Biag ni Lam-ang (Ilocano Epic Story)

The theme of the epic revolves around the

bravery and courage of the main character
portrayed by Lam-ang, who was gifted with
speech as early as his day of birth, who
embarked on a series of adventures which
culminated in his heroic death and subsequent
resurrection.
This series of adventures started with his search
for his lost father who was murdered by the
head-hunting Igorots in the Igorot country.
While on his way, he met a certain Sumarang,
whose name connotes obstruction, who tried to
dissuade him from proceeding and who taunted
him into a fight. The fight that ensued proved fatal to Sumarang as he was blown
“three kingdoms” away with a spear pierced through his stomach. This encounter
led to another when he met a nine-headed serpent who, like Sumarang earlier tried
to dissuade him from going any further. The serpent having been ignored
challenged him into a fight which cost the serpent its heads.
Lam-ang went on until he found it necessary to rest and take a short nap. While
asleep, he dreamed of his father’s head being an object of festivities among the
Igorots. He immediately arose and continued his journey until he found the Igorots
indeed feasting over his father’s head.
He asked the Igorots why they killed his father, but the Igorots instead advised him
to go home if he did not want to suffer the same fate which his father suffered.
This was accompanied by a challenge to a fight, despite their obvious numerical
superiority. But Lam-ang, armed with supernatural powers, handily defeated them,
giving the last surviving Igorot a slow painful death by cutting his hands and his
ears and finally carving out his eyes to show his anger for what they had done to
his father.
Satisfied with his revenge, he went home. At home, he thought of taking a swim in
the Cordan River with the company of Cannoyan and her lady-friends. So, he
proceeded to Cannoyan’s place in the town of Calanutian, disregarding her
mother’s advice to the contrary. On his way, he met a woman and named
Saridandan, whose name suggests that she was a woman of ill repute. He resisted
her blandishments, for his feeling for Cannoyan was far greater for anyone to take.
When he reached Cannoyan’s house, he found a multitude of suitors futilely vying
for her hand. With the help of his pets - the cock and the dog - he was able to catch
Cannoyan’s attention. He asked her to go with him to the river along with her lady-
friends. She acceded. While washing himself in the river, the river swelled, and the
shrimps, fishes and other creatures in the river were agitated for the dirt washed
from his body was too much. As they were about to leave the river, Lam-ang
noticed a giant crocodile. He dove back into the water and engaged with the
creature in a fierce fight until the creature was subdued. He brought it ashore and
instructed the ladies to pull its teeth to serve as amulets against danger during
journeys.
Back at Cannoyan’s house, he was confronted by her parents with an inquiry as to
what his real intention was. He had to set aside his alibi that he went there to ask
Cannoyan and her friends to accompany him to the river, and told them, through
his spokesman - the cock - that he came to ask for Cannoyan’s hand in marriage.
He was told that if he desired to marry Cannoyan, he must first be able to match
their wealth, for which he willingly complied. Having satisfied her parents, he
went home to his mother and enjoined her and his townspeople to attend his
wedding which was to take place in Cannoyan’s town.
The wedding was elaborate, an event that involved practically everyone in town.
There were fireworks, musical band, and display of attractive items like the
glasses, the mirror, the slippers, clothes and nice food. After the wedding, Lam-
ang’s party plus his wife and her town mates went back to their town of Nalbuan,
where festivities were resumed. The guests expressed a desire to taste a delicacy
made of rarang fish.
Lam-ang was obliged to go to the sea and catch the fish. Before going, however,
his rooster warned that something unpleasant was bound to happen. This warning
proved true, as Lam-ang was swallowed by a big bercacan, or shark-like fish.
Cannoyan mourned and for a while she thought there was no way to retrieve her
lost husband. But the rooster indicated that if only all the bones could be gathered
back, Lam-ang could be brought to life again.
