. Manuel Antonio rejects the romantic movement and advocates for an original way of writing literature using Galician as the only language of production, denying the work of previous mentors and teachers, and looking for political radicalism, individuality, new topics, and new ways of creation.

He uses calligrams and plastic images to shock his reader and convey the main topics of his works. Two of these works were the poems ‘S.O.S.’ (17^th poem) and ‘Sós’ (‘Alone’, 5^th poem), both published in the book De catro a catro. (‘Four to Four’, 1922). The first poem, ‘S.O.S.’, displays the illusion of the night, there is some wind, and light comes from the stars. Still, the poetic “I’ is lost and disoriented, forcing them to ask for help.

The second poem, ‘Sós’, is a slideshow with a maritime background. This poem, echoing Rosalia de Castro’s ‘Negra sombra’ (‘Dark Shadows’), expresses the current loneliness and the continuous losses of the present and the past. The poem does not follow the emergency call of the previous one. Instead, it conveys the meaning of loneliness, of being alone as Galicians are when they go out to sea and as Galicians were, especially fishermen and sailors, after the sinking of the Prestige ship. These are the original texts and translations of both poems:

S-O-S

Todos presentíamos que a noite

preparaba algún sofisma

…E o faro estraviado

daba o S-O-S

n-o morse

…………-clave Orión-

…………………………d’as estrelas

…Eses brazos abertos d’a vela

son os mesmos d’o vento

que se despreguizou

…N-a man d’o Mar esquencidizo

os loceiros peteiran a bicada

…A estrela d’os cabarets

…c’un cigarro n-os beizos

…pide lume aos catro puntos cardinaes

…Pol-a Galaxia chea de seixos

un astro vello vai c’o seu farol

…Que dan os almanaques

pra esta meia-noite?

…Pero aínda non sabemos

de que banda vai chegar a meia-noite

…E o faro estraviado

vai esgotar o seu stock de S-O-S.

………………………………………………………………………..

S-O-S

We all felt that the night

was preparing some sophism.

And the misplaced lighthouse

gave a S-O-S

in morse code

…………-key Orion-

…………………………through the stars

…Those open arms of the sail

they are the same as the arms of the wind

that stretches

Hand in hand with the forgotten sea,

…the

Stars comb their kisses

…the cabaret star

…with a cigarette between his lips

…asks for fire from the four cardinal points

…Across the Galaxy

…full of songs, an old star goes with his lantern

…what do the almanacs say for this midnight?

…But we still don’t know which side midnight is going to come from

…And the lost lighthouse will consume its stock of

S-O-S

………………………………………………………………………..

Sós

Fomos ficando sós

o Mar o barco e mais nós

…Roubanron-nos o Sol

…O paquebote esmaltado

que cosía con liñas de fume

áxiles cadros sin marco

…Roubaron-nos o vento

…Aquel veleiro que se evadeu

pol-a corda floxa d’o horizonte

…Este oucéano desatracou d’as costas

…e os ventos d’a Roseta

ourentaron-se ao esquenzo

…As nosas soedades

veñen de tan lonxe

como as horas d’o reloxe

…Pero tamén sabemos a maniobra

d’os navíos que fondean

a sotavento d’unha singladura

…N-o cuadrante estantío d’as estrelas

ficou parada esta hora:

…O cadavre d’o Mar

fixo d’o barco un cadaleito

…..Fume de pipa……… Saudade

…..Noite…… Silenzo…. Frio

…..E ficamos nós sós

…..Sin o Mar e sin o barco

…..nós.

…………………………………………………………………..

Alone

We were alone, the sea, the ship and us,

…the sun was stolen from us

…The enamelled ship that sewed frameless pictures with agile lines of smoke

…the wind was stolen from us

…That sailboat that escaped by the tightrope of the horizon

…This ocean ripped off the shores

…And the winds of La Roseta oriented toward oblivion

…Our solitudes come from as far as the hours of the clock

…But we also know the manoeuvres of the ships that anchor to leeward in a voyage.

…In the stopped dial of the stars

was stopped that hour made the ship

…The corpse of the sea made a coffin of the sea

…Pipe smoke

Melancholia …..Night……Silence…Cold…And we were left alone

…..Without the Sea and without the Ship

…..us

According to Manuel Castelao and Xosé R. Pena, the second poem describes the progressive loneliness of the poetic voice. The sea and the boat are the main symbols of the text and the only companions. However, as Manuel Rivas asserts, the poem transients from a singular voice to a collective one in which the loneliness of one voice represents the loneliness of all Galicians. Not only has Galicia sent out a distress signal when the Prestige or many other ships sank on its shores, but the Galicians have been left alone in their pursuit of justice and solutions.

*Translations are the author’s

Bibliography

Antonio, Manuel. De Catro a Catro. Galaxia, 1987.

—-, et al. Máis Alá¡: Manoel-Antonio e Alvaro Cebreiro. Edicións Embora, 2022.

“Asphalt.” ASPHALT | Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary, 2015, dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/asphalt.

Castelao, Manuel. Manoel Antonio: De Catro a Catro. Laiovento, 2010.

Castro, Rosalía de. “Negra sombra.” Follas Novas Hojas Nuevas. Akal, 2009. n.18.

Pena, Xosé Ramón. De Catro a Catro de Manuel Antonio. Edicións Xerais de Galicia, 1996.

Rivas, Manuel et al., Chapapote, Libros Del K.O., 2022.

Simpson, J. A., and E. S. C. Weiner. “S.O.S.” The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 1989, www-oed-com.leo.lib.unomaha.edu/view/Entry/184992?rskey=JuO1hg&result=1#eid.