(1500-1571)
mong the three or four best autobiographies of the world's literature, the 'Memoirs' of Benvenuto Cellini are unique as the self-delineation of the most versatile of craftsmen, a bizarre genius, and a typical exponent of the brilliant period of the later Italian Renaissance. As a record of the ways of living and modes of thinking of that fascinating epoch, they are more lively and interesting than history, more entertaining, if more true to fact, than a romance. As one of his Italian critics, Baretti, put it:—"The life of Benvenuto Cellini, written by himself in the pure and unsophisticated idiom of the Florentine people, surpasses every book in our literature for the delight it affords the reader." This is high praise for the product of a literature that boasts of Boccaccio's 'Decameron,' and gave birth to the novelle, the parent of modern fiction. Yet the critics of other nations have echoed this praise. Auguste Comte, the positivist philosopher, included it in his limited list for the reading of reformed humanity, and Goethe, laying aside his own creative work, deemed it worth his time and attention to translate into German.
Benvenuto Cellini was born at Florence in 1500. The father, Giovanni Cellini, a musician and maker of musical instruments, intended that the boy should likewise become a musician; but young Benvenuto very early showed strong leaning toward the plastic art, and detested the flute he was forced to practice. The first chapters of the 'Memoirs' are a most lively description of the struggles between the wishes of the father and those of the son, until the latter finally prevailed, and at fifteen years of age he was apprenticed to a goldsmith of Florence. He made rapid progress, and soon attracted notice as a skilled craftsman. At the same time, to please his father, toward whom he everywhere professes the most filial feeling, he continued "that confounded flute-playing" as a side issue. This accomplishment, however, did him a good turn at the Papal court later on. After various youthful escapades, street broils, and quarrels with his father, he fled in monk's disguise to Rome in 1521. A vase made for the Bishop of Salamanca drew upon him the notice of Pope Clement VII., who appointed him court musician and also employed him in his proper profession of goldsmith. When the Constable de Bourbon attacked Rome, in 1527, Cellini was of great service to the Pope in defending the city. He boasts of having from the ramparts shot the Bourbon; and indeed, if one were to take him strictly at his word, his valor and skill as an engineer saved the castle of San Angelo and the Pope. However his lively imagination may have overrated his own importance, yet it is certain that his military exploit paved the way for his return to Florence, where for a time he devoted himself to the execution of bronze medals and coins. The most famous of the former are Hercules and the Nemean Lion, and Atlas supporting the world.
On the elevation of Paul III. to the Papacy we again find Cellini at Rome, working for the Pope and other eminent people. His extraordinary abilities brought him not only into the notice of the courts, but also drew him into the brilliant literary and artistic society of the Eternal City. With unrivaled vividness he flashes before us in a few bold strokes the artists of the decadent Renaissance, the pupils of Raphael, led by Giulio Romano, with their worship of every form of physical beauty and their lack of elevation of thought. In consequence of the plottings of his implacable enemy, Pier Luigi, natural son of Paul III., he was arrested on the charge of having during the sack of Rome embezzled Pontifical gold and jewels to the amount of eighty thousand ducats. Though the charge was groundless, he was committed to the castle of San Angelo. His escape is narrated in one of the most thrilling chapters of the 'Memoirs.' He went in hiding to the Cardinal Cornaro, but was delivered up again to the Pope by an act of most characteristic sixteenth-century Italian policy, and was cast into a loathsome underground dungeon of the castle. It was damp, swarming with vermin, and for two hours of the day only received light through a little aperture. Here he languished for many months, with only the chronicles of Giovanni Billani and an Italian Bible to solace him. Now at last his recklessness and bravado forsook him. He took on the airs of a saint, gave himself up to mysticism, grew delirious and had his famous visions—angels visiting him, who talked with him about religion.
In 1539 he was finally released at the intercession of the cardinal Ippolito d'Este, who came from France to invite him to enter the King's service. Cellini's account of his residence in France has great historic value as throwing vivid side-lights on that interesting period in the development of French social life, when Francis I. was laying the foundation of the court society which was later on brought to perfection by Louis XIV. Cellini was one among that crowd of Italian artists gathered at the court in Paris and Versailles, whose culture was to refine the manners of the French warrior barons. He worked for five years at Fontainebleau and in Paris. Among his works there, still extant, are a pair of huge silver candelabra, the gates of Fontainebleau, and a nymph in bronze, reposing among trophies of the chase, now in the Louvre. Among other marks of royal favor he was presented with a castle, Le Petit Nesle. His efforts to gain possession of this grant are among the amusing episodes of his narrative.
He had as usual numerous quarrels, and falling into disfavor with Madame d'Estampes, the King's favorite, he suddenly left Paris and returned alone to Florence. The remainder of his life he passed mainly in the service of Duke Cosimo de' Medici. The chapters of his narrative dealing with this portion give a most vivid picture of artist life at an Italian court in the sixteenth century. To this third and last period belongs the work on which his fame as sculptor rests, the bronze Perseus holding the head of Medusa, completed in 1554 and still standing in the Loggia de' Lanzi in Florence. It is a typical monument of the Renaissance, and was received with universal applause by all Italy. Odes and sonnets in Italian, Greek, and Latin were written in its praise. His minute description of its casting, and of his many trials during that process, are among the most interesting passages of the narrative.
In 1558 he began to write his memoirs, dictating them for the greater part to an amanuensis; and he carried them down to the year 1562. The events of the remaining nine years of his life are to be gathered from contemporary documents. In 1558 he received the tonsure and first ecclesiastical orders, but married two years later, and died in 1571. He was buried with great pomp in the Church of the Annunciata in Florence.
Besides his 'Memoirs' he also wrote treatises on the goldsmith's art and on sculpture, with especial reference to bronze-founding. They are of great value as manuals of the craftsmanship of the Renaissance, and excellent specimens of good Italian style as applied to technical exposition. And like all cultivated artists of his time Cellini also tried his hand at poetry; but his lack of technical training as a writer comes out even more in his verse than in his prose. The life of Benvenuto was one of incessant activity, laying hold of the whole domain of the plastic arts: of restless wanderings from place to place; and of rash deeds of violence. He lived to the full the life of his age, in all its glory and all its recklessness. As the most famous goldsmith of his time, he worked for all the great personages of the day, and put himself on a footing of familiar acquaintance with popes and princes. As an artist he came into contact with all the phases of Italian society, since a passion for external beauty was at that time the heritage of the Italian people, and art bodied forth the innermost life of the period. Furniture, plate, and personal adornments were not turned out wholesale by machinery as they are to-day, but engaged the individual attention of the most skilled craftsmen. The memory and the traditions of Raphael Sanzio were still cherished by his pupils when Cellini first came to Rome into the brilliant circle of Giulio Romano and his friends; Michelangelo's frescoes were studied with rapturous admiration by the young Benvenuto, and later on he proudly recorded some words of praise of the mighty genius whom he worshiped; and at this time, too, Titian and Tintoretto set the heart of Venice aglow with the splendor and color of their marvelous canvases. The contemporary though not the peer of those masters of the brush and the chisel, Cellini, endowed with a keen feeling for beauty, a dexterous hand, and a lively imagination, in his versatility reached out toward a wider sphere of activity, and laid hold of life at more points, than they.
He reflected the Renaissance, not merely on its higher artistic aspect, but he touched it also on its lower darker levels of brute passion, coarseness, and vindictiveness. He had more than one murder to his account, and he did not slur over them in his narrative, for in his make-up the bravo was equally prominent with the artist. Yet we must remember that homicides were of common occurrence in those days, defended by casuists and condoned by the Church. Avenging one's honor, or punishing an insult with the dagger, were as much a social custom as the adornment of the body with exquisitely wrought fabrics and jewelry. But just because Cellini was so thoroughly awake to all the influences about him, and so entirely bent on living his life, his 'Memoirs' are perennially fresh and attractive. They are the plain unvarnished annals of a career extraordinary even in that age of uncommon experiences; they were written, as he says, because "all men of whatever quality they be, who have done anything of excellence, or which may properly resemble excellence, ought, if they are persons of truth and honesty, to describe their life with their own hand; but they ought not to attempt so fine an enterprise till they have passed the age of forty."
BENVENUTO CELLINI.
Cellini was past fifty-eight when he began writing, and going back to his earliest boyhood, he set down the facts of his long career as he remembered them. Of course he is the hero who recounts his own story, and like all heroes of romance he plays the leading part, is always in the right, and comes out handsomely in the end. Carping critics who tax him with lack of truth in dealing with his enemies, and with pleading his own cause too well, are apt to forget that he wrote long after the events were past, and that to an ever-active imagination ruminating over bygone happenings, facts become unconsciously colored to assume the hue the mind wishes them to have. Yet the fidelity and accuracy of his memory are remarkable, and his faculty for seeing, combined with his dramatic way of putting things most vividly, flashes before our eyes the scenes he recounts. He does not describe much; he indicates a characteristic feature, habit, or attitude; as for example, in referring to a man he disliked, as having "long spidery hands and a shrill gnat-like voice"—all that is needed to make us see the man from Cellini's point of view. Again, he adds much to the vivacity of the narrative by reporting conversation as a dialogue, even if he has it himself at second-hand. So in his trenchant, nervous manner this keen observer, while aiming to recount only the facts of his own life and to set himself on a becoming pedestal in the eyes of posterity, gives us at the same time flash-lights of the whole period in which he played a part. Popes Clement VII. and Paul III., Cosimo de' Medici and his Duchess, the King of France and Madame d' Estampes, cardinals, nobles, princes, and courtiers, artists of every description, burghers and the common folk,—all with whom he came in contact,—are brought before us in a living pageant. Looking back over his checkered career, he lives his intense life over again, and because he himself saw so vividly at the time, he makes us see now. We have here invaluable pictures, by an eye-witness and actor, of the sack of Rome, the plague and siege of Florence, the pomp of Charles V. at Rome. He withdraws the curtains from the Papal policies and court intrigues, not with a view to writing history, but because he happened to have some relations with those princes and wished to tell us about them. Again, he was no critic of the manners of his time, yet he presents most faithful pictures of artist life in Rome, Paris, and Florence. He was not given to introspection and self-criticism, but he describes himself as well as others, not by analysis but by deeds and words. He had no literary training; he wrote as he talked, and gained his effect by simplicity.
He was recognized as the first goldsmith of his time; yet as a man also his contemporaries speak well of him, for he embodied the virtues of his age, while his morals did not fall below the average code of the Renaissance. Vasari says:—"He always showed himself a man of great spirit and veracity; bold, active, enterprising, and formidable to his enemies; a man, in short, who knew as well how to speak with princes as to exert himself in his art."
J. A. Symonds, that inspiring student of the Italian Renaissance, sums up his impressions of the book and the man as follows:—
"I am confident that every one who may have curiously studied Italian history and letters will pronounce this book to be at one and the same time the most perfect extant monument of vernacular Tuscan prose, and also the most complete and lively source of information we possess regarding manners, customs, ways of feeling, and modes of acting, in the Court. Those who have made themselves thoroughly familiar with Cellini's Memoirs possess the substance of that many-sided epoch in the form of an epitome. It is the first book which a student of the Italian Renaissance should handle in order to obtain the right direction for his more minute researches. It is the last book to which he should return at the close of his exploratory voyages. At the commencement he will find it invaluable for placing him at the exactly proper point of view. At the end he will find it no less invaluable for testing and verifying the conclusion he has drawn from various sources and a wide circumference of learning. From the pages of this book the genius of the Renaissance, incarnate in a single personality, leans forth and speaks to us. Nowhere else, to my mind, do we find the full character of the epoch so authentically stamped. That is because this is no work of art or of reflection, but the plain utterance of a man who lived the whole life of his age, who felt its thirst for glory, who shared its adoration of the beautiful, who blent its paganism and its superstition, who represented its two main aspects of exquisite sensibility to form and almost brutal ruffianism. We must not expect from Cellini the finest, highest, purest accents of the Renaissance.... For students of that age he is at once more and less than his contemporaries: less, inasmuch as he distinguished himself by no stupendous intellectual qualities; more, inasmuch as he occupied a larger sphere than each of them singly. He was the first goldsmith of his time, an adequate sculptor, a restless traveler, an indefatigable workman, a Bohemian of the purest water, a turbulent bravo, a courtier and companion of princes; finally, a Florentine who used his native idiom with incomparable vivacity of style."
THE ESCAPE FROM PRISON
From the 'Memoirs': Symonds's Translation
The castellan was subject to a certain sickness, which came upon him every year and deprived him of his wits. The sign of its approach was that he kept continually talking, or rather jabbering, to no purpose. These humors took a different shape each year; one time he thought he was an oil-jar; another time he thought he was a frog, and hopped about as frogs do; another time he thought he was dead, and then they had to bury him; not a year passed but he got some such hypochondriac notions into his head. At this season he imagined that he was a bat, and when he went abroad to take the air he used to scream like bats in a high thin tone; and then he would flap his hands and body as though he were about to fly. The doctors, when they saw the fit was coming on him, and his old servants, gave him all the distractions they could think of; and since they had noticed that he derived much pleasure from my conversation, they were always fetching me to keep him company. At times the poor man detained me for four or five stricken hours without ever letting me cease talking. He used to keep me at his table, eating opposite to him, and never stopped chatting and making me chat; but during those discourses I contrived to make a good meal. He, poor man, could neither eat nor sleep; so that at last he wore me out. I was at the end of my strength; and sometimes when I looked at him, I noticed that his eyeballs were rolling in a frightful manner, one looking one way and the other in another.
He took it into his head to ask me whether I had ever had a fancy to fly. I answered that it had always been my ambition to do those things which offer the greatest difficulties to men, and that I had done them; as to flying, the God of Nature had gifted me with a body well suited for running and leaping far beyond the common average, and that with the talents I possessed for manual art I felt sure I had the courage to try flying. He then inquired what methods I should use; to which I answered that, taking into consideration all flying creatures, and wishing to imitate by art what they derived from nature, none was so apt a model as the bat.
No sooner had the poor man heard the name bat, which recalled the humor he was suffering under, than he cried out at the top of his voice:—"He says true—he says true; the bat's the thing—the bat's the thing!" Then he turned to me and said, "Benvenuto, if one gave you the opportunity, should you have the heart to fly?" I said that if he would set me at liberty, I felt quite up to flying down to Prato, after making myself a pair of wings out of waxed linen. Thereupon he replied:—"I too should be prepared to take flight; but since the Pope has bidden me guard you as though you were his own eyes, and I know you a clever devil who would certainly escape, I shall now have you locked up with a hundred keys in order to prevent you slipping through my fingers." I then began to implore him, and remind him that I might have fled, but that on account of the word which I had given him I would never have betrayed his trust; therefore I begged him for the love of God, and by the kindness he had always shown me, not to add greater evils to the misery of my present situation. While I was pouring out these entreaties, he gave strict orders to have me bound and taken and locked up in prison. On seeing that it could not be helped, I told him before all his servants: "Lock me well up, and keep good watch on me; for I shall certainly contrive to escape." So they took me and confined me with the utmost care. I then began to deliberate upon the best way of making my escape. No sooner had I been locked in, than I went about exploring my prison; and when I thought I had discovered how to get out of it, I pondered the means of descending from the lofty keep, for so the great round central tower is called. I took those new sheets of mine, which, as I have said already, I had cut in strips and sewn together; then I reckoned up the quantity which would be sufficient for my purpose. Having made this estimate and put all things in order, I took out a pair of pincers which I had abstracted from a Savoyard belonging to the guard of the castle. This man superintended the casks and cisterns; he also amused himself with carpentering. Now he possessed several pairs of pincers, among which was one both big and heavy. I then, thinking it would suit my purpose, took it and hid it in my straw mattress. The time had now come for me to use it; so I began to try the nails which kept the hinges of my door in place. The door was double, and the clinching of the nails could not be seen; so that when I attempted to draw one out, I met with the greatest trouble; in the end however I succeeded. When I had drawn the first nail, I bethought me how to prevent its being noticed. For this purpose I mixed some rust, which I had scraped from old iron, with a little wax, obtaining exactly the same color as the heads of the long nails which I had extracted. Then I set myself to counterfeit these heads and place them on the holdfasts; for each nail I extracted I made a counterfeit in wax. I left the hinges attached to their door-posts at top and bottom by means of some of the same nails that I had drawn; but I took care to cut these and replace them lightly, so that they only just supported the irons of the hinges.
All this I performed with the greatest difficulty, because the castellan kept dreaming every night that I had escaped, which made him send from time to time to inspect my prison. The man who came had the title and behavior of a catchpoll. He was called Bozza, a serving-man. Giovanni never entered my prison without saying something offensive to me. He came from the district of Prato, and had been an apothecary in the town there. Every evening he minutely examined the holdfasts of the hinges and the whole chamber, and I used to say:—"Keep a good watch over me, for I am resolved by all means to escape."
These words bred a great enmity between him and me, so that I was obliged to use precautions to conceal my tools; that is to say, my pincers and a great big poniard and other appurtenances. All these I put away together in my mattress, where I also kept the strips of linen I had made. When day broke, I used immediately to sweep my room out; and though I am by nature a lover of cleanliness, at that time I kept myself unusually spick and span. After sweeping up, I made my bed as daintily as I could, laying flowers upon it, which a Savoyard used to bring me nearly every morning. He had the care of the cistern and the casks, and also amused himself with carpentering; it was from him I stole the pincers which I used in order to draw out the nails from the holdfasts of the hinges.
Well, to return to the subject of my bed; when Bozza and Pedignone came, I always told them to give it a wide berth, so as not to dirty and spoil it for me. Now and then, just to irritate me, they would touch it lightly, upon which I cried: "Ah, dirty cowards! I'll lay my hand on one of your swords there, and will do you a mischief that will make you wonder. Do you think you are fit to touch the bed of a man like me? When I chastise you I shall not heed my own life, for I am certain to take yours. Let me alone then with my troubles and my tribulations, and don't give me more annoyance than I have already; if not, I shall make you see what a desperate man is able to do." These words they reported to the castellan, who gave them express orders never to go near my bed, and when they came to me, to come without swords; but for the rest to keep a watchful guard upon me.
Having thus secured my bed from meddlers, I felt as though the main point was gained; for there lay all things useful to my venture. It happened on the evening of a certain feast-day that the castellan was seriously indisposed; his humors grew extravagant; he kept repeating that he was a bat, and if they heard that Benvenuto had flown away, they must let him go to catch me up, since he could fly by night most certainly "as well or better than myself"; for it was thus he argued:—"Benvenuto is a counterfeit bat, but I am a real one; and since he is committed to my care, leave me to act; I shall be sure to catch him." He had passed several nights in this frenzy, and had worn out all his servants; whereof I received full information through divers channels, but especially from the Savoyard, who was my friend at heart.
On the evening of that feast-day, then, I made up my mind to escape, come what might; and first I prayed most devoutly to God, imploring his Divine Majesty to protect and succor me in that so perilous a venture. Afterwards I set to work at all the things I needed, and labored the whole of the night. It was two hours before daybreak when at last I removed those hinges with the greatest toil; but the wooden panel itself, and the bolt too, offered such resistance that I could not open the door; so I had to cut into the wood; yet in the end I got it open, and shouldering the strips of linen which I had rolled up like bundles of flax upon two sticks, I went forth and directed my steps toward the latrines of the keep. Spying from within two tiles upon the roof, I was able at once to clamber up with ease. I wore a white doublet with a pair of white hose and a pair of half-boots, into which I had stuck the poniard I have mentioned.
After scaling the roof, I took one end of my linen roll and attached it to a piece of antique tile which was built into the fortress wall; it happened to jut out scarcely four fingers. In order to fix the band, I gave it the form of a stirrup. When I had attached it to that piece of tile, I turned to God and said: "Lord God, give aid to my good cause; you know that it is good; you see that I am aiding myself." Then I let myself go gently by degrees, supporting myself with the sinews of my arms, until I touched the ground. There was no moonshine, but the light of a fair open heaven. When I stood upon my feet on solid earth, I looked up at the vast height which I had descended with such spirit; and went gladly away, thinking I was free. But this was not the case; for the castellan on the side of the fortress had built two lofty walls, the space between which he used for stable and hen-yard; the place was barred with thick iron bolts outside. I was terribly disgusted to find there was no exit from this trap; but while I paced up and down debating what to do, I stumbled on a long pole which was covered up with straw. Not without great trouble, I succeeded in placing it against the wall, and then swarmed up it by the force of my arms until I reached the top. But since the wall ended in a sharp ridge, I had not strength enough to drag the pole up after me. Accordingly I made my mind up to use a portion of the second roll of linen which I had there; the other was left hanging from the keep of the castle. So I cut a piece off, tied it to the pole, and clambered down the wall, enduring the utmost toil and fatigue. I was quite exhausted, and moreover had flayed the inside of my hands, which bled freely. This compelled me to rest awhile, and I bathed my hands in my own urine.
