HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES TO CANTO IX.
The terrible scenes consequent upon the siege and storming of San Sebastian, which occupy considerable portions of this and the preceding Canto, and form in their bare recital an illustration never surpassed of the horrors of War, are attested by so many authorities, that to enter into minute corroborative details would far exceed the limits which I have prescribed to myself. The following brief but vigorous description is from Gleig’s Subaltern:
“The reader will easily believe that a man who has spent some of the best years of his life amid scenes of violence and bloodshed, must have witnessed many spectacles highly revolting to the purest feelings of our nature; but a more appalling picture of war passed by—of war in its darkest colours,—those which distinguish it when its din is over—than was presented by St. Sebastian, and the country in its immediate vicinity, I certainly never beheld. Whilst an army is stationary in any district, you are wholly unconscious of the work of devastation which is proceeding—you see only the hurry and pomp of hostile operations. But, when the tide has rolled on, and you return by chance to the spot over which it has last swept, the effect upon your mind is such, as cannot even be imagined by him who has not experienced it. Little more than a week had elapsed, since the division employed in the siege of St. Sebastian had moved forward. Their trenches were not yet filled up, nor their batteries demolished; yet the former had, in some places, fallen in of their own accord, and the latter were beginning to crumble to pieces. We passed them by, however, without much notice. It was, indeed, impossible not to acknowledge, that the perfect silence which prevailed was far more awful than the bustle and stir that lately pervaded them; whilst the dilapidated condition of the convent, and of the few cottages which stood near it, stripped, as they were, of roofs, doors, and windows, and perforated with cannon shot, inspired us with gloomy sensations.
“As we pursued the main road, and approached St. Sebastian by its ordinary entrance, we were at first surprised at the slight degree of damage done to its fortifications by the fire of our batteries. The walls and battlements beside the gateway appeared wholly uninjured, the very embrasures being hardly defaced. But the delusion grew gradually more faint as we drew nearer, and had totally vanished before we reached the glacis. We found the draw-bridge fallen down across the ditch, in such a fashion that the endeavour to pass it was not without danger. The folding gates were torn from their hinges, one lying flat upon the ground, and the other leaning against the wall; whilst our own steps, as we moved along the arched passage, sounded loud and melancholy.
“Having crossed this, we found ourselves at the commencement of what had once been the principal street in the place. No doubt it was, in its day, both neat and regular; but of the houses nothing now remained except the outward shells, which, however, appeared to be of an uniform height and style of architecture. As far as I could judge, they stood five stories from the ground, and were faced with a sort of freestone, so thoroughly blackened and defiled as to be hardly cognizable. The street itself was, moreover, choked up with heaps of ruins, among which were strewed about fragments of household furniture and clothing, mixed with caps, military accoutrements, round shot, pieces of shells, and all the other implements of strife. Neither were there wanting other evidences of the drama which had been lately acted here, in the shape of dead bodies, putrefying, and infecting the air with the most horrible stench. Of living creatures, on the other hand, not one was to be seen, not even a dog or a cat; indeed, we traversed the whole city without meeting more than six human beings. These, from their dress and abject appearance, struck me as being some of the inhabitants who had survived the assault. They looked wild and haggard, and moved about here and there, poking among the ruins, as if they were either in search of the bodies of their slaughtered relatives, or hoped to find some little remnant of their property.” For an account of the excesses committed by our soldiery after the storming, “atrocities degrading to human nature,” see Napier’s History, book xxii. chap. 2. Mr. Ford’s denial, in his otherwise valuable Hand-book, deserves much censure. I heard those horrors detailed on the spot.
The operations on the Pyrenees on the day of the storming of San Sebastian, with the rival manœuvrings of Soult and Wellington, the combat of San Marcial, in which the Spaniards behaved so well, and the several remarkable incidents of which I have sought to avail myself, will be found fully recorded in Napier’s History, book xxii. chap. 3. The scene of these, and the subsequent operations, struck me at passing as grand and majestic in the highest degree—the lofty and broken Pyrenean range, more fitted, as I have elsewhere remarked, for the combats of Titans than of men. The very names have a majestic sound, and their associations are often supernatural. I have warrant for the lines:—
“Zugaramurdi, Echallar a dirge
May roar for him who dares the eagle’s nest.”
