1.No score of the song Alzedo submitted to the 1821 competition survives. The music played today goes back to an arrangement the Italian musician Claudio Rebagliati made in 1869, which he presented as a restoration agreed with the elderly Alzedo.
2.For most of the 20th century Peruvians sang the anonymous first stanza, about the oppressed Peruvian dragging his chain; official practice moved to the seventh stanza from 2009, and Law 32251 of January 2025 settled it in statute.
3.Law 32251 names the documents that hold the anthem: the three official scores (piano, orchestra and band) listed in a Supreme Resolution of 27 May 1901, and a letter Alzedo wrote on 8 June 1863 containing the original lyrics. The Ministry of Culture keeps them at the National Museum of Archaeology, Anthropology and History of Peru.
Peru National Anthem Lyrics
Law 32251 (2025), which reaffirms Law 1801 of 1913, makes the seventh stanza the one that is performed, sung between two choruses. The first stanza is of anonymous authorship and remains part of the official full text, but it is not the stanza that is performed.
Show full poemShow official version
Coro
Somos libres: seámoslo siempre;
Y antes niegue sus luces el Sol,
Que faltemos al voto solemne
Que la Patria al Eterno elevó.
VII
En su cima los Andes sostengan
La bandera o pendón bicolor
Que a los siglos anuncie el esfuerzo
Que ser libres, por siempre nos dio.
A su sombra posemos tranquilos
Y al nacer por sus cumbres el Sol,
Renovamos el gran juramento
Que rendimos al Dios de Jacob.
Coro
Somos libres: seámoslo siempre;
Y antes niegue sus luces el Sol,
Que faltemos al voto solemne
Que la Patria al Eterno elevó.
Coro
Somos libres: seámoslo siempre;
Y antes niegue sus luces el Sol,
Que faltemos al voto solemne
Que la Patria al Eterno elevó.
I
Largo tiempo el peruano oprimido
La ominosa cadena arrastró;
Condenado a cruel servidumbre
Largo tiempo en silencio gimió.
Mas apenas el grito sagrado
¡Libertad! en sus costas se oyó,
La indolencia de esclavo sacude,
La humillada cerviz levantó.
(Coro)
II
Ya el estruendo de broncas cadenas
Que escuchamos tres siglos de horror,
De los libres al grito sagrado,
Que oyó atónito el mundo, cesó.
Por doquier San Martín inflamado
Libertad, libertad, pronunció.
Y meciendo su base los Andes
La enunciaron, también, a una voz.
(Coro)
III
Con su influjo los pueblos despiertan,
Y cual rayo corrió la opinión,
Desde el istmo a las tierras del fuego,
Desde el fuego a la helada región.
Todos juran romper el enlace,
Que natura a ambos mundos negó,
Y quebrar ese cetro que España,
Reclinaba orgullosa en los dos.
(Coro)
IV
Lima cumple ese voto solemne,
Y severa su enojo mostró,
Al tirano impotente lanzando
Que intentaba alargar su opresión.
A su esfuerzo saltaron los fierros
Y los surcos que en sí reparó,
Le atizaron el odio y venganza
Que heredó de su Inca y Señor.
(Coro)
V
Compatriotas, no más verla esclava;
Si humillada tres siglos gimió,
Para siempre jurásmola libre,
Manteniendo su propio esplendor.
Nuestros brazos hasta hoy desarmados
Estén siempre cebando el cañón.
Que algún día las playas de Hesperia,
Sentirán de su estruendo el terror.
(Coro)
VI
Excitemos los celos de España,
Pues presiente con mengua y furor
Que en concurso de grandes naciones
Nuestra Patria entrará en parangón.
En la lista que de estas se forme,
Llenaremos primero el renglón,
Que el tirano ambicioso Iberino,
Que la América toda asoló.
(Coro)
VII
En su cima los Andes sostengan
La bandera o pendón bicolor
Que a los siglos anuncie el esfuerzo
Que ser libres, por siempre nos dio.
A su sombra posemos tranquilos
Y al nacer por sus cumbres el Sol,
Renovamos el gran juramento
Que rendimos al Dios de Jacob.
(Coro)
Chorus
We are free: may we always be so;
And sooner may the Sun deny its light
Than that we fail the solemn vow
That the Homeland raised to the Eternal.
VII
Upon their summit may the Andes hold
The two-coloured flag or standard,
That it may announce to the ages the effort
Which made us free for ever.
In its shade may we rest untroubled,
And when the Sun is born above its peaks,
May we renew the great oath
That we made to the God of Jacob.
Chorus
We are free: may we always be so;
And sooner may the Sun deny its light
Than that we fail the solemn vow
That the Homeland raised to the Eternal.
Chorus
We are free: may we always be so;
And sooner may the Sun deny its light
Than that we fail the solemn vow
That the Homeland raised to the Eternal.
I
For a long time the oppressed Peruvian
Dragged the ominous chain;
Condemned to cruel servitude,
For a long time he groaned in silence.
But scarcely was the sacred cry
Freedom! heard upon his shores,
He shakes off the indolence of the slave,
He raised his humiliated neck.
(Chorus)
II
Now the din of harsh chains
That we heard for three centuries of horror
Has ceased before the sacred cry of the free,
Which the astonished world heard.
Everywhere San Martin, inflamed,
Proclaimed: freedom, freedom.
And the Andes, rocking their foundations,
Declared it too, with one voice.
(Chorus)
III
With his impulse the peoples awaken,
And like lightning opinion ran,
From the isthmus to the lands of fire,
From the fire to the frozen region.
All swear to break the bond
That nature denied to the two worlds,
And to shatter that sceptre which Spain
Rested proudly upon them both.
(Chorus)
IV
Lima fulfils that solemn vow,
And sternly showed her wrath,
Casting out the impotent tyrant
Who sought to prolong his oppression.
At her effort the irons burst,
And the furrows she noticed upon herself
Kindled the hatred and the vengeance
That she inherited from her Inca and Lord.
(Chorus)
V
Countrymen, let us see her enslaved no more;
If, humiliated, she groaned three centuries,
Let us swear her free for ever,
Keeping her own splendour.
Our arms, disarmed until today,
Let them always be loading the cannon,
So that one day the shores of Hesperia
Will feel the terror of its thunder.
(Chorus)
VI
Let us stir the jealousy of Spain,
For she forebodes, in shame and fury,
That among the great nations
Our Homeland will enter the comparison.
In the list that is formed of these,
We shall be the first to fill the line,
Ahead of the ambitious Iberian tyrant
Who laid all America waste.
(Chorus)
VII
Upon their summit may the Andes hold
The two-coloured flag or standard,
That it may announce to the ages the effort
Which made us free for ever.
In its shade may we rest untroubled,
And when the Sun is born above its peaks,
May we renew the great oath
That we made to the God of Jacob.
(Chorus)
Translations are non-official and intended to convey meaning, not replace originals
Analysis
Editorial
One of the oldest anthems in South America, with words by Jose de la Torre Ugarte and music by Jose Bernardo Alzedo, adopted in 1821 after Peru declared independence from Spain. It came out of a competition called by the liberator Jose de San Martin. Law 1801 of 1913 declared the anthem untouchable and fixed its official text, attaching a first stanza of anonymous authorship. The instrument in force today is Law 32251, which unifies and harmonises the rules on the symbols of the homeland, the symbols of the state and the national emblems. Published in El Peruano on 19 January 2025, it reproduces the full text in its Annex II and prescribes that the seventh stanza be performed between two choruses.