When I thought that my strength was recovered, I advanced quickly toward the last rampart, which faces toward Prato. There I put my bundle of linen lines down upon the ground, meaning to fasten them round a battlement, and descend the lesser as I had the greater height. But no sooner had I placed the linen than I became aware behind me of a sentinel, who was going the rounds. Seeing my designs interrupted and my life in peril, I resolved to face the guard. This fellow, when he noticed my bold front, and that I was marching on him with weapon in hand, quickened his pace and gave me a wide berth. I had left my lines some little way behind, so I turned with hasty steps to regain them; and though I came within sight of another sentinel, he seemed as though he did not choose to take notice of me. Having found my lines and attached them to the battlement, I let myself go. On the descent, whether it was that I thought I had really come to earth and relaxed my grasp to jump, or whether my hands were so tired that they could not keep their hold, at any rate I fell, struck my head in falling, and lay stunned for more than an hour and a half, so far as I could judge.
It was just upon daybreak, when the fresh breeze which blows an hour before the sun revived me; yet I did not immediately recover my senses, for I thought my head had been cut off, and fancied that I was in purgatory. With time, little by little my faculties returned, and I perceived that I was outside the castle, and in a flash remembered all my adventures. I was aware of the wound in my head before I knew my leg was broken; for I put my hands up and withdrew them covered with blood. Then I searched the spot well, and judged and ascertained that I had sustained no injury of consequence there; but when I wanted to stand up, I discovered that my right leg was broken three inches above the heel. Not even this dismayed me: I drew forth my poniard with its scabbard; the latter had a metal point ending in a large ball, which had caused the fracture of my leg; for the bone coming into violent contact with the ball, and not being able to bend, had snapped at that point. I threw the sheath away, and with the poniard cut a piece of the linen which I had left. Then I bound my leg up as well as I could, and crawled on all fours with the poniard in my hand toward the city gate. When I reached it, I found it shut; but I noticed a stone just beneath the door which did not appear to be very firmly fixed. This I attempted to dislodge; after setting my hands to it, and feeling it move, it easily gave way, and I drew it out. Through the gap thus made I crept into the town.
THE CASTING OF PERSEUS
From the 'Memoirs': Symonds's Translation
Abandoned thus to my own resources, I took new courage and banished the sad thoughts which kept recurring to my mind, making me often weep bitter tears of repentance for having left France; for though I did so only to revisit Florence, my sweet birthplace, in order that I might charitably succor my six nieces, this good action, as I well perceived, had been the beginning of my great misfortune. Nevertheless I felt convinced that when my Perseus was accomplished, all these trials would be turned to high felicity and glorious well-being.
Accordingly I strengthened my heart, and with all the forces of my body and my purse, employing what little money still remained to me, I set to work. First I provided myself with several loads of pine-wood from the forests of Serristori, in the neighborhood of Montelupo. While these were on their way, I clothed my Perseus with the clay which I had prepared many months beforehand, in order that it might be duly seasoned. After making its clay tunic (for that is the term used in this art) and properly arming it and fencing it with iron girders, I began to draw the wax out by means of a slow fire. This melted and issued through numerous air-vents I had made; for the more there are of these the better will the mold fill. When I had finished drawing off the wax, I constructed a funnel-shaped furnace all round the model of my Perseus. It was built of bricks, so interlaced, the one above the other, that numerous apertures were left for the fire to exhale it. Then I began to lay on wood by degrees, and kept it burning two whole days and nights.
At length when all the wax was gone and the mold was well baked, I set to work at digging the pit in which to sink it. This I performed with scrupulous regard to all the rules of art. When I had finished that part of my work, I raised the mold by windlasses and stout ropes to a perpendicular position, and suspending it with the greatest care one cubit above the level of the furnace, so that it hung exactly above the middle of the pit. I next lowered it gently down into the very bottom of the furnace, and had it firmly placed with every possible precaution for its safety. When this delicate operation was accomplished, I began to bank it up with the earth I had excavated; and ever as the earth grew higher I introduced its proper air-vents, which were little tubes of earthenware, such as folks use for drains and suchlike purposes. At length I felt sure that it was admirably fixed, and that the filling in of the pit and the placing of the air-vents had been properly performed. I also could see that my workpeople understood my method, which differed very considerably from that of all the other masters in the trade. Feeling confident then that I could rely upon them, I next turned to my furnace, which I had filled with numerous pigs of copper and other bronze stuff. The pieces were piled according to the laws of art; that is to say, so resting one upon the other that the flames could play freely through them, in order that the metal might heat and liquefy the sooner.
At last I called out heartily to set the furnace going. The logs of pine were heaped in, and what with the unctuous resin of the wood and the good draught I had given, my furnace worked so well that I was obliged to rush from side to side to keep it going. The labor was more than I could stand; yet I forced myself to strain every nerve and muscle. To increase my anxieties, the workshop took fire, and we were afraid lest the roofs should fall upon our heads; while from the garden such a storm of wind and rain kept blowing in that it perceptibly cooled the furnace.
Battling thus with all these untoward circumstances for several hours, and exerting myself beyond even the measure of my powerful constitution, I could at last bear up no longer, and a sudden fever of the utmost possible intensity attacked me. I felt absolutely obliged to go and fling myself upon my bed. Sorely against my will, having to drag myself away from the spot, I turned to my assistants,—about ten or more in all, what with master-founders, hand-workers, country fellows, and my own special journeymen; among whom was Bernandino Mannellini of Mugello, my apprentice through several years. To him in particular I spoke:—"Look, my dear Bernandino, that you observe the rules which I have taught you; do your best with all dispatch, for the metal will soon be fused. You cannot go wrong; these honest men will get the channels ready; you will easily be able to drive back the two plugs with this pair of iron crooks; and I am sure that my mold will fill miraculously. I feel more ill than I ever did in all my life, and verily believe it will kill me before a few hours are over." Thus with despair at heart I left them and betook myself to bed.
No sooner had I got to bed than I ordered my serving-maids to carry food and wine for all the men into the workshop; at the same time I cried, "I shall not be alive to-morrow." They tried to encourage me, arguing that my illness would pass over, since it came from excessive fatigue. In this way I spent two hours battling with the fever, which steadily increased, and calling out continually, "I feel that I am dying." My housekeeper, who was named Mona Fiore da Castel del Rio, a very notable manager and no less warm-hearted, kept chiding me for my discouragement; but on the other hand, she paid me every kind attention which was possible. However, the sight of my physical pain and moral dejection so affected her that in spite of that brave heart of hers, she could not refrain from shedding tears; and yet, so far as she was able, she took care I should not see them.
While I was thus terribly afflicted, I beheld the figure of a man enter my chamber, twisted in his body into the form of a capital S. He raised a lamentable, doleful voice, like one who announces their last hour to men condemned to die upon the scaffold, and spoke these words: "O Benvenuto! your statue is spoiled, and there is no hope whatever of saving it." No sooner had I heard the shriek of that wretch than I gave a howl which might have been heard from the sphere of flame. Jumping from my bed, I seized my clothes and began to dress. The maids, and my lad, and every one who came around to help me, got kicks or blows of the fist, while I kept crying out in lamentation, "Ah! traitors! enviers! This is an act of treason, done by malice prepense! But I swear by God that I will sift it to the bottom, and before I die will leave such witness to the world of what I can do as shall make a score of mortals marvel."
When I had got my clothes on, I strode with soul bent on mischief toward the workshop; there I beheld the men whom I had left erewhile in such high spirits, standing stupefied and downcast. I began at once and spoke:—"Up with you! Attend to me! Since you have not been able or willing to obey the directions I gave you, obey me now that I am with you to conduct my work in person. Let no one contradict me, for in cases like this we need the aid of hand and hearing, not of advice." When I had uttered these words, a certain Maestro Alessandro Lastricati broke silence and said, "Look you, Benvenuto, you are going to attempt an enterprise which the laws of art do not sanction, and which cannot succeed."
I turned upon him with such fury and so full of mischief, that he and all the rest of them exclaimed with one voice, "On then! Give orders! We will obey your last commands, so long as life is left in us." I believe they spoke thus feelingly because they thought I must fall shortly dead upon the ground. I went immediately to inspect the furnace, and found that the metal was all curdled; an accident which we express by "being caked." I told two of the hands to cross the road, and fetch from the house of the butcher Capretta a load of young oak-wood, which had lain dry for above a year; this wood had been previously offered me by Madame Ginevra, wife of the said Capretta. So soon as the first armfuls arrived, I began to fill the grate beneath the furnace. Now oak-wood of that kind heats more powerfully than any other sort of tree; and for this reason, where a slow fire is wanted, as in the case of gun foundry, alder or pine is preferred. Accordingly, when the logs took fire, oh! how the cake began to stir beneath that awful heat, to glow and sparkle in a blaze! At the same time I kept stirring up the channels, and sent men upon the roof to stop the conflagration, which had gathered force from the increased combustion in the furnace; also I caused boards, carpets, and other hangings to be set up against the garden, in order to protect us from the violence of the rain.
When I had thus provided against these several disasters, I roared out first to one man and then to another, "Bring this thing here! Take that thing there!" At this crisis, when the whole gang saw the cake was on the point of melting, they did my bidding, each fellow working with the strength of three. I then ordered half a pig of pewter to be brought, which weighed about sixty pounds, and flung it into the middle of the cake inside the furnace. By this means, and by piling on wood and stirring now with pokers and now with iron rods, the curdled mass rapidly began to liquefy. Then, knowing I had brought the dead to life again, against the firm opinion of those ignoramuses, I felt such vigor fill my veins that all those pains of fever, all those fears of death, were quite forgotten.
All of a sudden an explosion took place, attended by a tremendous flash of flame, as though a thunderbolt had formed and been discharged among us. Unwonted and appalling terror astonied every one, and me more even than the rest. When the din was over and the dazzling light extinguished, we began to look each other in the face. Then I discovered that the cap of the furnace had blown up, and the bronze was bubbling over from its source beneath. So I had the mouths of my mold immediately opened, and at the same time drove in the two plugs which kept back the molten metal. But I noticed that it did not flow as rapidly as usual, the reason being probably that the fierce heat of the fire we kindled had consumed its base alloy. Accordingly I sent for all my pewter platters, porringers, and dishes, to the number of some two hundred pieces, and had a portion of them cast, one by one, into the channels, the rest into the furnace. This expedient succeeded, and every one could now perceive that my bronze was in most perfect liquefaction, and my mold was filling; whereupon they all with heartiness and happy cheer assisted and obeyed my bidding, while I, now here, now there, gave orders, helped with my own hands, and cried aloud, "O God! thou that by thy immeasurable power didst rise from the dead, and in thy glory didst ascend to heaven!"... Even thus in a moment my mold was filled; and seeing my work finished, I fell upon my knees, and with all my heart gave thanks to God.
After all was over, I turned to a plate of salad on a bench there, and ate with hearty appetite, and drank together with the whole crew.
Afterwards I retired to bed, healthy and happy, for it was now two hours before morning, and slept as sweetly as though I had never felt a touch of illness. My good housekeeper, without my giving any orders, had prepared a fat capon for my repast. So that when I rose, about the hour for breaking fast, she presented herself with a smiling countenance and said, "Oh, is that the man who felt that he was dying? Upon my word, I think the blows and kicks you dealt us last night, when you were so enraged, and had that demon in your body as it seemed, must have frightened away your mortal fever! The fever feared that it might catch it too, as we did!" All my poor household, relieved in like measure from anxiety and overwhelming labor, went at once to buy earthen vessels in order to replace the pewter I had cast away. Then we dined together joyfully: nay, I cannot remember a day in my whole life when I dined with greater gladness or a better appetite.
After our meal I received visits from the several men who had assisted me. They exchanged congratulations and thanked God for our success, saying they had learned and seen things done which other masters judged impossible. I too grew somewhat glorious; and deeming I had shown myself a man of talent, indulged a boastful humor. So I thrust my hand into my purse and paid them all to their full satisfaction.
That evil fellow, my mortal foe, Messer Pier Francesco Ricci, major-domo of the Duke, took great pains to find out how the affair had gone. In answer to his questions, the two men whom I suspected of having caked my metal for me said I was no man, but of a certainty some powerful devil, since I had accomplished what no craft of the art could do; indeed, they did not believe a mere ordinary fiend could work such miracles as I in other ways had shown. They exaggerated the whole affair so much, possibly in order to excuse their own part in it, that the major-domo wrote an account to the Duke, who was then in Pisa, far more marvelous and full of thrilling incidents than what they had narrated.
After I had let my statue cool for two whole days, I began to uncover it by slow degrees. The first thing I found was that the head of Medusa had come out most admirably, thanks to the air-vents; for as I had told the Duke, it is the nature of fire to ascend. Upon advancing farther, I discovered that the other head, that, namely, of Perseus, had succeeded no less admirably; and this astonished me far more, because it is at a considerably lower level than that of the Medusa. Now the mouths of the mold were placed above the head of Perseus and behind his shoulders; and I found that all the bronze my furnace contained had been exhausted in the head of this figure. It was a miracle to observe that not one fragment remained in the orifice of the channel, and that nothing was wanting to the statue. In my great astonishment I seemed to see in this the hand of God arranging and controlling all.
I went on uncovering the statue with success, and ascertained that everything had come out in perfect order, until I reached the foot of the right leg on which the statue rests. There the heel itself was formed, and going further, I found the foot apparently complete. This gave me great joy on the one side, but was half unwelcome to me on the other, merely because I had told the Duke that it could not come out. However, when I reached the end, it appeared that the toes and a little piece above them were unfinished, so that about half the foot was wanting. Although I knew that this would add a trifle to my labor, I was very well pleased, because I could now prove to the Duke how well I understood my business. It is true that far more of the foot than I expected had been perfectly formed; the reason of this was that, from causes I have recently described, the bronze was hotter than our rules of art prescribe; also that I had been obliged to supplement the alloy with my pewter cups and platters, which no one else, I think, had ever done before.
Having now ascertained how successfully my work had been accomplished, I lost no time in hurrying to Pisa, where I found the Duke. He gave me a most gracious reception, as did also the Duchess; and although the major-domo had informed them of the whole proceedings, their Excellencies deemed my performance far more stupendous and astonishing when they heard the tale from my own mouth. When I arrived at the foot of Perseus, and said it had not come out perfect, just as I previously warned his Excellency, I saw an expression of wonder pass over his face, while he related to the Duchess how I had predicted this beforehand.
Observing the Princess to be so well disposed towards me, I begged leave from the Duke to go to Rome. He granted it in most obliging terms, and bade me return as soon as possible to complete his Perseus; giving me letters of recommendation meanwhile to his ambassador, Averardo Serristori. We were then in the first years of Pope Giulio de Monti.
A NECKLACE OF PEARLS
From the 'Memoirs': Symonds's Translation
I must beg your attention now, most gracious reader, for a very terrible event which happened.
I used the utmost diligence and industry to complete my statue, and went to spend my evenings in the Duke's wardrobe, assisting there the goldsmiths who were working for his Excellency. Indeed, they labored mainly on designs which I had given them. Noticing that the Duke took pleasure in seeing me at work and talking with me, I took it into my head to go there sometimes also by day. It happened upon one of those days that his Excellency came as usual to the room where I was occupied, and more particularly because he heard of my arrival. His Excellency entered at once into conversation, raising several interesting topics, upon which I gave my views so much to his entertainment that he showed more cheerfulness than I had ever seen in him before. All of a sudden one of his secretaries appeared, and whispered something of importance in his ear; whereupon the Duke rose, and retired with the official into another chamber.
Now the Duchess had sent to see what his Excellency was doing, and her page brought back this answer:—"The Duke is talking and laughing with Benvenuto, and is in excellent good humor." When the Duchess heard this, she came immediately to the wardrobe, and not finding the Duke there, took a seat beside us. After watching us at work a while, she turned to me with the utmost graciousness, and showed me a necklace of large and really very fine pearls. On being asked by her what I thought of them, I said it was in truth a very handsome ornament. Then she spoke as follows:—"I should like the Duke to buy them for me; so I beg you, my dear Benvenuto, to praise them to him as highly as you can." At these words, I disclosed my mind to the Duchess with all the respect I could, and answered:—"My lady, I thought this necklace of pearls belonged already to your illustrious Excellency. Now that I am aware you have not yet acquired them, it is right, nay more, it is my duty, to utter what I might otherwise have refrained from saying; namely, that my mature professional experience enables me to detect very grave faults in the pearls, and for this reason I could never advise your Excellency to purchase them."
She replied:—"The merchant offers them for six thousand crowns; and were it not for some of those trifling defects you speak of, the rope would be worth over twelve thousand."
To this I replied that, even were the necklace of quite flawless quality, I could not advise any one to bid up to five thousand crowns for it: for pearls are not gems; pearls are but fishes' bones, which in the course of time must lose their freshness. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, on the contrary, never grow old; these four are precious stones, and these it is right to purchase. When I had thus spoken, the Duchess showed some signs of irritation, and exclaimed, "I have a mind to possess these pearls; so prithee, take them to the Duke and praise them up to the skies; even if you have to use some words beyond the bounds of truth, speak them to do me service; it will be well for you!"
I have always been the greatest friend of truth and foe of lies; yet compelled by necessity, unwilling to lose the favor of so great a princess, I took those confounded pearls sorely against my inclination, and went with them over to the other room, whither the Duke had withdrawn. No sooner did he set eyes upon me than he cried, "O Benvenuto, what are you about here?" I uncovered the pearls and said, "My lord, I am come to show you a most splendid necklace of pearls, of the rarest quality, and truly worthy of your Excellency; I do not believe it would be possible to put together eighty pearls which could show better than these do in a necklace. My counsel therefore is that you should buy them, for they are in good sooth miraculous." He responded on the instant, "I do not choose to buy them; they are not pearls of the quality and goodness you affirm; I have seen the necklace, and they do not please me." Then I added, "Pardon me, Prince! These pearls exceed in rarity and beauty any which were ever brought together for a necklace." The Duchess had risen, and was standing behind a door listening to all I said. Well, when I had praised the pearls a thousandfold more warmly than I have described above, the Duke turned toward me with a kindly look, and said, "O my dear Benvenuto, I know that you have an excellent judgment in all these matters. If the pearls are as rare as you certify, I should not hesitate about their purchase; partly to gratify the Duchess and partly to possess them, seeing I have always need of such things, not so much for her Grace as for the various uses of my sons and daughters." When I heard him speak thus, having once begun to tell fibs, I stuck to them with even greater boldness; I gave all the color of truth I could to my lies, confiding in the promise of the Duchess to help me at the time of need. More than two hundred crowns were to be my commission on the bargain, and the Duchess had intimated that I should receive so much; but I was firmly resolved not to touch a farthing, in order to secure my credit, and convince the Duke I was not prompted by avarice. Once more his Excellency began to address me with the greatest courtesy: "I know that you are a consummate judge of these things; therefore, if you are the honest man I always thought you, tell me now the truth." Thereat I flushed up to my eyes, which at the same time filled with tears, and said to him, "My lord, if I tell your most illustrious Excellency the truth, I shall make a mortal foe of the Duchess; this will oblige me to depart from Florence, and my enemies will begin at once to pour contempt upon my Perseus, which I have announced as a masterpiece to the most noble school of your illustrious Excellency. Such being the case, I recommend myself to your most illustrious Excellency."
The Duke was now aware that all my previous speeches had been, as it were, forced out of me. So he rejoined, "If you have confidence in me, you need not stand in fear of anything whatever." I recommenced, "Alas! my lord, what can prevent this coming to the ears of the Duchess?" The Duke lifted his hand in sign of troth pledge and exclaimed, "Be assured that what you say will be buried in a diamond casket." To this engagement upon honor I replied by telling the truth according to my judgment, namely, that the pearls were not worth above two thousand crowns. The Duchess, thinking we had stopped talking, for we now were speaking in as low a voice as possible, came forward and began as follows:—"My lord, do me the favor to purchase this necklace, because I have set my heart on them, and your Benvenuto here has said he never saw a finer row of pearls." The Duke replied, "I do not choose to buy them."—"Why, my lord, will not your Excellency gratify me by buying them?"—"Because I do not care to throw my money out of the window." The Duchess recommenced, "What do you mean by throwing your money away, when Benvenuto, in whom you place such well-merited confidence, has told me that they would be cheap at over three thousand crowns?" Then the Duke said, "My lady! my Benvenuto here has told me that if I purchase this necklace I shall be throwing my money away, inasmuch as the pearls are neither round nor well-matched, and some of them are quite faded. To prove that this is so, look here! look there! consider this one and then that. The necklace is not the sort of thing for me." At these words the Duchess cast a glance of bitter spite at me, and retired with a threatening nod of her head in my direction. I felt tempted to pack off at once and bid farewell to Italy. Yet my Perseus being all but finished, I did not like to leave without exposing it to public view. But I ask every one to consider in what a grievous plight I found myself!
