FERNANDO MARÍA GUERRERO, EL GRAN POETA FILIPINO 

A Hispania 

(Del Libro "Crisálidas", 1914 y 1952)

(Comentario al final)

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

The following is a free, basic translation. We apologize in advance, for we know it will be impossible to capture the essence in its original language, but may it serve as an illustrative example of the highly advanced prose of Filipino writers in Castellano. Please read notes about this piece, in English, at the bottom

Oh, Hispania!

Fernando María Guerrero

(Taken from his book "Crisálidas", 1914 and 1952)

In this language, oh Hispania my soul mumbled, in its infant days its whims, its candor, and in its juvenile hours when the first exaltations of love erupted

It was also your supreme language which served to my illusion, and gave it divine quill of a magical tonality to reach the bottom of a distant heart and say to it: Come with me and give me a kiss of love. This love died in my chest when the bonfire (did, and) consumed a fist of ashes of an old illusion… And seeing myself so forgotten by the woman who loved me, to later poison me with a black betrayal, when I wanted to curse her with my quill and my voice, crying with shame and anger, I cursed her in Castilian

And in your language, which is a rainbow because of its shine and color, I am spreading to all winds pieces of my heart, my lyrical fantasies, my optimism… My horror for that which is ordinary and my screams of protest and rebellion against the snails, against the owl and the hawk, against the disgusting snake that wants to reach the sun… Against aesthetic smallnesses which steal the thrill from us… Against colonizers and their corrupt dollar, and against all men who mock the rights of my people to their only master

I speak to you in your language. My verses will speak to you of a love who, even through the past hecatomb, could maintain its roots in the deepest secrecy of my chest. It’s like a flower which has been respected by hailstorms and avalanches of passion, a flower blossomed softly in its peaks bathed in sunlight where the spirit of my  chimeras ascends, in its quest to pray to you: Oh, Hispania! Oh, sweet Spanish language! That of the Arcipreste de Hita, that of Lope and Calderón, of Juan Mena and Cervantes, of Pereda and Galdós. Oh, sweet language which irradiates your Latin irisation and keep in yourself the ample harmony of an entire jungle in blossom because you are a whisper of water the tweet of a bird, song of gentle breeze through the leaves in mornings bathed in sunlight!

Oh, noble Hispania, this day is my song for you, a song coming from far away like the echo of an ancient love shivering, beating and fragrant with tradition to open its candid wings under the gold of that shining sun that you put in our soul with the fire of your voice… And to which peak rode, with  carnations of illusion, my race… Worshiped the glory of the beautiful Spanish language, still spoken by the Quixotes of this Malay region, where new Sanchos  pretend that we speak Saxon… But I speak to you in your language, oh, Hispania, because its sound is like the music of a fountain, like an enchanting lullaby, like the kiss of virgins in springs of love…

As long as we retain the language that you gave us, with the sword and cross of your adventure, we shall keep in our homes a pure flower, although a sad one, reminding us of your glory. Because the language is the strongest song warning of the immortal influence of a culture, and is a bronzed shield of defense against the strike of infamous luck. Evil Haruspexes will tell you that there are already signs, in our skies, of your language fading away… but you shall laugh at them, because History grants you, in its golden chapters, a just place of time and language."

Comentarios:

"Estos versos fueron escritos por el poeta en 1913 en conmemoración del Día Español. 

El idioma español sobrevivió la primera masacre usense perpetrada sobre los incautos filipinos, en su mayoría, de habla hispana. Pero, tan extendido estaba el idioma español en Filipinas que ni una masacre tan despiadada pudo extinguirlo.  Por eso, en vez de desaparecer, son muchas las fuentes históricas que dicen que se habló más español después de 1898 que antes de esa época en estas islas.  Es por eso que se tenía que hacer otra masacre más, so-pretexto de la guerra contra el Japón en 1944. Fueron las bombas usenses, ----su “shelling” cobarde--- el que mató a más civiles filipinos de habla hispana en Intramuros y en casi todo Manila. Al diezmar, con ese holocausto a casi toda una generación de filipinos de habla hispana en Manila, el idioma español vino a menos. Se asesinó al núcleo de habla hispana en Intramuros de Manila, y es la explicación que se puede dar cuando alguien pregunta por la desaparición de este idioma en la Filipinas de nuestros días.  Pero el canto filipino a España, lanzada por poetas filipinos como Fernando María Guerrero, queda como un divino testimonio de una verdad que ni esas dos masacres han podido obliterar. GGR  (Referencia: su libro: Crisálidas, 1914 y 1952, Manila.)  

El poeta denuncia la imposición del idioma Inglés por parte de los usenses Mackinleynianos. Habiendo sido colaborador de “La Independencia”, órgano estatal de la primera República Filipina, no estaba de acuerdo ni con la invasión usense norteamericana, ni con su política de agresión cultural, económica y lingüística. Al fenecer “La Independencia”, se hizo co-fundador de “El Renacimiento Filipino” en 1901. Este diario fue cerrado por los citados neocolonialistas en 1908 a raíz de un editorial titulado “Aves de Rapiña”. Es por eso que, en su mismo canto, A Hispania, Fernando María Guerrero, flagela a los “Verres Coloniales y su dólar corruptor”. Canta su denuncia en términos que no dejan de ser elegantes por su lirismo...

