Cabesang Tales Character Analysis

But the justices of the peace and those in the capital refused to side with him. They were afraid of losing their own positions. […] They were not bad men. They were conscientious, moral, good citizens, excellent fathers, good sons; too good, perhaps. They knew Tales’s situation perhaps better than he did himself. Many of them knew the property’s legal and historical background. They knew that because of their own statutes the friars could not have owned the property. They knew all that and more. They also knew that coming from afar, from across the sea with a hard-earned position, trying their best to carry it out with the best of intentions, to lose it because an indio took it into his head that justice was supposed to be the same on earth as it is in heaven, well, what a crazy idea!

And they’re not happy with just being unjust, no, or upsetting your country’s traditions […] you have served Spain and the king, but when in their name you ask for justice, they offer no protection. They throw you off your own land without a trial and without even a good reason. They rip you from the arms of your wives and the embrace of your children. Some of you have suffered even more than Cabesang Tales and yet none of you had justice […] without pity or humanity they persecuted you even beyond the grave, as they did to Mariano Herbosa. Cry or laugh on the lonely islands where you wander, unsure of the future. Spain, generous Spain, watches over you and, sooner or later, you will get justice!

Simoun suddenly stopped speaking, as if he had been cut off. Somewhere inside him a voice asked if he, Simoun, were not indeed part of the trash of that damned city, perhaps even its most destructive ferment. And as the dead rise at the sound of the eternal trumpet, a thousand bloody ghosts, desperate shadows of murdered men, dishonored women, fathers torn from their families, vices engendered and fostered, virtues rejected now rose up in the echoes of that mysterious question. For the first time in his career as a criminal, since Havana, when through vice and bribery he had decided to create a means to carry out his plans, a man without faith, without patriotism, without conscience, for the first time in that era of his life something inside of him came out and protested his actions.

Rest in peace, sad daughter of my wretched country! Bury in your tomb the charms of youth, withered in their prime. When a people cannot provide its maidens with a peaceful home, a shelter of holy freedom, when a man can leave only dubious words to a widow, tears to his mother, slavery to his children, it’s better to condemn you all to perpetual chastity, drowning in your womanhood a future, damned generation.

But the justices of the peace and those in the capital refused to side with him. They were afraid of losing their own positions. […] They were not bad men. They were conscientious, moral, good citizens, excellent fathers, good sons; too good, perhaps. They knew Tales’s situation perhaps better than he did himself. Many of them knew the property’s legal and historical background. They knew that because of their own statutes the friars could not have owned the property. They knew all that and more. They also knew that coming from afar, from across the sea with a hard-earned position, trying their best to carry it out with the best of intentions, to lose it because an indio took it into his head that justice was supposed to be the same on earth as it is in heaven, well, what a crazy idea!

And they’re not happy with just being unjust, no, or upsetting your country’s traditions […] you have served Spain and the king, but when in their name you ask for justice, they offer no protection. They throw you off your own land without a trial and without even a good reason. They rip you from the arms of your wives and the embrace of your children. Some of you have suffered even more than Cabesang Tales and yet none of you had justice […] without pity or humanity they persecuted you even beyond the grave, as they did to Mariano Herbosa. Cry or laugh on the lonely islands where you wander, unsure of the future. Spain, generous Spain, watches over you and, sooner or later, you will get justice!

Simoun suddenly stopped speaking, as if he had been cut off. Somewhere inside him a voice asked if he, Simoun, were not indeed part of the trash of that damned city, perhaps even its most destructive ferment. And as the dead rise at the sound of the eternal trumpet, a thousand bloody ghosts, desperate shadows of murdered men, dishonored women, fathers torn from their families, vices engendered and fostered, virtues rejected now rose up in the echoes of that mysterious question. For the first time in his career as a criminal, since Havana, when through vice and bribery he had decided to create a means to carry out his plans, a man without faith, without patriotism, without conscience, for the first time in that era of his life something inside of him came out and protested his actions.

Rest in peace, sad daughter of my wretched country! Bury in your tomb the charms of youth, withered in their prime. When a people cannot provide its maidens with a peaceful home, a shelter of holy freedom, when a man can leave only dubious words to a widow, tears to his mother, slavery to his children, it’s better to condemn you all to perpetual chastity, drowning in your womanhood a future, damned generation.