She then enlisted the aid of a certain diver named Marcus, who was ready to come
to her aid to look for the bones. When all Lam-ang’s bones were gathered, the
rooster crowed and the bones moved. The dog barked, and Lam-ang arose and was
finally resurrected. Cannoyan embraced him. For his deep appreciation for the help
of his pets - the cock and the dog - and of Marcus the diver, he promised that each
other would get his or its due reward. And they lived happily ever after.
The Iliad
The story covered by “The Iliad” begins nearly
ten years into the seige of Troy by the Greek
forces, led by Agamemnon, King of Mycenae.
The Greeks are quarrelling about whether or not
to return Chryseis, a Trojan captive of King
Agamemnon, to her father, Chryses, a priest of
Apollo. When Agamemnon refuses and threatens
to ransom the girl to her father, the offended
Apollo plagues them with a pestilence.
The Greeks, at the behest of the warrior-hero
Achilles, force Agamemnon to return Chryseis in order to appease Apollo and end
the pestilence. But, when Agamemnon eventually reluctantly agrees to give her
back, he takes in her stead Briseis, Achilles‘s own war-prize concubine. Feeling
dishonoured, Achilles wrathfully withdraws both himself and his Myrmidon
warriors from the Trojan War.
Testing the resolve of the Greeks, Agamemnon feigns a homeward order, but
Odysseus encourages the Greeks to pursue the fight. During a brief truce in the
hostilities, Paris and Menelaus meet in single combat over Helen, while she and
old King Priam of Troy watch from the city walls and, despite the goddess
Aphrodite’s intervention on behalf of the over-matched Paris, Menelaus is the
victor. The goddess Athena, however, who favours the Greeks, soon provokes a
Trojan truce-breaking and battle begins anew.
The Greek hero Diomedes,
strengthened by Athena, drives the
Trojans before him but, in his
arrogance and blood-lust, strikes
and injures Aphrodite. Despite the
misgivings of his wife,
Andromache, the Trojan hero,
Hector, son of King Priam,
challenges the Greek warrior-hero
Ajax to single combat, and is
almost overcome in battle.
Throughout all, in the background, the various gods and goddesses (particularly
Hera, Athena, Apollo and Poseidon) continue to argue among themselves and to
manipulate and intervene in the struggle, despite Zeus’ specific orders to the
contrary.
Achilles steadfastly refuses to give in to pleas for help from Agamemnon,
Odysseus, Ajax, Phoenix and Nestor, spurning the offered honours and riches and
even Agamemnon‘s belated offer to return Briseis to him. Diomedes and Odysseus
sneak into the Trojan camp and wreak havoc. But, with Achilles and his warriors
out of battle, the tide appears to begin to turn in favor of the Trojans. Agamemnon
is wounded in the battle and, despite the heroics of Ajax, Hector successfully
breaches the fortified Greek camp, wounding Odysseus and Diomedes in the
process, and threatens to set the Greek ships on fire.
Torn between his allegiances, Achilles orders his friend and lover, Patroclus, to
dress in Achilles‘own armour and to lead the Myrmidons in repelling the Trojans.
Intoxicated by his success, Patroclus forgets Achilles‘ warning, and pursues the
fleeing Trojans to the walls of Troy and would have taken the city were it not for
the actions of Apollo. In the heat of the battle, though, Hector finds the disguised
Patroclus and, thinking him to be Achilles, fights and (again with Apollo’ help)
kills him. Menelaus and the Greeks manage to recover Patroclus’s corpse before
Hector can inflict more damage.
Distraught at the death of his companion, Achilles then reconciles with
Agamemnon and rejoins the fray, despite knowing his deadly fate, and drives all
the Trojans before him in his fury. As the ten year war reaches its climax, even the
gods join in the battle and the earth shakes with the clamour of the combat.
Clad in new armour fashioned specially for him by Hephaestus, Achilles takes
revenge for his friend Patroclus by slaying Hector in single combat, but then
defiles and desecrates his corpse for several days. Now, at last, Patroclus’ funeral
can be celebrated in what Achilles sees as a fitting manner. Hector‘s father, King
Priam, emboldened by his grief and aided by Hermes, recovers Hector‘s corpse
from Achilles, and “The Iliad” ends with Hector‘s funeral during a twelve day
truce granted by Achilles.
The Odyssey

