CHAPTER XIX
Investment of Triana. – Garci Perez and the Infanzon.
On the day after the breaking of the bridge, the king, the Prince Alfonso, the Prince Enrique, the various masters of the orders, and a great part of the army, crossed the Guadalquivir and commenced an attack on Triana, while the bold Admiral Bonifaz approached with his ships and assaulted the place from the water. But the Christian army was unprovided with ladders or machines for the attack, and fought to great disadvantage. The Moors, from the safe shelter of their walls and towers, rained a shower of missiles of all kinds. As they were so high above the Christians, their arrows, darts, and lances came with the greater force. They were skillful with the cross-bow, and had engines of such force that the darts which they discharged would sometimes pass through a cavalier all armed, and bury themselves in the earth.[93]
The very women combated from the walls, and hurled down stones that crushed the warriors beneath.
While the army was closely investing Triana, and fierce encounters were daily taking place between Moor and Christian, there arrived at the camp a youthful Infanzon, or noble, of proud lineage. He brought with him a shining train of vassals, all newly armed and appointed, and his own armor, all fresh and lustrous, showed none of the dents and bruises and abuses of the war. As this gay and gorgeous cavalier was patrolling the camp, with several cavaliers, he beheld Garci Perez pass by, in armor and accoutrements all worn and soiled by the hard service he had performed, and he saw a similar device to his own, of white waves, emblazoned on the scutcheon of this unknown warrior. Then the nobleman was highly ruffled and incensed, and he exclaimed, “How is this? who is this sorry cavalier that dares to bear these devices? By my faith, he must either give them up or show his reasons for usurping them.” The other cavaliers exclaimed, “Be cautious how you speak; this is Garci Perez; a braver cavalier wears not sword in Spain. For all he goes thus modestly and quietly about, he is a very lion in the field, nor does he assume anything that he cannot well maintain. Should he hear this which you have said, trust us he would not rest quiet until he had terrible satisfaction.”
Now so it happened that certain mischief-makers carried word to Garci Perez of what the nobleman had said, expecting to see him burst into fierce indignation, and defy the other to the field. But Garci Perez remained tranquil, and said not a word.
Within a day or two after, there was a sally from the castle of Triana and a hot skirmish between the Moors and Christians; and Garci Perez and the Infanzon, and a number of cavaliers, pursued the Moors up to the barriers of the castle. Here the enemy rallied and made a fierce defense, and killed several of the cavaliers. But Garci Perez put spurs to his horse, and couching his lance, charged among the thickest of the foes, and followed by a handful of his companions, drove the Moors to the very gates of Triana. The Moors seeing how few were their pursuers turned upon them, and dealt bravely with sword and lance and mace, while stones and darts and arrows were rained down from the towers above the gates. At length the Moors took refuge within the walls, leaving the field to the victorious cavaliers. Garci Perez drew off coolly and calmly amidst a shower of missiles from the wall. He came out of the battle with his armor all battered and defaced; his helmet bruised, the crest broken off, and his buckler so dented and shattered that the device could scarcely be perceived. On returning to the barrier, he found there the Infanzon, with his armor all uninjured, and his armorial bearing as fresh as if just emblazoned, for the vaunting warrior had not ventured beyond the barrier. Then Garci Perez drew near to the Infanzon, and eying him from head to foot, “Señor cavalier,” said he, “you may well dispute my right to wear this honorable device in my shield, since you see I take so little care of it that it is almost destroyed. You, on the other hand, are worthy of bearing it. You are the guardian angel of honor, since you guard it so carefully as to put it to no risk. I will only observe to you that the sword kept in the scabbard rusts, and the valor that is never put to the proof becomes sullied.”[94]
At these words the Infanzon was deeply humiliated, for he saw that Garci Perez had heard of his empty speeches, and he felt how unworthily he had spoken of so valiant and magnanimous a cavalier. “Señor cavalier,” said he, “pardon my ignorance and presumption; you alone are worthy of bearing those arms, for you derive not nobility from them, but ennoble them by your glorious deeds.”
Then Garci Perez blushed at the praises he had thus drawn upon himself, and he regretted the harshness of his words towards the Infanzon, and he not merely pardoned him all that had passed, but gave him his hand in pledge of amity, and from that time they were close friends and companions in arms.[95]
CHAPTER XX
Capitulation of Seville. – Dispersion of the Moorish Inhabitants. – Triumphant Entry of King Fernando.