HOW BENVENUTO LOST HIS BROTHER
From the 'Memoirs': Symonds's Translation
My brother at this period was also in Rome, serving Duke Alessandro, on whom the Pope had recently conferred the duchy of Penna. This prince kept in his service a multitude of soldiers, worthy fellows, brought up to valor in the school of that famous general Giovanni de' Medici; and among these was my brother, whom the Duke esteemed as highly as the bravest of them. One day my brother went after dinner to the shop of a man called Baccino della Croce, in the Banchi, which all those men-at-arms frequented. He had flung himself upon a settee and was sleeping. Just then the guard of the Bargello passed by; they were taking to prison a certain Captain Cisti, a Lombard, who had also been a member of Giovanni's troop, but was not in the service of the Duke. The captain, Cattivanza degli Strozzi, chanced to be in the same shop; and when Cisti caught sight of him he whispered, "I was bringing you those crowns I owed; if you want them, come for them before they go with me to prison." Now Cattivanza had a way of putting his neighbors to the push, not caring to hazard his own person. So, finding there around him several young fellows of the highest daring, more eager than apt for so serious an enterprise, he bade them catch up Captain Cisti and get the money from him, and if the guard resisted, overpower the men, provided they had pluck enough to do so.
The young men were but four, and all four of them without a beard. The first was called Bertino Aldobrandi, another Anguillotto of Lucca; I cannot recall the names of the rest. Bertino had been trained like a pupil by my brother, and my brother felt the most unbounded love for him. So then off dashed the four brave lads and came up with the guard of the Bargello,—upwards of fifty constables, counting pikes, arquebuses, and two-handed swords. After a few words they drew their weapons, and the four boys so harried the guard that if Captain Cattivanza had but shown his face, without so much as drawing, they would certainly have put the whole pack to flight. But delay spoiled all: for Bertino received some ugly wounds and fell; at the same time Anguillotto was also hit in the right arm, and being unable to use his sword, got out of the fray as well as he was able. The others did the same. Bertino Aldobrandi was lifted from the ground seriously injured.
While these things were happening we were all at table; for that morning we had dined more than an hour later than usual. On hearing the commotion one of the old man's sons, the elder, rose from table to go and look at the scuffle. He was called Giovanni; and I said to him, "For Heaven's sake, don't go! In such matters one is always certain to lose, while there is nothing to be gained." His father spoke to like purpose, "Pray, my son, don't go!" But the lad, without heeding any one, ran down the stairs. Reaching the Banchi, where the great scrimmage was, and seeing Bertino lifted from the ground, he ran towards home, and met my brother Cecchino on the way, who asked what was the matter. Though some of the bystanders signed to Giovanni not to tell Cecchino, he cried out like a madman how it was that Bertino Aldobrandi had been killed by the guard. My poor brother gave vent to a bellow which might have been heard ten miles away. Then he turned to Giovanni: "Ah me! but could you tell me which of those men killed him for me?" Giovanni said yes, that it was a man who had a big two-handed sword, with a blue feather in his bonnet. My poor brother rushed ahead, and having recognized the homicide by those signs, he threw himself with all his dash and spirit into the middle of the band, and before his man could turn on guard, ran him right through the guts, and with the sword's hilt thrust him to the ground. Then he turned upon the rest with such energy and daring that his one arm was on the point of putting the whole band to flight, had it not been that while wheeling round to strike an arquebusier, this man fired in self-defense and hit the brave unfortunate young fellow above the knee of his right leg. While he lay stretched upon the ground the constables scrambled off in disorder as fast as they were able, lest a pair to my brother should arrive upon the scene.
Noticing that the tumult was not subsiding, I too rose from table, and girding on my sword—for everybody wore one then—I went to the bridge of Sant' Agnolo, where I saw a group of several men assembled. On my coming up and being recognized by some of them, they gave way before me and showed me what I least of all things wished to see, albeit I made mighty haste to view the sight. On the instant I did not know Cecchino, since he was wearing a different suit of clothes from that in which I had lately seen him. Accordingly he recognized me first and said, "Dearest brother, do not be upset by my grave accident: it is only what might be expected in my profession; get me removed from here at once, for I have but few hours to live." They had acquainted me with the whole event while he was speaking, in brief words befitting such occasion. So I answered, "Brother, this is the greatest sorrow and the greatest trial that could happen to me in the whole course of my life. But be of good cheer; for before you lose sight of him who did the mischief, you shall see yourself revenged by my hand." Our words on both sides were to the purport, but of the shortest.
The guard was now about fifty paces from us; for Maffio, their officer, had made some of them turn back to take up the corporal my brother killed. Accordingly, I quickly traversed that short space, wrapped in my cape, which I had tightened round me, and came up with Maffio, whom I should most certainly have murdered; for there were plenty of people round, and I had wound my way among them. With the rapidity of lightning I had half drawn my sword from the sheath, when Berlinghier Berlinghieri, a young man of the greatest daring and my good friend, threw himself from behind upon my arms; he had four other fellows of like kidney with him, who cried out to Maffio, "Away with you, for this man here alone was killing you!" He asked, "Who is he?" and they answered, "Own brother to the man you see there." Without waiting to hear more, he made haste for Torre di Nona; and they said, "Benvenuto, we prevented you against your will, but did it for your good; now let us go to succor him who must die shortly." Accordingly we turned and went back to my brother, whom I had at once conveyed into a house. The doctors who were called in consultation treated him with medicaments, but could not decide to amputate the leg, which might perhaps have saved him.
As soon as his wound had been dressed, Duke Alessandro appeared and most affectionately greeted him. My brother had not as yet lost consciousness; so he said to the Duke, "My lord, this only grieves me, that your Excellency is losing a servant than whom you may perchance find men more valiant in the profession of arms, but none more lovingly and loyally devoted to your service than I have been." The Duke bade him do all he could to keep alive; for the rest, he well knew him to be a man of worth and courage. He then turned to his attendants, ordering them to see that the brave young fellow wanted for nothing.
When he was gone, my brother lost blood so copiously—for nothing could be done to stop it—that he went off his head and kept raving all the following night, with the exception that once, when they wanted to give him the communion, he said, "You would have done well to confess me before; now it is impossible that I should receive the divine sacrament in this already ruined frame; it will be enough if I partake of it by the divine virtue of the eyesight, whereby it shall be transmitted into my immortal soul, which only prays to Him for mercy and forgiveness." Having spoken thus, the Host was elevated; but he straightway relapsed into the same delirious ravings as before, pouring forth a torrent of the most terrible frenzies and horrible imprecations that the mind of man could imagine; nor did he cease once all that night until the day broke.
When the sun appeared above our horizon he turned to me and said, "Brother, I do not wish to stay here longer, for these fellows will end by making me do something tremendous, which may cause them to repent of the annoyance they have given me." Then he kicked out both his legs—the injured limb we had inclosed in a very heavy box—and made as though he would fling it across a horse's back. Turning his face round to me, he called out thrice, "Farewell, farewell!" and with the last word that most valiant spirit passed away.
At the proper hour, toward nightfall, I had him buried with due ceremony in the Church of the Florentines; and afterwards I erected to his memory a very handsome monument of marble, upon which I caused trophies and banners to be carved. I must not omit to mention that one of his friends had asked him who the man was that had killed him, and if he could recognize him; to which he answered that he could, and gave his description. My brother indeed attempted to prevent this coming to my ears; but I got it very well impressed upon my mind, as will appear in the sequel.
AN ADVENTURE IN NECROMANCY
From the 'Memoirs': Symonds's Translation
It happened through a variety of singular accidents that I became intimate with a Sicilian priest, who was a man of very elevated genius and well instructed in both Latin and Greek letters. In the course of conversation one day we were led to talk about the art of necromancy, apropos of which I said, "Throughout my whole life I have had the most intense desire to see or learn something of this art." Thereto the priest replied, "A stout soul and a steadfast must the man have who sets himself to such an enterprise." I answered that of strength and steadfastness of soul I should have enough and to spare, provided I found the opportunity. Then the priest said, "If you have the heart to dare it, I will amply satisfy your curiosity." Accordingly we agreed upon attempting the adventure.
The priest one evening made his preparations, and bade me find a comrade, or not more than two. I invited Vincenzio Romoli, a very dear friend of mine, and the priest took with him a native of Pistoja, who also cultivated the black art. We went together to the Coliseum; and there the priest, having arrayed himself in necromancer's robes, began to describe circles on the earth with the finest ceremonies that can be imagined. I must say that he had made us bring precious perfumes and fire, and also drugs of fetid odor. When the preliminaries were completed he made the entrance into the circle, and taking us by the hand, introduced us one by one inside it. Then he assigned our several functions; to the necromancer, his comrade, he gave the pentacle to hold; the other two of us had to look after the fire and the perfumes; and then he began his incantations. This lasted more than an hour and a half; when several legions appeared, and the Coliseum was all full of devils. I was occupied with the precious perfumes, and when the priest perceived in what numbers they were present he turned to me and said, "Benvenuto, ask them something." I called on them to reunite me with my Sicilian Angelica. That night we obtained no answer; but I enjoyed the greatest satisfaction of my curiosity in such matters. The necromancer said that we should have to go a second time, and that I should obtain the full accomplishment of my request; but he wished me to bring with me a little boy of pure virginity.
I chose one of my shop-lads, who was about twelve years old, and invited Vincenzio Romoli again; and we also took a certain Agnolino Gaddi, who was a very intimate friend of both. When we came once more to the place appointed, the necromancer made just the same preparations, attended by the same and even more impressive details. Then he introduced us into the circle, which he had reconstructed with art more admirable and yet more wondrous ceremonies. Afterwards he appointed my friend Vincenzio to the ordering of the perfumes and the fire, and with him Agnolino Gaddi. He next placed in my hand the pentacle, which he bid me turn toward the points he indicated, and under the pentacle I held the little boy, my workman. Now the necromancer began to utter those awful invocations, calling by name on multitudes of demons who are captains of their legions, and these he summoned by the virtue and potency of God, the Uncreated, Living, and Eternal, in phrases of the Hebrew, and also of the Greek and Latin tongues; insomuch that in a short space of time the whole Coliseum was full of a hundredfold as many as had appeared upon the first occasion. Vincenzio Romoli, together with Agnolino, tended the fire and heaped on quantities of precious perfumes. At the advice of the necromancer I again demanded to be reunited with Angelica. The sorcerer turned to me and said, "Hear you what they have replied—that in the space of one month you will be where she is?" Then once more he prayed me to stand firm by him, because the legions were a thousandfold more than he had summoned, and were the most dangerous of all the denizens of hell; and now that they had settled what I asked, it behoved us to be civil to them and dismiss them gently. On the other side, the boy, who was beneath the pentacle, shrieked out in terror that a million of the fiercest men were swarming round and threatening us. He said moreover that four huge giants had appeared, who were striving to force their way inside the circle. Meanwhile the necromancer, trembling with fear, kept doing his best with mild and soft persuasions to dismiss them. Vincenzio Romoli, who quaked like an aspen-leaf, looked after the perfumes. Though I was quite as frightened as the rest of them, I tried to show it less, and inspired them all with marvelous courage; but the truth is that I had given myself up for dead when I saw the terror of the necromancer. The boy had stuck his head between his knees, exclaiming, "This is how I will meet death, for we are certainly dead men." Again I said to him, "These creatures are all inferior to us, and what you see is only smoke and shadow; so then raise your eyes." When he had raised them he cried out, "The whole Coliseum is in flames, and the fire is advancing on us;" then covering his face with his hands, he groaned again that he was dead, and that he could not endure the sight longer. The necromancer appealed for my support, entreating me to stand firm by him, and to have asafetida flung upon the coals; so I turned to Vincenzio Romoli, and told him to make the fumigation at once. While uttering these words I looked at Agnolino Gaddi, whose eyes were starting from their sockets in his terror, and who was more than half dead, and said to him, "Agnolo, in time and place like this we must not yield to fright, but do the utmost to bestir ourselves; therefore up at once, and fling a handful of that asafetida upon the fire."... The boy, roused by that great stench and noise, lifted his face a little, and hearing me laugh, he plucked up courage, and said the devils were taking to flight tempestuously. So we abode thus until the matin bells began to sound. Then the boy told us again that but few remained, and those were at a distance. When the necromancer had concluded his ceremonies he put off his wizard's robe, and packed up a great bundle of books which he had brought with him; then all together we issued with him from the circle, huddling as close as we could to one another, especially the boy, who had got into the middle, and taken the necromancer by his gown and me by the cloak. All the while that we were going toward our houses in the Banchi he kept saying that two of the devils he had seen in the Coliseum were gamboling in front of us, skipping now along the roofs and now upon the ground. The necromancer assured me that often as he had entered magic circles, he had never met with such a serious affair as this. He also tried to persuade me to assist him in consecrating a book, by means of which we should extract immeasurable wealth, since we could call up fiends to show us where treasures were, whereof the earth is full; and after this wise we should become the richest of mankind: love affairs like mine were nothing but vanities and follies without consequence. I replied that if I were a Latin scholar I should be very willing to do what he suggested. He continued to persuade me by arguing that Latin scholarship was of no importance, and that if he wanted, he could have found plenty of good Latinists; but that he had never met with a man of soul so firm as mine, and that I ought to follow his counsel. Engaged in this conversation, we reached our homes, and each one of us dreamed all that night of devils.
As we were in the habit of meeting daily, the necromancer kept urging me to join in his adventure. Accordingly I asked him how long it would take, and where we should have to go. To this he answered that we might get through with it in less than a month, and that the most suitable locality for the purpose was the hill country of Norcia: a master of his in the art had indeed consecrated such a book quite close to Rome, at a place called the Badia di Farfa; but he had met with some difficulties there, which would not occur in the mountains of Norcia: the peasants also of that district are people to be trusted, and have some practice in these matters, so that at a pinch they are able to render valuable assistance.
This priestly sorcerer moved me so by his persuasions that I was well disposed to comply with his request; but I said I wanted first to finish the medals I was making for the Pope. I had confided what I was doing about them to him alone, begging him to keep my secret. At the same time I never stopped asking him if he believed that I should be reunited to my Sicilian Angelica at the time appointed; for the date was drawing near, and I thought it singular that I heard nothing about her. The necromancer told me that it was quite certain I should find myself where she was, since the devils never break their word when they promise, as they did on that occasion; but he bade me keep my eyes open and be on the lookout against some accident which might happen to me in that connection, and put restraint upon myself to endure somewhat against my inclination, for he could discern a great and imminent danger in it: well would it be for me if I went with him to consecrate the book, since this would avert the peril that menaced me and would make us both most fortunate.
I was beginning to hanker after the adventure more than he did; but I said that a certain Maestro Giovanni of Castel Bolognese had just come to Rome, very ingenious in the art of making medals of the sort I made in steel, and that I thirsted for nothing more than to compete with him and take the world by storm with some great masterpiece, which I hoped would annihilate all those enemies of mine by the force of genius and not the sword. The sorcerer on his side went on urging, "Nay, prithee, Benvenuto, come with me and shun a great disaster which I see impending over you." However, I had made my mind up, come what would, to finish my medal, and we were now approaching the end of the month. I was so absorbed and enamored by my work that I thought no more about Angelica or anything of that kind, but gave my whole self up to it.
BENVENUTO LOSES SELF-CONTROL UNDER SEVERE PROVOCATION
From the 'Memoirs': Symonds's Translation
It happened one day, close on the hours of vespers, that I had to go, at an unusual time for me, from my house to my workshop; for I ought to say that the latter was in the Banchi, while I lived behind the Banchi, and went rarely to the shop; all my business there I left in the hands of my partner, Felice. Having stayed a short while in the workshop, I remembered that I had to say something to Alessandro del Bene. So I arose, and when I reached the Banchi, I met a man called Ser Benedetto, who was a great friend of mine. He was a notary, born in Florence, son of a blind man who said prayers about the streets for alms, and a Sienese by race. This Ser Benedetto had been very many years at Naples; afterwards he had settled in Rome, where he transacted business for some Sienese merchants of the Chigi. My partner had over and over again asked him for some moneys which were due for certain little rings confided to Ser Benedetto. That very day, meeting him in the Banchi, he demanded his money rather roughly, as his wont was. Benedetto was walking with his masters, and they, annoyed by the interruption, scolded him sharply, saying they would be served by somebody else, in order not to have to listen to such barking.
Ser Benedetto did the best he could to excuse himself, swore that he had paid the goldsmith, and said he had no power to curb the rage of madmen. The Sienese took his words ill, and dismissed him on the spot. Leaving them, he ran like an arrow to my shop, probably to take revenge upon Felice. It chanced that just in the middle of the street we met. I, who had heard nothing of the matter, greeted him most kindly, according to my custom, to which courtesy he replied with insults. Then what the sorcerer had said flashed all at once upon my mind; and bridling myself as well as I was able, in the way he bade me, I answered:—
"Good brother Benedetto, don't fly into a rage with me, for I have done you no harm, nor do I know anything about these affairs of yours. Please go and finish what you have to do with Felice. He is quite capable of giving you a proper answer; but inasmuch as I know nothing about it, you are wrong to abuse me in this way, especially as you are well aware that I am not the man to put up with insults."
He retorted that I knew everything, and that he was the man to make me bear a heavier load than that, and that Felice and I were two great rascals. By this time a crowd had gathered round to hear the quarrel. Provoked by his ugly words, I stooped and took up a lump of mud—for it had rained—and hurled it with a quick and unpremeditated movement at his face. He ducked his head, so that the mud hit him in the middle of the skull. There was a stone in it with several sharp angles, one of which striking him, he fell stunned like a dead man; whereupon all the bystanders, seeing the great quantity of blood, judged that he was really dead.
While he was still lying on the ground, and people were preparing to carry him away, Pompeo the jeweler passed by. The Pope had sent for him to give orders about some jewels. Seeing the fellow in such a miserable plight, he asked who had struck him; on which they told him, "Benvenuto did it, but the stupid creature brought it down upon himself." No sooner had Pompeo reached the Pope than he began to speak: "Most blessed Father, Benvenuto has this very moment murdered Tobbia; I saw it with my own eyes." On this the Pope in a fury ordered the Governor, who was in the presence, to take and hang me at once in the place where the homicide had been committed; adding that he must do all he could to catch me, and not appear again before him until he had hanged me.
CELTIC LITERATURE
BY WILLIAM SHARP AND ERNEST RHYS
he widespread and deepening contemporary interest in Celtic literature is primarily due to four distinct influences. The publication (followed by its world-wide repute and the bitterest literary controversy of modern days) of Macpherson's 'Ossian' comes first. There is no inorganic development in art, whether the art of words or any other: in the fundamental sense, there is no accident. It is a mistake therefore to speak of Macpherson's 'Ossian' as a startling meteor which flashed across the world of literature, a brief apparition out of a void into which it has returned, leaving only a mass of débris to testify to its actuality and bygone splendor: a mistake, for this famous production was indirectly but closely related to another literary influence, the publication of Bishop Percy's celebrated 'Reliques of Ancient English Poetry.' In art there is no room for accidents: for art is an organic development, and the most seemingly arbitrary variations are inevitable or at least natural.
After Macpherson's 'Ossian' the next important influence is the 'Mabinogion,' as retold in English from the early Welsh originals by Lady Charlotte Guest. The influence, as well as the inherent beauty and interest, of each of these famous productions will be dealt with later in these volumes.
'Ossian' and the 'Mabinogion' afforded a new standpoint. The two heralds of the treasure we have inherited in this Celtic literature of the past were Ernest Renan and Matthew Arnold. Renan by his treatise on 'La Poésie des Races Celtiques,' and later Matthew Arnold by his essay on 'Celtic Literature,' accomplished an almost inestimable service. Everything that has been done since is but a variation along the lines indicated by these two great critics; and with this result, that it is already a commonplace to say we have in the Celtic literature of the past not only an almost inexhaustible mine of beauty, but the material for a new and vivid Anglo-Celtic literature of the imagination.
In the ensuing brief sketch of some of the main features of this subject, at once so fascinating and so important, no attempt is made to do other than to interest, and perhaps allure further, the general reader. For convenience's sake, this brief paper may be divided into four sections:—Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and Cornish.
I—IRISH
"From what dragon's teeth, and when sown, sprang forth this warlike crop?" asks Mr. Standish O'Grady, writing in his 'History of Ireland' of the host of famous heroic men and women whose names have come down to us from the antique periods of the Gael. "Out of the ground they start," he tells us, "the armies of her demigods and champions,—beautiful heroic forms,—in the North the Red Branch, in the South the Ernai or Clan Dega, in the West Queen Meave and her champions, in the Southeast that mysterious half-red Meave and her martial grooms!"
