Chapter 17: Bagumbayan Field

Rizal's mother (01) went to say a pitiful last farewell at sunset the evening before his execution. "Rizal fell on his knees before his old mother and asked her forgiveness, kissing her hands. . . It was necessary to separate them. . . Rizal wept. Then his sister Narcisa entered and said farewell without going near him.

That is the Spanish story. The account of the family is very different. The living sisters say (02) that Rizal was not allowed to embrace his mother. He stamped his foot in anger and said, "Cowards, before very long Spain will be out of the Philippines." Narcisa says she was not allowed to go near José. He said to her: "Do not permit your sons to go to school as long as Spain rules here." He tried to give some remembrance to each member of the family. He told Narcisa that she was to have his pen and a reclining wicker chair, which his relatives had brought so that he would not have to sleep on the ground. The other sisters had to enter one by one and could not touch their brother. To Narcisa's daughter Angelica, he gave his handkerchief. But he soon needed it. As he said farewell to Maria, he asked for her handkerchief. He put a corner of it between his teeth and twisted it with his hands to suppress his emotions.

No men relatives were allowed to enter. Little seven-year-old Mauricio, son of Maria, was admitted. José unbuckled his belt and handed it to Mauricio with his watch and chain.

When Trinidad came, he said to her:

The alcohol lamp [food warmer] that concealed Rizal's Mi Ultimo Adios

"I want you to have my alcohol lamp [food warmer]." Then he added in English, "There is something inside." Trinidad still possesses the lamp. It will always remain one of the precious treasurers of the Philippines. The turnkey brought the lamp (03) and the reclining chair from José's cell and gave them to the sisters outside the prison.

When mother and sisters reached home that night they dared not pry into the lamp for fear of being seen by spies. Late on New Year's Eve (04) they found deep down in the alcohol in the receptacle of the lamp a folded paper which they opened with trembling hands. Through their tears they read one of the most touching poems ever penned in any language. The perfect finesse indicates that Rizal must have been writing it all during his imprisonment in Fort Santiago. (05)

(Original copy) Mi Ultimo Adiós

Mi Ultimo Adiós

     ¡Adiós, Patria adorada, región del sol querida,
perla del Mar de Oriente, nuestro perdido edén,
Á darte voy, alegre, la triste, mustia vida;
y fuera más brillante, más fresca, más florida,
también por ti la diera, la diera por tí bien.

     En campos de batalla, luchando con delirio,
otros te dan sus vidas, sin dudas, sin pesar.
El sitio nada importa: ciprés, laurel o lirio,
cadalso o campo abierto, combate o cruel martirio.
lo mismo es si lo piden la Patria y el hogar.

     Yo muero, cuando veo que el cielo se colora
y al fin anuncia el día, tras lóbrego capuz;
Si grana necesitas, para teñir tu aurora,
ivierte la sangre mía, derrámala en buen ahora,
y dórela un reflejo de su naciente luz!

     Mis sueños, cuando apenas muchacho adolescente,
mis sueños cuando jóven, ya lleno de vigor,
fueron el verte un día, joya del Mar de Oriente,
secos los negros ojos, alta la tersa frente,
sin ceño, sin arrugas, sin manchas de rubor.

     Ensueño de mi vida, mi ardiente vivo anhelo.
¡salud! te grita el alma que pronto va a partir;
¡Salud! iah, que es hermoso caer por darte vuelo,
morir por darte vida, morir bajo tu cielo,
y en tu encantada tierra la eternidad dormir!

     Si sobre mi sepulcro vieres brotar, un día,
entre la espesa yerba, sencilla humilde flor,
acércala a tus labios y besa el alma mía,
y sienta yo en mi frente, bajo la tumba fría,
de tu ternura el soplo, de tu hálito el calor.

     Deja á la luna verme, con luz tranquila y suave;
deja que el alba envíe su resplandor fugaz;
deja gemir al viento, con su murmullo grave;
y si desciende y posa sobre mi cruz un ave,
¡deja que el ave entone su cántico de paz.