About this time there arrived in Seville a Moorish alfaqui, named Orias, with a large company of warriors, who came to this war as if performing a pilgrimage, for it was considered a holy war no less by infidels than Christians. This Orias was of a politic and crafty nature, and he suggested to the commander of Seville a stratagem by which they might get Prince Alfonso in their power, and compel King Fernando to raise the siege by way of ransom. The counsel of Orias was adopted, after a consultation with the principal cavaliers, and measures taken to carry it into execution; a Moor was sent, therefore, as if secretly and by stealth, to Prince Alfonso, and offered to put him in possession of two towers of the wall, if he would come in person to receive them, which towers once in his possession, it would be easy to overpower the city.
Prince Alfonso listened to the envoy with seeming eagerness, but suspected some deceit, and thought it unwise to put his person in such jeopardy. Lest, however, there should be truth in his proposals, a party of chosen cavaliers were sent as if to take possession of the towers, and with them was Don Pero Nuñez de Guzman, disguised as the prince.
When they came to the place where the Moors had appointed to meet them, they beheld a party of infidels, strongly armed, who advanced with sinister looks, and attempted to surround Don Nuñez, but he, being on his guard, put spurs to his horse, and, breaking through the midst of them, escaped. His companions followed his example, all but one, who was struck from his horse and cut to pieces by the Moors.[96]
Just after this event there arrived a great reinforcement to the camp from the city of Cordova, bringing provisions and various munitions of war. Finding his army thus increased, the king had a consultation with Admiral Bonifaz, and determined completely to cut off all communication between Seville and Triana, for the Moors still crossed the river occasionally by fording. When they were about to carry their plan into effect, the crafty Alfaqui Orias crossed to Triana, accompanied by a number of Ganzules. He was charged with instructions to the garrison, and to concert some mode of reuniting their forces, or of effecting some blow upon the Christian camp; for unless they could effect a union and coöperation, it would be impossible to make much longer resistance.
Scarce had Orias passed, when the Christian sentinels gave notice. Upon this, a detachment of the Christian army immediately crossed and took possession of the opposite shore, and Admiral Bonifaz stationed his fleet in the middle of the river. Thus the return of Orias was prevented, and all intercourse between the places, even by messenger, completely interrupted. The city and Triana were now severally attacked, and unable to render each other assistance. The Moors were daily diminishing in number; many slain in battle, many taken captive, and many dying of hunger and disease. The Christian forces were daily augmenting, and were animated by continual success, whereas mutiny and sedition began to break out among the inhabitants of the city. The Moorish commander Axataf, therefore, seeing all further resistance vain, sent ambassadors to capitulate with King Fernando. It was a hard and humiliating struggle to resign this fair city, the queen of Andalusia, the seat of Moorish sway and splendor, and which had been under Moorish domination ever since the Conquest.
The valiant Axataf endeavored to make various conditions; that King Fernando should raise the siege on receiving the tribute which had hitherto been paid to the miramamolin. This being peremptorily refused, he offered to give up a third of the city, and then half, building at his own cost a wall to divide the Moorish part from the Christian. King Fernando, however, would listen to no such terms. He demanded the entire surrender of the place, with the exception of the persons and effects of the inhabitants, and permitting the commander to retain possession of St. Lucar, Aznal Farache, and Niebla. The commander of Seville saw the sword suspended over his head, and had to submit; the capitulations of the surrender were signed, when Axataf made one last request, that he might be permitted to demolish the grand mosque and the principal tower (or Giralda) of the city.[97] He felt that these would remain perpetual monuments of his disgrace. The Prince Alfonso was present when this last demand was made, and his father looked at him significantly, as if he desired the reply to come from his lips. The prince rose indignantly and exclaimed, that if there should be a single tile missing from the temple or a single brick from the tower, it should be paid by so many lives that the streets of Seville should run with blood. The Moors were silenced by this reply, and prepared with heavy hearts to fulfill the capitulation. One month was allowed them for the purpose, the alcazar or citadel of Seville being given up to the Christians as a security.
On the twenty-third day of November this important fortress was surrendered, after a siege of eighteen months. A deputation of the principal Moors came forth and presented King Fernando with the keys of the city; at the same time the aljamia, or council of the Jews, presented him with the key of Jewry, the quarter of the city which they inhabited. This key was notable for its curious workmanship. It was formed of all kinds of metals. The guards of it were wrought into letters, bearing the following signification, – “God will open – the king will enter.” On the ring was inscribed in Hebrew, – “The King of kings will enter; all the world will behold him.” This key is still preserved in the cathedral of Seville, in the place where repose the remains of the sainted King Fernando.[98]
During the month of grace the Moors sold such of their effects as they could not carry with them, and the king provided vessels for such as chose to depart for Africa. Upwards of one hundred thousand, it is said, were thus convoyed by Admiral Bonifaz, while upwards of two hundred thousand dispersed themselves throughout such of the territory of Andalusia as still remained in possession of the Moors.