A wonderful world! that heroic Ireland, the old Ireland of Queen Meave and Cuculain, which only now for the first time is become at all a possible region for the most of us. It is due to the remarkable modern band of Irish writers and scholars represented by Mr. O'Grady in the one category, and his older namesake, Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady of the 'Silva Gadelica,' in the other, that this literature is at last unsealed for those readers who have no Gaelic equipment to aid them. With their aid Queen Meave emerges into new life in poetry and romance; Cuculain is seen fighting afresh his ancient battles; and St. Patrick encounters again the primitive Ossian: all these, fortunately, are now as much within the reach of an American audience as their classic prototypes in Homer or in the northern sagas. These few more familiar names, out of the vast number which threaten confusion in the old Irish romances and bardic books, may serve as clues in the perplexing labyrinth of a subject which seems at first so difficult to penetrate. Take Queen Meave, for instance: how do we arrive at her place and story, so early in the centuries? She belongs to the second great cycle of Irish legendary history, in which she has Cuculain, Conor mac Nessa, Fergus, and Deirdrê, as companions in romance. In this cycle the dramatic centre is the fierce interminable war between Connaught and Ulster, brought about by the treacherous murder of the sons of Usnach. The story of their tragic end, and of the melancholy death of Deirdrê, is one of the most moving in all Irish tradition. But the master-romance of the cycle is not that of Deirdrê, but of Queen Meave and her foray in quest of the famous bull of Louth; a tale familiar in Irish under its title of 'The Cattle-spoiling of Cooley.'
If one is tired of the modern world and its literary interpretations, its self-conscious fictions and impressionistic poetry, one cannot do better than dive deep into the past, where Queen Meave marches in half-barbaric splendor and beauty across the stage of the ancient Eri, which was approximately contemporaneous with the birth of Christ. That was the time when the Red Branch mustered in the north its heroic array of warriors, descendants of Ir, the son of Milesius; and of the Red Branch came Cuculain the mighty. Connaught, the Ireland west of the Shannon, was Queen Meave's patrimony, where still lived the chief remnant of the prehistoric Firbolgs, the race that once fought with the gods themselves. And we have still to supply the mid-Ireland, with Tara as capital, and Cairbre as king; the Leinster of that day, subject to Finn and Far-Cu; and the Munster, subject to Lok and Eocha, with the children of Conairy Mór the Beautiful, too, ranging the south in their fullness of power. The colors to be got out of this Celtic antiquity, the spirit of life that surges in its romantic annals, the fine fury of its heroes, the beauty and picturesqueness of its women, combine to make a story that only an Ireland of the first century could have inspired, and that only an Ireland of the sixth to the ninth century could have written.
Throughout Celtic history, the sixth century is for many reasons a climacteric period. In Irish literature, we reach about the year 575 a first point to which we can refer approximately the more conscious operation of its genius. Then it was that it made its first open claim to something like a national recognition. At the famous conclave of that year, held at Druimceta, it attained an almost academic position and organization. In this conclave, the then king of the Scottish Gaels, the leading King of the Irish, and St. Columcill, assisted at the deliberations which decided the caste and privileges of the Illuminati. There seem to have been three grades: the first, a pseudo-Druidic order, the Gradh Ecna; the second, one of law-makers and lawyers; the third, the Bardic order, the Gradh Fili, the poets being termed File in Irish. Of the many degrees to which the poets or File could attain, the highest (as in the other grades, of Ecna, "Wisdom," and of Fene, "Law") was the Ollave, or Doctor. These doctors of literature, so to call them, were already the continuators of a great tradition, especially in poetry. They had to carry, written only in their heads, an immense body of bardic and religious legendary history and philosophy. And inasmuch as they were the sole depositories of this profound and occult learning, to say nothing of those heroic tales and romances in which the Celtic people so delighted, they received high honor wherever they went. When the chief poet, the ollave, or doctor of poetry, arrived, in his weather-beaten cloak of dark crimson trimmed with white feathers, accompanied by his little band of disciples, at some chieftain's house, he was received with signal hospitality and treated to the best his host could afford.
While literature was still oral, it is clear that despite the care used in its preservation in the bardic schools, it could not be maintained with the absolute accuracy of a written or a printed text. The remoter the historical matter to be remembered, the less likely was it to be preserved, literatim et verbatim, without those little liberties of the imagination which the Celtic word-master of earlier ages was always ready to take. Thus the first cycle of Irish legendary history, dating back many centuries before the Christian era,—the primitive and mythological cycle,—allows full license to the imagination, working upon a basis of semi-barbaric tradition, with a mixture in it of nature-myths and remotest history. Both because of the extent and the extreme difficulty of the materials afforded by this cycle in the study of the pre-Christian religious beliefs of the Celtic races, its stories will always form a great hunting-ground for Celtic students. We learn from it how the Nemedians were overtaken by the Fomorians and fought with them, almost to extermination, on Tory Island, escaping then to the south of Europe, particularly to Greece; and a couple of centuries later returned, under their new name of the Firbolgs. The Nemedians meanwhile supplied similarly a recrudescent race, the Tuatha Dé Danann, of whom came the Dagda,—the all-king, almost the Zeus of ancient Ireland. The same cycle supplies us also with the mythical types correspondent to those of the Greek mythology: e. g., Ogmuir, the Irish Heracles; Lug or Lugh, the Apollo; Diancéa, the Esculapius; Manannan, the Neptune; and so forth. We have also Bridget, the Goddess of Poetry, the Gaelic Muse, and the first and foremost of the many illustrious Brians of Gaelic story. Later critics differ ingeniously about the precise origins and significations of many of these prehistoric figures. Our own conjecture is, and it lays claim to no great originality or finality, that we have in this Danann cycle an all-but inextricable commixture of primitive nature-myths and folk-tales brought by the Milesian and pre-Milesian immigrants from the Aryan cradle in the East, together with a certain addition of confused history relating to the earliest adventures of the new-come races upon Irish ground. But such as this traditional cycle was, it provided the background for the much later second cycle, of which we have already spoken, and which bears the Red Branch aloft as a sign. In sight of the Red Branch, the darker part of the journey is over; and the mists of mythology only form the veil shutting out all but the mere human foreground.
We have spoken so far of two cycles—the Mythological, whose chronology is a matter for further criticism to decide; the Heroic, or Red Branch, which we place at the beginning of the Christian era.
Now we come to a third cycle: the "Fenian" named after Finn Mac Cool, according to most Irish writers; the "Ossianic" named after Ossian, Finn's famous son, according to most Scotch. We need only speak of it here of course on its purely Irish side and from the Fenian aspect, as the reader will find it fully dealt with under its Ossianic aspect elsewhere. The heroes of this cycle, if we accept their historical existence in Ireland, lived from the second to the fourth centuries of the Christian era. Art, his grandson Cormac, and Cormac's son, Cairbre; Cool, his son Finn, and King Goll: these, with Owen Mor and many another, fill the Fenian romances with their fierce and picturesque pursuit of destiny and death. They only await the hand of that predestined shaper into final and positive and modernly intelligible form of the confused romances which treat of their doings, to add a new epic to the larger literature which has the Old World for its text and the New World for its interpreter.
These three great cycles of Irish romance by no means exhaust the wealth of story, still lurking perdu in old MSS. or in rare and rarely read works. Some of these additional tales have already reached American readers under modern retellings or poetic interpretations; such as, e. g., 'The Voyage of Maeldune', retold memorably, and differently enough, in flowing hexametrical periods by Tennyson:—
"And we came to the Isle of Shouting; we landed; a score of wild birds
Cried from the topmost summit with human voices and words;
Once in an hour they cried, and whenever their voices pealed,
The steer fell down at the plow and the harvest died from the field,
And the men dropt dead in the valleys, and half of the cattle went lame,
And the roof sank in on the hearth, and the dwelling broke into flame;
And the shouting of these wild birds ran into the hearts of my crew,
Till they shouted along with the shouting, and seized one another and slew;
But I drew them the one from the other; I saw that we could not stay,
And we left the dead to the birds, and we sailed with our wounded away."
Tennyson took his version from Joyce's 'Early Celtic Romances'. In this volume we have, among other legendary romances, five or six of the most wonderful or moving tales in Celtic or any other literature. Three of these are—The Three Sorrowful Tales of Erin', comprising 'The Fate of the Children of Usna' (or 'Deirdrê'); 'The Fate of the Children of Lir'; and 'The Fate of the Children of Tuirenn'. The names of the three others are 'The Voyage of Maeldun' (the oldest copy of which is dated 1100), 'The Pursuit of Dermot and Grania', and 'Ossian in the Land of Youth'. Of these perhaps the story of 'Deirdrê' is the best known, and American readers may be referred to the fine epical version by Dr. Robert D. Joyce ('Deirdrê'), published some years ago by Roberts Brothers of Boston. Two brief examples of the short episodical narratives which make up the marvelous 'Voyage of Maeldun' may be cited here,—'The Miller of Hell' and 'Signs of Home,' the latter giving the return of the Celtic Ulysses and his companions.
THE MILLER OF HELL
The next island they came to, which was not far off from the last, had a large mill on it; and near the door stood the miller, a huge-bodied, strong, burly man. They saw numberless crowds of men and horses laden with corn coming towards the mill; and when their corn was ground they went away towards the west. Great herds of all kinds of cattle covered the plain as far as the eye could reach, and among them many wagons, laden with every kind of wealth that is produced on the ridge of the world. All these the miller put into the mouth of his mill to be ground; and all as they came forth went westward.
Maeldun and his people now spoke to the miller, and asked him the name of the mill, and the meaning of all they had seen on the island. And he, turning quickly towards them, replied in a few words:—
"This mill is called the Mill of Inver-tre-Kenand, and I am the Miller of Hell. All the corn and all the riches of the world that men are dissatisfied with, or which they complain of in any way, are sent here to be ground; and also every precious article and every kind of wealth which men try to conceal from God. All these I grind in the Mill of Inver-tre-Kenand and send them away afterwards to the west."
He spoke no more, but turned round and busied himself again with his mill. And the voyagers, with much wonder and awe in their hearts, went to their curragh and sailed away.
SIGNS OF HOME
Soon after they saw a beautiful verdant island, with herds of oxen, cows, and sheep browsing all over its hills and valleys; but no houses nor inhabitants to be seen. And they rested some time on this island and ate the flesh of the cows and sheep.
One day while they were standing on a hill a large falcon flew by; and two of the crew, who happened to look closely at him, cried out in the hearing of Maeldun:—
"See that falcon! he is surely like the falcons of Erin!"
"Watch him closely," cried Maeldun, "and observe exactly in what direction he is flying."
And they saw that he flew to the southeast, without turning or wavering.
They went on board at once; and having unmoored, they sailed to the southeast after the falcon. After rowing the whole day, they sighted land in the dusk of the evening, which seemed to them like the land of Erin.
Of all the books of the kind published since Macpherson's 'Ossian,' Lady Charlotte Guest's 'Mabinogion,' and Villemarqué's 'Barzaz-Breiz,' this collection of Dr. Joyce's has had the most marked influence. It consists of eleven tales, and was the first readable collection of the old Gaelic prose romances published in English. So far as the general public is concerned, Dr. Joyce's method is unquestionably the best. "A translation," he says, "may either follow the very words, or reproduce the life and spirit, of the original; but no translation can do both. If you render word for word, you lose the spirit; if you wish to give the spirit and manner, you must depart from the exact words and frame your own phrases. I have chosen this latter course. My translation follows the original closely enough in narrative and incident; but so far as mere phraseology is concerned, I have used the English language freely, not allowing myself to be trammeled by too close an adherence to the very words of the text. The originals are in general simple in style; and I have done my best to render them into simple, homely, plain English. In short, I have tried to tell the stories as I conceive the old Shenachies themselves would have told them if they had used English instead of Gaelic."
Another characteristic and admirably edited translation of one of these miscellaneous stories that lie outside the three cycles of Irish romance is 'The Vision of Mac Cougleime,' which we owe to Dr. Kuno Meyer (London: Nutt).
Among the legendary Celtic romances is the short but beautiful and characteristic account of Ossian's expedition to the Isle of the Blest or the Land of Youth, and his subsequent return as an old and decrepit man—in a word, the Celtic Rip Van Winkle. This legend not only underlies all the spiritual romances of Celtic Ireland and Scotland, but has profoundly appealed to the imagination of the whole complex English race of to-day, whether under the badge of the rose, the thistle, the shamrock, or the leek, whether under the banner of the United Kingdom or that of the Stars and Stripes.
OISIN IN TIRNANOGE;
or
The Last of the Feni
[According to an ancient legend, Finn's son Oisin, the hero poet, survived to the time of St. Patrick, two hundred years (the legend makes it three hundred) after the other Feni. On a certain occasion, when the saint asked him how he had lived to such a great age, the old hero related his story, of which the following is the close.]
I lived in the Land of Youth more than three hundred years; but it appeared to me that only three years had passed since the day I parted from my friends. At the end of that time I began to have a longing desire to see my father Finn and all my old companions, and I asked leave of Niam and of the king to visit Erin. The king gave permission, and Niam said:—
"I will give consent, though I feel sorrow in my heart, for I fear much you will never return to me."
I replied that I would surely return, and that she need not feel any doubt or dread, for that the white steed knew the way, and would bring me back in safety. Then she addressed me in these words, which seemed very strange to me:—
"I will not refuse this request, though your journey afflicts me with great grief and fear. Erin is not now as it was when you left it. The great king Finn and his Feni are all gone; and you will find, instead of them, a holy father and hosts of priests and saints. Now, think well on what I say to you, and keep my words in your mind. If once you alight from the white steed, you will never come back to me. Again I warn you, if you place your feet on the green sod in Erin, you will never return to this lovely land. A third time, O Oisin, my beloved husband, a third time I say to you, if you alight from the white steed you will never see me again."
I promised that I would faithfully attend to her words, and that I would not alight from the white steed. Then as I looked into her gentle face and marked her grief, my heart was weighed down with sadness, and my tears flowed plentifully; but even so, my mind was bent on coming back to Erin.
When I had mounted the white steed, he galloped straight toward the shore. We moved as swiftly as before over the clear sea. The wind overtook the waves and we overtook the wind, so that we straightway left the Land of Youth behind; and we passed by many islands and cities till at length we landed on the green shores of Erin.
As I traveled on through the country, I looked closely around me; but I scarcely knew the old places, for everything seemed strangely altered. I saw no sign of Finn and his host, and I began to dread that Niam's saying was coming true. At length I espied at a distance a company of little men and women,[A] all mounted on horses as small as themselves; and when I came near, they greeted me kindly and courteously. They looked at me with wonder and curiosity, and they marveled much at my great size and at the beauty and majesty of my person.
I asked them about Finn and the Feni; whether they were still living, or if any sudden disaster had swept them away. And one replied:—
"We have heard of the hero Finn, who ruled the Feni of Erin in times of old, and who never had an equal for bravery and wisdom. The poets of the Gaels have written many books concerning his deeds and the deeds of the Feni, which we cannot now relate; but they are all gone long since, for they lived many ages ago. We have heard also, and we have seen it written in very old books, that Finn had a son named Oisin. Now this Oisin went with a young fairy maiden to Tirnanoge, and his father and his friends sorrowed greatly after him and sought him long; but he was never seen again."
When I heard all this I was filled with amazement, and my heart grew heavy with great sorrow. I silently turned my steed away from the wondering people, and set forward straightway for Allen of the mighty deeds, on the broad green plains of Leinster. It was a miserable journey to me; and though my mind, being full of sadness at all I saw and heard, forecasted further sorrows, I was grieved more than ever when I reached Allen. For there indeed I found the hill deserted and lonely, and my father's palace all in ruins and overgrown with grass and weeds.
I turned slowly away, and afterwards fared through the land in every direction in search of my friends. But I met only crowds of little people, all strangers, who gazed on me with wonder; and none knew me. I visited every place throughout the country where I knew the Feni had lived; but I found their houses all like Allen, solitary and in ruins.
At length I came to Glenasmole,[B] where many a time I had hunted in days of old with the Feni, and there I saw a crowd of people in the glen. As soon as they saw me, one of them came forward and said:—
"Come to us, thou mighty hero, and help us out of our strait; for thou art a man of vast strength."
I went to them, and found a number of men trying in vain to raise a large flat stone. It was half lifted from the ground; but those who were under it were not strong enough either to raise it further or to free themselves from its weight. And they were in great distress, and on the point of being crushed to death.
I thought it a shameful thing that so many men should be unable to lift this stone, which Oscar, if he were alive, would take in his right hand and fling over the heads of the feeble crowd. After I had looked a little while, I stooped forward and seized the flag with one hand; and putting forth my strength, I flung it seven perches from its place, and relieved the little men. But with the great strain the golden saddle-girth broke, and bounding forward to keep myself from falling, I suddenly came to the ground on my two feet.
The moment the white steed felt himself free, he shook himself and neighed. Then, starting off with the speed of a cloud-shadow on a March day, he left me standing helpless and sorrowful. Instantly a woeful change came over me: the sight of my eyes began to fade, the ruddy beauty of my face fled, I lost all my strength, and I fell to the earth, a poor withered old man, blind and wrinkled and feeble.
The white steed was never seen again. I never recovered my sight, my youth, or my strength; and I have lived in this manner, sorrowing without ceasing for my gentle golden-haired wife Niam, and thinking ever of my father Finn, and of the lost companions of my youth.
[A] The gigantic race of the Feni had all passed away, and Erin was now inhabited by people who looked very small in Oisin's eyes.
[B] Glenasmole, a fine valley about seven miles south of Dublin, through which the river Dodder flows.
Between these romances and the first definite Christian writings the numerous Ossianic colloquies and narrative poems, and the Irish Annals, form the connecting links. The Ossianic poetry, even where it is specially Irish in character, we have elected to leave aside for the present, for reasons already given; but it must be remembered that they form a very important section in themselves, and amount in Irish alone to some fifty thousand lines, even on a fairly moderate computation.
Turning to the Annals, we are confronted at once by that extraordinary repository of Irish lore, history, and legend known as 'The Annals of the Four Masters.' This remarkable testament of the Irish genius was due primarily to the zeal and energy of Michael O'Clery, born at Donegal about 1580—the last of a long line of scholars. Having become a Franciscan, in his conventual calling he was living far away from his native soil, at St. Anthony's monastery in Louvain. But there he had another Donegal man, Ædh the son of Bháird (Ward), for fellow worker; and the two together formed the idea of collecting and putting into permanent form the valuable MS. flotsam of old Irish literature which in earlier days, wandering in their own land, they had found drifting insecurely hither and thither. The plan they proposed was for O'Clery to get leave of absence and return to Ireland, there to roam up and down the land, collecting and copying every valuable MS. he could lay hands on; then transmitting the copy to his co-worker in Louvain. Ædh son of Ward died too soon to carry out fully his part of the undertaking: but another Irish Franciscan, Father Colgan, took up the task; and it was he who gave the book its present title, 'The Annals of the Four Masters,' calling it after the four men who chiefly collaborated in the work, viz., Michael O'Clery, Farfassa O'Mulconry, Peregrine O'Clery, and Peregrine O'Duigenan. The Annals, thus laboriously brought to a triumphant close, carry history back to the Deluge, and down to the years contemporary with their compilers and authors, and the early part of the seventeenth century. "There is no event of Irish history," says Dr. Hyde, "from the birth of Christ to the beginning of the seventeenth century, that the first inquiry of the student will not be—What do the Four Masters say about it?" The Annals indeed present in their curiously epitomized and synchronized pages the concentrated essence of thousands of the confused MSS. which the Four Masters collated, sifted, and interpreted with consummate art and intelligence. They wrote, we may add, in an archaic, almost cryptic style, full of bardic euphemisms and other difficulties; so that it is fortunate even for Celtic scholars that O'Donovan's seven great volumes, in his quarto edition, present the text with an accompanying English translation.
The more one compares the great work of the Four Masters with other succeeding works of the same historical order, the more one sees how great was the effect upon Irish literature of the growth of Christian influence. St. Patrick's are the world-wide name and fame which most clearly mark the early Christian history of Ireland, when the new divine creed entered into the land and confronted the Celtic paganism. Many are the exquisite legends of St. Patrick, often so naïvely and so tenderly told; with glimmerings here and there already of the humor which we connect so much with the Irish temper of mind, and which received probably its greatest stimulus when an Irishman of earlier times wished, in all courtesy, to reconcile his old fighting instincts with the Christian gentleness and self-sacrifice. This as it may be, the hagiology of the mediæval Irishman is in delightful contrast to the tales of battle and foray in the three great cycles of early romance. As for St. Patrick, the legendary and apocryphal literature that centres about him amounts in verse and prose to an immense bulk. Much of this matter has of course very small historical value; but it may be conceded that Patrick's traditional rôle as a law-maker and reviser, in connection with the revision of the Brehon Law, deserves serious attention. Similarly, though we do not accept more than a small part of the poems attributed to him as really his, there is enough to show him a poet, as well as a great teacher and preacher and lawgiver. What is most to the purpose, perhaps, is that he made his life a poem; so that the mediæval scribes can hardly speak of him without adorning and beautifying the tale they have to tell. Less known but hardly less interesting is St. Columcill, whom Dr. Hyde claims "to have been, both in his failings and his virtues, the most typical of Irishmen; at once sentimental and impulsive, an eminent type of the race he came from." Dr. Hyde goes on to relate, in illustration of this, the tale of the heron in Iona:—When "he saw the bird flying across the water from the direction of Ireland, and alighting half frozen with cold and faint with flight upon the rocky coast there, he sent out one of his monks to go round the island and warm and cherish and feed the bird; 'because,' said he weeping, 'it has come from the land I shall never see on earth again!'" Surely one of the most touching sentences ever uttered in all the long series of the lament of the Celt in exile!