     Deja que el sol, ardiendo, las lluvias evapore
y al cielo tornen puras, con mi clamor en pos;
deja que un ser amigo mi fin temprano Ilore;
y en las serenas tardes, cuando por mí alguien ore,
¡ora también, oh patria, por mi descanso a Dios.

     Ora por todos cuantos murieron sin ventura;
por cuantos padecieron tormentos sin igual;
por nuestras pobres madres, que gimen su amargura;
por huérfanos y viudas, por presos en tortura,
y ora por tí, que veas tu redención final.

     Y cuando, en noche obscura, se envuelva el cementerio,
y solos los muertos queden velando allí,
no turbes su reposo, no turbes el misterio:
tal vez acordes oigas de cítara o salterio;
isoy yo, querida Patria, yo que te canto a tí.

     Y cuando ya mi tumba, de todos olvidada,
no tenga cruz ni piedra que marquen su lugar,
deja que la are el hombre, la esparza con la azada,
y mis cenizas, antes que vuelvan a la nada,
el polvo de tu alfombra que vayan a formar.

     Entonces nada importa me pongas en olvido;
tu atmósfera, tu espacio, tus valles cruzaré;
vibrante y limpia nota seré para tu oído:
Aroma, luz, colores, rumor, canto, gemido,
constante repitiendo la esencia de mi fe.

     ¡Mi Pátria idolatrada, dolor de mis dolores,
querida Filipinas, oye el postrer adiós.
ahi, te dejo todo: mis padres, mis amores.
voy donde no hay esclavos, verdugos ni opresores;
donde la fe no mata, donde el que reina es Dios.

     ¡Adiós, padres y hermanos, trozos del alma mía,
amigos de la infancia, en el perdido hogar;
Dad gracias, que descanso del fatigoso día;
¡Adíos, dulce extranjera, mi amiga, mi alegría;
¡Adíos, queridos seres! ¡Morir es descansar!

There are at least a dozen translations of this famous poem in English and many in other languages. (06) The translation here given is much closer to the original in meaning and in meter than those that have appeared hitherto. Whether it has sacrificed beauty to accuracy is for the reader to decide.

MY LAST FAREWELL

Fare thee well, motherland I adore, region the sun holds dear
Pearl of the sea oriental, our paradise come to grief;
I go with gladness to give thee my life all withered and drear;
Though it were more brilliant, more fresh with flowery cheer,
Even then for thee would I give it, would give it for thy relief.

On many a field of battle, struggling mad with delirium,
Others gave thee their lives, without a doubt or lament;
The place does not matter at all; cypress, laurel or lily may come,
The open arena or scaffold, a fight or a cruel martyrdom,
'Tis the same if to that by one's home, and his motherland he is sent.

I am dying as now I behold how color is staining the sky,
Announcing the day at last beyond this dismal night;
If thou requirest scarlet with which thine aurora to dye,
Behold then, here is my blood, poured out as thine hour is nigh --
I give it to thee for reflecting the gleam of thy natal light.

My dreams, while yet merely a child, or when nearing maturity,
My dreams, when a youth full of vigor at length I became,
Where to see Thee one happier day, O jewel of the orient sea,
Thine ebon eyes dried of their tears, thine uplifted brow clear and free
From the frowns and the furrows, the stains and the stigma of shame.

O dream that inspired my life, my ardent enduring desire.
God bless thee!, this fervent soul cries, that soon is departing from thee;
God bless thee! How lovely it is to fail and to lift thee higher;
To die and to give thee my life; here under the sky expire,
And in thine enchanted terrain to sleep for eternity.

If over my tomb thou beholdest, one day beginning to grow,
A slender and diffident flower peeping out through the crowding grass,
Draw it close to they lips and thy kiss, to my very soul shall go,
And I shall feel on my forehead, in the chilly tomb below,
Thy tenderness of thy breathing, the warmth of its vapor pass.

Let the moon look down upon me with her soft and tranquil ray;
Let the dawn send forth her splendor on a swiftly fleeting wing;
Let the moaning wind above me murmur solemnly away;
And if a bird descending, on my cross alight, one day,
Let the bird his canticle of peace above me sing.

