I hated "History"... When i was in highschool, i got my lowest grade in History. (Asya Noon at Kailanman) Maybe because, my teachers were impersonal when they were telling us these stories of old, or maybe i just didn't care. Specially when dates were so important that you forgot what lesson on that time in history was teaching me. But then, when i read history again, without the pressure of memorizing things but rather having the natural curiosity of what transpired in the past... i discovered that i enjoy reading it. At ang kaisa-isang historian na nababasa ko... Mr. Ambeth Ocampo...
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Looking Back : Little known details about an old story
, July 19, 2005
Updated 11:28pmam (Mla time)
Ambeth Ocampo aocampo@ateneo.edu
Inquirer News Service
, July 19, 2005
Updated 11:28pmam (Mla time)
Ambeth Ocampo aocampo@ateneo.edu
Inquirer News Service
YESTERDAY I addressed the Philippine Board of Books for Young People at the Cultural Center on the theme "Masarap Magbasa sa Kandungan ni Nanay" [It Feels Good to Read on Mother's Lap]. One did not need Einstein's brain to see that the theme was tailor-fit for a historian whose career was made on the life and works of Jose Rizal. Naturally, the audience expected the retelling of the story of the moth and the flame that we all know so well. This was a recipe for sleep, so I was tempted to give the theme some zest by embarking on a Freudian take and perverting "kandungan ni nanay" [mother's lap] into a keynote lecture on Rizal and his Oedipus complex. Now that twist would surely have roused the crowd to attention, but PBBY was not the proper forum for an exploration into Rizal's inner fears and desires.
Revisiting Rizal's own version of this all too familiar story, however, revealed some details that are often overlooked. While the moth and the flame is a story all Filipinos know quite well, it is usually retold by someone else rather than through the eyes of our hero-to-be, Jose Rizal, in his juvenile diary. One night in the late 1860s, Rizal was sitting with his mother by a table dimly lit by a coconut oil lamp. She was teaching him to read from a book in Spanish, entitled "El Amigo de los Ninos"' (The Children's Friend). The book was old and tattered from use. No doubt Lolay (as Teodora Alonso was called) had used the exact same book as the "friend" of the six other children who were born before Rizal and the four that would follow after him. The cover of the book was lost but was repaired with a blue sheet of paper and a piece of cloth.
Contrary to popular belief, Rizal was reading poorly. Lolay became impatient and took the book from him only to discover that Rizal had drawn rude pictures on its pages! Naturally, Rizal was scolded and told how to care for and respect books. Then she instructed the boy to listen as she read. But Rizal was bored (I would like to think Rizal was actually reading poorly because he was distracted by his rude drawings on the book or worried that he would be found out and spanked or pinched for defacing one of Lolay's favorite books. In that context, the book title should have been "Enemigo de los Niños," because it was hardly an amigo at the time), Rizal instead busied himself watching the moths that were flying around the coconut oil lamp. When Rizal yawned, Lolay stopped reading and instead of shouting or giving him a pinch on the thigh to jolt him awake she said, "All right, I'm going to read you a nice story. Now pay attention."
The word "story" woke him up. Lessons were one thing, stories were another, and it is one of the gaps in history that we do not know the name of Rizal's "yaya" [nanny], who was probably illiterate, but introduced him to folklore with tales about the man on the moon, the "aswang" [local ghoul], and the other terrible characters that kept naughty children at bay. So history records Lolay and how she started to leaf through the pages of the book in search of a story. Rizal actually wondered whether a good story could be found there. He had read the same book once before and found nothing of interest. To his surprise mother chose to read a story about moths, and instead of the Spanish text of the book, Lolay started to tell the story in Tagalog, translating the text bit by bit. Finally, she had Rizal's attention.
The now-famous story (an animal version of the Greek legend of Icarus, his pride and his flight around the sun), the moth and the flame, was read to Rizal. We are all familiar with this story about the old moth (not necessarily a mother or father) that warned a young moth not to fly too close to a lighted candle lest it die. But the young moth was so attracted to the candle's light and warmth it disregarded the older moth's practical advice. Round and round the flame it flew. Finally it hovered so near the flame that its wings got burned. It fell and died.
What is not in our textbooks is that while listening to the story, Rizal continued to watch the moths flying around the lamp on the table. One of the moths flew near the flame and burned its wings. It fell into the bottom of the coconut oil lamp, fluttered its wings for a while, and became quiet. It was dead, not by burning but by drowning.
That night Lolay tucked Rizal into bed and repeated the lesson of the story. "Do not behave like the young moth," she warned him. "Do not be disobedient or you may get burnt as it did."
Recounting this story in his diary, Rizal wrote these forgotten lines: "Moths were no longer insignificant insects to me. They talked; they knew how to warn; they advised just like my mother."
There are a number of overlooked details in this story that should be emphasized. First, Rizal read poorly at the time and we must credit his mother for encouraging in him a life of the mind. Second, Rizal only listened when the story was retold in Tagalog, proof that children should learn using their mother tongue. Third, in the 21st century, the child pacifier is not a rubber thing shoved into a restless child's mouth, it is the TV set. Can we convince parents to read to their children instead of sitting them in front of the TV? Now that is the real challenge.
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu..
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-anben-
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