The Lives of the Saints form altogether a most important and characteristic section of Irish literature. Even when composed in Latin, they remain so saturated with Celtic feeling and coloring that they may fairly be counted among Irish books. Dr. Hyde names several Latin lives of St. Patrick alone, ascribed to St. Benignus, St. Ultan, St. Eleran, and others of his later followers. Of St. Columcill (St. Columba), one of the fullest, written in Irish in the sixteenth century, was compiled at Lifford under the direction of Manus O'Donnell, Prince of Tirconnell; though Adamnan's Latin life of the Saint is the most important book on the subject, written as it was only a hundred years after the death of Columba, and by one who was his spiritual successor as Abbot of Iona.
The Danish invasion of Ireland, lasting from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, draws a red line across the history of its literature. During that troubled period many of the most priceless of its MSS. were destroyed, and violent disruptions threatened every phase of learning. However, the old impulse of the sixth century still lived; and we find in the tenth, Cormac, Bishop of Cashel, first among a redoubtable band of men of letters and men of affairs who strove successfully to maintain the Irish spirit. Cormac's 'Glossary' is the oldest book of its kind, and invaluable as a monument; and the reputed poems of Gorm'ly, his betrothed bride, whom he never married, and whose tale is a sad and strange one, form in their different ways an extremely characteristic expression of the Irish literature of the time.
During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the older Irish romances multiplied themselves and begat new ones in the most astonishing way. 'The Book of Leinster' mentions one hundred and eighty-one tales, duly classified: Love-tales, Battle-tales, Tales of Travel, Forays, Feasts, Visions, Tragedies, etc. What we have called the doctors of literature devoted themselves henceforth more to prose than to poetry, and poetry fell more and more into the hands of those who wrote not for the elect but for the people.
There was no new development of Irish poetry, such as there was of Welsh poetry in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The bardic schools, which did so much for Irish poetry from the sixth century to the seventeenth, insisted upon its conventions to a degree that was excessive. Geoffrey Keating, who carried on his great work at the same time as the Four Masters, in the first half of the seventeenth century, and who was a poet as well as a historian, still used the bardic prosody, and wrote some delightful poems by its rules; but he lent his influence to aid the new liberty in prose and verse that Irish literature was learning. Keating's name is of first-rate importance in its record, for this very reason. He was the first really to conceive of Irish literature as a literature for the people, and not only for the elect. He was the first to do this; and partly because he did it, he was the last great landmark in the larger Gaelic literature of Ireland. His 'History of Ireland,' the result of an enforced retirement from preaching, was, says Dr. Hyde, "the most popular book ever written in Irish." He marks too the transition, as we pointed out, from the old bardic tradition in Irish poetry. After his coming the bards threw away their superfluous prosody and wrote for the people, and became poets indeed, instead of the most ingenious of schoolmen. The result was the remarkable body of Irish poetry which belongs to the last three centuries, and which contains many of the characteristics of folk-song and culture poetry, in a most tuneful and idiosyncratic fashion quite its own. Let us listen again to Dr. Hyde on this point:—
"What the popular ballads of the folk had been like prior to the seventeenth century we have no means of knowing. No scribe would demean his learned pen by committing them to paper; but from that date down to the beginning of the present century the bards—the great houses being fallen—turned instinctively to the general public, and threw behind them the metres that required so many years of study in the schools, and dropped at a stroke several thousand words which no one understood except the great chiefs or those trained by the poets, while they broke out into beautiful but at the same time intelligible verse, which no one who has once heard and learned is likely to forget. This is to my mind the real glory of the modern Irish nation; this is the sweetest creation of Gaelic literature; this is the truest note of the enchanting Irish siren, and he who has once heard it and remains deaf to its charm has neither heart for song nor soul for music. The Gaelic poetry of the last two centuries is the most sensuous attempt to convey music in words ever made by man. It is absolutely impossible to convey the lusciousness of sound, richness of rhythm, and perfection of harmony in another language."
Discounting what we will in the natural enthusiasm of one who has devoted himself heart and soul to the cause of the Gaelic tongue and of Irish literature, quite enough remains to carry the contention for the continuing interest of native Irish poetry after so many centuries. That such a poetry and such a language should suddenly decay after so noble and enriched a record in the past, is nothing short of a tragedy in the history of tongues.
Dr. Hyde's own collection of the 'Love Songs of Connacht' is the best example that American readers could possibly have of this Irish poetry, the late flowering of so venerable and noble a tree. And with this work, and some of the collections of the folk-tales still current in Erse-speaking Ireland, made by Dr. Hyde, Mr. Jeremiah Curtin, and Mr. Larminie, and Englished for us, we must bring this brief outline of the Irish contribution to Celtic literature to a close. Its modern interpretation is only now beginning to take its due place, let us remember, both at the hands of its scholars and on the lips of its poets. And if any reader should think the scholars still, after all we have said, too difficult to follow, let us recommend them to turn to the poems and tales of Mr. W. B. Yeats and to the romantic pages of Mr. Standish O'Grady, the latest exponents in our more modern tongue of that imagination, and that subtlety and energy of thought, which are characteristically Irish.
Of the three great cycles of Gaelic literature, the third is the (so-called) Ossianic. Of this cycle Finn (Fionn, Fingal) is the central hero. The second great cycle is that which treats of the heroes of the Ultonians, i. e., the Red Branch of Ulster; among this cycle Cuculain (Cuchullin, Cohoolin, Coolin) is the supreme type. No living writer has so well reconstructed the past for us as Mr. Standish O'Grady has done, and nowhere is he so successful as in his vivid and beautiful historical romance, of which Cuculain is the hero. Of the famous "battle-prop of the valor and torch of the chivalry of the Ultonians" Mr. O'Grady has given us an account which deserves to pass into the fixed literature of our race. Apart from its vividness, charm, and power, 'The Coming of Cuculain' affords a general idea of the first great heroic cycle (its predecessor dealing entirely with mythical or mythopœic beings), and of primitive heroic life as reflected in that literature. The excerpts selected are (1) the opening of the romance, and (2) from the chapter telling how Cuculain won his knighthood.
FROM 'THE COMING OF CUCULAIN'
I
The Red Branch feasted one night in their great hall at Emain Macha. So vast was the hall that a man such as men are now, standing in the centre and shouting his loudest, would not be heard at the circumference; yet the low laughter of the King sitting at one end was clearly audible to those who sat around the Champion at the other. The sons of Dithorba made it, giants of the elder time, laboring there under the shoutings of Macha and the roar of her sounding thongs. Its length was a mile and nine furlongs and a cubit. With her brooch-pin she plowed its outline upon the plain, and its breadth was not much less. Trees such as earth nourished then upheld the mossy roof beneath which feasted that heroic brood, the great-hearted children of Rury, huge offsprings of the gods and giants of the dawn of time. For mighty exceedingly were these men. At the noise of their running to battle all Ireland shook, and the illimitable Lir trembled in his watery halls; the roar of their brazen chariots reverberated from the solid canopy of heaven, and their war-steeds drank rivers dry.
A vast murmur rose from the assembly, for like distant thunder or the far-off murmuring of agitated waters was the continuous hum of their blended conversation and laughter, while ever and anon, cleaving the many-tongued confusion, uprose friendly voices, clearer and stronger than battle trumpets, when one hero challenged another to drink, wishing him victory and success, and his words rang round the hollow dome. Innumerable candles, tall as spears, illuminated the scene. The eyes of the heroes sparkled, and their faces, white and ruddy, beamed with festal mirth and mutual affection. Their yellow hair shone. Their banqueting attire, white and scarlet, glowed against the outer gloom. Their round brooches and mantle-pins of gold or silver or golden bronze, their drinking vessels and instruments of festivity, flashed and glittered in the light. They rejoiced in their glory and their might and in the inviolable amity in which they were knit together; a host of comrades, a knot of heroic valor and affection, which no strength or cunning, and no power seen or unseen, could ever release or untie.
At one extremity of the vast hall, upon a raised seat, sat their young king, Concobar Mac Nessa, slender, handsome, and upright. A canopy of bronze, round as the bent sling of the Sun-god, the long-handed, far-shooting son of Ethlend, encircled his head. At his right hand lay a staff of silver. Far away at the other end of the hall, on a raised seat, sat the Champion, Fergus Mac Roy, like a colossus. The stars and clouds of night were round his head and shoulders, seen through the wide and high entrance of the Dûn, whose doors no man has ever seen closed and barred. Aloft, suspended from the dim rafters, hung the naked forms of great men clear against the dark dome, having the cords of their slaughter around their necks and their white limbs splashed with blood. Kings were they, who had murmured against the sovereignty of the Red Branch. Through the wide doorway out of the night flew a huge bird, black and gray, unseen; and soaring upwards sat upon the rafters, its eyes like burning fire. It was the Mór Reega, or Great Queen, the far-striding, terrible daughter of Iarnmas (Iron-Death). Her voice was like the shouting of ten thousand men. Dear to her were these heroes. More she rejoiced in them feasting than in the battle prowess of the rest.
When supper was ended, their bard, in his singing-robes and girt around the temples with a golden fillet, stood up and sang. He sang how once a king of the Ultonians, having plunged into the sea-depths, there slew a monster which had wrought much havoc amongst fishers and seafaring men. The heroes attended to his song, leaning forward with bright eyes. They applauded the song and the singer, and praised the valor of the heroic man who had done the deed. Then the Champion struck the table with his clenched hands and addressed the assembly. Wrath and sorrow were in his voice. It resembled the brool of lions, heard afar by seafaring men upon some savage shore on a still night.
"Famous deeds," he said, "are not wrought now among the Red Branch. I think we are all become women. I grow weary of these huntings in the morning and mimic exercises of war, and this training of steeds and careering of brazen chariots stained never with aught but dust and mire, and these unearned feastings at night and vain applause of the brave deeds of our forefathers. Come now, let us make an end of this. Let us conquer Banba (Ireland) wholly in all her green borders, and let the realms of Lir, which sustain no foot of man, be the limit of her sovereignty. Let us gather the tributes of all Ireland, after many battles and much warlike toil. Then more sweetly shall we drink, while the bards chant our prowess. Once I knew a coward who boasted endlessly about his forefathers, and at last my anger rose, and with a flat hand I slew him in the middle of his speech, and paid no eric, for he was nothing. We have the blood of heroes in our veins, and we sit here nightly boasting about them: about Rury, whose name we bear; and Macha the warrioress, who brought hither bound the sons of Dithorba and made them rear this mighty Dûn; and Kimbaoth son of Fiontann; and my namesake Fergus, whose crooked mouth was no dishonor, and the rest of our hero sires; and we consume the rents and tributes of Ulster which they by their prowess conquered to us, and which flow hither in abundance from every corner of the province. Valiant men too will one day come hither and slay us as I slew that boaster, and here in Emain Macha their bards will praise them. Then in the halls of our dead shall we say to our sires, 'All that you got for us by your blood and your sweat, that we have lost, and the glory of the Red Branch is at an end.'"
That speech was pleasing to the Red Branch, and they cried out that Fergus Mac Roy had spoken well. Then all at once, on a sudden impulse, they sang the battle song of the Ultonians, and shouted for the war so that the building quaked and rocked, and in the hall of the weapons there was a clangor of falling shields, and men died that night for extreme dread, so mightily shouted the Ultonians around their king and around Fergus.
II
On the morrow there was a great hasting of the Red Branch on the plain of the assemblies. It was May-day morning and the sun shone brightly, but at first through radiant showers. The trees were putting forth young buds; the wet grass sparkled. All the martial pomp and glory of the Ultonians were exhibited that day. Their chariots and war-horses ringed the plain. All the horses' heads were turned towards the centre where were Concobar Mac Nessa and the chiefs of the Red Branch. The plain flashed with gold, bronze, and steel, and glowed with the bright mantles of the innumerable heroes, crimson and scarlet, blue, green, or purple. The huge brooches on their breasts, of gold and silver or gold-like bronze, were like resplendent wheels. Their long hair, yellow for the most part, was bound with ornaments of gold. Great truly were those men; their like has not come since upon the earth. They were the heroes and demigods of the heroic age of Erin, champions who feared naught beneath the sun; mightiest among the mighty, huge, proud, and unconquerable, and loyal and affectionate beyond all others; all of the blood of Ir, son of Milesius, the Clanna Rury of great renown, rejoicing in their valor, their splendor, their peerless king. Concobar had no crown. A plain circle of beaten gold girt his broad temples. In the naked glory of his regal manhood he stood there before them all, but even so a stranger would have swiftly discovered the captain of the Red Branch; such was his stature, his bearing, such his slow-turning, steady-gazing eyes and the majesty of his bearded countenance. His countenance was long, broad above and narrow below, his nose eminent, his beard bipartite, curling and auburn in hue, his form without any blemish or imperfection....
"Let the tameless horses of Macha be harnessed to the chariot," cried Concobar, "and let Læg, son of the King of Gabra, drive them hither, for those are the horses and that the chariot which shall be given this day to Cuculain."
Then, son of Sualtam, how in thy guileless breast thy heart leaped when thou heardest the thundering of the great war-car and the wild neighing of the immortal steeds, as they broke from the dark stable into the clear-shining light of day, and heard behind them the ancient roaring of the brazen wheels, as in the days when they bore forth Macha and her martial groom against the giants of old, and mightily established in Eiria the Red Branch of the Ultonians! Soon they rushed to view from the rear of Emain, speeding forth impetuously out of the hollow-sounding ways of the city and the echoing palaces into the open, and behind them in the great car green and gold, above the many-twinkling wheels, the charioteer, with floating mantle, girt round the temples with the gold fillet of his office, leaning backwards and sideways as he labored to restrain their fury unrestrainable: a gray long-maned steed, whale-bellied, broad-chested, with mane like flying foam, under one silver yoke, and a black lustrous tufty-maned steed under the other; such steeds as in power, size, and beauty the earth never produced before and never will produce again.
Like a hawk swooping along the face of a cliff when the wind is high; or like the rush of March wind over the smooth plain; or like the fleetness of the stag roused from his lair by the hounds and covering his first field, was the rush of those steeds when they had broken through the restraint of the charioteer, as though they galloped over fiery flags; so that the earth shook and trembled with the velocity of their motion, and all the time the great car brayed and shrieked as the wheels of solid and glittering bronze went round, and strange cries and exclamations were heard, for they were demons that had their abode in that car.
The charioteer restrained the steeds before the assembly, but nay-the-less a deep purr like the purr of a tiger proceeded from the axle. Then the whole assembly lifted up their voices and shouted for Cuculain, and he himself, Cuculain the son of Sualtam, sprang into his chariot all armed, with a cry as of a warrior springing into his chariot in the battle, and he stood erect and brandished his spears, and the war sprites of the Gael shouted along with him; for the Bocanahs and Bananahs and the Geniti Gluidi, the wild people of the glens, and the demons of the air, roared around him, when first the great warrior of the Gael, his battle-arms in his hands, stood equipped for war in his chariot before all the warriors of his tribe, the kings of the Clanna Rury and the people of the Emain Macha. Then too there sounded from the Tec Brac the boom of shields and the clashing of swords and the cries and shouting of the Tuatha Dée Danann, who dwelt there perpetually; and Lu the long-handed, the slayer of Balor, the destroyer of the Fornoroh, the immortal, the invisible, the maker and the decorator of the firmament, whose hound was the sun, and whose son the viewless wind, thundered from heaven and bent his sling five-hued against the clouds; and the son of the illimitable Lir in his mantle blue and green, foam-fringed, passed through the assembly with a roar of far-off innumerable waters, and the Mór Reega stood in the midst with a foot on either side of the plain, and shouted with the shout of a host, so that the Ultonians fell down like reaped grass with their faces to the earth, on account of the presence of the Mór Reega and on account of the omens and great signs.
The following poems from the ancient Erse are taken from the 'Lyra Celtica: an Anthology of Representative Celtic Poetry,' edited by Elizabeth A. Sharp.
THE MYSTERY OF AMERGIN
I am the wind which breathes upon the sea,
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the murmur of the billows,
I am the ox of the seven combats,
I am the vulture upon the rocks,
I am a beam of the sun,
I am the fairest of plants,
I am a wild boar in valor,
I am a salmon in the water,
I am a lake in the plain,
I am a word of science,
I am the point of the lance of battle,
I am the God who creates in the head [i. e. of man] the fire [i. e. the thought].
Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain [if not I]?
Who announces the ages of the moon [if not I]?
Who teaches the place where couches the sun [if not I]?
THE SONG OF FIONN
May-day, delightful time! How beautiful the color!
The blackbirds sing their full lay. Would that Læg were here!
The cuckoos sing in constant strains. How welcome is the noble
Brilliance of the seasons ever! On the margin of the branching woods
The summer swallows skim the stream: the swift horses seek the pool;
The heather spreads out her long hair; the weak fair bow-down grows.
Sudden consternation attacks the signs; the planets, in their courses running, exert an influence:
The sea is lulled to rest, flowers cover the earth.
VISION OF A FAIR WOMAN
Tell us some of the charms of the stars:
Close and well set were her ivory teeth;
White as the canna upon the moor
Was her bosom the tartan bright beneath.
Her well-rounded forehead shone
Soft and fair as the mountain snow;
Her two breasts were heaving full;
To them did the hearts of heroes flow.
Her lips were ruddier than the rose;
Tender and tunefully sweet her tongue;
White as the foam adown her side
Her delicate fingers extended hung.
Smooth as the dusky down of the elk
Appeared her shady eyebrows to me;
Lovely her cheeks were, like berries red;
From every guile she was wholly free.
Her countenance looked like the gentle buds
Unfolding their beauty in early spring;
Her yellow locks like the gold-browed hills;
And her eyes like the radiance the sunbeams bring.
In contemporary Celtic poetry no one surpasses Mr. W. B. Yeats, particularly in the re-creation of that wonderful past with whose atmosphere his whole work is charged. As an example of Mr. Yeats's narrative method with legendary themes we may quote some lines from his beautiful 'The Wanderings of Oisin' (Ossian):—
Fled foam underneath us, and round us a wandering and milky smoke,
High as the saddle-girth, covering away from our glances the tide;
And those that fled, and that followed, from the foam-pale distance broke;
The immortal desire of immortals we saw in their faces, and sighed.
I mused on the chase with the Fenians, and Bran, Sgeolan, Lomair,
And never a song sang Neave, and over my finger-tips
Came now the sliding of tears and sweeping of mist-cold hair,
And now the warmth of sighs, and after the quiver of lips.
Were we days long or hours long in riding, when, rolled in a grisly peace,
An isle lay level before us, with dripping hazel and oak?
And we stood on a sea's edge we saw not; for whiter than new-washed fleece
Fled foam underneath us, and round us a wandering and milky smoke.
And we rode on the plains of the sea's edge—the sea's edge barren and gray,
Gray sands on the green of the grasses and over the dripping trees,
Dripping and doubling landward, as though they would hasten away
Like an army of old men longing for rest from the moan of the seas.
But the trees grew taller and closer, immense in their wrinkling bark;
Dropping—a murmurous dropping—old silence and that one sound;
For no live creatures lived there, no weasels moved in the dark—
Long sighs arose in our spirits, beneath us bubbled the ground.
And the ears of the horse went sinking away in the hollow night;
For as drift from a sailor slow drowning the gleams of the world and the sun,
Ceased on our hands and our faces, on hazel and oak leaf, the light,
And the stars were blotted above us, and the whole of the world was one.
Finally, here is one of Mr. Yeats's "old songs re-sung":—
THE MADNESS OF KING GOLL
I sat on cushioned otter skin:
My word was law from Ith to Emen,
And shook at Invar Amargin
The hearts of the world-troubling seamen,
And drove tumult and war away
From girl and boy and man and beast;
The fields grew fatter day by day,
The wild fowl of the air increased;
And every ancient Ollave said,
While he bent down his faded head,—
"He drives away the Northern cold."
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
I sat and mused and drank sweet wine;
A herdsman came from inland valleys,
Crying, the pirates drove his swine
To fill their dark-beaked hollow galleys.
