Rodrigo Pachano Lalama (Ambato, August 7, 1910 – June 20, 1984) was an Ecuadorian lawyer, writer, poet, journalist, historian, researcher, and teacher. He was elected mayor of Ambato in 1955 for a period of 2 years. He authored Tungurahua’s Hymn, several poetry books, and essays, including one about Juan Montalvo. Throughout his life, he received numerous decorations and distinctions. In one of his books, the Spanish writer and Nobel Prize winner Camilo José Cela recalls meeting the “poet Rodrigo Pachano” during a visit to Ambato in 1954. He founded the Tungurahua chapter of the House of Ecuadorian Culture with other Ambato intellectuals such as Edmundo Martínez, Jorge Isaac Robayo, Rodrigo Vela, Blanca Martínez de Tinajero, and Gerardo Nicola. He was the organization’s president for several years.
Background
He was born in Ambato on August 7, 1910. He was the last of his 10 siblings. He was the son of Abel Pachano Baca, a lawyer who served as Minister Judge of the Superior Court of Quito during Eloy Alfaro’s second presidential term, and Amelia Lalama Pachano. He attended the Bolivar School and then the Central University of Quito, where he earned a law degree. Throughout his life, he held various positions.
Marriage
He was married to Judith Holguin and they had three children together.
Education
He earned a law degree in 1933 at the Central University of Quito.
Teaching career
In 1935, he began teaching Philosophy, Logic, and Ethics at the Bolívar School, where he would later become Rector. He devoted 30 years of his life to his teaching career.
Soccer
He was an enthusiastic sports promoter who was passionate about soccer; in his youth, he wore the América S.C. jersey, a team he would later manage.
Poetry Competition Jury member
For several years, he was invited by the newspaper El Universo to serve on the Qualifying Jury of the “Ismael Pérez Pazmiño” National Poetry Contest alongside other distinguished writers from Ecuador.
Pachano Lalama Cultural Center
The Municipality of Ambato through the Heritage Unit, concerned with the restoration and rehabilitation of places that have had cultural history at a national and international level, has recovered in recent years different heritage public spaces of the canton, in this way it intervened in the house of the Pachano Lalama family to convert it into the Pachano Lalama Cultural Center.
The center will house bibliographic material related to doctors Rodrigo Pachano Lalama and Luis Pachano Carrión. Abelardo Pachano Lalama, an engineer, also donated botanical and agronomic literature. Furthermore, the people of Ambato will have access to the winning works of the various editions of the Salón de Noviembre.
The building is part of the cultural heritage that has a colonial model with a central patio and Republican era perimeter rooms. $205,688 dollars were invested in the restoration work, which includes 460 square meters of intervention. The attraction will be complemented by the museum assembly with works by the master Francisco Urquizo Cuesta, an Ambateño who donated 24 paintings of his own. Visitors can also admire the religious art and sculptures temporarily loaned by the Izamba and Quisapincha churches.
Poems
Translated by Richard Gabela on November 14, 2024.
Hymn of Tungurahua
CHORUS
With Agoyán’s voice—the voice of water—
let us raise a hymn of brothers,
for in Ambato, with the Tungurahua,
heaven and earth clasp hands together.
I
Our land, an avalanche of gold,
lavishes itself to the four horizons,
with the wild audacity of the chorus
of its valleys, its rivers, its mountains.
It is both crucible and cistern;
within its heart, ideas pour forth;
willpower is its strength; constancy,
its virtue, pulsing and eternal.
II
With the fire of our volcanoes
they lit the flames of a halo
around this noble land of the Juans,
an Indian with a Spanish soul.
And its breast is a sonorous bronze
in which vibrates this sacred motto:
freedom and nobility, treasures
of the palm and also of the plow.
Himno de Tungurahua
CORO
Con la voz de Agoyán -voz del agua-
elevemos un himno de hermanos,
que en Ambato con el Tungurahua
cielo y tierra se estrechan las manos.
I
Nuestra tierra avalancha de oro,
se prodiga a los cuatro horizontes,
con la audacia bravía del coro
de sus valles, sus ríos, sus montes.
Es crisol y también es cisterna
en su seno la idea se escancia;
voluntad de su fuerza; constancia,
su virtud palpitante y eterna.
II
Con el fuego de nuestros volcanes
encendieron las flamas de aureola
de este noble solar de los Juanes,
que es una india con alma española.
