ABDALA
SELECTIONS
Published in La Patria Libre, the only issue of the first newspaper to be founded by Marti, which appeared in the early months of the Ten Years War—on January 23, 1869, when its author had just turned sixteen—Abdala is a dramatic poem in eight scenes, whose plot is as follows: A senator begs the young warrior Abdala to save Nubia from the invaders closing in on it. Abdala gladly agrees and inflames a group of warriors with his patriotic ideals. His mother, Espirta, enters and begs him not to go. He sends the warriors away, argues with her, and leaves. Finally, Abdala is carried back from battle in the arms of his warriors.
An 1867 census determined that Cuba had a total population of 1,370,211, of whom 764,750 were white, and 605,461 were black or “colored. ” Cuba’s independence movement was strongest in the impoverished and predominantly black eastern provinces. As a result, the movement was often depicted by its enemies as a slave uprising, a race war bent on making Cuba into another Haiti. Martí’s decision to use the ancient African kingdom of Nubia as the setting for his allegory of Cuban independence was therefore highly provocative.
Written expressly for La Patria
Characters
Abdala
Espirta, Abdala’s mother
Elmira, Abdala’s sister
Warriors
The action takes place in Nubia.
Scene II
ABDALA
Abdala: At last my strong, sinewy arm
can brandish the hard scimitar,
and my noble steed can fly
fleet amid the din of battle!
At last my head shall be garlanded with glory;
I shall be the one to free my anguished patria,
and wrest my people from the oppressor
whose talons rip them apart!
And the vile tyrant who threatens Nubia
will weep for forgiveness and life at my feet!
And those cowards who help him
will groan, appalled by our strength!
And into the quagmire that haughty forehead will sink,
and in the vile quagmire his soul will wallow,
and the plain where his camp sprawls
will bear mute witness to his infamy,
and the oppressor will bow before the free man,
and the oppressed will avenge his stigma!
And so the raging enemies
will hurl themselves, barbaric, at our ranks.
And fight—run—retreat—fly—
fall inert—rise up moaning—
prepare for another encounter—and die!
Now their cowardly and routed hosts
flee across the plain: Oh! how joy
gives strength and steadiness and life to my soul!
How my valor grows! How the blood
blazes in my veins! How this invincible
fervor carries me away! How I long
to go forth into battle!
Scene V
ESPIRTA AND ABDALA
Abdala: Forgive me, oh Mother! for leaving you
and going to the battlefield. Oh! These tears are
witness to my terrible yearning,
and the hurricane that rages deep within me.
(ESPIRTA weeps.)
Do not weep, oh Mother! my own burning tears
are sufficient to my pain.
It is not the groans of the dying or the clash
and hard smiting of mighty weapons
that bring tears to my sad eyes
and fear to my brave heart!
Perhaps I shall return lifeless,
or shall, hidden amid the clamor of battle,
fall victim to blood and furor.
It matters not to me. If Abdala knew
that by his blood Nubia would be saved
from the terrible foreign claws,
I would stain those robes you wear,
my mother, with drops of my own blood.
I tremble for you alone, and though I do not show
my tears to the warriors of my patria,
see how they run down my face, oh Mother!
See how they spill across my cheeks!
Espirta: And so much love for this patch of earth?
Did it protect you in your childhood?
Did it bear you lovingly in its bosom?
Was it the land that gave birth to your daring,
your strength? Answer me! Was it your mother?
Or was it Nubia?
Abdala: Love, Mother, for the patria
is not a foolish love for the dirt
and grass where our feet walk;
it is an invincible hatred of those who oppress her,
an eternal hostility toward those who attack her—
and such a love awakens in our breast
a world of memories that call us back
to life once more when the blood
wells in anguish from the wounded soul—
the image of love that consoles us
and the placid memories it preserves!
Espirta: And this love is greater than that stirred
in your breast by your mother?
Abdala: Can it be that you believe
there exists a thing more sublime than the patria?
Scene VIII
(Enter warriors carrying a wounded ABDALA in their arms.)
Elmira and Espirta (horrified): Abdala!
(The warriors bear ABDALA to center stage.)
