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The Reign of Greed
A Complete English Version of _El Filibusterismo_ from the Spanish of Jose Rizal
By
Charles Derbyshire
Manila Philippine Education Company 1912
Copyright, 1912, by Philippine Education Company.Entered at Stationers' Hall.Registrado en las Islas Filipinas._All rights reserved_.
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
El Filibusterismo, the second of Jose Rizal's novels of Philippinelife, is a story of the last days of the Spanish regime in thePhilippines. Under the name of _The Reign of Greed_ it is for thefirst time translated into English. Written some four or five yearsafter _Noli Me Tangere_, the book represents Rizal's more maturejudgment on political and social conditions in the islands, and inits graver and less hopeful tone reflects the disappointments anddiscouragements which he had encountered in his efforts to lead theway to reform. Rizal's dedication to the first edition is of specialinterest, as the writing of it was one of the grounds of accusationagainst him when he was condemned to death in 1896. It reads:
"To the memory of the priests, Don Mariano Gomez (85 years old), Don Jose Burgos (30 years old), and Don Jacinto Zamora (35 years old). Executed in Bagumbayan Field on the 28th of February, 1872.
"The Church, by refusing to degrade you, has placed in doubt the crime that has been imputed to you; the Government, by surrounding your trials with mystery and shadows, causes the belief that there was some error, committed in fatal moments; and all the Philippines, by worshiping your memory and calling you martyrs, in no sense recognizes your culpability. In so far, therefore, as your complicity in the Cavite mutiny is not clearly proved, as you may or may not have been patriots, and as you may or may not have cherished sentiments for justice and for liberty, I have the right to dedicate my work to you as victims of the evil which I undertake to combat. And while we await expectantly upon Spain some day to restore your good name and cease to be answerable for your death, let these pages serve as a tardy wreath of dried leaves over your unknown tombs, and let it be understood that every one who without clear proofs attacks your memory stains his hands in your blood!
J. Rizal."
A brief recapitulation of the story in _Noli Me Tangere_ (The SocialCancer) is essential to an understanding of such plot as there isin the present work, which the author called a "continuation" of thefirst story.
Juan Crisostomo Ibarra is a young Filipino, who, after studyingfor seven years in Europe, returns to his native land to find thathis father, a wealthy landowner, has died in prison as the resultof a quarrel with the parish curate, a Franciscan friar named PadreDamaso. Ibarra is engaged to a beautiful and accomplished girl, MariaClara, the supposed daughter and only child of the rich Don Santiagode los Santos, commonly known as "Capitan Tiago," a typical Filipinocacique, the predominant character fostered by the friar regime.
Ibarra resolves to forego all quarrels and to work for the bettermentof his people. To show his good intentions, he seeks to establish,at his own expense, a public school in his native town. He meets withostensible support from all, especially Padre Damaso's successor,a young and gloomy Franciscan named Padre Salvi, for whom Maria Claraconfesses to an instinctive dread.
At the laying of the corner-stone for the new schoolhouse asuspicious accident, apparently aimed at Ibarra's life, occurs, butthe festivities proceed until the dinner, where Ibarra is grossly andwantonly insulted over the memory of his father by Fray Damaso. Theyoung man loses control of himself and is about to kill the friar,who is saved by the intervention of Maria Clara.
Ibarra is excommunicated, and Capitan Tiago, through his fear of thefriars, is forced to break the engagement and agree to the marriage ofMaria Clara with a young and inoffensive Spaniard provided by PadreDamaso. Obedient to her reputed father's command and influencedby her mysterious dread of Padre Salvi, Maria Clara consents tothis arrangement, but becomes seriously ill, only to be saved bymedicines sent secretly by Ibarra and clandestinely administered bya girl friend.
Ibarra succeeds in having the excommunication removed, but before hecan explain matters an uprising against the Civil Guard is secretlybrought about through agents of Padre Salvi, and the leadership isascribed to Ibarra to ruin him. He is warned by a mysterious friend,an outlaw called Elias, whose life he had accidentally saved; butdesiring first to see Maria Clara, he refuses to make his escape,and when the outbreak occurs he is arrested as the instigator of itand thrown into prison in Manila.
On the evening when Capitan Tiago gives a ball in his Manila house tocelebrate his supposed daughter's engagement, Ibarra makes his escapefrom prison and succeeds in seeing Maria Clara alone. He begins toreproach her because it is a letter written to her before he went toEurope which forms the basis of the charge against him, but she clearsherself of treachery to him. The letter had been secured from her byfalse representations and in exchange for two others written by hermother just before her birth, which prove that Padre Damaso is herreal father. These letters had been accidentally discovered in theconvento by Padre Salvi, who made use of them to intimidate the girland get possession of Ibarra's letter, from which he forged othersto incriminate the young man. She tells him that she will marry theyoung Spaniard, sacrificing herself thus to save her mother's nameand Capitan Tiago's honor and to prevent a public scandal, but thatshe will always remain true to him.
Ibarra's escape had been effected by Elias, who conveys him in abanka up the Pasig to the Lake, where they are so closely beset bythe Civil Guard that Elias leaps into the water and draws the pursuersaway from the boat, in which Ibarra lies concealed.
On Christmas Eve, at the tomb of the Ibarras in a gloomy wood,Elias appears, wounded and dying, to find there a boy named Basiliobeside the corpse of his mother, a poor woman who had been drivento insanity by her husband's neglect and abuses on the part of theCivil Guard, her younger son having disappeared some time before inthe convento, where he was a sacristan. Basilio, who is ignorant ofElias's identity, helps him to build a funeral pyre, on which hiscorpse and the madwoman's are to be burned.
Upon learning of the reported death of Ibarra in the chase on the Lake,Maria Clara becomes disconsolate and begs her supposed godfather,Fray Damaso, to put her in a nunnery. Unconscious of her knowledge oftheir true relationship, the friar breaks down and confesses that allthe trouble he has stirred up with the Ibarras has been to prevent herfrom marrying a native, which would condemn her and her children tothe oppressed and enslaved class. He finally yields to her entreatiesand she enters the nunnery of St. Clara, to which Padre Salvi is soonassigned in a ministerial capacity.
O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands, Is this the handiwork you give to God, This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched? How will you ever straighten up this shape-; Touch it again with immortality; Give back the upward looking and the light; Rebuild in it the music and the dream; Make right the immemorial infamies, Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands, How will the future reckon with this man? How answer his brute question in that hour When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world? How will it be with kingdoms and with kings-- With those who shaped him to the thing he is-- When this dumb terror shall reply to God, After the silence of the centuries?
Edwin Markham
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