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Before anyone else emails me with regards to my previous post, Jose Rizal Mi Ultimo Adios, let me state that I am not killing myself. Apparently, when I ended the previous post with Mi Ultimo Adios, which is the last writing of our National Hero Jose Rizal, and which means “My Last Farewell”, some people got the notion that I was going to kill myself.

Yes, I am saddened at the death of Musa Dimasidsing, the person I call “The Martyr of Maguindanao”, but I am choosing to write, as our dear National Hero did, I will write until the day of my passing. This is the only way I know how in order to make a difference. I hope everyone joins me in exacting the change we need for this country. Change is a constant thing, thus we must always be working for it, nothing in life is a static reality.

Let me end this post with the poem of Dr. Jose Rizal, the poem, “Mi Ultimo Adios”, written on the eve of his execution.

Rizal did not inscribe a title to his poem. Mariano Ponce, Rizal’s friend and fellow reformist, titled it Mi Último Pensamiento in the copies he distributed, but this did not catch on. Here is a copy of news story taken from The Inquirer dated December 30, 2002:

On the afternoon of Dec. 29, 1896, a day before his execution, Dr. Jose Rizal was visited by his mother, Teodora Alonzo, sisters Lucia, Josefa, Trinidad, Maria and Narcisa, and two nephews. When they took their leave, Rizal told Trinidad in English that there was something in the small alcohol stove (cocinilla), not alcohol lamp (lamparilla). The stove was given to Narcisa by the guard when the party was about to board their carriage in the courtyard. At home, the Rizal ladies recovered from the stove a folded paper. On it was written an unsigned, untitled and undated poem of 14 five-line stanzas. The Rizals reproduced copies of the poem and sent them to Rizal’s friends in the country and abroad. In 1897, Mariano Ponce in Hong Kong had the poem printed with the title “Mi Ultimo Pensamiento.” Fr. Mariano Dacanay, who received a copy of the poem while a prisoner in Bilibid, published it in the first issue of La Independencia on Sept. 25, 1898 with the title “Ultimo Adios.”

Thus did Rizal’s untitled, undated and unsigned last poem became popularly known as “Ultimo Adios,” or “Mi Ultimo Adios.” The poem has become internationally renowned.

My Last Farewell

Farewell, beloved Country, treasured region of the sun,
Pearl of the sea of the Orient, our vanquished Eden!
To you I gladly surrender this melancholy life;
And were it brighter, fresher, gaudier,
Even then I’d give it to you, to you alone would then I give.

In fields of battle, deliriously fighting,
Others give you their lives, without doubt, without regret;
Where there’s cypress, laurel or lily,
On a plank or open field, in combat or cruel martyrdom,
If the home or country asks, it’s all the same–it matters not.

I die when I see the sky unfurls its colors
And at last after a cloak of darkness announces the day;
If you need scarlet to tint your dawn,
Paint with my blood, pour it as the moment comes,
And may it be gilded by a reflection of the heaven’s new-born light.

My dreams, even as a child,
My dreams, when a young man in the prime of life,
Were to see you one day, jewel of the eastern seas,
Dry those dark eyes, raise that forehead high,
Without frown, without wrinkle, without stain of shame.

My lifelong dream, my deep burning desire,
Is for this soul that will soon depart to cry out: Salud!
To your health! Oh how beautiful to fall to give you flight,
To die to give you life, to rest under your sky,
And in your enchanted land forever sleep.

If upon my grave one day you may behold,
Amidst the dense grass, a simple lowly flower,
Place it upon your lips, and my soul you’ll kiss,
And on my brow may I feel, under the cold tomb,
The tenderness of your touch, the warmth of your breath.

Let the moon see me in soft and tranquil light,
Let the dawn burst forth its fleeting radiance,
Let the wind moan with its gentle murmur,
And should a bird descend and rest on my cross,
Let it sing its canticle of peace.

Let the burning sun evaporate the rain,
And with the struggle behind, towards the sky may they turn pure;
Let a friend mourn my early demise,
And in the serene afternoon, when someone prays for me,
O Country, pray that God will also grant me rest!

Pray for all the unfortunate ones who died,
For all who suffered torment unequaled,
For grieving mothers who in bitterness cry,
For orphans and widows, for prisoners in torture,
And for yourself to see your redemption at last.

And when the burial ground is shrouded in dark night,
And there alone, only the departed remain in vigil,
Disturb not their rest, nor their secrets,
And should you hear chords from a zither or harp,
‘Tis I, O land beloved, ’tis I, to you I sing !

And when my grave, then by all forgotten,
has not a cross nor stone to mark its place,
Let men plow and with a spade disperse it,
And before my ashes return to nothing,
May they be the dust that carpets your fields.

Then nothing matters, cast me in oblivion.
Your air, your space, your valleys I will cross.
I will be vibrant music to your ears,
Aroma, light, colors, murmur, moan, and song,
Ever echoing the essence of my faith.

Land that I love, sorrow of my sorrows,
Adored Filipinas, hear my last good-bye.
There I leave you all, my parents, my beloved.
I go where there are no slaves, hangmen nor oppressors,
Where faith does not kill, where the one who reigns is God.

Goodbye, dear parents, brother and sisters, fragments of my soul,
Childhood friends in the home now gone,
Give thanks that I rest from this wearisome day;
Goodbye, sweet stranger, my friend, my joy;
Farewell, loved ones. To die is to rest.

You can read the other translations of this poem here

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