The Three Kings

How does one write about a certain event in history if he has not really witnessed or experienced (first-hand) the occasion by which he is subjectively expressing in poetry?

Of course there have been age-old accounts and other traditional stories one can read but there is also what we call poetic imagination. And this is exactly what Ricaredo Demetillo did in his poem, The Three Kings.

It is implied that the three magi are the ones speaking in the poem— recounting their journey to finding the Child of God; however, there is no mention of Christ or Jerusalem or Herod in the poem. Demetillo used the power of imagination not just to chronicle (in a brief way) the story of the “three kings” but also to give us the privilege of hearing what he assumed to be the thoughts of these men. If one doesn’t know about the Bible or the Christian history, it would have made a different interpretation.

One of the features of a Romantic literature is the obscurity of time and space. As per Edgar Allan Poe, an American romantic writer, the reader must be put into some distant and vague past to “alienate [him] from the everyday world and to thrust him toward the ideal and the beautiful.” This is also for the sheer reason that the writer wants to concentrate more on the theme and atmosphere.

The first stanza of the poem is quite analogous with the Genesis’ introductory verses wherein there is darkness in the beginning and the use of “we” and “three” which could also connote the Trinity. But as the reader goes through the entire poem, it is revealed that it is really the magi who are narrating their intuitive experiences as they wade through the shadows, encountering cunning leaders whose material interests are rotting. The following lines describe how the magi have always known (or felt) King Herod’s evil motives towards the Savior: “Rulers were sly. They bent, politic, to our words, But all the time we sensed the fox-tongue shape their words. One saw they had such vested interests that they would rather slaughter innocents.”

In the poem, intuition is used frequently by the narrators. We see this in Demetillo’s use of words such as “inkling” and “sense.” In Romanticism, intuition and emotion are more important than the intellect. For the English poet William Wordsworth, poetry is the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings [that are] recollected in tranquility.” Therefore, we can understand that although it focuses on the primary emotions, the thoughts are contemplated in a long and deep manner before being translated in actual composition. In addition, Poe asserted that the sole province of art must really have a direct impact on the emotions.

Demetillo created an image of splendid merriment inspired by nature when he wrote: “How celebrate the miracle of light? By day, the bonfire of the sun; By night, the lustrous drowsiness of stars, And in our thoughts, light merging into light, Word cradled by the word.”

A romantic poem or story finds the extraordinary in ordinary things we see every day. Its purpose is to delight and instruct its readers with the use of common language and poetic thoughts and values coming from familiar happenings in a person’s life.

In stanza 8 of The Three Kings, we see the expectations of the magi in the lines: “What did we hope to find? A kingdom’s heir perhaps deep-canopied, Pillowed by proud love on downy coverlets?” But what they eventually witnessed was a humble nativity where they “kneel before truth cradled in the homely fact.” Indeed, it was humility they learned anew when they realized that their worldly expectations were not met. It was really wisdom, coming from their own mortal ignorance of how God really works, that finally came unto them.

It is delighting to read The Three Kings in a romantic point of view given Demetillo’s focus on the sensory which reflected more life. Its fresh metaphors and simple language made it more captivating since we are delving into a more personal account of how the three kings have “seen and understood.”


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