Love of CountryBy Dr.

Jose Rizal
*First article of Dr. Jose Rizal written outside of the Philippines. Published for the first time in
Diariong Tagalog, Manila 20 August, 1882; then in La Solidaridad, Madrid 31 October 1890,
Vol II, No. 42, pp.246-248. Translated from the Spanish by Dr.Encarnacion Alzona

Here is a beautiful subject, and because it is beautiful, it is very backneyed. Learned man,
poet,artist, laborer, merchant, or soldier, old or young, king or slave- all have pondered it and
devoted to it the most valued fruits of their intelligence, or of their hearts. From the cultured
European, free, and proud of his glorious history, to the African Negro dragged out of his forests
and sold for a paltry sum; from ancient peoples whose shadows still hover over their
somber ruins-the tombs of their glories and sufferings-to the modern nations, full of activity and
life, all, all have had and have an idol whom they call Motherland-beautiful, brilliant, sublime
but implacable, haughty, and exacting. A thousand tongue shave sung to her, a thousand lyres
have offered her their most sonorous music; the most favored intellect have displayed before her
memory, their most resplendent fineries. She has been the universal cry of peace, of love, and of
glory because she is in the hearts and minds of all men, and like the lighten closed in limpid
crystal, she goes forth in the form of the most intense splendors.
And will this be an obstacle to us who wish to treat of her? And can we not dedicate
to her something, we whose only sin is to have been born later? Would the XIXth century
serve as an excuse for us to be ungrateful? No. The rich mine of the heart has not yet been
exhausted. Her remembrance is always prolific, and no matter how little inspiration we have,
positively we will find in the bottom of our soul, if not a rich treasure, a mite, poor but an
enthusiastic manifestation of our sentiments. In the manner then of the ancient Hebrews who
offered in the temple the first fruits of their love, we in foreign land will dedicate our first
utterances to our country, enveloped in morning clouds and mist ,always beautiful and poetic,
and the more idolized by her sons when they are absent and far away from her.
And this is not surprising, because it is a very natural feeling; because there in our
country are first memories of childhood, a merry ode, known only in childhood, from whose
races spring forth the flower of innocence and happiness; because there slumbers a whole past
and a future can be hoped, because in her forests and in her meadows, on every tree, on every
blade, on every flower you seen graved the memory of a being you love, as her breath in the
perfumed breeze, her song in the murmur of the fountain, her smile in the rainbow of the sky, or
her sighs in the confused moans of the night wind.
It is because you see there with the eyes of your imagination, under the tranquil roof of
your old home, a family who remembers you and awaits you, thinking of you and worrying
about you; in short because in her sky, in her sun, in her seas, and in her forests, you find poetry,
tenderness, and love and even in the cemetery there is a humble tomb awaiting you to return you
to the soil. Will there be a genie who will bind your heart to the soil of our native country, who
beautifies and adorns everything, showing us all objects in a poetic and sentimental aspect and
captivating our hearts. Because under whatever aspect she may appear, whether she is dressed in
purple, crowned with flowers and laurels, powerful and rich; whether she is sorrowful and
solitary, clad in rags and a slave, entreating her slave sons; whether she is a nymph in a
pleasant garden beside the blue waves of the sea, gracious and beautiful as the dream of deluded
youth; whether she is enveloped in a shroud of snow, sitting fatidic ally on the ends of the earth
under a sunless and starless sky; whatever her name, her age, or her fortune might be, we love
her always, as the child loves his mother even in the midst of hunger and misery,
And how strange: The poorer and more wretched she is, the more one is willing to suffer
for her, the more she is adored, the more one finds pleasure in bearing up with her. It has been
observed that the people of the mountains and wild valleys and those born on barren and dismal
land are the very ones who can remember more vividly their country, finding in the cities a
terrible boredom which compels them to return to their native land. Is it because love of country
is the purest, most heroic, and most sublime human sentiment? It is gratitude; it is affection
for everything that reminds us of something of the first days of our life; it is the land where
our ancestors are sleeping; it is the temple where we have worshipped God with the candor of
babbling childhood; it is the sound of the church bell which has delighted us since a child; they
are the vast fields, the blue lake, the picturesque banks of the river which we pass by in a nimble
boat; the limpid brook which laves the cheerful little house nestling among flowers like a love-
nest; or the tall mountain which inspire us this pleasant sentiment? Will it be the raging storm
that lashes, and knocks down everything it finds on its way; the lightning which, escaping from
the hands of the Almighty annihilates everything; will it be the avalanche or cascade, matters of
perpetual motion and endless menace? Is it all this that attracts, captivates, and entices us?
Probably these beauties or tender remembrances fortify the tie that unites us to our native
land, engendering a pleasant feeling of wellbeing when we are in our country, or deep
melancholy when we are far away from her, the origin of a cruel disease called nostalgia.
Oh! Never sadden the stranger who arrives at your shores; do not awaken in him that
vivid memory of his country, the comforts of his home, because then you will evoke this
sickness, tenacious phantom that will not abandon him until he sees again his native land or he
arrives at the border of the tomb.
Never pour a drop of bitterness in his heart, for in such circumstances the sorrows are
exaggerated compared with the happiness of the lost home. We are born, then grow up, we get
old, and we die with this pious sentiment. IT is perhaps the most constant if there is constancy in
the hearts of men, and it seems that it does not abandon us even in our very tombs.
Napoleon, seeing dimly the dark bottom, of the grave, remember his France whom he
loved extremely, and in his exile he entrusts to her his remains, confident that he will find more
comforting rest in her midst.
Ovid, more unfortunate, and divining that not even his ashes would return to Rome,
dying on the shores of the Black Sea, consoled himself with the thought that if not he, at least his
verses would reach the Capitol.
 As children we love games; as adolescent we forget them; as young men we search for
our ideal; disappointed, we weep over it and we go seeking for something more positive and
more useful; as fathers, our children die; and time rubs out our griefs as the air of the sea
obliterates the shoreline as the ship moves away from it.

