Note 13 — Chapter XIV · THE EXILE OF DAPITAN

Concerning his place as a poet, most of his poetry was written in Spanish and after the approved Spanish manner. Like other poetry it is virtually incapable of translation. The thought may be indicated but not the melodic significance, so important in Spanish, and of which he was a facile master. How impossible it is to reproduce this in translation is apparent to one that will compare the five-line Spanish stanza as Rizal left it and the best English version of the same stanza. A poem that he wrote at Dapitan, “My Retreat,”13 dedicated to his mother, is an adequate expression of the reverent attitude toward nature that he managed to carry with him unimpaired in so many vicissitudes and long inhumations in the sordid dust of cities. This is the first stanza in Mr. Derbyshire’s version:14