English 9_1

Central Visayan Institute Foundation

Jagna, Bohol 6308, Philippines

Choral Reading Piece

(with excerpts from El Filibusterismo in the Gutenberg edition and Beowulf;
arranged in the Greek drama style by MVC Bernido)

CHORUS I : Pity Simoun! Returning from Europe, full of hope and eager to marry the girl he loves, he finds
himself trapped in the dark net of his enemies. He loses his reputation, position, freedom, and most
of all, his love...He then leaves his country.
CHORUS II : Revenge is sweet!
CHORUS I : Simoun swears revenge. Disguised as a wealthy jeweller, he comes back to the Philippines and
bribes his way into the innermost circles of power. He instigates young men to rebellion.
CHORUS II : But, plan after plan, scheme after scheme, they all fall apart.
CHORUS I : His lady love dies of grief. Now, Simoun himself lies wounded and dying...
CHORUS II : Simoun, you could not save your family, nor Maria Clara, not even yourself. How can you save
your country?
PADRE FLORENTINO: The glory of saving a country is not for him who has contributed to its ruin. You have
believed that what crime and iniquity have defiled and deformed, another crime and another iniquity
can purify and redeem. Wrong! Hate never produces anything but monsters and crime criminals!
Love alone realizes wonderful works, virtue alone can save! No! If our country is ever to be free, it
will not be through vice and crime, it will not be so by corrupting its sons and daughters, deceiving
some and bribing others. No! Redemption presupposes virtue, virtue sacrifice, and sacrifice love!
SIMOUN : I have been mistaken, but, because I have been mistaken, will that God deny liberty to a people
and yet save many who are much worse criminals than I am?...Why does He let so many worthy
and just ones suffer?
CHORUS II : Yes, listen to the cries of the innocent! Such terrible misery is draining the life of our people.
CHORUS I : It is suffering that tempers the spirit; sacrifice strengthens the soul.
PADRE FLORENTINO: The just and the worthy must suffer in order that their ideas may be known and extended!
You must shake or shatter the vase to spread its perfume; you must smite the rock to get the

SIMOUN : Then what is to be done?

PADRE FLORENTINO: Endure and work!
CHORUS II : Endure and work. Is that the only way?
CHORUS I : Endure and work. That is the best way.
SIMOUN : Endure, work! Ah, it's easy to say that, when you are not suffer f
you had seen what I have, the miserable, the wretched, suffering unspeakable tortures for crimes
they have not committed, poor fathers of families torn from their homes to work to no purpose upon
highways that are destroyed each day. Ah, to suffer, to work, what kind of God simply allows that?
PADRE FLORENTINO : A very just God, Simoun, a God who chastises our lack of faith, our vices, the little esteem
in which we hold dignity and the civic virtues. We tolerate vice, we make ourselves its accomplices,
at times we applaud it, and it is just, very just that we suffer the consequences, that our children
suffer them.
CHORUS II : Perhaps the people do not deserve their freedom.
CHORUS I : The slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow.
PADRE FLORENTINO: It is the God of liberty, Simoun, who obliges us to love it, by making the yoke heavy for us
a God of mercy, of equity, who while He chastises us, betters us and only grants prosperity to
we must secure our freedom by making ourselves
worthy of it, by exalting the intelligence and the dignity of the individual, by loving justice, what is
right, and greatness, even to the extent of dying for them
CHORUS I : Love what is just, what is good, what is noble!
SIMOUN : Will this God you love and believe in forgive me?
PADRE FLORENTINO: God will forgive you, Simoun. He has seen what you have suffered and, in allowing you to
be punished here for your crime, we see His justice and mercy. God will know how to raise from
your tears new seeds of hope.
CHORUS I : Yes, the Almighty makes miracles when He pleases, wonder after wonder, and this world
rests in His hands.
PADRE FLORENTINO: Where are the youth who will consecrate their golden hours, their illusions, and
their enthusiasm to the welfare of their native land? Where are you, youth, who will
embody in yourselves the vigor of life that has left our veins, the purity of ideas that has
been contaminated in our minds, the fire of enthusiasm that has been quenched in our
hearts? We await you, O youth! Come, for we await you!
CHORUS I AND II: Yes, Youth of the Philippines, Hope of the Motherland, come for we await you!