To My Muse

(A Mi Musa)
BACKGROUND
 To My Muse was written by Rizal under his pen name
Laong Laan on December 15 1890.

 It was published in La Solidaridad.

 It was written when Rizal felt worried about his family’s

condition in the Philippines. This further intensified
Rizal’s longing for them and caused him great pain to
not be with them during their suffering.
Stanza 1
No longer invoked is the muse,
And passed out vogue is the lyre,
Which none of the poets will use;
But young men, deluded, now choose
Quite different means to inspire.
Interpretation:
 The first two lines are referenced from Greek mythology. Muse, as used in this line can
be referred to as any of the nine sister goddesses presiding over song and poetry
and the arts and sciences. The muses give inspiration. To invoke the muse means to
be inspired to create.
 One of the muses, Erato, whose domain is lyric poetry, carries a Cithara, a form of
lyre. The second line implies that the lyre has gone out of style, hence, inspiration is
no longer drawn from the muses.
Stanza 2
Today if verse is called upon
To let imagination play,
No more invoked is Helicon;
They merely order the garcon
To bring a taza de café.
Interpretation:
 Mount Helicon was considered to be a source of poetic inspiration. In the late
seventh century BCE, the poet Hesiod placed a reference to the Muses on the
Helicon at the very beginning of his Theogony and later describes a meeting
between himself and the Muses on Mount Helicon, where he had been pasturing
sheep when the goddesses presented him with a laurel staff, a symbol of poetic
authority. The Helicon thus was an emblem of poetical inspiration.
 No longer is inspiration drawn from the goddesses, rather from mere coffee. Coffee,
which is often drank in order to get a burst of energy.
Stanza 3
Instead of inspiration real
To set the beating heart on fire,
They write their poetry no higher,
(While flourishing a pen of steel)
Than foolish jest and cheap satire.
Interpretation:
 Again Rizal states that instead of real inspiration drawn from the goddesses, they
simply write poetry for the sake of having written one. Rizal compares this writing to
satire. Satire being a writing that shows the weaknesses or bad qualities of the poet
or the poem itself.
Stanza 4
O Muse, through whim in early years
My joyous inspiration chose
To sing of love; take your repose!
Today my needs are keen rapiers,
And streams of gold and acrid prose.
Interpretation:
 Rizal states in this stanza, that the muse that once inspired him to write about love
must now leave him because he does not need it anymore.
Stanza 5
I must strive in hot debate,
Meditate, and wage combat, –
Sometimes weep about my fate. –
Any man whose love is great
Has to suffer much for that.
Interpretation:
 This stanza reflects what Rizal is feeling while he was writing this poem. He was living in
a foreign country, away from his family who he knows are suffering. He is conflicted
with finishing his novel, the El Filibusterismo, which he is doing to fight for his fatherland
that he loves and with going home to be with his family that he also loves. Because
of his love for both his country and his family, he is suffering as well.
Stanza 6 and 7
Fled are all the days of calm,
Those blissful lovers’ hours,
When cause enough were flowers
To give our souls a soothing balm
For every pain and grief of ours.
Those I loved have one by one
Gone forever from my side;
This one married, that one died.
The seal of fate has now undone
Every plan my hand has tried.

Interpretation:
 No longer is love able to console Rizal’s soul, His pain leaving him turmoil.
 Flowers here may represent love, or the state of being in love.

 Rizal is living alone in a foreign country, where it is natural to feel lonely. He misses his
family and blames himself for the suffering they are going through. In his letter to his
sister Soledad, after he received the news of what happened to them in Calamba,
he wrote, “I have caused much harm to our family, but at least there remains to us
the consolation of knowing that the motive is not disgraceful…”
Stanza 8
Go, too, Muse, I bid thee flee;
Seek another clime more pure;
For my homeland offers thee
For thy laurels – tyranny,
And for temples – jails obscure.
Interpretation:
 Rizal begs the Muse to leave not only him but his homeland, for it to seek another
land more pure, because his homeland only offers those who should be rewarded
are treated cruelly.
Stanza 9
Though it seems a shame or impious
To drive you out, O truth within me,
Would it not appear delirious
To retain you by me thus
Deprived of all your liberty?
Interpretation:
 The Muses are the personification of literary arts, music, visual arts, and science.
 Here Rizal writes as though he is speaking to that person, he tells her that although it is
disrespectful to tell a goddess to leave, he argues that it will be foolish to not let her
go and deprive her of her liberty or independence.
Stanza 10 and 11
And – what to sing when grim command
From destiny cries: “Search for truth”;
When tempests roar above our land;
And Filipino towns demand,
In raucous voice, thy tender youth.
And what to sing? If my sad song,
Trembling through a flood of tears,
Can excite no pity long;
If, when others suffer wrong,
The weary world unheeding hears?

Interpretation:
 Stanza 10 and 11 shows the people’s demands from the youth, when the land is in
chaos, Rizal asks what to answer.

