The Pilgrim of Castile; or, El Pelegrino in Su Patria

by Lope de Vega, translated and abridged by William Dutton
published 1621
Upon the shore of Barcelona, between the planks of a ship which had suffered wreck, there appeared as if it had been a parcel of cloth covered with weed: which being perceived by some fishermen, they took it into their bark, and carried it along the shore about the space of two miles, where under the shade of some trees, they cleaned away the weeds and mud, and found that it was a man in a trance, who was almost past sense, and without life. These fishers, moved with compassion, kindled a fire with some branches cut from an old oak, and he who had been so near the losing of his life, now recovering it, let them know what countryman he was, by his complaint: discovered his admiration by his looks; and the feeling he had of the good which they had done him, by the fire with which he had to acknowledge it. Nature, doing the accustomed office of a pitiful mother, sent his blood to restore the more enfeebled parts; and having brought him almost to his former strength, he was about to have revealed himself: but thinking it did not fit in so strange a fortune, he concealed his birth and name, only saying that his ship suffered wreck in the sea, and seizing of these planks which the waves had cast upon the shore, he was two days floating amongst the billows of the sea, who sometimes merciful and then again cruel, did bring him nearer and then farther from the land, until such time that the reflux of the water vanquishing the impetuosity of the tempest, he was cast upon the sands, where the violence of the stroke having as it were ploughed up his tomb, he thought himself buried. His return (he said) was from Italy, and the occasion of his voyage the indulgences of the Jubilee, which was while Clement the Eighth sat as Pope. And sighing much, amongst the broken speeches of his story, he let them understand that he missed a companion of his travels, of whom there was no news to be had, as it seldom happens that those who do free us from bodily misfortunes can also ease those of the mind. So he rested this day within one of their cabins, while the cold night descending, all crowned with stars, did impart unto mortal creatures rest in conformity with the quality of their lives, giving desires unto the poor, cares unto the rich, complaints unto the sad, unto the contented sleep, and jealousy to the amorous. In the midst thereof he heard a lyre played upon, and according with a voice, which in singing complained of a shepherdess’s cruelty. The pilgrim, although weary, loved music more than rest, and went out of his cabin into a meadow, from whence seeing about a dozen houses, and among some osiers the author of those plaints, called him from a distance. The singer replied fearfully, but the pale light of the moon, revealing the secrets of the night, made him see that it was a poor man, and without arms. He then showed him a plank lying amongst reeds over a little brook, giving its murmuring unto the solitariness of the place and silence of the night; which when he had passed, they saluted one the other courteously, especially he which came (for strangers are always courteous out of necessity); and they sat down together upon the grass.