Magtiis ka
Dublin Core
Title
Date
Description
In Spanish at least, one of the most popular genres of Philippine literature is poetry. The fondness comes from pre-Hispanic times when in order to remember epics and songs, the text was given a musical form that favored its memorization. Very often the poems were only published in the periodical press and were never compiled in anthologies or collections of poems by a single author.
This poem by Jacinto Suban called "Magtiis ka" (Be patient) is a religious poem, related to what has been called sapiential literature. It was published in a Protestant newspaper that advocated US interests in the Philippines, entitled Ang Tanglaw (The Torch). The text mimics the message of the Old Testament’s Book of Job. It uses numerous biblical images –also from the New Testament– to illustrate the need to be patient in the face of adversity. Interestingly, it mentions poverty, a social scourge that hardly appeared in the more idealistic literature of the 1920s. As a reference, the first stanza translates as:
Can the shoulder of your life bear no more
under the cross of poverty that you drag with so much difficulty?
Is it all failures?
Are you the one who always cries out at night, day and night?
Turn your forehead to the sky for support.
No matter what comes, you will be able to endure!
Source
Suban, Jacinto. 1925. “Magtiis Ka” Ang Tanglaw. 1925, p. 14. In Open Access Repository @ UPD.
Relation
Lumbera, Bienvenido & Lumbera, Cinthya. 1982. Philippine Literature. A History and Anthology. Metro Manila, National Bookstore.
Ortuño Casanova. 2019. Filiteratura database. https://filiteratura.uantwerpen.be/