The Life of Lam-ang (an Iloko epic) - Page 15 of 16

The stove broke to pieces.
The woman Cannoyan
The wept.

My husband Don Lam-ang,
Where can you be now.
There is none I can hire

To look for you.
The woman Cannoyan then sought help
And found Marcos, the diver.

She then tied the white rooster,
The yellow-legged hen,
The woman Cannoyan.

She also leashed the hairy dog
With the curly locks
Then cradled the white rooster.

She left and soon reached the spot
Where his clothes were.
There at the spot where Lam-ang was,

Cannoyan cried,
Overwhelmed by sorrow.
The cock comforted her thus:

Mistress, don’t you worry.
Master Lam-ang certainly shall live
If they can locate his bones.

The diver, old man Marcos,
Dived then.
But he failed to find the bones.

The second time he dived,
He found the bones
Where the shark had expelled them.

The cock said:
Sir, take all the bones and beach them:
None should be missing.

And when no more bones could be found,
The cock examined the bones closely.
He found nothing missing.

The bones of Lam-ang
Having been completed,
This is what he said:

I shall turn my back
While you cover the bones
With your skirt.

The yellow-legged hen crowed;
The rooster shook its wings.
And the bones started to move.

The dog with the curly locks
Howled twice
Then clawed the ground

As though to bury the bones of Lam-ang.
Then the man Lam-ang
Got-up at once.

How soundly I slept, my wife Canoyan.
It’s been seven nights
Since we last slept together.

Your sleep, you say,
When the shark only expelled your bones.
And all the signs you told me about