SPANISH LYRICS

Quisqueyanos valientes, alcemos
Nuestro canto con viva emoción,
Y del mundo a la faz ostentemos
Nuestro invicto glorioso pendón.
ˇSalve el pueblo que in trépido y fuerte,
A la guerra a morir se lanzó
Cuando en bélico reto de muerte
Sus cadenas de esclavo rompió.

Ningun pueblo ser libre merece
Si es esclavo in dolente y servil;
Si en su pecho la llama no crece
Que templó el heroismo viril.
Mas Quisqueya la indómita y brava
Siempre altiva la frente alzará:
Que si fuere mil veces esclava
Otras tantas ser libre sabrá.

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ENGLISH TRANSLATION
 
Brave men of Quisqueya,
Let us sing with strong feeling
And let us show to the world
Our invincible, glorious banner.
Hail, O people who, strong and intrepid,
Launched into war and went to death!
Under a warlike menace of death,
You broke your chains of slavery.
 
No country deserves to be free
If it is an indolent and servile slave,
If the call does not grow loud within it,
Tempered by a virile heroism.
But the brave and indomitable Quisqueya
Will always hold its head high,
For if it were a thousand times enslaved,
It would a thousand times regain freedom.


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Dominican Republic
"Quisqueyanos valientes" (Valient Sons of Quisqueye)

Words by:Emilio Prud'homme
Music by:José Reyés
Adopted:1900

José Reyés was inspired to make this anthem after noticing a published copy of
the Argentine anthem. Reyés believed that his country should also have an
anthem, so he invited his friend Emilio Prud'homme to write the lines while he
composed the music. Soon after Reyés managed to get his anthem published as
well; it was well-recieved by the public and soon grew in popularity. (The
title of the national anthem, "Quisqueyanos valientes" (Valient Sons of
Quisqueye), refers to the original native inhabitants' word for Santo Domingo
island.)

A motion in the National Congress was made in 1897 by deputy Rafael Garcia
Martinez to give the song official status, but the president refused to sign
the bill into law, possibly because of Prud'homme's disagreement with President
Heureaux's dictatorial government. It wasn't until 1934, many years after
Heureaux's death, that President Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina officially
adopted the song as the national anthem.

MUSIC