 At the same time, he asks what to sing (what to write) if his writing s no longer calls for
any attention, and with the world too tired to listen.
Stanza 12
And what? If in this heedless mob
Which criticizes and maltreats –
Souls dr’vn, with lips too cold to sob –
There be no tender heart that beats
In sympathy with my heart throb.
Interpretation:
 Rizal further states his lament and questions for what does he continue to write for
people who are not listening and yet criticizes and maltreats him. Why must he
endure all this when there is no one who sympathizes with him.
Stanza 13 and 14
Then let slumber in the lake
Of dark oblivion, all my care;
That my spirit, with it there,
May not futile verses make,
That vanish quickly in thin air.
As the monsters of the deep
In the abysmal darkness loll,
So let my deep sorrow sleep;
All my songs and fancies keep
Entombed within my secret soul.

Interpretation:
 Rizal expresses his wish for all of his feelings and sorrow to vanish, as well as his lyrics,
imaginations, and all his dreams to vanish into oblivion and be kept in his soul where
it will forever remain
Stanza 15 and 16
Well I know that all your grace
You were wont to dissipate
In the flower of youth’s brief space
And of first love’s thrilled embrace,
Free from clouds of worry’s weight.
Many years have now passed by
Since the time your ardent kiss
Touched my brow with burning bliss
Now those kisses frozen lie;
Soon their memory will die.

Interpretation:
 Here, it appears that Rizal is talking to the Muse again. He is saying that her grace is
bound to go and remain his youth’s memory and in love.

 He speaks of the time that he was blessed with her kiss (inspiration), and now, it has
gone and its memory will soon die as well.
Stanza 17
But before you leave me, tell,
How, to your sublime request,
You ever found me answer well;
A song for all who were distressed
A slash for all who have oppressed.
Interpretation:
 Rizal, asks the muse, before she leaves him to grant him one request, to give a song
dedicated to those who suffer under the oppression. Song can refer to a poem ,
which have music accompaniment.
 A slash for all who have oppressed. A slash means to inflict pain, to hurt and defy
those who have oppressed. For the Filipinos to defy the Spaniards who have
oppressed us.
Stanza 18
But before you leave me, tell,
How, to your sublime request,
You ever found me answer well;
A song for all who were distressed
A slash for all who have oppressed.
Interpretation:
 Rizal, asks the muse, before she leaves him to grant him one request, to give a song
dedicated to those who suffer under the oppression. Song can refer to a poem ,
which have music accompaniment.
 A slash for all who have oppressed. A slash means to inflict pain, to hurt and defy
those who have oppressed. For the Filipinos to defy the Spaniards who have
oppressed us.
Stanza 19 and 20
Sacred Inspiration, thou wilt yet come back,
That my flaming fancy by thee may be fanned.
If my faith should wither, and my sword should
crack,
I should not have strength to die for fatherland.
You will offer me a zither veiled in black,
Vibrant with an elegy on every strand,
To relieve the keenness of my nation’s
pains
And to muffle down the clanging of her
chains.

Interpretation:
 Towards the end of the poem, Rizal wills the Muse (inspiration) to come back
because he believes that if his faith should fade, and his sword, his pen or mind, that
he uses to write and would not be able to without inspiration, then he will not have
the strength to die for his fatherland.
 A zither is a stringed instrument – covered in black. This zither will serve as his weapon
to relieve the people of his nation from their pain and to drown the clanging of
chains which bind his nation and finally free them from the oppression.
Stanza 21
If some future day, adorn’d with laurel crown,
Through our travail, my dear motherland gives birth,
Offering a queen to rule this ardent zone,
A pearl pure and white, redeemed from the earth,
Then return and sing to her with vigorous tone,
A sacred hymn of that new life of higher worth,
And we ourselves will sing to join thee in the chorus
E’en though perchance a sepulcher be arching o’er us.
Interpretation:
 Rizal ends the poem with his hope that if someday, through their efforts, the
motherland is freed, which he likened to an unearthed pearl that is pure and white,
that we sing to her a sacred hymn and they will sing with us, they who may have
died for our freedom.
Reflection
Rizal wrote this poem because of his disappointment over the half- hearted
attitude of the Filipino expatriates working for the reforms in Spain and it also
expresses his bitterness over the troubles in Calamba. This poem exposes what Rizal
is going through while he is struggling to finish his novel, living in a foreign land while
his family is suffering at home. It showed how Rizal came close to giving up all
together, for his suffering to end. In a way, the poem hints that Rizal, at one point,
Rizal felt that his literary gift was a burden and in this poem, he wishes for his “gift”
to leave him yet in the end he clings to it, because it enabled him to fight for his
motherland.
This poem also shows how dedicated Rizal is to his cause, that to free his
motherland, he endured all the sufferings that he went through and reminded us to
be grateful that we live in a country that is free and encouraged us to feel proud
and sing to her with vigor with a strong sense of nationalism.