I called my battle-breaking men
And my loud brazen battle-cars
From rolling vale and rivery glen,
And under the blinking of the stars
Fell on the pirates of the deep,
And hurled them in the gulph of sleep:
These hands won many a torque of gold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
But slowly, as I shouting slew
And trampled in the bubbling mire,
In my most secret spirit grew
A whirling and a wandering fire:
I stood: keen stars above me shone,
Around me shone keen eyes of men:
And with loud singing I rushed on
Over the heath and spungy fen,
And broke between my hands the staff
Of my long spear with song and laugh,
That down the echoing valleys rolled.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
And now I wander in the woods
When summer gluts the golden bees,
Or in autumnal solitudes
Arise the leopard-colored trees;
Or when along the wintry strands
The cormorants shiver on their rocks;
I wander on, and wave my hands,
And sing, and shake my heavy locks.
The gray wolf knows me; by one ear
I lead along the woodland deer;
The hares run by me, growing bold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
I came upon a little town
That slumbered in the harvest moon,
And passed a-tiptoe up and down,
Murmuring to a fitful tune,
How I have followed, night and day,
A tramping of tremendous feet,
And saw where this old tympan lay,
Deserted on a doorway seat,
And bore it to the woods with me;
Of some unhuman misery
Our married voices wildly trolled.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
I sang how, when day's toil is done,
Orchil shakes out her long dark hair
That hides away the dying sun
And sheds faint odors through the air:
When my hand passed from wire to wire
It quenched, with sound like falling dew,
The whirling and the wandering fire,
But left a mournful ulalu;
For the kind wires are torn and still,
And I must wander wood and hill,
Through summer's heat and winter's cold.
They will not hush, the leaves a-flutter round me, the beech-leaves old.
II—SCOTTISH
Early Celtic literature in Scotland is so intimately allied with the Irish, that much of the previous section must be held to belong as much to the present one. We shall not need to recapitulate here what is there dealt with. The two Gaelic currents began to separate, if almost imperceptibly, even then; and only in century-long stages, after passing the point marked by the mediæval recapitulators of Ossian and St. Patrick. How closely intermingled these currents were up to that point may be learnt from the evidence of such exquisite lines as those preserved by the Scottish Dean Macgregor, entitled 'Ossian Sang':—
Sweet is the voice in the land of gold,
And sweeter the music of birds that soar,
When the cry of the heron is heard on the wold,
And the waves break softly on Bundatrore.
Down floats on the murmuring of the breeze
The call of the cuckoo from Cossahun,
The blackbird is warbling among the trees;
And soft is the kiss of the warming sun.
The cry of the eagle of Assaroe
O'er the court of Mac Morne to me is sweet,
And sweet is the cry of the bird below
Where the wave and the wind and the tall cliff meet.
Finn Mac Cool is the father of me,
Whom seven battalions of Fenians fear.
When he launches his hounds on the open lea,
Grand is their cry as they rouse the deer.
The last verse is eloquent as to the common traditions of the Scots and Irish Gael. Ossian is dealt with separately under his own proper heading, however, and we need not discuss here his interest, literary and historical.
Turning to St. Patrick, let us accept provisionally the account that makes him of Gaelo-Brythonic race, born about 387 A.D. at Kilpatrick on the Clyde,—Strathclyde being an old famous region of the northern Brythonic stock. The remains, in prose and verse, of the early Scottish literature dealing with St. Patrick are of course not so numerous as the Irish; but as the two were freely interchangeable[A] in the early period when his record was being written down, it follows that where Irish memoranda of his true and his legendary history, his hymns, and so forth, existed, the Scottish chroniclers and bards would accept them without feeling the need of making a separate record. Nor must we forget, in speaking of St. Patrick, that the pre-Christian romantic mythology, with its Firbolgs and ancient heroic gods, giants, and men, is just as much to be limned into the background of the picture in the case of early Scottish as in that of Irish Gaelic tradition and its earliest scriptive forms.
Curiously enough, if Scotland gave Ireland the saint that in course of time became almost its national symbol,—Patrick,—Ireland in turn gave Scotland its dearest saint,—Columba. He was born in 521, near Temple Douglas (Tulach-Dubh-glaise); in 545 founded a church in Derry; later, the famous church at Kells; and in 563, after some jealousy had been at work against him, he left for Ireland, and after pausing at Colonsay, he went on to Ia, now known the world over as Iona. Iona has become now the locus classici of the Gaelic, not to say the whole Scottish race. Recently, a writer of profound imagination, Miss Fiona Macleod, has dated from its lonely shores the dedication of that impressive book 'The Sin-Eater, and Other Tales,' showing how it still keeps for those of the true faith its old effect:—
"I mo cridhe, i mo ghraidh,"
(Isle of my heart, isle of my love,)
as Columba is said to have called it. His followers, the little sacred circle of twelve, 'the Family of Iona,' had to be militant with a vengeance: Milesian—or soldiering—as well as cleric, in their work; and the old traditions are full of references to their fight against the Féinne and the house of Ossian. But having so far prevailed as they did, they became in turn the chroniclers of the very things they had fought against. So in a sense, and a very real one, Iona is the first centre of the literature of the Scots Gaels to which we can point. The total effect of Columba, or Columcill, upon Gaelic life and literature, Irish and Scots, was immense indeed; to gather whose force one must read in the 'Book of Deer' and the old Irish MSS. on the one hand, and the Latin hymnology of the Celtic church on the other.
But in speaking of Columba let us not forget the tender and beautiful figure of St. Bridget,—another of that mysterious train, including Merlin and St. Patrick, which has associations with Strathclyde—
"Bonnie sweet St. Bride of the
Yellow, yellow hair!"
[A] "The early literature of the Scottish Gael," says the Rev. Nigel MacNeill in his interesting work 'The Literature of the Highlanders,' "cannot be well understood apart from early Irish literature. The ballads of the two countries describe the same struggles, the characters engaging in the strife are the same and bear the same names."
St. Bridget, the St. Mary of the Gael, whose story has been retold by Miss Fiona Macleod in 'The Washer of the Ford,' may first be found depicted by the side of Patrick and Columba in the famous antique relic, the 'Domhnach Airgid,' dating back to the sixth or seventh century. She appears constantly in Gaelic hagiology, and with poetic as well as saintly fame casting a halo about her yellow hair. O'Curry's 'MS. Materials,' and other collections make it possible, luckily, for other than purely Gaelic students to read of her as she appeared in early time. She is a peculiarly interesting figure, because in the Celtic races women have always counted peculiarly; and there are signs that they will count even more in time to come. St. Bridget (Brigit, Bride, Breed), then, is the type for all time of the Celtic womanhood dowered with divine inspiration, poetry, and charm. The following variant on an old Gaelic poem is by Miss Fiona Macleod ('From the Hills of Dream'):—
ST. BRIDGET'S MILKING SONG
O sweet St. Bride of the
Yellow, yellow hair:
Paul said, and Peter said,
And all the saints alive or dead
Vowed she had the sweetest head,
Bonnie sweet St. Bride of the
Yellow, yellow hair.
White may my milking be,
White as thee:
Thy face is white, thy neck is white,
Thy hands are white, thy feet are white,
For thy sweet soul is shining bright—
O dear to me,
O dear to see,
St. Bridget white!
Yellow may my butter be,
Soft and round:
Thy breasts are sweet,
Soft, round, and sweet,
So may my butter be:
So may my butter be, O
Bridget sweet!
Safe thy way is, safe, O
Safe, St. Bride:
May my kye come home at even,
None be fallin', none be leavin',
Dusky even, breath-sweet even,
Here, as there, where, O
St. Bride, thou
Keepest tryst with God in heaven,
Seest the angels bow,
And souls be shriven—
Here, as there, 'tis breath-sweet even,
Far and wide—
Singeth thy little maid,
Safe in thy shade,
Bridget, Bride!
Passing from the early legendary hagiological chronicles of the Scots Gaels, we come to a period when the reader must be content to go again to Irish sources for his knowledge of the continuators of Gaelic literature. What we have said previously of the Irish may be referred to here. The mediæval scribes and bards busied themselves mainly with reproducing the past, though with a vivid coloring out of their own living present. When we have referred all of their subject-matter dealing with the saints and heroic figures of primitive history to its own period, all that remains is curiously little. Unfortunately, it is less than it might have been, if it had not been for the terrible and often wanton destruction of MSS. which has bereft us, in Scotland especially, of some of the richest treasures the Celtic genius has produced. It is only needed to instance the tailor who was found cutting up an ancient MS. for patterns, to show how almost inconceivably wholesale the havoc thus done has been in the last six centuries.
Some of the most interesting and valuable of the Scottish contributions to Gaelic literature are in what we may call ballad form. Such is the tragic tale of 'Deirdrê,' in the Glen-mason MS. (thirteenth century), which is preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. Others again are versions of poems correspondent to those given, for instance, in the 'Book of the Dean of Lismore.' Of this heroic poetry much would have been lost if it had not been for the zeal of collectors, who for the last five centuries have been collecting in old MSS. or from the mouths of the Highlanders the ballads and tales of old time. "The last and greatest of the ballad and tale collectors," says Mr. MacNeill, "was Mr. Campbell, who in 1859-60 traversed the whole Gaelic area; and assisted by intelligent Highlanders formed large collections, of which he has given a considerable quantity to the world in his four volumes of tales. All these are genuine productions." We may quote further what the same writer says of the uncertain chronology of these ballads:—"They may have been composed centuries before they were committed to writing. We have fragments, such as the Glen-mason MS., written as early as the twelfth century, in the hand and language common to the learned in both Albin and Erin at the time. The 'Book of the Dean of Lismore,' however, is written phonetically to represent the spoken language of his day, and is mainly in the Perthshire dialect." Cuculain and many other of the heroes that we mentioned in our Irish article reappear in these ballads; and in them the Féinne fight out their ancient battles to the bitter end. A new and rather different coloring is lent, too, to the Scottish ballads by the Norse element, and the constant wars in which the Vikings and the Gaels encountered time after time lend some of their finest episodes to this poetry.
If we turn from the ballads to the prose tales and romances, we find the same strong resemblances and the same significant differences. The Irish have always the more fluent and eloquent a faculty in prose and verse. Their adjectival energy is greater; they are more given to extravagances of style, both in point of sentiment and of humor. The Scotch are on the other hand more simple and more terse, and they touch the deeper notes of pathos and of mystery more often. Nothing more instructive can be devised for the Celtic student than to take the volumes in verse and prose representing the three Celtic lands, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and to compare their style, method, and literary idiosyncrasies. For this comparison Mr. Campbell's wonderful 'Tales of the West Highlands,' in prose, and in verse his 'Leabhar na Féinne,' may be cited, with works of Dr. Hyde, Mr. Standish Hayes O'Grady, Dr. Joyce, in Irish; and in Welsh, the 'Mabinogion' in Lady Guest's exquisite English version, or the 'Myvyrian Archæology.'
In the fourteenth century, which gave Dafydd ap Gwilym to Wales, we find Gaelic becoming more definitely a conscious literary language. But the Dafydd of Scotland came more than a century earlier, being born at the end of the twelfth century. This was the famous Muireadach Albannach (Murdoch the Scot), several of whose poems figure in the Dean of Lismore's book, and whose effect on succeeding bards was only less powerful than Dafydd's on his Welsh successors. The Dean's book has poems, too, by two woman poets: Efric, wife of the last of the famous MacNeills of Castle Sween, and Isabel, Countess of Argyle. Efric's lament for her husband contains some touching lines; e. g.:—
"There's no heart among our women;
At the sport, no men are seen;
Like the sky when windless, silent
Is the music of Dun Sween!"
Sir Duncan Campbell, "Duncan Mac Cailem, the good knight," son of Sir Colin, is another of the poets in Dean Macgregor's collection; but perhaps we ought to pause here to say a word of the Dean himself. "Sailing in among the inner Hebridean Isles," says Mr. MacNeill, "we find in the fertile island of Lismore—'the great garden'—a man in the fifteenth century often referred to in Gaelic literature: the Rev. Mr. James Macgregor. A native of Perthshire,... with a heart filled with the enthusiasm and perfervid spirit of his countrymen, he and his brother got up the collection of songs and ballads" to which we have had occasion so often to refer. But we must pass on now to the later period of Gaelic literature, in which the modern developments have their beginning. The Scots Gael entered on a new phase, we are told, with Mary MacLeod (Mairi ni'n Alastair Ruaidh), who was born at Harris in 1569, and died a centenarian in Skye in 1674. Mairi was as perfect an example of the folk-minstrel as Celtic literature can provide; for she could not even write, although her prosody is elaborate, and her metres often intricate and original to a degree. The first of the distinctively Jacobite bards, who flourished at the end of the seventeenth and through the eighteenth century, was John MacDonald, whose 'Battle of Inverlochy' has been vigorously translated by Professor Blackie. Hector Maclean; Roderick Morrison, called An Clarsair Dall, or the Blind Harper; John Maclean, whose songs were heard by Dr. Samuel Johnson and Boswell on their journey to the Hebrides; and John MacCodrum (a poet whose wit and satiric powers remind us not a little of more than one of the Welsh satirical bards), are among the poets of this time who specially deserve note.
In the eighteenth century, Gaelic Scotland produced some remarkable religious poets, including David MacKellar, author of the well-known 'MacKellar's Hymn'; John Mackay; Donal Matheson, who had satirical as well as religious power; Lauchlan Maclauchlan; and Dugald Buchanan.
The great link between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries is Duncan Ban Macintyre, "a name loved throughout the Highlands and Islands." The Hunter Bard of Glenorchy, as he is often called,—though his best title is the affectionate Gaelic "Duncan of the Songs,"—was born on the 20th of March, 1724, at Druimliaghart in Glenorchy, Argyll. His first song was composed on a sword with which he was armed at the battle of Falkirk—where he served on the Royalist side as substitute for a neighboring gentleman.
"This sword," says his biographer, Thomas Pattison, "the poet lost or threw away in the retreat. On his return home therefore the gentleman to whom it belonged, and whose substitute he had been, refused to pay the sum for which he had engaged Duncan Ban to serve in his stead. Duncan consequently composed his song on 'The Battle of the Speckled Kirk'—as Falkirk is called in Gaelic—in which he good-humoredly satirized the gentleman who had sent him to the war, and gave a woful description of 'the black sword that worked the turmoil,' and whose loss, he says, made its owner 'as fierce and furious as a gray brock in his den.' The song immediately became popular, and incensed his employer so much that he suddenly fell upon the poor poet one day with his walking-stick, and striking him on the back, bade him 'go and make a song about that.' He was however afterward compelled by the Earl of Breadalbane to pay the bard the sum of 300 merks Scots (£16, 17s. 6d.), which was his legal due."
Duncan ended his days in Edinburgh, where he died in 1812,—one of the last links of the moving record of the early eighteenth century and its Jacobite associations.
Duncan was a contemporary of Macpherson's, and with Macpherson and his 'Ossian,' to which a special article is devoted elsewhere, we may well leave our chronicle, forbearing to touch on the debatable ground of later and contemporary Celtic literature in Scotland. Enough to say that Duncan Ban Macintyre has no lack of worthy followers in Gaelic poetry, and that with the Anglo-Celtic development, associated with such names as Dr. Norman Macleod, Professor Blackie, Robert Buchanan, George MacDonald, William Black, and, among new-comers, Miss Fiona Macleod and Mr. Neil Munro, there seems every prospect that the Gaelic spirit promises to achieve greatly in the new centuries to come.
The first selection is from the 'Sean Dana,' or Ancient Poems, collected, or rather written (from oral legendary lore and ballads), by Dr. John Smith, late in the eighteenth century.
PROLOGUE TO GAUL
How mournful is the silence of Night
When she pours her dark clouds over the valleys!
Sleep has overcome the youth of the chase:
He slumbers on the heath, and his dog at his knee.
The children of the mountain he pursues
In his dream, while sleep forsakes him.
Slumber, ye children of fatigue;
Star after star is now ascending the height.
Slumber! thou swift dog and nimble—
Ossian will arouse thee not from thy repose.
Lonely I keep watch,—
And dear to me is the gloom of night
When I travel from glen to glen,
With no hope to behold a morning or brightness.
Spare thy light, O Sun!
Waste not thy lamps so fast.
Generous is thy soul as the King of Morven's:
But thy renown shall yet fade;—
Spare thy lamps of a thousand flames
In thy blue hall, when thou retirest
Under thy dark-blue gates to sleep,
Beneath the dark embraces of the storm.
Spare them, ere thou art forsaken for ever,
As I am, without one whom I may love!
Spare them,—for there is not a hero now
To behold the blue flame of the beautiful lamps!
Ah, Cona of the precious lights,
Thy lamps burn dimly now:
Thou art like a blasted oak:
Thy dwellings and thy people are gone
East or west; on the face of thy mountain,
There shall be no more found of them but the trace!
In Selma, Tara, or Temora
There is not a song, a shell, or a harp;
They have all become green mounds;
Their stones have fallen into their own meadows;
The stranger from the deep or the desert
Will never behold them rise above the clouds.
And O Selma! home of my delight,
Is this heap my ruin,
Where grows the thistle, the heather, and the wild grass?
The following lines of St. Columba are taken from the 'Lyra Celtica,' cited above:—
COLUMCILLE FECIT
(St. Columba Made It)
Delightful would it be to me to be in Uchd Ailiun
On the pinnacle of a rock,
That I might often see
The face of the ocean;
That I might see its heaving waves
Over the wide ocean,
When they chant music to their Father
Upon the world's course;
That I might see its level sparkling strand,
It would be no cause of sorrow;
That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds,
Source of happiness;
That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves
Upon the rocks;
That I might hear the roar by the side of the church
Of the surrounding sea;
That I might see its noble flocks
Over the watery ocean;
That I might see the sea monsters,
The greatest of all wonders;
That I might see its ebb and flood
In their career;
That my mystical name might be, I say,
Cul ri Erin [Back turned to Ireland];
That contrition might come upon my heart
Upon looking at her;
That I might bewail my evils all,
Though it were difficult to compute them;
That I might bless the Lord
Who conserves all,
Heaven with its countless bright orders,
Land, strand, and flood;
That I might search the books all,
That would be good for my soul;
At times kneeling to beloved Heaven;
At times psalm-singing;
At times contemplating the King of Heaven,
Holy the chief;
At times at work without compulsion,
This would be delightful;
At times plucking duilisc from the rocks;
At times at fishing;
At times giving food to the poor;
At times in a carcair [solitary cell];
The best advice in the presence of God
To me has been vouchsafed.
The King whose servant I am will not let
Anything deceive me.
The third selection is an example of later Gaelic. This stirring Hebridean poem is sometimes spoken of as from the ancient Gaelic. Probably by this is meant merely old Gaelic, mediæval or even later. The translation is by Mr. Thomas Pattison, and is included in his 'Gaelic Bards.' He has the following note upon it:—
"This effusion, although in its original form it is only a kind of wild chant,—almost indeed half prose,—yet is the germ of the ballad. It occurs in many of the tales contained in that collection,—the repository of old Gaelic lore,—the 'Popular Tales of the West Highlands,' sometimes more and sometimes less perfect. The original will be found in the second volume of the Tales.... The vigorous and elastic spirit that pervades these verses must have strung the heart of many a hardy mariner, who loved to feel the fresh and briny breeze drive his snoring birlinn bounding like a living creature over the tumbling billows of the inland loch, or the huge swell of the majestic main."
IN HEBRID SEAS
We turned her prow into the sea,
Her stern into the shore,
And first we raised the tall tough masts,
And then the canvas hoar;
Fast filled our towering cloud-like sails,
For the wind came from the land,
And such a wind as we might choose
Were the winds at our command:
A breeze that rushing down the hill
Would strip the blooming heather,
Or rustling through the green-clad grove,
Would whirl its leaves together.
But when it seized the aged saugh,
With the light locks of gray,
It tore away its ancient root,
And there the old trunk lay!
It raised the thatch too from the roof,
And scattered it along;
Then tossed and whirled it through the air,
Singing a pleasant song.
It heaped the ruins on the land:—
Though sire and son stood by,
They could no help afford, but gaze
With wan and troubled eye!
A flap, a flash, the green roll dashed,
And laughed against the red;
Upon our boards, now here, now there,
It knocked its foamy head.
She could have split a slender straw,
So clean and well she went,
As still obedient to the helm
Her stately course she bent.
We watched the big beast eat the small,
The small beast nimbly fly,
And listened to the plunging eels,
The sea-gull's clang on high.
We had no other music
To cheer us on our way:
Till round those sheltering hills we passed
And anchored in this bay.
III—WELSH
The laws governing the life of languages are as elusive as those that decide the fate of races and empires. Why is the Welsh tongue still alive and vigorous, and the Irish (pace Dr. Douglas Hyde) moribund? It is a difficult question, but some light on it may be had by traversing the early history of Welsh literature.