 
But, on the other hand, love of country is never effaced once it has penetrated the heart, because
it carries with it a divine stamp which renders it eternal and imperishable.

It has been said that love has always been the most powerful force behind the most
sublime actions. Well then, of all loves, that of country is the greatest, the most heroic and the
most disinterested. Read history, if not, the annals, the traditions. Go to the homes, what
sacrifices, self-denial and tears are held on the sacred altar of the nation. From Brutus, who
condemned his sons charged with treason, to Guzman the Good who allowed his son to die in
order not to fail in his duty, what dramas, what tragedies what martyrdom have not been enacted
for the welfare of that inexorable divinity who has nothing to give you in return for your children
but gratitude and blessings! And notwithstanding, with the pieces of their hearts they raise
glorious monuments to their motherland; with the work of their hands, with the sweat of their
brow, they have sprinkled and made fruitful her sacred tree, and neither have they expected nor
received any reward.

See there a man sunk in his study. For him his best days are passing away, his sight
weakens, his hair turns gray and gradually disappears with his illusions; his body stops. For years
he has been after a truth; he solves a problem; hunger and thirst, cold and heat; sickness and
misfortune have successively confronted him. He is going down his grave and avails of his
agony to offer to his motherland a rosette for her crown, a truth- fountain and origin of a
thousand benefits.

Turn your eyes to another direction: a man tanned by the sun scratches the ungrateful soil
to plant a seed. He is a farmer. He too contributes with his modest but useful work to the glory of
his nation.

The motherland is in danger! Soldiers and leaders as if by charm spring from the ground.
The father leaves his children, the sons leave their parents and all rush to defend their common
mother. They bid farewell to the quiet pleasures of the home and hide under their helmets
the tears that tenderness draws. They all leave and die. Perhaps he is the father of many children,
fair and pinkish like cherubs; perhaps he is a young man of smiling hopes- a son or a lover-it
does not matter. He has defended the one who gave him life he has fulfilled his duty. Peter or
Leonides, whoever he might be, the Motherland will know how to remember him.
Some have sacrificed for her their youth, their pleasure; others have dedicated to her the
splendors of their genius; others shed their blood; all have died, bequeathing to their Motherland
an immense fortune; Liberty and glory.

And what has she done for them? She mourns them and proudly presents them to the
world, or posterity and to her children to serve as an example.
 But alas, if at the magic of your name, oh Motherland, the most heroic virtues shine; if in
your name superhuman sacrifices are made, on the other hand, what injustices…!

From Jesus Crist who, all love, has come to the world for the welfare of humanity and
dies for it in accordance with the laws of his motherland, to the most obscure victims of
modern revolutions, how many, alas, have not suffered and died for you, usurped by others.
How many victims of rancor, of ambition, or of ignorance have not expired blessing you
and wishing you all kind of happiness!
 
 Fair and grand is the Motherland when her children at the cry of battle, get ready to defend the
ancient land of their ancestors; cruel and arrogant when she sees from her throne the terrified
foreigner flee before the invincible phalanx of her sons. But when her sons, divided into rival
factions, destroy one another: when anger and rancor devastate fields, towns, and cities; then
ashamed, she tears away her robe and hurling her scepter, she put on mourning clothes for her
dead sons.
Whatever our condition might be then, let us love her always and let us wish nothing
but her welfare. Thus we shall labor in conformity with the purpose of humanity dictated by God
which is the harmony and universal peace of his creatures, You who have lost the ideal of your
souls, you who, with wounded hearts, have seen your illusions disappear one by one and like the
trees in autumn you find yourselves without flowers and without leaves, and desirous of loving,
find no one worthy of you, there you have the Motherland: Love her.
You who have lost a father, mother, brother, wife, child, in short, love, upon which you
have founded your dreams, and you find in yourselves a deep and horrible void, there you have
the Motherland: Love her as she deserves.
Love her! Oh, yes! But not as they loved in other times by performing ferocious acts,
denied and condemned by true morals and mother nature; by making a display of fanaticism,
destruction, and cruelty, no. A more promising dawn, in short, of true Christianity, the prelude
to happy and peaceful days.
It is our duty to follow the arid but peaceful and productive paths of science which lead to
progress, and thence to the unity desired and asked by Jesus Christ on the night of his sorrow.

(Sgd) JOSE RIZAL