Ten years after the Fall of Troy, and twenty years after the Greek hero Odysseus
first set out from his home in Ithaca to fight with the other Greeks against the
Trojans, Odysseus’ son Telemachus and his wife Penelope are beset with over a
hundred suitors who are trying to persuade Penelope that her husband is dead and
that she should marry one of them.
Encouraged by the goddess Athena (always
Odysseus’ protector), Telemachus sets out to
look for his father, visiting some of Odysseus’
erstwhile companions such as Nestor,
Menelaus and Helen, who have long since
arrived home. They receive him sumptuously
and recount the ending of the Trojan War,
including the story of the wooden horse.
Menelaus tells Telemachus that he has heard
that Odysseus is being held captive by the
nymph Calypso.
The scene then changes to Calypso’s island,
where Odysseus has spent seven years in
captivity. Calypso is finally persuaded to
release him by Hermes and Zeus, but
Odysseus’ makeshift boat is wrecked by his nemesis Poseidon, and he swims
ashore onto an island. He is found by the young Nausicaa and her handmaidens
and is made welcome by King Alcinous and Queen Arete of the Phaeacians, and
begins to tell the amazing story of his return from Troy.
Odysseus tells how he and his twelve ships were driven off course by storms, and
how they visited the lethargic Lotus-Eaters with their memory-erasing food, before
being captured by the giant one-eyed cyclops Polyphemus (Poseidon’s son), only
escaping after he blinded the giant with a wooden stake. Despite the help of
Aeolus, King of the Winds, Odysseus and his crew were blown off course again
just as home was almost in sight. They narrowly escaped from the cannibal
Laestrygones, only to encounter the witch-goddess Circe soon after. Circe turned
half of his men into swine, but Odysseus had been pre-warned by Hermes and
made resistant to Circe’s magic.
After a year of feasting and drinking on Circe’s island, the Greeks again set off,
reaching the western edge of the world. Odysseus made a sacrifice to the dead and
summoned the spirit of the old prophet Tiresias to advise him, as well as the spirits
of several other famous men and women and that of his own mother, who had died
of grief at his long absence and who gave him disturbing news of the situation in
his own household.
Advised once more by Circe on the remaining stages of their journey, they skirted
the land of the Sirens, passed between the many-headed monster Scylla and the
whirlpool Charybdis, and, blithely ignoring the warnings of Tiresias and Circe,
hunted down the sacred cattle of the sun god Helios. For this sacrilege, they were
punished by a shipwreck in which all but Odysseus himself drowned. He was
washed ashore on Calypso’s island, where she compelled him to remain as her
lover.
By this point, Homer has brought
us up to date, and the remainder of
the story is told straightforwardly
in chronological order.
Having listened with rapt attention
to his story, the Phaeacians agree
to help Odysseus get home, and
they finally deliver him one night
to a hidden harbour on his home
island of Ithaca. Disguised as a
wandering beggar and telling a
fictitious tale of himself, Odysseus
learns from a local swineherd how
things stand in his household.
Through Athena’s machinations,
he meets up with his own son,
Telemachus, just returning from Sparta, and they agree together that the insolent
and increasingly impatient suitors must be killed. With more help from Athena, an
archery competition is arranged by Penelope for the suitors, which the disguised
Odysseus easily wins, and he then promptly slaughters all the other suitors.
Only now does Odysseus reveal and prove his true identity to his wife and to his
old father, Laertes. Despite the fact that Odysseus has effectively killed two
generations of the men of Ithaca (the shipwrecked sailors and the executed suitors),
Athena intervenes one last time and finally Ithaca is at peace once more.
 PROJECT
IN

ENGLISH
Submitted By: Kent Adrian Francisco

Submitted To: Leslie Jumpay