Abdala: Yes, Abdala, who returns a dying man
to throw himself in surrender at your feet,
then go where he cannot
brandish any blade or seize any spear.
I come to exhale in your arms, Mother,
my last sighs, and my soul!
To die! To die when Nubia is fighting;
when the noble blood of my brothers
is being spilled, Mother, when the patria
expects her freedom from our strength!
Oh, Mother, do not weep! Fly as
noble matrons fly on wings of valor
to cry to the warriors on the field:
“Fight! Fight, oh Nubians! Take heart!”
Espirta: Not to cry, you tell me? And will the patria ever repay me for your life?
Abdala: The life of a noble man, my mother, is to fight and die in obedience to the patria, and, if need be, to rend his entrails with his own steel, to save her! But ... I feel myself dying, in my final agony. (To all.) Do not come near to disturb my sad calm. Silence! ... I want to hear ... Oh! It seems that the enemy host, in defeat, is fleeing across the plain.... Listen! ... Silence! I see them running now.... Upon the cowards the valiant warriors hurl themselves.... Nubia has triumphed! I die happy; death matters little to me, for I have saved her.... Oh, how sweet it is to die, when I die fighting boldly to defend my patria! (He falls into the warriors’ arms.)
LETTER TO HIS MOTHER FROM PRISON
On October 21, 1869, Martí and his lifelong friend Fermín Valdés Domínguez were arrested and imprisoned by the Spanish authorities after an unsent letter was found in Dominguez’s room addressed to a schoolmate who bad enlisted in a Spanish regiment. The letter, signed by both boys, read: “Compañero: Have you ever dreamed of the glory of the apostates? Do you know how apostasy was punished in Antiquity? We hope that a disciple of Señor Rafael María de Mendive1 cannot allow this letter to go unanswered.”
2 November 10
Madre mía:
Two days ago I sent you a letter with a Frenchman who comes to see the Domínguezes—not the one who was there—and he told me he wasn’t able to take the letter. He promised me he would take it. Tell me if he does.
The day before yesterday I wrote you as well, but I had no one to send the letters with and I don’t want to slip them under the door of the prison canteen. Since I’m writing you today, I’ll tear up the letter from the day before yesterday.
Yesterday, the Fiscal was here and questioned me with considerable interest about my case and my condition. I told him what I knew, but it’s very strange that the person who is to pass judgment on me must ask me why I am in prison. It appeared from what he told me that someone has talked to him about me. The Domínguezes and Sellén will go free in the end, and I will stay in jail. The results of imprisonment frighten me very little, but I haven’t endured life as a prisoner for very long. And that is all I ask: that things move quickly; that to one who has done nothing, nothing be done. At least they cannot accuse me of anything I cannot undo.
I am sorry to be behind bars, but my imprisonment is very useful to me. It has given me plenty of lessons for my life, which I foresee will be short, and I will not fail to make use of them. I am sixteen years old, and many old men have told me I am like an old man. And they are right in a way: because while I have in full measure the recklessness and effervescence of my young age, I also have a heart as small as it is wounded. It is true that you are suffering greatly—but it is also true that I am suffering more. God willing, someday in happier times I will be able to tell you about the vicissitudes of my life!
I am a prisoner, and that is an undeniable truth, but I lack for nothing except two or three reales from time to time to have some coffee—but today is the first time that has happened. Still, when one is living without seeing one’s family or any of those one loves, one can spend a day without coffee. Papa gave me five or six reales on Monday. I gave two or three away as alms and loaned two.
On Sunday, bring one of the little girls to see me.
This is an ugly school, for although decent women come here, there is no lack of others who are not.
So little lack is there that the visit occurs every day at four. Thank God that the women’s bodies became like stone to me. Their soul is the immensely great thing, and if that is ugly they can proffer their beauties somewhere else. Nothing prison can do will be able to make me change my mind on this point.
In prison I’ve written not a line of poetry. In part, I’m glad, because you know what the poems I write are like, and will be like.
Here everyone talks to me about Señor Mendive, and that makes me happy. Send me books of poems, and a large one called The Universal Museum. Give your blessing to your son.
Pepe