The like difficulty meets us in both Welsh and Irish: that of deciding how far the mediæval scribes and scholars doctored the older material which fell into their hands. But in Welsh, the separation of the primitive from the mediæval element is often even a more difficult task than in Irish.
In sketching the early course of Welsh literature, we cannot do better than turn to the striking instance afforded by the name and fame of Merlin. In legendary Welsh history, Merlin appears under almost as many guises as he does in the pages of Malory's 'Morte d'Arthur.' Merddin Emrys (Ambrosius), Merddin Sylvester (Merlin the Wild), Merddin ab Morvryn (or Merlin Caledonius),—his name and fame vary according to the chronicler. Of these, Merlin the son of Morvryn, the most tangible in the list, was also known as Caledonius, because the Kymry of the sixth century lived in that greater Wales which ranged as far north as the Caledonian Forest. After the terrible battle of Arderydd, Merlin, having seen his kindred all but obliterated, was seized, tradition tells us, with a frenzy, and thereafter his bardic utterances assumed a more and more mystical and oracular form. This, added to his mysterious and magnetic personality and wildly impressive personal presence, may well have led on in process of time, by gradual legendary accretions, to the final conception of a Merlin miraculous, supernatural, dæmonic! However this may be, nothing can be more instructive than to compare the late Merlin with the early Merlin, and to trace his phases in Welsh folk-tale, and define his poetry finally in the pages of the 'Black Book of Carmarthen.'
The 'Black Book of Carmarthen,' in its strikingly decorative black and red manuscript, makes a wonderful testament of old Welsh poetry. If we could solve all its problems and read all that is written between its lines, we should be very near the great secret of the Druidic religion and of Celtic mythology, as well as the secret of Merlin's actual and imaginary effect in Welsh literature.
The battle of Arderydd has been cited above as a determining event in Merlin's history. The opening poem in the 'Black Book of Carmarthen' is a remarkable rhymed dialogue between Merlin and Taliesin, some of whose lines are extremely imaginative and touching in their archaic simplicity. Merlin begins:—
"How sad is Merlin now! how sad!
Keduyf and Kadvan—are they dead?
The furious slaughter filled the field,
And pierced was the Tryrwyd shield!"
Taliesin replies:—
"His house-folk did not falter in the fight!"
So it goes on, telling of the battle and its consequences, until one reaches at the end that mysterious verse which haunts the imagination and the ear of the reader. Merlin again speaks:—
"Sevenscore chieftains
Were turned into spirits;
In the wood of Celyddon
Were they transformed.
The wood of Celyddon is the Caledonian Forest. So far as these excerpts go, they might seem to be the writing of the real Merlin. There is internal evidence however that this poem, the much disputed poem of the 'Apple-trees,' and others that follow it in the 'Black Book,' were written not earlier than the twelfth century. Stephens, usually an acute critic, imputes in his 'Literature of the Kymry' these poems to Gwalchmai and other bards of later date. But even so, these poets evidently founded their poems upon earlier ones, traditionally handed on as Merlin's.
From such later sources as the 'Myvyrian Archæology,' or Skene's 'Four Ancient Books of Wales,' or the admirable Oxford texts edited by Professor Rhys and Mr. Gwenogfvyn Evans, one can rehabilitate at will the Merlin of the 'Black Book of Carmarthen,' much as Villemarqué has done after a fashion quite his own. Enough will so be certainly discovered to outline a primitive Merlin, an original sixth-century Merlin, under the impressive mediæval robes of the Latin-Welsh romantic chroniclers and poets. Enough too will be made clear to show a basis of myth and prehistoric legend behind the remotest recorded name, time, or place that can be counted historical.
The same is true of Taliesin, who appears, by the poetical remains attributed to him,—some of them clearly mediæval, others just as clearly primitive,—even more interesting as a poet than Merlin. Just as there are several Merlins, however, there are two Taliesins: there is the fifth-century Taliesin, and there is the pseudo-Taliesin of the twelfth. Both are wonderful in their way, and one knows not which to admire most—him who wrote the 'Battle of Gwenystrad,' which is undoubtedly a primitive war song, or the mediæval poet who chose to take the disguise of Taliesin, and taking too, probably, some of the traditional fragments of his early poetry, worked them up afresh with curious mediæval art and mystic imagination. For comparison let us take an early and a late poem, commonly gathered, as in the 'Myvyrian Archæology,' under one head.
Take first one of the later poems, the mystical 'Song to the Wind,' which even in its English dress won Emerson's admiration, and which, if we allow for all differences between mediæval and modern imagination, is as wonderful a poem of its kind as any literature is likely to afford. As it is given among our selections, it need not be quoted here. In point of time it is usual to assign it, as Stephens does, to the twelfth or thirteenth century. But it seems to me to bear traces again of being an older, more primitive poem, retouched certainly, and probably reshaped, by a twelfth-century poet. And now for a genuine Taliesin, or what at any rate many critics think to be genuine. This you may have in the famous 'Gwaith Gwenystrad' (Battle of Gwenystrad), one of the most spirited war poems in existence, copied and recopied by a long succession of Kymric scribes, and which the writer came upon first in the MS. collection of William Morris o Gaergybi yn Mon, who flourished about 1758. Here are four lines of Morris's copy literatim, which will give a better idea than any criticism of mine of the mingled realism and imagination of the poem:—
"Yn nrws rhyd gwelais i wyr lledruddion,
Eirf ddillwng y rhag blawt gofedon,
Unynt tanc gan aethant golludion,
Llaw ynghroes gryd ygro granwynion."
And here is a rough, vigorous translation of these lines from the same volume:—
"In the pass of the fort have I seen men, dyed with red, who hurtled their arms.... They fell to the ground together when the day was lost, their hands on the crucifix. And horror was in the pale face of the dead warriors."
A succeeding line,
"A gwyar a uaglei ar ddillad,"
(And the blood was tangled in their clothing),
adds the last touch of dreadful sincerity to the account. And in other primitive poems that we may ascribe to Taliesin are effects as convincing and vivid.
But we must leave Taliesin and his difficulties, to sketch briefly the course of poetry between his actual date in early time and his poetic resurrection in the Middle Ages. Not so interesting poetically but more important historically is the next of the Welsh bards, Aneurin, who wrote the 'Gododin.' This curious and interesting war poem tells of a foray made by the Ottadini, an early Kymric tribe, living in the greater Wales of their time, on the Northumbrian coast. Mr. Stephens imagines Cattraeth, which figures as a central scene of the action of the poem, to be Catterick in Yorkshire; and this we may provisionally accept.
"The Welshmen went to Cattraeth; and merry marched the host.
But thro' drinking the gray mead, the day—the day was lost."
The expedition was one of those which show the gradual cession of greater Wales by the Welsh, and their retreat to the lesser Wales that is still theirs.
We may pause here to remark that the bardic order was early constituted among the Welsh, as among the Irish. In the Laws of Howel Dda (Howel the Good), who flourished in the tenth century, we find very explicit provision made for the bard:—
"In case of fighting, the Bard shall play the 'Monarchy of Britain' before the battle!
"His land shall be free; he shall have a horse from the King!
"He shall have a harp from the King, and a gold ring from the Queen, when he is appointed. The harp he shall never part with."
Unless, which is highly probable, we have lost some of the records of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries, we have to conclude that Welsh poetry made small headway. The remarkable laws of Howel Dda are the monument of the tenth century. In the eleventh we come upon the first signs of a revival in Meilir, who is historically interesting, and in his last poems shows himself a true poet. In the twelfth we have to mark a distinct further step in Gwalchmai, who is the first conscious poet of nature, and who may thus claim to be the founder of one of the finest traditions in all Welsh poetry. Following Gwalchmai comes the princely poet Howel the Tall, son of Owain Gwynedd by an Irish lady, and who himself wore the crown of Gwynedd for a brief two years. He died in 1171 at twenty-seven, after a life of stormiest adventure; but in the intervals of battle he found time to write some of the loveliest love poems that all Welsh literature can boast. His death was lamented by Periv ab Kedwoi in a much less conventional and more moving tone than the official bards generally troubled to use for such elegies. A century or so later, and we find Llywarch ab Llywelyn (known as "Prydydd y Moch," the Poet of the Pigs) writing a still finer and more ample lament on the last native prince of Wales, Llywelyn ab Gruffydd, "Llywelyn ewi Llyw Olaf," as he is still fondly called. These two laments may be taken as typical of a wide section of Welsh poetry, dealing with the deaths of heroes and princes, and ranging in date from the fifth or sixth century to the nineteenth. Llywelyn the Last died in 1282, and thereafter began what has been well termed "The Great Oppression" (y Gorthrwm Mawr), by which Norman and Saxon combined to crush the language and expropriate the people of the country, with the result of calling up at last Owen Glendower's hot spirit to fight for the national cause.
But it is remarkable that in this disastrous period arose some of the finest interpreters of her genius that the country was ever to find. Within its term were, without a doubt, carried to an approximate perfection those more native romances that we term 'Mabinogion,'—the most exquisite and exquisitely turned tales, in point of art, that the Celtic races have produced. The late Lady Charlotte Guest's edition of the 'Mabinogion' serves very well to convey, in a translation of extreme felicity, to non-Celtic readers the art and spirit of these tales. But it must be kept in mind that all she gives are not strictly 'Mabinogion'; several of them are more properly to be called romances, as showing strong traces of Norman and French influence. The 'Mabinogi' originally was a tale to be recited by a mabinog, i. e., a 'prentice to the bardic craft who had not yet obtained his full degree, and with it the right of composing and reciting poetry. The idea which some critics have, that the 'Mabinogion' were boys' tales, or still worse, nursery tales, is quite wrong. Let us remember that such tales were the delight of most of the princely halls and winter hearths of mediæval Wales, where they were recited after the great banquets and on feast nights to the most critical audience that could be afforded. 'The Dream of Rhonabwy,' 'Kilhwch and Olwen,' and 'Math, Son of Mathonwy,' may be mentioned as among the tales in Lady Guest's volume which are most natively original; and we have chosen the portrait of Olwen from the second of these for our selections, to show the art and charm of the Welsh romancers in the Middle Ages.
If the 'Mabinogion' are fine as prose, we have an equally fine expression of this time in poetry, in the poems of Rhys Goch ab Rhicert (Rhys the Red, son of Rhicert) and the ever delightful Dafydd ab Gwilym, who will be found treated separately. After Dafydd, Welsh poetry was to enter upon a new phase, not fortunate even in its immediate effects, disastrous in its ultimate ones. It was in the fourteenth century that Welsh prosody, always intricate, finally waxed proud, so to speak, of its complexity, and formed for itself a hide-bound code which was to become the bugbear of Welsh poetry in the following centuries. To give any adequate account of its complexities of technique and the whole letter of its syntax would require a long and tedious treatise in itself. Enough to say that the underlying principle was that of what is termed in Welsh "Eynghanedd," or "consonancy"; by which rhymes within rhymes and echoes within echoes of certain dominant syllables were insisted upon arbitrarily, until almost every word in every line was subject to a rigid and invincible rule. Art for art, insisted upon in this way, could only end in conventionalizing the very thing it was meant to assist.
Poetry, too carefully nursed and housed, thus fell into a bad way; but luckily meanwhile a new literature was to begin for Wales, along quite other lines, with the Reformation. The translation of the Bible into Welsh by Bishop Morgan in the sixteenth century marks an epoch in the life of the Welsh people and their literature. Therewith the history of the princes and the great lords ends, and the history of the people—and a people mainly peasant, let us remark—begins. Its profound moral force apart, and judged purely as a literary force, the Bible, admirably and idiomatically translated, had an incalculable effect. It set a fine and high and yet simple standard of prose, much as the English Bible does; and taught the possibilities of his tongue to the poorest Welsh peasant. One finds its influence strong in almost every prose work of any note published in the last three centuries, and in a great proportion of the poetry. It did more than anything of later time to save the language; and here is the simple explanation of the extraordinary difference between the fortunes of the Welsh and the Irish tongue. Wales—the Wales of the people—became profoundly impressed by the religious sentiment and the heroic and profound poetry of the Hebrews, and gained from them a new stimulus to express itself and its needs and aspirations in its own native way and in its own tongue.
A characteristic expression of the homelier moral humor of the Welsh is to be had in the 'Canwyll y Cymry' (Candle of Wales), by Rhys Pritchard, the famous Elizabethan vicar of Llandovery, which for two centuries was the most popular book in Wales after the Bible. Its simple rhymed didactics do not often rise into poetry; but they are full of human feeling, expressed in a terse and proverbial way, with distinct individuality. The book easily leads one on to the very remarkable band of hymn writers, from Anne Griffiths to Williams Pantycelyn, who have flourished in Welsh. These, and some score beside, really rank by their imaginative fervor and inspiration as true poets. In quite another vein, but probably a very ancient and traditional one in Welsh, we have the homely interludes of Twm O'r Nant, who was born about 1750, of whose life George Borrow gives a very vigorous account in 'Wild Wales.' A greater than Twm O'r Nant, and born a generation earlier, Gronney Owen, a man of the finest poetic genius, ought to have a special interest for American readers because he was practically exiled from his beloved Anglesea by the ungrateful church he served; and died, poor and broken-hearted, in New Brunswick about the year 1780. His 'Cywydd y Faru' (Ode to the Day of Judgment), his touching lines to his little daughter Elin, or his Hogarthian lines upon the London garret in which he lived for a time, may be cited as showing the various sides of his poetry, of which unluckily there are no adequate translations yet forthcoming.
In prose we must not omit to mention the 'Bardd Cwsg' (The Sleeping Bard) of Elis Wynne,—a very imaginative and idiomatic prose epic-in-little, describing the bard's vision of a curiously Welsh Inferno. Wynne's prose style is remarkably fine and pure, modeled on the best Biblical standard of a Welsh without English admixture. Welsh prose has been admirably handled too by some of the divines who have flourished within the past two centuries, and who have not confined their eloquence to the pulpit. Even when the State church had no sympathy with the Welsh people and their language, many of its individual members did much to keep the spirit of literature alive; while the nonconformist ministers of Wales have always been vigorously and eminently devoted to the same cause.
Under happier conditions to-day, the latest expression of this vital persistence of the Welsh in the quest of spiritual ideals is the movement that has carried the new national university to completion, and rallied the younger generation under the banner of "Cymru Fydd" (Young Wales). The songs of Ceiriog Hughes, the poems of Islwyn, the works of scholars like Professor John Rhys, Canon Silvain Evans, and Mr. Gwenogfvyn Evans; the ardent writing and editing of Mr. Owen M. Edwards in his innumerable magazines and other adventures; and the novels of Daniel Owen,—these may be named as among the influences that count most to the Wales of the nineteenth century's end.
Note.—For citations from Welsh literature see articles on Aneurin, Mabinogion, and Taliesin. The Breton branch of Celtic literature will be treated under the heading 'Villemarqué,' the celebrated collector of 'Barzaz-Breiz.'
IV—CORNISH
The literature of a single county of England is not likely to be very extensive, and when that literature and its language died for good and all, a century ago, it becomes still more limited. Until the reign of Henry VIII., though for some time English had been very generally spoken throughout the county, the old Celtic Cornish, holding a middle position, philologically as well as geographically, between Welsh and Breton, was the mother tongue of at any rate the peasantry as far east as the Tamar. The great ecclesiastical revolution of that period helped to destroy it. Neither prayer-book nor Bible was translated into it; and though the ardently Catholic Cornish at first would have none of the former, saying that it was "but like a Christmas game," they were overruled by the forcible argument of "apostolick blows and knocks," and had to submit. Then the language receded rapidly. By the time of the Great Rebellion Truro was its eastern limit; early in the eighteenth century only the two western claw-like promontories retained it; and though Dolly Pentreath, who died in 1778, was not really the last person who spoke it, it was dead before the present century was born. A few traditional sentences, the numerals up to twenty, and some stray words lingered on until our own day,—twenty years ago the present writer took down a fair collection from the mouths of ancient mariners in Mount's Bay,—and a few words are still mixed with the local dialect of English. But as a language Cornish is dead, though its ghost still haunts its old dwelling in the names of villages, houses, woods, valleys, wells, and rocks, from Tamar to Penwith.
As may be expected, a great proportion of the literature is in verse, and most of that is in dramatic form. So little is there that an exhaustive list of what survives is quite possible. It is as follows:—
1. The Poem of the Passion. A versified account of the Passion of our Lord, recounting the events from Palm Sunday to Easter, with the addition of many legendary incidents from the Gospel of Nicodemus and other similar sources. The earliest MS. (in the British Museum) is of the fifteenth century, which is probably the date of its composition. It has been twice printed, once by Davies Gilbert, with a translation by John Keigwin in 1826, and by Dr. Whitley Stokes in 1862.
2. The Ordinalia. Three connected dramas, known collectively under this title. The first recounts the Creation and the history of the world as far as Noah's Flood. The second act of this gives the story of Moses and of David and the Building of Solomon's Temple, ending with the curiously incongruous episode of the martyrdom of St. Maximilla, as a Christian, by the bishop placed in charge of the Temple of Solomon. The second play represents the life of our Lord from the Temptation to the Crucifixion, and this goes on without a break into the third play, which gives the story of the Resurrection and Ascension, and the legend of the death of Pilate. The connecting link between the three is the legend of the wood of the cross. This well-known story, most of which is interwoven with the whole trilogy, is as follows:—Seth was sent by his dying father to beg the promised Oil of Mercy to save him; the angel who guarded Paradise gave him three seeds, or, according to the play, apple-pips; and when he returned and found his father already dead, he placed them in Adam's mouth and buried him on Mount Moriah. In process of time the three seeds grew into three trees, and from them Abraham gathered the wood for the sacrifice of Isaac, and Moses got his rod wherewith he smote the sea and the rock. Later the three trees, to symbolize the Trinity, grew into one tree, and David sat under it to bewail his sin. But Solomon cut it down to make a beam for the Temple, and since it would in no wise fit into any place, he cast it out and set it as a bridge over Cedron. Later on he buried it, and from the place where it lay there sprang the healing spring of Bethesda, to the surface of which it miraculously floated up, and the Jews found it and made of it the Cross of Calvary.
These plays were probably written in the fifteenth century, perhaps by one of the priests of Glazeney College near Falmouth, and were acted with others that are now lost in the places called Planan-Guare (the Plain of the Play), of which several still remain. The 'Ordinalia' were published with a translation by Edwin Norris in 1859.
3. The Creation of the World, with Noah's Flood, was a modernized version of the first act of the first of the 'Ordinalia' trilogy. It was written by William Jordan of Helston in 1611; but the author has borrowed whole passages of considerable length from the older play. The language represents a later period of Cornish, and occasionally several lines of English are introduced. Perhaps by a natural Celtic antipathy to the Saxon, these are generally put into the mouths of Lucifer and his angels, who furnish a good deal of the comic part of the piece. This play was published by Davies Gilbert in 1827, and by Dr. Whitley Stokes in 1864.
4. The Life of St. Meriasek. This play, written in 1504, is perhaps the most interesting of the batch. The story at least of the others contains nothing very new to most people, but St. Meriasek or Meriadoc (to give him his Breton name), the patron of Camborne, is not a well-known character, and his life, full as it is of allusions and incidents of a misty period of Cornish history, is most curious and interesting. It is not perhaps simplified by being mixed up in the wildest manner with the legend of Constantine and St. Sylvester, and the scenes shift about from Cornwall or Brittany to Rome, and from the fourth to the Heaven-knows-what century, with bewildering frequency. There are also certain other legends interwoven with the story, and it seems probable that at least three plays have been, as Dr. Whitley Stokes expresses it, "unskillfully pieced together." Yet there are many passages of considerable literary merit. The only existing MS. of this play is in the Hengwrt collection at Peniarth, and it was edited and translated by Dr. Stokes in 1872.
5. There were probably many other plays which have perished, but one other there certainly was, of which a fragment exists. What it was called or what it was about no one knows, but an actor in it, setting about to learn his own part in it, wrote that short piece of thirty-six lines on the back of a title-deed of some land in the parish of St. Stephen, near Bodmin. The deed drifted eventually into the British Museum, and the present writer discovered the Cornish verses on it, not wholly by accident, about nineteen years ago. The writing belongs to the latter part of the fourteenth century, and is therefore the earliest literary fragment of the language.
6. The rest of the literature of the Cornish language consists of a few songs, epigrams, mottoes, proverbs, and the like, a short dissertation on the language, and the tale of 'John of Chy-an-Hur,' a widely known folk-tale. These are mostly in the latest form of Cornish, and are contained in the MS. collection of William Gwavas in the British Museum and in that of Dr. Borlase, until lately in the possession of his descendants. Most of them have been printed by Davies Gilbert (with the play of the 'Creation'), by William Pryce in the 'Archæologia Cornu-Britannica' in 1790, by Mr. W. C. Borlase in the Transactions of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, and in a fragmentary way in a few other places. They are mostly translations or adaptations from the English, but a few, such as the rather doggerel 'Pilchard Fishing Song,' are originals. Lastly, in the Church of St. Paul, near Penzance, there is the one solitary epitaph in the language; written while it was still just alive, and perhaps the last composition in it.
