Antis teng Ulysses,
antis teng Nila Utama,
antis teng Morti,
teng bos.
Jenti di mar na fing di mundu,
ta pedreh Tera Sunda sa lembransa
pra Temasek sa kauzu kosmopolitanu.
Klai lonzi di tera bos ja kaminyah.
Yo papiah berdadi:
teng jenti Kristang
na kada idadi –
sempri teng jenti perdidu di alma
inda kereh prendeh di bos klai trukah fikah
Flor de la Mar.
Eli kereh birah Atlantis;
kereh birah Eropa dretu.
Mas klai birah?
Bai notri logu kuasah deus lontra.
Notri lesti tigri sonu sa kaza.
Lesti krensa giliang sa fortisang;
Sulesti desah lang sa lisensa.
Keng podih afrontah kirin, donu di sul
ke marah na sulwesti na dianti di Sultan sa alfanti di fing?
Dugong di westi nggeng ja olah pra tantu sekulu.
Asih, bai tarabara, marineru Kristang:
bai undi tuminyu jambu ta sperah,
undi samatra balah na riba di bos sa midu matadu.
Papalang raginyah di papagayu bedri,
ubih kung Bela Infanta sa song nyaring.
Presta podih intindeh
pra ki kauzu jenti ropianu presizuh tempra.
Morti sa bergonya
podih aguentah kontu bos cherah
impoku impoku
di kaza.
Jenti ropianu nabegah kung altura kung orlozi,
jenti natibu kung strela kung lunga.
Bos nabegah kung alegria tristi kung dosi, alegria ta mureh,
kung cheru di maris,
kung sintidu dretu di
peskador sa chang, sempri ta champurah
kung mati maduru di mar merepeh ta parih.
Before there was Ulysses,
before there was Nila Utama,
before there was Death,
there was you.
A person of the sea at the end of the world,
the memory of Sundaland already lost,
for Temasek’s cosmopolitan cause.
How far from the land you have grown.
I speak the truth:
there are jenti Kristang
in every age –
there are always people lost in their soul
who still want to learn from you about how to become
the Flower of the Sea.
She wants to return to Atlantis,
to the real Europa,
but how?
Going north disturbs the ottergod,
And northeast is the home of the dreamtiger.
Eastwards are the fortifications of the little lion child,
and southeast passage is ever under the eagle’s eye.
Who dares challenge the kirin, owners of the south,
or moor at the southwest, in front of the Sultan’s Last Elephant?
And no one has seen the dugong of the west for centuries.
So go northwest, Kristang sailor:
Go where the pink dolphins wait,
and the storms dance across your harpooned fears.
Follow the grin of the green parrot,
and the shrill song of the Bela Infanta
and soon you will understand
why the Europeans needed spice so badly:
even Death’s embrace can be withstood
with just a little bit
of the smell of home.
Europe sails by bearing and clock,
Malaya by star and moon.
You sail by sad, sweet, dying joy,
with the smell of the waves
and the truest sense
of the Fisherman’s Land, ever-mingling
with the ripe earth of the rambling, birthing sea.