Fernando María Guerrero era un profundo conocedor de la literatura española. Mientras nos dice que el idioma español tiene una raigambre profundo en la cultura filipina, menciona a los famosos poetas españoles. "

Guillermo Gómez Rivera

English Notes:

“In this language”= Castilian
“Hispania”= Original, Latin name of today’s peninsula (Spain+Portugal)
“Saxon”= English

This piece was written in 1913, commemorating the Day of Language (Castilian). He is referencing, throughout the poem and multiple metaphors, to the imposition of English, by the United States, to erradicate Castilian. Fernando María Guerrero had been a collaborator of "La Indepencia", during the first Philippine Republic.

NOTAS BIOGRÁFICAS SOBRE FERNANDO MARÍA GUERRERO:

Fernando María Guerrero (1873-1929), escritor filipino

Biografía

Fue profesor de Derecho Natural, Criminología y Oratoria Forense en la Escuela de Derecho La Jurisprudencia de Manila.

Como todos los escritores filipinos en lengua española, fue profundamente nacionalista, y opuesto a la ocupación norteamericana de las islas.

Ejerció cargos políticos. Concejal del Ayuntamiento de Manila, Secretario del Senado, y Secretario de la Comisión para la Independencia de las Filipinas.

Fue director de los periódicos manileños, El Renacimiento, La Vanguardia y La Opinión

También trabajó por un tiempo para el diario La Independencia fundado por el patriota ilocano, Antonio Luna, poco antes de la guerra filipino-americana

Fue conocido como el príncipe de los poetas líricos.

Publicó dos libros de versos, Crisálidas (1914) y Aves y Flores (1920), ambos de tendencia modernista.

Su grácil versificación se ve en esta décima, fragmento de su poema "Mi patria,":

Filipinas es un nido

Formado de hermosas flores.

Es un idilio de amores

Sobre un mar embravecido;

Es el delirio querido

Que mi cerebro obsesiona;

Es la impávida matrona

Que, heredera de titanes,

Tiene por solio volcanes

Y centellas por corona.'' 

(Tomado de Wikipedia http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Mar%C3%ADa_Guerrero)  

BIOGRAPHIC NOTES ON FERNANDO MARÍA GUERRERO:

Fernando Ma. Guerrero - A Colossus in  Philippine Spanish Literature   (May 30, 1873 – June 12, 1929) / From Silent Storms: Inspiring Lives of 101 Great Filipinos

man so gifted in writing was Fernando Ma. Guerrero, son of highly educated parents: Lorenzo Guerrero, a notable painter and art teacher, and Clemencia Ramirez. He showed signs of a genius in his youth with facility for language. His father hired for him a private tutor for home education. He pursued and obtained the Bachelor of Arts degree from the Ateneo Municipal, and the Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Santo Tomas. He joined the staff of La Independencia, a revolutionary periodical, and wrote incisive articles and editorials in beautiful Spanish – making it the most dynamic and influential Newspaper. He was appointed secretary of the Supreme Court by General Antonio Luna. He wrote for La  Patria and established his own paper, La Fraternidad. At El Renacimiento he was made City Editor, then later Chief Editor. Through the sheer power of his editorials this paper became outstanding. His love for literature knew no bounds. He must have had storms of ideas swirling in his fertile mind. He wrote both prose and poetry; his favorite theme was “eternal sadness of things.” He believes in “purifying nature, wrapping her in a garment of beauty to cover her deformities. True and supreme art is the most common perfect interpretation of the aesthetic emotion.” Guerrero was the major lyric poet before and after the revolution, until the introduction of English literature in our schools. Known as the “Prince of Filipino lyric poets” in Spanish, he also played the flute and guitar. In Spanish lyric poetry, he was unsurpassed by his contemporaries. His poetry, like a prism, sparkled with different color-tones; sometimes, it was musical like a tropical love song; sometimes, it was classically grand; sometimes, it was tinged with melancholia; sometimes, it was stirring with heroic grandeur. Guerrero was above all a national poet. He felt and thought as a Filipino, lived as a Filipino and died as a Filipino. He loved the Philippines with passionate fervor, and in limpid and elegant Spanish, he sang the mountains and rivers, seas and forest, flowers and women, heroes and martyrs, and sunrises and sunsets of his beloved land. Politics attracted him, too. He became the Leyte representative to the Malolos Congress, and was elected deputado to the Philippine Assembly in the year 1907. He authored the first labor bills in the Philippines- ensuring workmen’s compensation, and the right of employees to form labor unions. Due to his nationalism, he became Secretary of the Independence Commission. Against libel suits filed by the American Constabulary, for a series of publication on documented abuses and killing in Cavite, Batangas, and Cebu, Guerrero win a court victory. Thus, El Renacimeinto rose to its greatest glory, which enhanced his popularity. Crisalidas was the title of his book of poems considered by Enciclopedia Filipinas as one of the ten best books o the Philippines. He stood in the frontline of the local golden era of Spanish literature for four decades since 1890. Fernando Ma. Guerrero – he came like a silent storm of brilliance, brightening the crown of dark night, when the country’s ship of liberty was sailing but began sinking. Or like a thousand flowers blooming in a riot of colors, as the country bide farewell to Spanish, as it faced its inevitable fate, and embraced the English language. Thousand of colorful flowers wilted when he died on June 12, 1929, with his death meaningfully falling on the anniversary of the Republic.

(Taken from http://filipinoheritage.zxq.net/sikatpinoy/fernando_guerrero.htm)