Let the sun turn the rains into vapor with his ardent rays,
And carry them pure to heaven, my death knell 'neath them pressed.
Let some friendly person weep, for the premature end of my days,
And in the serene afternoons, while anyone for me prays,
O motherland, pray for me too, that I close to God my rest.

Pray for all of the others who haplessly have died,
For those who were tormented with inimitable pain;
For our unhappy mothers who in bitter sorrow cried;
For orphans and widows and captives, by horrid torture tried;
And pray for thyself that thou mayest, thy final redemption gain.

And when in the night the darkness enwraps the graveyard round,
And only, only the dead remain there to watch with me,
Do not disturb their repose, their mystery profound;
If haply thou hearest a zither, or a psaltery resound,
'Tis I, my motherland dear, I who am singing to thee.

And when in the end my tomb, forgotten by all men,
Has neither a cross nor a stone to keep its place revealed,
Let any man plow it and spread it with his spade, and then
My ashes, before they resolve into nothingness again,
Will scatter to mingle with dust upon thy flowery field.

Consign me to oblivion then, it matters naught,
Thine air, thy space, thy valleys I shall permeate,
My vibrant limpid notes shall to thine ear be brought,
Aroma, lights and colors, songs with moaning fraught,
The essence of my faith shall constantly relate.

My idolized motherland, whose grieving makes me grieve,
Dearest Filipinas, hear my last farewell again!
I now leave all to thee, my parents, my loved ones I leave.
I go where there are no slaves, a brute's lash to receive;
Where faith does not kill, and where it is God who doth reign.

Farewell, my parents and brothers, parts of the soul of me
Friends of my early childhood in the home now dispossessed,
Give thanks when I am at rest from this day of misery,
Sweet foreigner, my friend, my joy, farewell to thee.
Farewell my loved ones all . . . To die is but to rest.

Rizal wrote a number of touching farewell letters during the few hours that remained to him. To Professor Blumentritt:

"My dear brother:

"When you receive this letter I shall be dead. Tomorrow at seven o'clock I shall be shot, but I am innocent of inciting the rebellion.

"I die with a tranquil conscience.

"Farewell, my dearest, best friend, and think no evil of me.

"Fort Santiago, December 29, 1896.

José Rizal

"P.S. Remember me to all the family, to Mrs. Rosa, to Loleng, Curt, and Friedrich. I am leaving you a book as a remembrance."

The last letter he ever wrote was to his brother Paciano. (07) The letter reads: (08)

"My dear brother,

"It is now four and a half years since we have seen one another, or have we exchanged letters. This I think is not because of any lack of love on my part or yours, but because, knowing one another so well, we do not need to talk in order to be understood by one another.

"Now I am about to die, and it is to you that I dedicate my last lines, to tell you how sorry I am to leave you alone in this life, burdened with the weight of the family and of our old parents. I am thinking how hard you have worked to give me a career; I have tried not to waste my time. My brother, if the fruit has been bitter, it is not my fault, but the fault of circumstances. I know that you have suffered much for me, and I am sorry.

"I assure you, brother, that I die innocent of this crime of rebellion. That my former writings may have contributed toward it, I cannot wholly deny; but then, I thought I had expiated for the past in my deportation.

"Tell our father that I remember him, and how much! I remember his affection and his love since my earliest childhood. Ask him to forgive me for the pain I have unwillingly caused him.

Your brother,
José Rizal"

Happily he did not know that Paciano had been tortured until he was nearly insane.

In our last chapter we read the account of Father Pio Pi as far as the marriage of José and Josephine. D. Manuel Alhama telegraphed that afternoon:

"When the ceremony had ended, Rizal asked Josephine:

"'And now what will become of you? What are you going to do for a living?'

"Josephine answered: 'I will make a living by giving lessons in English.'

"The woman tried to restrain her emotion. . . Rizal said farewell to her, and as she departed, he spoke a few words to her in English, and asked her something in a low voice, to which she replied, 'Yes, yes.' As Josephine disappeared, Rizal, sobbing, threw himself into the arms of Father Faura. Meanwhile Josephine, in the next room, stamped her feet in fury, crying, 'Miserable! Cruel!'"