These terrific mountain-solitudes were celebrated as the scene of witchcraft in ancient times:—“Las trasformaciones y maleficios, las zambras, bailes, y comilonas con que se solazaban otras en los aquelarres ó ayuntamientos nocturnos de Zugaramurdi, en el valle de Baztan.” (Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes.) A number of these so-called witches were condemned to be whipped publicly in 1810 by the Inquisition of Logroño.
V. “Shuddering she nigh fell, till Nial caught
The bruiséd lambkin in his arms.”
Illa nihil: neque enim vocem viresque loquendi,
Aut aliquid toto pectore mentis habet;
Sed tremit, ut quondam stabulis deprensa relictis,
Parva sub infesto cùm jacet agna lupo.
Ovid. Fast. ii. 797.
VII. ——“Would I had died,
Would Heaven that I had died this fatal hour!” &c.
Ἰοὺ, ἰοὺ, ἀντιπαθῆ
Μεθεῖσα καρδίας σταλαγμὸν
Χθονιαφόρον· ἐκ δὲ τοῦ
Λιχὴν ἄφυλλος, ἄτεκνος,
Βροτοφθόρους κηλίδας ἐν χώρᾳ βαλεῖ.
Æschyl. Eumen. 810.
“Wo, bitter wo is me! I will shed a drop from my heart which shall corrupt all earthly things! And thence shall spring a ring-worm sterile—childless, and fling man-rotting spots through earth around!”
XI. “The elements with fierce, o’ershadowing frown.”
At pater omnipotens densa inter nubila telum
Contorsit (non ille faces, nec fumea tædis
Lumina) præcipitemque immani turbine adegit.
Virg. Æn. vi.
XXIII. “And halts the strife of man—his pellets cease to fly.”
Ἀντίτυπα δ’ ἐπὶ γᾷ πέσε τανταλωθεὶς
Πυρφόρος, ὃς τότε μαινομένᾳ ξὺν ὁρμᾷ
Βακχεύων ἐπέπνει
Ῥιπαῖς ἐχθίστων ἀνέμων.
Soph. Antig. 134.
“But stricken with the thunder that fiery one fell to earth who raging before with insane fury had excited the violent winds.”
XXV. “Dismayed and scattered fly the rival hosts.”
Stolto, ch’al Ciel si agguaglia, e in oblio pone
Come di Dio la destra irata tuone!
Tasso. Ger. Lib. iv. 2.
XXIX. ——“The common power
They owned with one accord—of hearts the richest dower.”
Die heilige Liebe
Strebt zu der höchsten frucht gleicher gesinungen auf * *
Sich verbinde das paar, finde die höhere welt.
Goethe, “Metamorphose der Pflanzen.”
“Holy Love strives after the loftiest fruit of equal dispositions—that those who love may be one, and find the Higher World!”
XXX. “So like a god he to her eyes doth seem,
Who came from demon-hate her soul to free.”
Clyt. Οὐκ ἔχω βωμὸν καταφυγεῖν ἄλλον, ἢ τὸ σὸν γόνυ,
Οὐδὲ φίλος οὐδεὶς γελᾷ μοι. * * *
Eurip. Iphig. in Aul. 911.
Achil. Θεὸς ἐγὼ πέφῃνά σοι
Μέγιστος, οὐκ ὢν.
Ib. 973.
Clyt. “I have no other altar to fly to but thy knee; nor have I a friend!”
Achil. “I have appeared to thee a mighty God; but am not one.”
XXXII. “His frame sharp anguish shook,” &c.
——κλαίοντα λιγέως.
Hom. Il. T.
