ON LUNA AND HIDALGO
by: Jose Rizal
SEPTEMBER 2013–I desire to unite with you in a single thought, in one sole aspiration: the glorification of genius, the exaltation of the Fatherland.
Such is, indeed, the reason for this gathering. In the history of mankind there are names which in themselves signify an achievement, which call up reverence and greatness-names which, like magic formulas, invoke agreeable and pleasant ideas, names which come to form a compact, a token of peace, a bond of love among the nations. Among them belong the names of Luna and Hidalgo: their splendor illuminates two hemispheres of the globe, the Orient and the Occident, Spain and the Philippines. As I utter those names, I seem to see two luminous arches that rise from each region to blend there on high, impelled by the sympathy of a common origin; and, from that height, to unite two peoples with eternal bonds, two peoples among do not germinate the seeds of disunion blindly sown by men and their despotism. Luna and Hidalgo are the pride of Spain as well as the Philippines. Though born in the Philippines, they might have been born in Spain, for genius has no country, genius bursts forth everywhere, genius is like light and air the patrimony of all: cosmopolitan as space, as life, and as God.
The patriarchal era in the Philippines is passing away; the illustrious deeds of its sons are not circumscribes by the home.The Oriental chrysalis is emerging from its cocoon; the dawn of a broader day is heralded for those regions in brilliant tints and rosy-dawn hues, and that race, lethargic during night of history while the sun was illuminating other continents, begins to awake-urged by the dynamic shocks produced by the contact with Occidental peoples-begs for light, life, and the civilization that once might have been its heritage, and thus confirms the eternal law of constant evolution, of transformation, of recurring phenomena, of progress.
They imbibed there the poetry of nature-nature grand and the terrible in her cataclysms, in her transformations, in her conflict of forces: nature sweet, peaceful, and melancholy in her constant manifestation, unchanging; nature that stamps her seal upon whatsoever she creates or produced. Her sons carry it wherever they go. Analyze, if not her characteristics, her works; and little as you may know that people, you will see her everything moulding its knowledge, as the soul that everywhere presides, as the spring of the mechanism, as the substantial form, as the raw material. It is impossible not to show what on feels, it is impossible to be one thing and to do another-contradictions are only apparent, they are merely paradoxes. In El Spoliarium, on that canvas which is not mute, is heard the tumult of the throng, the cry of salves, the metallic rattle of the armor on the corpses, the sobs of orphans, the hum of prayers, with as much force and realism as is heard in the crash of the thunder amid the roar of the cataracts, or in the fearful and the frightful rumble of the earthquake. The same nature that conceives such phenomena has also a share in those lines.
On the other hand, in Hidalgo’s work are revealed feelings of the purest kind, an ideal expression of melancholy, beauty, and weakness, – the victims of brute force. And this is because Hidalgo was born beneath the dazzling azure of that sky, to the murmur of the breezes of her seas, in the placidity of her lakes, the poetry of her valleys, and the majestic harmony of her hills and mountains.
So in Luna we find the shades, the contrasts, the fading lights, the mysterious and the terrible, like an echo of the dark storms of the tropics, its thunderbolts, and the destructive of its volcanoes. So in Hidalgo we find everything light in color, harmony, feeling, clearness, like the Philippines on moonlight nights, with her horizons that invite meditation and suggest infinity. Yet both of them, although they are very different in appearance, are fundamentally one,-in the same way that our hearts beat in unison in spite of striking differences. Both, by depicting from their palettes the dazzling rays of the tropical sun, have transformed into rays of the unfading glory the beauties of the Fatherland. Both express the spirit of our social, moral, and political life: humanity subjected to hard trials, humanity unredeemed, reason and aspiration in open fight with prejudice, fanaticism, and injustice, because feeling and opinion make way through the thickest walls, because for them all bodies are porous, all are transparent; and if the pen fails them and the printed word does not come to their aid, then the palette and the brush are not only a delight to the view, but are also eloquent advocates.
If the mother teaches her child her language in order to understand its joys, its needs, and its woes, so Spain, like that mother, also teaches her language to the Philippines, in spite of the opposition of the purblind pygmies who, sure of the present, are unable to extend their vision into the future and do not weigh the consequences-sickly nurses, corrupted and corrupting, perverting the heart of the peoples, sowing among them the seeds of discord, to reap later the harvest, the aconite, the death of future generations.
But, away with these woes! Peace to the dead, because they are dead-breath and the soul are lacking them, worms to eat them! Let us not invoke their sad remembrance; let us not drag their ghastliness into our rejoicing! Happily, brothers we are once more- generosity and nobility are innate under the sky of Spain-of this fact you are all patent proof. You have unanimously responded, you have cooperated, and you would have done more had more been asked. Seated at our festal board and honoring the illustrious sons of the Philippines, you also honor Spain, because as you are well aware, Spain boundaries are not the Atlantic or the Bay of Biscay or the Mediterranean- a shame would it be for water to place a barrier to her greatness, her though-Spain id there, there where her beneficent influence is exerted; and though her flag should disappear, there would remain her memory,-eternal, imperishable. What matters a strip of red and yellow cloth, what matter the guns and cannons, there where a feeling of love, of affection, does not flourish-there where there is no fusion of ideas, no harmony of opinions?
Luna and Hidalgo belong to you as much as they do to us-you love them, you see in them noble hopes, valuable example. The Filipino youth of Europe always enthusiastic, and some other persons whose hearts remain ever young through the disinterestedness and enthusiasm that characterize their actions, tender Luna a crown, a humble tribute, small indeed compared to our enthusiasm, but the most spontaneous and freest of all the tribute yet paid to him.
But the gratitude of the Philippines to her illustrious sons was yet unsatisfied; and desiring to give free rein to the thoughts that stir in her mind, to the feelings that overflow her heart, and to the words that escape from her lips, we have all come together, to give shape to that mutual understanding between two races that love and care for each other,-united morally, socially, and politically for the scape of four centuries, so that they may form in the future a single nation in spirit, in duties, in aims, in rights.
I drink, then, to the health of our artists, Luna and Hidalgo, genuine and the sterling glories of two peoples! I drink to the health of the persons who have given them aid on the uncertain pilgrimage of art! I drink that the Filipino youth, the sacred hope of my mother Spain, solicitous and heedful of the welfare of her provinces, may quickly put into practice the reforms she has so long planned-as the furrow is laid out and the land is not barren! And, finally, I drink to the happiness of those parents who, deprived of their sons’ affections, follow them from those distant regions with moist eyes and throbbing hearts across the seas and the distance by consecrating on the altar of the common good the sweet consolations that are so scarce in the decline of life,-precious and solitary flowers that spring up on the edge of the grave.