Josephine's daughter says that what Rizal whispered to his wife was: "Look in my right shoe. There is something inside." He had told his sister Trinidad the same thing four days before. Josephine believed that he may have written an important message on fifty-three pages now missing from the Thomas á Kempis which he signed and left for her. When his body was exhumed a year and a half later, it had disintegrated; no paper was found in his shoes. What secret did he so much desire to leave after his death?

A few minutes before seven on the morning of December 30, José Rizal walked from Fort Santiago to Bagumbayan Field (now the Luneta). His arms were tied behind his back. (09) "His head was erect, his conscience was clear, and there was a smile on his lips." (10) Beside him walked Lt. Luis de Andrade, who had defended him in the trial, Fathers Vilaclara and March. Before and behind him were soldiers.

"He went tranquilly," said the Jesuits, "with a serenity and interest astounding in men of more courage. . ." (11)

"We are on the road to Calvary," said Rizal, "I shall suffer little. He had suffered far more; they nailed Him to a cross; the bullets will nail me to the cross which is formed by the bones in my back." (12)

Don Pardro Saura y Coronas tried to walk as close to the party as possible, and overheard Rizal say:

"How beautiful it is today, Father! What morning could be more serene! How clear are Corregidor and the mountains of Cavite! Some mornings like this I have taken walks here with my sweetheart." (Leonor)

"Tomorrow," said a priest, "will be more beautiful."

"Why, Father?" asked Rizal -- and Mr. Saura did not hear the rest.

As he was about to enter Bagumbayan field, he turned his head, looked at the towers on the church of the Ateneo, and asked: "Is that the Ateneo?"

They said it was.

"I spent seven years there."

The anonymous author of Rizal y su obra says Rizal added these words:

"All that the Jesuits taught me was good and virtuous. In Spain and in foreign countries is where I was lost." (13)

There were troops waiting, formed in a hollow square open on the side toward the sea, and a band ready to play the national anthem when everything was over. Hundreds of government officials and other Spaniards were there with their families, shouting with pleasure as the noblest, most learned, and most gifted man in the Spanish realms approached.

Just before he entered the square of soldiers, he said:

"Oh! Father, how terrible it is to die! How one suffers! Father, I forgive everybody from the bottom of my heart; I have no resentment for anybody, believe me, your Reverence."

Rizal gave his friend Lt. Luis Taviel de Andrade a vigorous handshake, and kissed the crucifix which the Father offered him. Turning to the Captain, he asked him whether he could not be shot facing the firing squad. (Shooting in the back symbolized treason.)

"Impossible, for I have orders to shoot you in the back," answered the Captain.

Rizal argued with him: "I have not been a traitor to my country nor to the Spanish nation."

"My duty is to obey the order I have received," returned the Captain.

"Very well then," said Rizal, "shoot me as you wish."

He did secure an agreement from the Captain that he should be shot through the heart, and that his head should not be touched. They asked him to kneel, but this he did not wish to do. (We shall see the reason in a moment.) Nor did they blindfold him.

He turned his face toward the sea, and waited with his back to the line of eight Filipino soldiers who were to shoot him. Behind them stood eight Spanish Soldiers armed with Mausser rifles in case the Filipinos refused to fire.

At that moment the military doctor, Ruiz y Castillo, who stood near Rizal, approached him and said:

"Comrade, will you let me feel your pulse?"

Rizal, without replying, lifted his left arm from his body as far as his bonds would permit (14) so that the Doctor could take his hand.

"You are very well," said Doctor Castillo, and stepped back.

Rizal pointed with his hand to the spot in his back where he wished them to aim, -- behind his heart.

The guns belched forth fire. Dr. Saura says that "by a supreme effort of the will, he stretched his muscles enough to achieve his desire of falling dead, not with his face to the ground, but looking toward the sky." (15)

That act, as darkness closed upon him, cried to Spain, "You shot an innocent man. He sought to make you better, not to harm you! God have mercy on you, Spain, for this!"

