Abstract
In Guimarães Rosa’s poetic-symbolic universe the ox or bull has a privileged seat. The writer’s work is traversed by the moo, roaring and bellowing of the cattle, their mood and peculiar existence, their immemorial wisdom. Rosa’s ox comes from afar. Sprung from the religious substratum of the most ancient civilizations - Assyrie, Babylon, India, Egypt - the ox makes its appearance in Rosa’s mythopoetic environment, supplied with its sacred and long-lived heritage. Likewise, the shepherd devoted to it is not simply the man who pastures the cattle. He is the bukólos or bubulcus, descending from the primordial shepherds of Aegean Crete, who is invested with priestly functions and endowed with poetic gifts. To put these issues in evidence the present essay interprets two stories of Tutaméia, Rosa’s last published book: “The three men and the ox of the three men who made up an ox” and “Hiatus”.
Keywords:
Ox/Bull; Shepherd; Myth; Poetry; Sacred Irruption