Leipzig
12 October 1886
MY DEAR BROTHER,
There I’m sending you at last the translation of Wilhelm Tell by Schiller which was delayed one week, being unable to finish it sooner on account of my numerous tasks. I’m aware of its many mistakes which I entrust to you and my brothers-in-law to correct. It is almost a literal translation. I’m forgetting Tagalog a little, as I don’t speak it with anyone. I wanted to introduce a slight reform into Tagalog orthography in order to make it easier and follow the ancient system of writing of our ancestors. For example, I have completely discarded the c which we don’t have, because our camí and cayó, for example, have another sound: It is a k with aspiration; for example, kh. Qu was also useless for neither do we have it nor does the sound of qu heard among us. Neither did I ever want to use y except at the beginning of a syllable like the old Tagalog y. Therefore, you have to correct it in many words where it is at the end. In short, read the note that I put on the last page.
I lacked many words, for example, for the word Freiheit or liberty. The Tagalog word kaligtasan cannot be used, because this means that formerly he was in some prison, slavery, etc. I found in the translation of Amor Patrio the noun malayá, kalayaban that Marcelo del Pilar uses. In the only Tagalog book I have – Florante – I don’t find equivalent noun. The same thing happened to me with the word Bund, liga in Spanish, alliance in French. The word tipánan which is translated in Arca de la alianza or fidelis arca doesn’t suffice, it seems to me. If you find a better word, substitute it. For the word Vogt or governor, I used the translation given to Pilate, hukúm. For the prose I used purposely the very difficult forms of Tagalog verbs that only Tagalogs understand. In short, I hope you and the others would correct it, not entirely and following the Spanish translation that you have there, which, whatever may be said, is not a direct translation from the German but from the French. Had I more time I would have reviewed it again. I shall do it when I will be there and publish translations of French, English, German, Italian, and Spanish classics too.
I received the draft of 366 marks for which I thank you, and if they cash it, I shall leave for Berlin at the end of this month. As you must have observed, here we lose 9% and still we are not sure of cashing it. I should like that henceforth you would always remit to me through Tuason or the English bank. If they don’t cash this here and I have to collect it in Madrid, imagine what I shall get, for here with the draft from Madrid to Germany, I shall lose another 9% at the least. Therefore, that Mr. Vaca would collect 18% just to make me spend for stamps, wait a long time, and bother my friends at Madrid. If Mr. Vaca were an honest person, he ought not to have dared accept an amount for remittance and charge so high if he was not sure that his signature would be honored, for his action can be judged very harshly. I believe that it would be better for you to remit it to me always to Paris, because the value of French money is always rising while that of Spanish is going down. A peseta that is worth a franc in the Philippines, in Germany is worth very much less.
With respect to my book, I was mistaken in my estimate. I thought that 1,500 copies would cost me 200 pesos. Now that I have talked with the printers and they have computed it, they ask me about 500 pesos for 1,000 copies, [and] for which reason I have desisted from publishing it.
However, there is one who asks me about 400 pesos for 1,000 copies of 450 pages, each of 38 lines, like the enclosed. This amount seems to me big and at that in Leipzig printing is the cheapest in all Europe. They ask me 12 pesos for [a] sheet while at Madrid it costs from 20 to 25 pesos. I don’t therefore dare ask you for this amount, for I consider it big for a work that may perchance produce more griefs than joys. For this reason, I shall wait for chance, for the lottery, and see if I win. As to the rest, payment is in three installments, at the start, the middle, and the end of the printing, which will take five months. It is very painful for me to give up publishing this work on which I have worked day and night for a period of many months and on which I have pinned great hopes. With this I wish to make myself known, for I suppose that it would not pass unnoticed; on the contrary, it will be the object of much discussion. If I can’t publish it, if luck doesn’t favor me, I leave Germany…
[The rest of the letter is missing]
03-173 [Reformists]