The Life of Lam-ang (an Iloko epic) - Page 10 of 16

And my son Lam-ang,
Look at the entirety
Of the front yard;

There are two carved roosters;
Four carved hens, two shrimps.
Swimming upstream, as it were.

Let these be all of gold.
Now, my son Lam-ang,
Cast your gaze now

And imagine two pomelos
Also of pure bulaoan gold—
These are Cannoyan’s playthings.

And also these spinning paraphernalia,
The tectec and the gagan-ayan,
And the gong, the longgangan, too,

And all the clotheslines—
Let these all be
Of bulaoan gold.

Cannoyan’s mother then added:
Our son Lam-ang, do marry Cannoyan,
If you can match all that we have told you.

Lam-ang in turn said:
Mother Unnayan,
What you have told me to match

Cannot exhaust my inheritance;
Not even just the stocks in my fishponds
If sold wholesale.

And I have in mind
Only the fishpond
Other than those I expropriated

From the Igorots I conquered.
It is not even a ninth part
Of my inheritance

From my great grandfathers
Both paternal and maternal.
But should the man Lam-ang still fall short,

I still have two boats of bulaoan gold
That periodically ferry chinaware
Direct from China.

For the king of Puan-puan,
of China,
Is my relative and friend,

Right now, one of my boats, a sampan,
I believe is on its way back
With its chinaware cargo.

This is what they then said:
Our son Lam-ang, it is only right,
That you go back now

To the house you stepped down from
At the town of Nalbuan
So you may inform your mother.

Lam-ang then answered:
Respected benefactor
And you (gracious) Unnayan,

When I return, you shall hear
The cannon I shall fire
At Sabangan.

Lam-ang than bade them well
And walked briskly to his town, Nalbuan,
The man Lam-ang.

The woman Cannoyan then said:
Father to whom I owe my life
And mother Unnayan,