“Crying sharply”—such is the epithet which the poet applies to the wailing of Achilles for Patroclus.
XXXIII. “Through fiery scourge so San Sebastian past,” &c.
Πόλις δ’ ὁμοῦ μὲν θυμιαμάτων γέμει,
Ὁμοῦ δὲ παιάνων τε καὶ στεναγμάτων.
Soph. Œdip. Tyr. 4.
Πόλις γὰρ, ὥσπερ καὐτὸς εἰσορᾷς, ἄγαν
Ἤδη σαλεύει, κᾴνακουφίσαι κάρα
Βυθῶν ἔτ’ οὐχ οἵα τε φοινίου σάλου.
Ib. 22.
“The whole city smokes, and is full of mournful pæans and lamentations. * * As thou thyself dost witness, the city is shaken with a mighty grief, nor can raise its head from the depths of the gory sea.”
“Till all was smouldering heaps of desolation, wo.”
Gern möcht’ er in tempeln beten,
Nur trümmer findet er mehr!
Altar’ und Götter liegen
Zerstückelt am boden umher.
Anastasius Grün (Von Auersperg).
“Willingly would he pray in temples, but he finds only ruins. Altars and Gods lie shattered upon the earth around!”
XXXIX. “Thy soul shall covet but of Locrian power
And intellect the glory! Beaconing men
To happiness be thine—still Freedom’s tower,
Still making every scowling Despot cower!”
Νέμει γὰρ Ἀτρέκεια πόλιν Λοκρῶν
Ζεφυρίων: μέλει τέ σφισι Καλλιόπα,
Καὶ χάλκεος Ἄρης.
Pind. Olymp. x.
“For Truth doth govern in the Zephyrian Locri’s city, and Calliope is their care, and likewise brazen Mars.” A magnificent eulogy is conveyed here in a few words. Ἀτρέκεια in the original has the force both of Truth and Justice. No people of antiquity were more renowned for the excellence of their institutions than the Locri, who were the first to make use of written laws. (Strabo, lib. 6.) Calliope is used by synecdoche for the Muses, to whom the Locri were greatly devoted, having invented the Locric harmony which was subsequently imitated by Sappho and Anacreon. (Athenæus, lib. xiv. et xv.) Their warlike character upon fitting occasions was also terribly displayed, 10,000 Locri having put to flight 130,000 invading Crotonians on the banks of the river Sagra—a fact which, at first doubted as impossible, was afterwards strictly verified, and passed into a proverb. (Strabo, lib. 6.) The epithet “brazen” applied here to Mars arises from the singular fact that iron did not enter into the composition of the Grecian arms, which were all of brass. (Pausanias, in Laconicis, and Homer passim.) The magnificent region of Locris was situated at the foot of Parnassus; and the splendid pre-eminence of its inhabitants in arts and arms, with their prodigious victory over the Crotonians, appears to justify their comparison with England.
XLII. “Her soul was all absorbed in his—her life
Was cast, since meeting, in another mould.”
Und wenn du ganz in dem gefühle selig bist,
Nenn es dann wie du willst,
Nenn’s glück! herz! liebe! Gott!
Ich habe keinen namen
Dafür! Gefühl ist alles.
Goethe, Faust.
“And when thou art perfectly blissful in that feeling, call it what thou wilt—call it joy—heart—love—God! I have no name for it—feeling is all!”
XLIII. “And pluck the golden apple from the bough.”
Vel cùm decorum mitibus pomis caput
Autumnus arvis extulit,
Ut gaudet ... decerpens pyra,
Certantem et uvam purpuræ.
Hor. Epod. ii.
XLVII. “Even the dread Cathedral leap
Chose the maid before dishonour.”
——Θυσίας
Παρθενίου θ’ αἵματος ὀρ-
γᾷ περιόργως ἐπιθυ-
μεῖν Θέμις.
Æschyl. Agamem. 216.
“Of the sacrifice of virgin blood Diana is vehemently desirous.”
IBERIA WON.