Allia Lopez ABM-1

Malaya

By: Crissot

Crisostomo "Crissot" C. SOTO left an unforgettable mark not only in Pampanga but
also throughout our country as an author of different literary pieces. He was born in Sta.
Ines, Bacolor Pampanga on January 27, 1867. He was the second of the three children of
Santiago a mayor and Marciana Caballa a seamstress. A good number of newspaper
articles, 49 plays, a novel, few stories and poems are His main works, thus, Malaya which is
a very meaningful poem wss contributed by him. My first impression about the poem,
considering the title and the background of the author as a nationalist is, it is all about
freedom that is connected to revolution.

The first stanza introduces the character of the poem which is Malaya with a series
of commands that she should sleep, because by this, she will be blinded from the things that
are inflicting her, something that can harm her, that can hurt her or rather something that is
actually currently hurting her. On the first stanza it states too that a song or melody can be
the one who can make her sleep. On the second stanza, I think every word symbolizes a
particular part of the whole narration. The first and second line seems so clever, lying down
a hammock on a pallet is unusual which I think hammock is Malaya's great joy (freedom),
pallet is a place of temporary and swans symbolizes couples. The second and third line is all
about Malaya's pain and by music or a piece of song her traitors which betrayed her will
quake with a silent shouts of revenge through a hymn. On the third stanza, the first line
symbolizes protecting Malaya's knowledge and awareness by her natural and personal
beauty. On the second and third line, it's all about hiding the pain with a veil, I think veil of
purity means justice. Justice will cover up the pain and will avert their gaze of judgement
and nakedness symbolizes the innocence of Malaya. And the last stanza is all about the
situation. Malaya is on the midst of dawn, where she can't still do anything but to sleep and
sleeping means doing a silent fight for those who betrayed her.

It's all about Malaya, a woman of beauty, love and innocence but was betrayed and
hurt, jailed and thorned, by someone whom she loved the most, by someone whom she's
with to fight together against those who oppose them before, until that time that she was
inflicted by the world and by the person she loves. The reason why she's fighting before
became the reason of her dawn. Malaya is the Philippines, first because Filipinos from the
history is "Malayan/Malaysian" and second is Malaya is a girl, "Dalagang Filipina". Malaya's
persecutors, accusers and judges are those foreigners who invades our country before. And
the one who betrayed her, is our fellow countrymen who became the mistress of our
country's villainous lover. A poem of love and betrayal, obsession and destruction, freedom
and pain. This is how I appreciated and interpreted the poem. Whether it’s correct or not,
this poem really amazes me and it really makes my brain cells to connect and work.