I kastiyo, kastiyon i såbio;
lao an måtto i oso,
dinilalak huyong i såbio gi kastiyu-ña.
The castle is the castle of the wise man;
but when the bear comes
the wise man is chased out of his castle.
Our mañaina weren't witless boors.
What they lacked in classroom education was made up for in folk wisdom passed down orally from elder to child.
The above statement was taught to a lady by her mother who learned it from her mother. This is something that goes back to the late 1800s and perhaps even earlier.
Our islands don't even have bears, yet our mañaina knew something about them because Spaniards obviously talked about them and described them to our elders.
There were more than one moral lesson to be learned from such quotes as the above.
A man may be wise, but none of us are invincible. Even the wise man can be defeated by a bear. Every Goliath has a David, and so on.
So even if you live in a hut, and envy the castle, remember that even those who dwell in castles can be chased out of them.
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