When the month was expired, and the city was evacuated by its Moorish inhabitants, King Fernando the Saint entered in solemn triumph, in a grand religious and military procession. There were all the captains and cavaliers of the army, in shining armor, with the prelates, and masters of the religious and military orders, and the nobility of Castile, Leon, and Aragon, in their richest apparel. The streets resounded with the swelling notes of martial music and with the joyous acclamations of the multitude.
In the midst of the procession was the venerable effigy of the most Holy Mary, on a triumphal car of silver, wrought with admirable skill; and immediately after followed the pious king, with a drawn sword in his hand, and on his left was Prince Alfonso and the other princes.
The procession advanced to the principal mosque, which had been purified and consecrated as a Christian temple, where the triumphal car of the Holy Virgin was placed at the grand altar. Here the pious king knelt and returned thanks to Heaven and the Virgin for this signal victory, and all present chanted Te Deum Laudamus.
CHAPTER XXI
Death of King Fernando.
When King Fernando had regulated everything for the good government and prosperity of Seville, he sallied forth with his conquering army to subdue the surrounding country. He soon brought under subjection Xerez, Medina Sidonia, Alua, Bepel, and many other places near the sea-coast; some surrendered voluntarily, others were taken by force; he maintained a strict peace with his vassal the King of Granada, but finding not sufficient scope for his arms in Spain, and being inflamed with a holy zeal in the cause of the faith, he determined to pass over into Africa, and retaliate upon the Moslems their daring invasion of his country. For this purpose he ordered a powerful armada to be prepared in the ports of Cantabria, to be put under the command of the bold Admiral Bonifaz.
In the midst of his preparations, which spread consternation throughout Mauritania, the pious king fell dangerously ill at Seville of a dropsy. When he found his dying hour approaching, he made his death-bed confession, and requested the holy Sacrament to be administered to him. A train of bishops and other clergy, among whom was his son Philip, Archbishop of Seville, brought the Sacrament into his presence. The king rose from his bed, threw himself on his knees, with a rope round his neck and a crucifix in his hand, and poured forth his soul in penitence and prayer. Having received the viatica and the holy Sacrament, he commanded all ornaments of royalty to be taken from his chamber. He assembled his children round his bedside, and blessed his son the Prince Alfonso, as his first-born and the heir of his throne, giving him excellent advice for the government of his kingdom, and charging him to protect the interests of his brethren. The pious king afterwards fell into an ecstasy or trance, in which he beheld angels watching round his bed to bear his soul to heaven. He awoke from this in a state of heavenly rapture, and, asking for a candle, he took it in his hand and made his ultimate profession of the faith. He then requested the clergy present to repeat the litanies, and to chant the Te Deum Laudamus. In chanting the first verse of the hymn, the king gently inclined his head, with perfect serenity of countenance, and rendered up his spirit. “The hymn,” says the ancient chronicle, “which was begun on earth by men, was continued by the voices of angels, which were heard by all present.” These doubtless were the angels which the king in his ecstasy had beheld around his couch, and which now accompanied him, in his glorious ascent to heaven, with songs of holy triumph. Nor was it in his chamber alone that these voices were heard, but in all the royal alcazars of Seville, the sweetest voices were heard in the air and seraphic music, as of angelic choirs, at the moment that the sainted king expired.[99] He died on the 30th of May, the vespers of the Holy Trinity, in the year of the Incarnation one thousand two hundred and forty-two, aged seventy-three years – having reigned thirty-five years over Castile and twenty over Leon.
Two days after his death he was interred in his royal chapel in the Holy Church, in a sepulchre of alabaster, which still remains. It is asserted by grave authors that at the time of putting his body in the sepulchre, the choir of angels again was heard chanting his eulogium, and filling the air with sweet melody in praise of his virtues.[100]
When Alhamar, the Moorish king of Granada, heard of his death, he caused great demonstrations of mourning to be made throughout his dominions. During his life he sent yearly a number of Moors with one hundred wax tapers, to assist at his exequies, which ceremony was observed by his successors, until the time of the conquest of Granada by Fernando the Catholic.[101]
SPANISH ROMANCE
SPANISH ROMANCE
To the Editor of “The Knickerbocker”: —
Sir, – I have already given you a legend or two, drawn from ancient Spanish sources, and may occasionally give you a few more. I love these old Spanish themes, especially when they have a dash of the Morisco in them, and treat of the times when the Moslems maintained a foothold in the peninsula. They have a high, spicy, oriental flavor, not to be found in any other themes that are merely European. In fact, Spain is a country that stands alone in the midst of Europe – severed in habits, manners, and modes of thinking from all its continental neighbors. It is a romantic country; but its romance has none of the sentimentality of modern European romance; it is chiefly derived from the brilliant regions of the East, and from the high-minded school of Saracenic chivalry.