"It was three minutes past seven." (16)

December 30, 1896. Thirty-five years, six months, eleven days old, -- and how he had lived!

The next morning La Voz Española of Manila, an organ of the friars, closed its story of the tragedy with these words:

"Immediately after the shooting, as though an electric spark had caused it, thousands of voices, -- for the crowd was immense, -- cried in shrill tones, 'Viva España', and the military band answered with the well known patriotic "March of Cadiz." (17)

Howard W. Bray, a witness, wrote:

"Never while life lasts, shall I forget that awful morning nor the thrilling sensation I felt when the rifles cracked and his mangled body fell on the public promenade amid the jeers of Spaniards and monks, thus consummating one of the most cold-blooded crimes registered in history since the tragedy of Golgotha." (18)

When every soul had departed from Bagumbayan Field, the sisters of Rizal went to the place to see whether they could gather some of their brother's blood. A man was sweeping up the shells and the litter. They asked him where José had fallen, but he was afraid to open his mouth. They said they wanted to get their brothers blood, and he finally answered without stopping his work, "There is no blood."

Paco Cemetery	Early Grave (Note R.P.J.)

Then they searched the cemeteries of Manila for a fresh grave. When they reached Paco cemetery the guards would not let them enter. Narcisa seized the arm of a guard and said, "Then shoot us!" They gave the guards some money and were allowed to enter. There they found the new grave, and they bribed a grave digger to bury a small marble slab in the ground over José, bearing his initials reversed, R. P. J. for identification. Guards watched the Paco cemetery as long as Spain remained, because the rumor spread that Rizal would rise out of his grave.

Twenty months later, the same day American troops entered Manila, August 13, 1898, the sisters hurried to the cemetery and dug up the body. As it had been buried without a box of any kind, only the hat and shoes and bones remained.

Rizal's largest monument now stands on the Luneta a hundred meters from where he fell. Under the obelisk of that monument is his dust. Perhaps he has more monuments than any man in the nineteenth century. A picture of him hangs in every Filipino home.

Dead? With eight shots?

In sixteen million Filipino hearts throbs the heart of Rizal.
____________
(01) Gonzalo M. Pinana. Murio el Doctor Rizal Cristiamente? (Barcelona: 1920), p. 137.
(02) [A statement given on?] October, 1936, Manila.
(03) This lamp had been a present from the mother of Dr. Pardo de Tavera when Rizal was in Europe. José had asked the family to bring it to his cell because the guards had allowed his food to grow cold and he wished to warm it up. The family had brought food daily. But during the 28th and 28th of December the guards had given him nothing to eat.
(04) Austin Craig. Rizal's Life and Minor Writings. Manila: Philippine Education Co., Inc., 1927, pp. 205-206.
(05) As to the probable date when Rizal wrote the poem see the article by Arsenio Manuel, "Rizal's Mi Ultimo Pensamiento," Philippine Magazine, Jan., 1934.
(06) A dozen of the English translations were published by Mr. Arsenio Manuel for the magazine section of the Sunday Tribune, Dec. 31, 1933. Mr. Pablo Laslo, 1934, published the poem in French, English, German, Hungarian, and Swedish.
(07) Paciano had already joined the revolutionary forces. Two hundred of them had come as far as Pasay and were restrained from invading the city the next morning only by the fact that they lacked guns. (Austin Craig, op. cit., p. 198; Retana [bibliographic information, footnote 10], p. 432).
(08) Cultura Filipina, Vol. II, p. 147.
(09) Austin Craig, op. cit., p. 198.
(10) Wenceslao E. Retana. Vida y Escritos del Dr. José Rizal. (Madrid: Libreria General de Victoriano Suarez, 1907), p. 429.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Ibid., p. 430.
(13) Lt. Luis Taviel de Andrade wrote to Wenceslao E. Retana that this was true. Retana, op. cit., p. 431.
(14) Austin Craig, op. cit., p. 199.
(15) Retana, op. cit., p. 432.
(16) Ibid.
(17) Ibid., p. 433.