ANNOTATIONS

2.7 Through Education Our Motherland

Receives Light
By Jose Rizal
English translation by Frank C. Laubach

(1st Stanza, 1st and 6th line)

The vital breath of prudent Education

Instills a virtue of enchanting power;
She lifts the motherland to highest station
And endless dazzling glories on her shower.
And as the zephyr’s gentle exhalation
Revives the matrix of the fragrant flower,
So education multiplies her gift of grace;
With prudent hand imparts them to the human
race.
•PRUDENT- is the ability to govern and
discipline oneself by the use of reason. It is
classically considered to be a virtue, and in
particular one of the four Cardinal virtues.
- The word “prudent” describes how
education is important to Jose Rizal and to
the Motherland. It can control and make a
country more enhance and developed.
•MATRIX- an environment or material in
which something develops; a surrounding
medium or structure.
- The word “matrix” symbolizes the idea of
the motherland to bloom more and develop
because of education.

(2nd stanza, 4th and 7th line)

For her a mortal man will gladly part

With all he has; will give his calm repose;
For her are born all science and all arts,
That brows of men with laurel fair enclose.
As from the towering mountain’s lofty heart.
The purest current of the stremlet flows,
So education without stint or measure gives
Security and peace to lands in which he lives.

•LAUREL- A laurel is a wreath worn on the

head, usually as a symbol of victory.
- The underlined word resembles the vision of
how the country will achieved victory.

•STINT- the limitation of supply or effort.

- As what its definition gives, a land without
limitations and boundaries in education, in
which anyone and everyone can avail can
do much to a country.

(6th stanza, 1st line)

Within the breast of wretched humankind
She lights the living flame of goodness bright;
The hands of fiercest criminal doth bind;
And in those breasts will surely pour delight
Which seek her mystic benefits to find,
Those souls she sets a flame with love of right,
It is noble fully- rounded Education
That gives to life its surest consolation.
•WRETCHED- in a very unhappy or
unfortunate state.
- In the midst of the unjust, an environment
that is in chaos, through education a man
can still see hope.

(7th stanza, 3rd and last line)

And as the mighty rock aloft may tower
Above the center of the stormy deep
And scorn of storm, on fierce Sou’wester’s
power
Or fury of the waves that raging sweep,
Until, their first made hatred spent, they
cower,
And tired at least, subside and fall asleep, __
So he that takes wise Education by the hand,
 Invincible shall guide the reigns of
motherland.

•SCORN- the feeling or belief that someone

or something is worthless or despicable;
contempt.
- The underlined word describes the
hardships and struggles that a man can face
in dealing with education.
•INVINCIBLE- too powerful to be defeated
or overcome.
- This word explains how can an education
change and can govern a land if it is used by
a man thoroughly.
2.8 The Intimate Alliance Between
Religion and Good Education
By Jose Rizal
English translation by Leon Ma. Guerrero,
Jr.

(1st stanza, 1st and 10th line)

As the climbing ivy over lofty elm

Creeps tortuously, together the adornment
Of the verdant plain, embellishing
Each other and together growing,
But should the kindly elm refuse its aid
The ivy would important and friendless
wither
So is education to Religion
By spiritual alliance bound.
Through Religion, Education gains renown,
and
Woe to the impious that blindly spurning
The sapient teachings of Religion, this
Unpolluted fountain- head forsakes.
 •ELM- a tall deciduous tree that typically
has rough serrated leaves and propagates
from root suckers.

- Rizal compared the religion as elm. A kind

of tree that is believe to be special.

•IVY- a woody evergreen Eurasian climbing

plant, typically having shiny, dark green
five-pointed leaves.
- Rizal also compared education as ivy.

•IMPIOUS- not showing respect or

reverence, especially for a god.
- The word refers to the people who rejects
and degrade the religious teachings.

(3rd stanza, 3rd and 6th line)

Without Religion, Human Education

Is like unto a vessel struck by winds
Which, sore beset, is of its helm deprived
By the roaring blows and buffets wields
His power until he proudly sends her down
 Into the deep abysses of the angered sea.