The Arab invasion and conquest brought a higher civilization, and a nobler style of thinking into Gothic Spain. The Arabs were a quick-witted, sagacious, proud-spirited, and poetical people, and were imbued with oriental science and literature. Wherever they established a seat of power, it became a rallying-place for the learned and ingenious; and they softened and refined the people whom they conquered. By degrees, occupancy seemed to give them a hereditary right to their foothold in the land; they ceased to be looked upon as invaders, and were regarded as rival neighbors. The peninsula, broken up into a variety of states, both Christian and Moslem, became for centuries a great campaigning ground, where the art of war seemed to be the principal business of man, and was carried to the highest pitch of romantic chivalry. The original ground of hostility, a difference of faith, gradually lost its rancor. Neighboring states, of opposite creeds, were occasionally linked together in alliances, offensive and defensive; so that the Cross and Crescent were to be seen side by side, fighting against some common enemy. In times of peace, too, the noble youth of either faith resorted to the same cities, Christian or Moslem, to school themselves in military science. Even in the temporary truces of sanguinary wars, the warriors who had recently striven together in the deadly conflicts of the field, laid aside their animosity, met at tournaments, jousts, and other military festivities, and exchanged the courtesies of gentle and generous spirits. Thus the opposite races became frequently mingled together in peaceful intercourse, or if any rivalry took place, it was in those high courtesies and nobler acts which bespeak the accomplished cavalier. Warriors of opposite creeds became ambitious of transcending each other in magnanimity as well as valor. Indeed, the chivalric virtues were refined upon to a degree sometimes fastidious and constrained, but at other times inexpressibly noble and affecting. The annals of the times teem with illustrious instances of high-wrought courtesy, romantic generosity, lofty disinterestedness, and punctilious honor, that warm the very soul to read them. These have furnished themes for national plays and poems, or have been celebrated in those all-pervading ballads, which are as the life-breath of the people, and thus have continued to exercise an influence on the national character which centuries of vicissitude and decline have not been able to destroy; so that, with all their faults, and they are many, the Spaniards, even at the present day, are, on many points, the most high-minded and proud-spirited people of Europe. It is true, the romance of feeling derived from the sources I have mentioned has, like all other romance, its affectations and extremes. It renders the Spaniard at times pompous and grandiloquent; prone to carry the “pundonor,” or point of honor, beyond the bounds of sober sense and sound morality; disposed, in the midst of poverty, to affect the “grande caballero,” and to look down with sovereign disdain upon arts “mechanical,” and all the gainful pursuits of plebeian life; but this very inflation of spirit, while it fills his brain with vapors, lifts him above a thousand meannesses; and though it often keeps him in indigence, ever protects him from vulgarity.
In the present day when popular literature is running into the low levels of life, and luxuriating on the vices and follies of mankind; and when the universal pursuit of gain is trampling down the early growth of poetic feeling, and wearing out the verdure of the soul, I question whether it would not be of service for the reader occasionally to turn to these records of prouder times and loftier modes of thinking, and to steep himself to the very lips in old Spanish romance.
For my own part, I have a shelf or two of venerable, parchment-bound tomes, picked up here and there about the peninsula, and filled with chronicles, plays, and ballads about Moors and Christians, which I keep by me as mental tonics, in the same way that a provident house-wife has her cupboard of cordials. Whenever I find my mind brought below par, by the common-place of every-day life, or jarred by the sordid collisions of the world, or put out of tune by the shrewd selfishness of modern utilitarianism, I resort to these venerable tomes, as did the worthy hero of La Mancha to his books of chivalry, and refresh and tone up my spirit by a deep draught of their contents. They have some such effect upon me as Falstaff ascribes to a good Sherris sack, “warming the blood, and filling the brain with fiery and delectable shapes.”
I here subjoin, Mr. Editor, a small specimen of the cordials I have mentioned, just drawn from my Spanish cupboard, which I recommend to your palate. If you find it to your taste, you may pass it on to your readers.
Your correspondent and well-wisher,
Geoffrey Crayon.