The liver in poetry: Neruda's 'Ode to the liver'.

Metaphoric representations of liver function can be found throughout the ages (1). In the ancient world, the liver was considered the repository of life and the seat of inner emotions (1, 2). Speculative descriptions of the liver can be found in old documents such as the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus (ca. 1550 BC) and the Greek literature. Plato (427–347 BC) wrote about a ‘desiring soul’ and a ‘rational soul’. He thought that the former was located in the liver and was subordinated to the latter that resided in the head (3). Similarly, one of the fathers of modern medicine, the Greek physician Galen, stated that the liver was the seat of the vegetative soul, a sort of ancient plant-based soul only present in higher beings (2). Several centuries after, William Shakespeare also conceived the liver as the seat of bitter anger and other emotions mentioning the organ several times in his plays (2). In the field of poetry there are very few opuses dedicated to the liver. Without a doubt, the most famous is the ‘Ode to the Liver’ (Table 1) wrote by the Chilean Nobel laureate poet Pablo Neruda. The aim of the present article is to disseminate among the international hepatology community this beautiful piece of poetry as well as relevant information on its author and its interesting origin.