•DEPRIVED- suffering a lack of a specified

benefit that is considered important.
- It indicates the vision of unethical education
and without religion, it has no sense of
direction and goals.

• ABYSSES- a deep or seemingly bottomless

chasm.
- An Education without religious teaching
goes nowhere, falls into a deep unknown.
 2.16 The Song of the Traveler
By Jose Rizal
English Translation by Arthur P. Ferguson
In 1886, Dapitan

(2nd stanza, 1st and last line)

Following anxiously treacherous fortune;

Fortune which e’en as he grasps at it flees,
Vain though the hopes that his yearning is
seeking
Yet does the pilgrim embark on the seas.

•TREACHEROUS- guilty of or involving

betrayal or deception.
- Rizal describe his journey as a treacherous
one, which he’s not sure of what will
happen.
 •PILGRIM- a person who journeys to a
sacred place for religious reasons.
- Rizal’s so-called journey that begins in the
seas.

(5th stanza, and 2nd line)

Often the sorrowing pilgrim is envied,

Circling the globe like a sea gull above;
Little, ah, little they know what a void
Saddens his soul by the absence of love

•ENVIED- desire to have a quality, possession,

or other desirable attribute belonging to.
- He shows how sadness it would bring for
him as he leaves his motherland for his
journey.

•VOID- completely empty.

- As Rizal journey along with Governor
Blanco, he felt happiness and excitement
but it was also filled with sadness and
longing for he will leave his beloved family
and country.
 2.17 KUNDIMAN
By Jose Rizal
September 12, 1891

(1st stanza, 6th, 9th and last line)

In the Orient beautiful
Where the sun is born,
In the land of beauty
Full of enchantments
But bound in chains,
Where the despot reigns,
Ah! That is my country,
The land dearest to me,
She is slave oppressed
Groaning in the tyrant’s grips;
Lucky shall he be
Who can give her liberty!
•DESPOT- a ruler or other person who holds
absolute power, typically one who exercises it
in a cruel or oppressive way.
- The word despot refers to the higher people
in the society of Rizal’s time that control
and governs the Philippines.
•OPPRESSED- subject to harsh and
authoritarian treatment.
- The word indicates the struggles and the
hardships of the motherland from the time
when we were colonized by other country.
•LIBERTY- the state of being free within
society from oppressive restrictions imposed by
authority on one's.
- Jose Rizal refers “her” as the motherland
which he stated who can free the country
from the tyrant’s colonization.
 2.18 My Last Farewell
By Jose Rizal
English translation by Charles E. Derbyshire.
December 29, 1896, Prison Cell at Fort
Santiago

(7th stanza, 3rd line)

Let the moon beam over me soft and serene,
Let the dawn shed over me its radiant flashes,
Let the wind with the sad lament over me keen;
And if on my cross a bird should be seen,
Let it trill there its hymn of peace to my ashes.

•LAMENT- to express sorrow, mourning, or

regret.
- Rizal states what would possibly happen if
he dies, even the nature can mourn over his
death.
(11th stanza, 1st line)
Then will oblivion bring to me no care;
AS over vales and plains I sweep;
Throbbing and cleansed in thy space and air,
With color and light, with song and lament I
fare,
Ever repeating the faith that I keep.

•OBLIVION- the state of being unaware or

unconscious of what is happening.
- As he dies, he can feel no more, slowly
disappearing just like a thin air.

(last stanza)
Farewell to you all, from my soul torn away,
Friends of my childhood in the home
dispossessed!
Give thanks that I rest from the wearisome day!
Farewell to thee, too, sweet friend that lightened
my way;
Beloved creatures all, farewell! In death there is
rest!
- This is the last stanza of Rizal’s poem in
which he wrote wholeheartedly before his
execution. From the lines of his poem, he
doesn’t show regret even though he knows
of his decided death, in fact he gave honor
to his homeland in which he sacrificed his
life for its freedom. Our national hero, Dr,
Jose P. Rizal considered our motherland as
his “greatest love”.