Alexander Selkirk
I dream that the sea, that sea, surrounds me still, and from the dream the ringing of the bells of God restores me, sanctifies the mornings of these so familiar English fields. Five years I suffered, gazing at the endless things of solitude and of infinity, which now make up that story I repeat, like an obsession, in the taverns I frequent. God has returned me to the world of men, to mirrors, doors, numbers and names, and I have ceased to be the one who scanned eternally the sea, a fathomless steppe. But what now can I do to let that other know that I am here, among my people, safe and sound?
Translated by Allen ProwleAlexander Selkirk - meaning Summary
Survival Divides the Self
Borges imagines the castaway Alexander Selkirk after his return to England. Though restored to ordinary human life, with church bells, familiar fields, and social routines, Selkirk remains divided from the self shaped by isolation. His repeated stories cannot bridge the distance between the returned man and the man still facing the limitless sea. The poem treats survival as an experience that permanently alters identity and belonging.
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