Octavio Paz
[The heteronym] Caeiro is an absolute affirmation of existence and hence his words strike us as truths from another age, that age in which everything was one in the same. Sensible and untouchable present: we hardly name it and it evaporates! The mask of innocence which Caeiro turns to us is not that of wisdom: to be wise is to resign ourself to the knowledge that we are not innocent. Pessoa, who did know it, was nearer to wisdom.

Book Description
bilingual ed, poetry tr Edwin Honig & Susan Brown

Language Notes
Text: English, Portugese (translation)
Original Language: Portugese

From the Publisher
6 x 9 trim. LC 97-37487

From the Author
I will move on to your question about the genesis of my heteronyms, it was March 8, 1914, I wrote thirty-odd poems in one go, in a kind of trance whose nature I cannot define. It was the triumphant day of my life, and it would be impossible again to experience such a one. I opened with a title "Keeper of Sheep" (O Guardador de Rebanhos). What followed was the appearance of someone in me, to whom I at once gave the name Alberto Caeiro. Forgive me the absurdity of this sentence: my master had appeared inside me.