Activity 2
Activity 2
Activity 2
Mi Retiro
“Mi Retiro” is a poem of longing and sadness, as would be expected of an
exile. But these strong emotions are woven around Rizal’s descriptions of the
interconnected webs of life around him, in nature. What we see in “Mi Retiro” is a
poetic rendition of environmental science, even if the term had not yet been
coined in his time. In Dapitan he engaged in agriculture, engineering, medicine,
education, and many people are unaware, anthropology. It was here, too, where
Rizal the naturalist emerged, studying how plants and animals (including
humans) lived and interacted in different environmental settings. Rizal, it seems,
was interested in everything, collecting, and documenting all kinds of biological
specimens, including shells, which also makes him a conchologist. In one of his
letters to his German friend, Adolf Bernhard Meyer, the director of the
Anthropological and Ethnographic Museum in Dresden, Rizal offered his entire
collection of 300 shells to Meyer: “Do you want it? How much would they give me
for it? They are all shells of the district of Dapitan.” He ended with a cryptic “I
have no rifles yet.”
We don’t know what happened to the offer, but the Dresden Museum
does have some of Rizal’s shells. Dapitan provided the ambiance for Rizal to
write poetry again, after a long hiatus. Look up Nick Joaquin’s translation of the
original Spanish into English, described as “loose” but which better captures
Rizal’s literary style. “Mi Retiro” is a poem of longing and sadness, as would be
expected of an exile. But these strong emotions are woven around Rizal’s
descriptions of the interconnected webs of life around him, in nature. What we
see in “Mi Retiro” is a poetic rendition of environmental science, even if the term
had not yet been coined in his time. There’s a term used now in environmental
conservation: “from ridge to reef,” emphasizing the need to connect conservation
efforts from upland areas down to our seas. Look for that connection in this
stanza of “Mi Retiro”: “If the sky is serene, meekly flows the spring, strumming on
its invisible zither unceasingly; but come the time of the rains, and an impetuous
torrent spills over rocks and chasms—hoarse, foaming and aboil—to hurl itself
with a frenzied roaring toward the sea.” We read of forests and mountains, of
fields and rivers, set against the day, and nights, some silent, others mysterious.
Rizal saw butterflies and thought of his own life, of having been “vagrant
everywhere, with no qualms, with no terrors, squandered in foreign lands the
April of my life.” In exile, he compared himself to a “weary swallow” with broken
wings, “faith now sold to others, and ruins everywhere.” The last stanzas of “Mi
Retiro” refer to Rizal’s memories of those he had loved, and of faithful friends,
ending with ambivalence: “I found in my land a refuge under a pleasant orchard,
and in its shadowy forests, serene tranquility, repose to my intellect and silence
to my grief.”
My Last Farewell
It was written one night before his execution in Luneta Park in Fort
Santiago. That is why the poem, which literally means My Last Goodbye, is
entitled "Mi Ultimo Adios." Because of the given social condition, this popular
literary piece was written in which he experienced slavery, cruelty, and
aggression against his beloved fellow men. Rizal expresses his wish to die for his
motherland and bids farewell to his loved ones, his homeland and all the people
he cared for. He hopes that today's youth will continue what he had just begun
for the freedom for which he had fought, and he is also grateful to those Filipinos
who had just dedicated their lives for their motherland's affection. He never
resented putting his life in danger and was successfully executed
because of his determination and strong willingness to reform the political aspect
of equality between the Spaniards and the Filipinos, his destiny to die for his
country. He freed those words in his poem just to convey what he had felt during
the time he was in the cell and knowing that it was his last moment to devote his
life to his country, but his cry-laden agenda had not yet been fulfilled. The
wisdom and insight of Rizal upon writing his last poem "Mi Ultimo Adios" is
mirrored in the present on many edges. His love for the nation and many activists
is still formed today to fight for the country, to have freedom of speech and
criticism. We are fighting for our country, just as Rizal and many national heroes
are fighting for our country.
El Filibusterismo