Y su pecho es un bronce sonoro
en que vibra este lema sagrado:
libertad e hidalguía, tesoro
de la palma y también del arado.
v i l l a g e
Tired of their narrowness,
the streets spill into the plaza.
From time to time,
a man passes through,
stirring up a whisper
of fine, pale dust.
An old woman, bent double
like a widowed parenthesis,
makes her careful way to church
where only the priest,
old Doña Lucrecia,
and, tucked away, the sexton,
keep their vigil.
The grayest melancholy
finds its perfect mirror in the plaza,
bereft even of the comfort
of the church's facade.
Facing the church—as if painted—
stretches a long wall;
to the right, the schoolhouse
with its single shadowed room,
and to the left, half-mournful yet proud,
that hallowed ground which birthed
the greatest mortal harpist.
p u e b l o
Cansadas de su estrechez,
desembocan en la plaza
las calles. De vez en vez
un hombre por ellas pasa,
levantando una polvada
de polvo tenue y menudo,
y una viejita encorvada
como un paréntesis viudo,
va cautelosa a la iglesia
en la que solos están
el cura, la ña Lucrecia
y, escondido, el sacristán.
La más gris melancolía
tiene en la plaza un ejemplo,
sin siquiera la alegría
de la fachada del templo.
Frente al templo —como en tela—
se dibuja un largo muro,
a la derecha la escuela
con un solo cuarto oscuro,
y, al lado izquierdo, es de ver,
medio triste, pero ufano,
el solar que vio nacer
al mejor arpista humano....
s t r e e t
The street bears the aspect
of a gray, winding river.
There isn’t a single straight inch in it
that would be beautiful for its straightness.
Seeing it empty is now custom,
its course so steep,
that, bending to the summit,
a weary silence climbs.
It seems that here life
has grown stagnant. And trying
to ease that climb,
the street ascends at a slant...
It seems they forgot it,
nothing in it is new.
They gave it light and took away
thus its medieval tint.
Along that twisted spine
not even the slightest being stirs.
The nineteenth century
still lies asleep in its lap!
c a l l e
La calle tiene un aspecto
de río gris y sinuoso.
No hay en ella un palmo recto,
que por recto sea hermoso.
Verla sola es ya costumbre,
porque es su curso tan pino,
que, encorvado, hasta la cumbre,
sube un silencio cansino.
Parece que aquí la vida
se estancó. Y procurando
atenuar esa subida,
la calle sube sesgueando....
Parece que la olvidaron,
que en ella nada hay de nuevo.
La dieron luz y quitaron
así su matiz medioevo.
Por esa torcida espalda
ni un ligero ser se mueve.
¡Si está dormido en su falda
aún el siglo diecinueve!
r i v e r
The shame of this river
is told by an empty murmur,
half-silent and somber,
like a human feeling.
Black, with the blackness of night,
it follows its path in silence,
subject to every reproach
of its crystalline past.
Its song speaks of pain,
and that pain finds its home
in forgetting… like the weeping
of contained impotence.
It doesn’t have, like the spring,
a velvet gaze,
eternally reflecting
a great arc of mourning...
Turbid waters that seem
like the ink of evil passions,
as if some hearts
had bathed in them.
r í o
La vergüenza de este río
lo dice un murmullo vano,
medio callado y sombrío
como un sentimiento humano.
Negro, con negror de noche,
sigue en silencio el camino,
sujeto a todo reproche
del pasado cristalino.
Dice un dolor en su canto
y ese dolor se aquerencia
al olvido.... Tal un llanto
de contenida impotencia.
No tiene, como la fuente,
su mirar de terciopelo,
reflejando eternamente
una gran comba de duelo....
Aguas turbias que parecen
tinta de malas pasiones,
como si en ella se hubiesen
bañado unos corazones....
Video
Selected works
- Eufonia (1938). Read it for free here.
- La Incontenible Ruta (1941)
- Puntos suspensivos (1946)
- El pintor de la soledad: la obra pictórica de Luis A. Martínez (1948)
- Veinte y tantas seguidillas (1952)
- J. Trajano Mera, estudio antológico de su obra (1956)
- Siete cartas: un ignorado amor de Montalvo (1969)
- Reseña del amor contradictoria (sonetario) (1966)
- Obras escogidas (1994)
- El pintor de la soledad (1997)