[The versions given of these specimens of Cornish literature are founded on those of Dr. Whitley Stokes and Dr. E. Norris. The phraseology has been to some extent altered, but the renderings are almost all the same.]
FROM THE 'POEM OF THE PASSION'
[The Death of Our Lord on the Cross]
His pain was strong and sharp, so that he could not live,
But must yield up his white soul; ever purely had he lived.
And Christ prayed, as thus in many a place we read,
"My soul I do commend, O Lord, between thy hands!"
For weakly he breathed, being constrained, so that he could not rest;
On nothing could he lean his head for the garland that he wore.
If he leaned to one side, for his shoulder it grieved him
And the tree did yet worse, if he set it backwards.
Nor could he lean forward for fear of being choked.
Then was it as we read in books as it is written:—
"For the birds to make their nests, places are prepared,
But for Christ where he may lay his head no place is found."
But now must he needs leave his head to hang,
For his blood was all gone from him, and he could not live.
To the side of the Mother that owned him, his head he would hold,
And his soul went from him with chilling shriek and shrill cry.
Beside the Cross of Jesus was a man hight Sentury,
And when he saw the wondrous things that happened at Christ's death,
And how his soul he yielded, against nature, with a cry,
He said without scorning, "This truly was God's Son;"
And many were there with him that testimony bore.
Now was it midday in the land, or later, as is written.
Earthquake there was and lightning, and darkness over all;
The Temple Veil was rent in twain, and to the ground it fell,
And likewise broken were the stones so strong and hard.
Graves in many places were opened wide,
And the bodies that were in them were raised up,
And went straightway to the city—by many were they seen—
To bear witness that it was God's Son that was slain.
Water, earth, and fire, and wind, sun, moon, and stars likewise,
At Christ's suffering death knew sorrow.
Nature will cause, I trow, if the good Lord be pained,
All his subjects, even saints, to be grieved for his pain.
FROM 'ORIGO MUNDI,' IN THE 'ORDINALIA'
[Seth, being sent to fetch the oil of mercy from Paradise for his dying father, comes to the guardian cherub.]
Cherubin—
Seth, what is thine errand,
That thou comest so far?
Tell me anon.
Seth—
O Angel, I will tell it thee:
My father is old and weary;
He wishes no longer to live;
And through me he prayed thee
To tell the truth
Of the oil of mercy promised
To him at the last day.
Cherubin—
Within the gate put thou thy head,
And behold it all, nor fear,
Whatever thou seest.
And look on all sides,
Spy out every detail,
Search out everything carefully.
Seth—
Very gladly I will do it;
I am glad to have permission
To know what is there
And tell it to my father.
[And he looks and turns round, saying:
Fair field to behold is this;
Hapless he who lost the land.
But for the tree I wonder greatly
That it should be dry.
But I trow that it went dry
And all was made bare, for the sin
Which my father and mother sinned.
Like the prints of their feet,
They all became dry as herbs,
Alas, when the morsel was eaten.
Cherubin—
O Seth, thou art come
Within the gate of Paradise:
Tell me what thou sawest.
Seth—
All the beauty that I saw
Tongue of man can never tell,
Of good fruits and beauteous flowers,
Of minstrels and sweet song,
A fountain bright as silver,
And flowing from it four great streams,
That there is a desire to gaze upon them.
In it there is a tree,
High and with many boughs,
But they are bare and leafless.
Bark there is none around it;
From the stem to the head
All its branches are bare.
And below when I looked,
I saw its roots
Even into hell descending,
In the midst of great darkness;
And its branches growing up
Even to heaven high in light.
And it was wholly without bark,
Both the head and the boughs.
Cherubin—
Look yet again within,
And all else thou shalt see
Before thou come from it.
Seth—
I am happy to have leave;
I will go to the gate at once,
That I may see further good.
[He goes and looks and returns.
Cherubin—
Dost thou see more now
Than what there was just now?
Seth—
There is a serpent in the tree:
Truly a hideous beast is he.
Cherubin—
Go yet the third time to it,
And look better at the tree.
Look what you can see on it
Besides roots and branches.
Seth—
Cherubin, angel of the God of grace,
High in the branches of the tree I saw
A new-born child, wrapped in swaddling clothes
And bound with bands.
Cherubin—
It was God's son that thou sawest,
Like a child in swaddling clothes.
He will redeem Adam thy father
With his flesh and blood likewise,
When the time is come,
And thy mother and all good people.
He is the oil of mercy
Which was promised to thy father.
Through his death truly
Shall all the world be saved.
CERVANTES
(1547-1616)
BY GEORGE SANTAYANA
ervantes is known to the world as the author of 'Don Quixote' and although his other works are numerous and creditable, and his pathetic life is carefully recorded, yet it is as the author of 'Don Quixote' alone that he deserves to be generally known or considered. Had his wit not come by chance on the idea of the Ingenious Hidalgo, Cervantes would never have attained his universal renown, even if his other works and the interest of his career should have sufficed to give him a place in the literary history of his country. Here, then, where our task is to present in miniature only what has the greatest and most universal value, we may treat our author as playwrights are advised to treat their heroes, saying of him only what is necessary to the understanding of the single action with which we are concerned. This single action is the writing of 'Don Quixote': and what we shall try to understand is what there was in the life and environment of Cervantes that enabled him to compose that great book, and that remained imbedded in its characters, its episodes, and its moral.
There was in vogue in the Spain of the sixteenth century a species of romance called books of chivalry. They were developments of the legends dealing with King Arthur and the Knights of the Table Round, and their numerous descendants and emulators. These stories had appealed in the first place to what we should still think of as the spirit of chivalry: they were full of tourneys and single combats, desperate adventures and romantic loves. The setting was in the same vague and wonderful region as the Coast of Bohemia, where to the known mountains, seas, and cities that have poetic names, was added a prodigious number of caverns, castles, islands, and forests of the romancer's invention. With time and popularity this kind of story had naturally intensified its characteristics until it had reached the greatest extravagance and absurdity, and combined in a way the unreality of the fairy tale with the bombast of the melodrama.
Cervantes had apparently read these books with avidity, and was not without a great sympathy with the kind of imagination they embodied. His own last and most carefully written book, the 'Travails of Persiles and Sigismunda,' is in many respects an imitation of them; it abounds in savage islands, furious tyrants, prodigious feats of arms, disguised maidens whose discretion is as marvelous as their beauty, and happy deliverances from intricate and hopeless situations. His first book also, the 'Galatea,' was an embodiment of a kind of pastoral idealism: sentimental verses being interspersed with euphuistic prose, the whole describing the lovelorn shepherds and heartless shepherdesses of Arcadia.
But while these books, which were the author's favorites among his own works, expressed perhaps Cervantes's natural taste and ambition, the events of his life and the real bent of his talent, which in time he came himself to recognize, drove him to a very different sort of composition. His family was ancient but impoverished, and he was forced throughout his life to turn his hand to anything that could promise him a livelihood. His existence was a continuous series of experiments, vexations, and disappointments. He adopted at first the profession of arms, and followed his colors as a private soldier upon several foreign expeditions. He was long quartered in Italy; he fought at Lepanto against the Turks, where among other wounds he received one that maimed his left hand, to the greater glory, as he tells us, of his right; he was captured by Barbary pirates and remained for five years a slave in Algiers; he was ransomed, and returned to Spain only to find official favors and recognitions denied him; and finally, at the age of thirty-seven, he abandoned the army for literature.
His first thought as a writer does not seem to have been to make direct use of his rich experience and varied observation; he was rather possessed by an obstinate longing for that poetic gift which, as he confesses in one place, Heaven had denied him. He began with the idyllic romance, the 'Galatea' already mentioned, and at various times during the rest of his life wrote poems, plays, and stories of a romantic and sentimental type. In the course of these labors, however, he struck one vein of much richer promise. It was what the Spanish call the picaresque; that is, the description of the life and character of rogues, pickpockets, vagabonds, and all those wretches and sorry wits that might be found about the highways, in the country inns, or in the slums of cities. Of this kind is much of what is best in his collected stories, the 'Novelas Exemplares.' The talent and the experience which he betrays in these amusing narratives were to be invaluable to him later as the author of 'Don Quixote,' where they enabled him to supply a foil to the fine world of his poor hero's imagination.
We have now mentioned what were perhaps the chief elements of the preparation of Cervantes for his great task. They were a great familiarity with the romances of chivalry, and a natural liking for them; a life of honorable but unrewarded endeavor both in war and in the higher literature; and much experience of Vagabondia, with the art of taking down and reproducing in amusing profusion the typical scenes and languages of low life. Out of these elements a single spark, which we may attribute to genius, to chance, or to inspiration, was enough to produce a new and happy conception: that of a parody on the romances of chivalry, in which the extravagances of the fables of knighthood should be contrasted with the sordid realities of life. This is done by the ingenious device of representing a country gentleman whose naturally generous mind, unhinged by much reading of the books of chivalry, should lead him to undertake the office of knight-errant, and induce him to ride about the country clad in ancient armor, to right wrongs, to succor defenseless maidens, to kill giants, and to win empires at least as vast as that of Alexander.
This is the subject of 'Don Quixote.' But happy as the conception is, it could not have produced a book of enduring charm and well-seasoned wisdom, had it not been filled in with a great number of amusing and lifelike episodes, and verified by two admirable figures, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, characters at once intimately individual and truly universal.
Don Quixote at first appears to the reader, and probably appeared to the author as well, as primarily a madman,—a thin and gaunt old village squire, whose brain has been turned by the nonsense he has read and taken for gospel truth; and who is punished for his ridiculous mania by an uninterrupted series of beatings, falls, indignities, and insults. But the hero and the author together, with the ingenuity proper to madness and the inevitableness proper to genius, soon begin to disclose the fund of intelligence and ideal passion which underlies this superficial insanity. We see that Don Quixote is only mad north-north-west, when the wind blows from the quarter of his chivalrous preoccupation. At other times he shows himself a man of great goodness and fineness of wit; virtuous, courageous, courteous, and generous, and in fact the perfect ideal of a gentleman. When he takes, for instance, a handful of acorns from the goat-herds' table and begins a grandiloquent discourse upon the Golden Age, we feel how cultivated the man is, how easily the little things of life suggest to him the great things, and with what delight he dwells on what is beautiful and happy. The truth and pathos of the character become all the more compelling when we consider how naturally the hero's madness and calamities flow from this same exquisite sense of what is good.
The contrast to this figure is furnished by that of Sancho Panza, who embodies all that is matter-of-fact, gross, and plebeian. Yet he is willing to become Don Quixote's esquire, and by his credulity and devotion shows what an ascendency a heroic and enthusiastic nature can gain over the most sluggish of men. Sancho has none of the instincts of his master. He never read the books of chivalry or desired to right the wrongs of the world. He is naturally satisfied with his crust and his onions, if they can be washed down with enough bad wine. His good drudge of a wife never transformed herself in his fancy into a peerless Dulcinea. Yet Sancho follows his master into every danger, shares his discomfiture and the many blows that rain down upon him, and hopes to the end for the governorship of that Insula with which Don Quixote is some day to reward his faithful esquire.
As the madness of Don Quixote is humanized by his natural intelligence and courage, so the grossness and credulity of Sancho are relieved by his homely wit. He abounds in proverbs. He never fails to see the reality of a situation, and to protest doggedly against his master's visionary flights. He holds fast as long as he can to the evidence of his senses, and to his little weaknesses of flesh and spirit. But finally he surrenders to the authority of Don Quixote, and of the historians of chivalry, although not without a certain reluctance and some surviving doubts.
The character of Sancho is admirable for the veracity with which its details are drawn. The traits of the boor, the glutton, and the coward come most naturally to the surface upon occasion, yet Sancho remains a patient, good-natured peasant, a devoted servant, and a humble Christian. Under the cover of such lifelike incongruities, and of a pervasive humor, the author has given us a satirical picture of human nature not inferior, perhaps, to that furnished by Don Quixote himself. For instance: Don Quixote, after mending his helmet, tries its strength with a blow that smashes it to pieces. He mends it a second time, but now, without trial, deputes it to be henceforth a strong and perfect helmet. Sancho, when he is sent to bear a letter to Dulcinea, neglects to deliver it, and invents an account of his interview with the imaginary lady for the satisfaction of his master. But before long, by dint of repeating the story, he comes himself to believe his own lies. Thus self-deception in the knight is the ridiculous effect of courage, and in the esquire the not less ridiculous effect of sloth.
The adventures these two heroes encounter are naturally only such as travelers along the Spanish roads would then have been likely to come upon. The point of the story depends on the familiarity and commonness of the situations in which Don Quixote finds himself, so that the absurdity of his pretensions may be overwhelmingly shown. Critics are agreed in blaming the exceptions which Cervantes allowed himself to make to the realism of his scenes, where he introduced romantic tales into the narrative of the first part. The tales are in themselves unworthy of their setting, and contrary to the spirit of the whole book. Cervantes doubtless yielded here partly to his story-telling habits, partly to a fear of monotony in the uninterrupted description of Don Quixote's adventures. He avoided this mistake in the second part, and devised the visit to the Duke's palace, and the intentional sport there made of the hero, to give variety to the story.
More variety and more unity may still, perhaps, seem desirable in the book. The episodes are strung together without much coherence, and without any attempt to develop either the plot or the characters. Sancho, to be sure, at last tastes the governorship of his Insula, and Don Quixote on his death-bed recovers his wits. But this conclusion, appropriate and touching as it is, might have come almost anywhere in the course of the story. The whole book has, in fact, rather the quality of an improvisation. The episodes suggest themselves to the author's fancy as he proceeds; a fact which gives them the same unexpectedness and sometimes the same incompleteness which the events of a journey naturally have. It is in the genius of this kind of narrative to be a sort of imaginary diary, without a general dramatic structure. The interest depends on the characters and the incidents alone; on the fertility of the author's invention, on the ingenuity of the turns he gives to the story, and on the incidental scenes and figures he describes.
When we have once accepted this manner of writing fiction—which might be called that of the novelist before the days of the novel—we can only admire the execution of 'Don Quixote' as masterly in its kind. We find here an abundance of fancy that is never at a loss for some probable and interesting incident; we find a graphic power that makes living and unforgettable many a minor character, even if slightly sketched; we find the charm of the country rendered by little touches without any formal descriptions; and we find a humorous and minute reproduction of the manners of the time. All this is rendered in a flowing and easy style, abounding in both characterization and parody of diverse types of speech and composition; and the whole is still but the background for the figures of Don Quixote and Sancho, and for their pleasant discourse, the quality and savor of which is maintained to the end. These excellences unite to make the book one of the most permanently delightful in the world, as well as one of the most diverting. Seldom has laughter been so well justified as that which the reading of 'Don Quixote' continually provokes; seldom has it found its causes in such genuine fancy, such profound and real contrast, and such victorious good-humor.
We sometimes wish, perhaps, that our heroes were spared some of their bruises, and that we were not asked to delight so much in promiscuous beatings and floggings. But we must remember that these three hundred years have made the European race much more sensitive to physical suffering. Our ancestors took that doubtful pleasure in the idea of corporal writhings which we still take in the description of the tortures of the spirit. The idea of both evils is naturally distasteful to a refined mind; but we admit more willingly the kind which habit has accustomed us to regard as inevitable, and which personal experience very probably has made an old friend.
'Don Quixote' has accordingly enjoyed a universal popularity, and has had the singular privilege of accomplishing the object for which it was written, which was to recall fiction from the extravagances of the books of chivalry to the study of real life. This is the simple object which Cervantes had and avowed. He was a literary man with literary interests, and the idea which came to him was to ridicule the absurdities of the prevalent literary mode. The rich vein which he struck in the conception of Don Quixote's madness and topsy-turvy adventures encouraged him to go on. The subject and the characters deepened under his hands, until from a parody of a certain kind of romances the story threatened to become a satire on human idealism. At the same time Cervantes grew fond of his hero, and made him, as we must feel, in some sort a representative of his own chivalrous enthusiasms and constant disappointments.
We need not, however, see in this transformation any deep-laid malice or remote significance. As the tale opened out before the author's fancy and enlisted his closer and more loving attention, he naturally enriched it with all the wealth of his experience. Just as he diversified it with pictures of common life and manners, so he weighted it with the burden of human tragedy. He left upon it an impress of his own nobility and misfortunes side by side with a record of his time and country. But in this there was nothing intentional. He only spoke out of the fullness of his heart. The highest motives and characters had been revealed to him by his own impulses, and the lowest by his daily experience.
There is nothing in the book that suggests a premeditated satire upon faith and enthusiasm in general. The author's evident purpose is to amuse, not to upbraid or to discourage. There is no bitterness in his pathos or despair in his disenchantment; partly because he retains a healthy fondness for this naughty world, and partly because his heart is profoundly and entirely Christian. He would have rejected with indignation an interpretation of his work that would see in it an attack on religion or even on chivalry. His birth and nurture had made him religious and chivalrous from the beginning, and he remained so by conviction to the end. He was still full of plans and hopes when death overtook him, but he greeted it with perfect simplicity, without lamentations over the past or anxiety for the future.
If we could have asked Cervantes what the moral of Don Quixote was to his own mind, he would have told us perhaps that it was this: that the force of idealism is wasted when it does not recognize the reality of things. Neglect of the facts of daily life made the absurdity of the romances of chivalry and of the enterprise of Don Quixote. What is needed is not, of course, that idealism should be surrendered, either in literature or in life; but that in both it should be made efficacious by a better adjustment to the reality it would transform.
Something of this kind would have been, we may believe, Cervantes's own reading of his parable. But when parables are such direct and full transcripts of life as is the story of Don Quixote, they offer almost as much occasion for diversity of interpretation as does the personal experience of men in the world. That the moral of Don Quixote should be doubtful and that each man should be tempted to see in it the expression of his own convictions, is after all the greatest possible encomium of the book. For we may infer that the truth has been rendered in it, and that men may return to it always, as to Nature herself, to renew their theories or to forget them, and to refresh their fancy with the spectacle of a living world.
TREATING OF THE CHARACTER AND PURSUITS OF DON QUIXOTE
In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, and an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing. An olla of rather more beef than mutton, a salad on most nights, scraps on Saturdays, lentils on Fridays, and a pigeon or so extra on Sundays, made away with three-quarters of his income. The rest of it went in a doublet of fine cloth and velvet breeches and shoes to match for holidays, while on week-days he made a brave figure in his best homespun. He had in his house a housekeeper past forty, a niece under twenty, and a lad for the field and market-place, who used to saddle the hack as well as handle the bill-hook. The age of this gentleman of ours was bordering on fifty; he was of a hardy habit, spare, gaunt-featured, a very early riser and a great sportsman. They will have it his surname was Quixada or Quesada (for here there is some difference of opinion among the authors who write on the subject), although from reasonable conjectures it seems plain that he was called Quixana. This, however, is of but little importance to our tale; it will be enough not to stray a hair's breadth from the truth in the telling of it.
You must know then that the above-named gentleman, whenever he was at leisure (which was mostly all the year round) gave himself up to reading books of chivalry with such ardor and avidity that he almost entirely neglected the pursuit of his field-sports, and even the management of his property; and to such a pitch did his eagerness and infatuation go that he sold many an acre of tillage-land to buy books of chivalry to read, and brought home as many of them as he could get. But of all there were none he liked so well as those of the famous Feliciano de Silva's composition, for their lucidity of style and complicated conceits were as pearls in his sight, particularly when in his reading he came upon courtships and cartels, where he often found passages like:—"The reason of the unreason with which my reason is afflicted, so weakens my reason that with reason I murmur at your beauty;" or again:—"The high heavens, that of your divinity divinely fortify you with the stars, render you deserving of the desert your greatness deserves." Over conceits of this sort the poor gentleman lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and worm the meaning out of them; what Aristotle himself could not have made out or extracted, had he come to life again for that special purpose. He was not at all easy about the wounds which Don Belianis gave and took, because it seemed to him that, great as were the surgeons who had cured him, he must have had his face and body covered all over with seams and scars. He commended however the author's way of ending his book with the promise of that interminable adventure; and many a time was he tempted to take up his pen and finish it properly as is there proposed, which no doubt he would have done, and made a successful piece of work of it too, had not greater and more absorbing thoughts prevented him.
Many an argument did he have with the curate of his village (a learned man, and a graduate of Siguenza) as to which had been the better knight, Palmerin of England or Amadis of Gaul. Master Nicholas the village barber, however, used to say that neither of them came up to the Knight of Phœbus, and that if there was any could compare with him it was Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of Gaul, because he had a spirit that was equal to every occasion, and was no finikin knight, nor lachrymose like his brother, while in the matter of valor he was not a whit behind him. In short, he became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits. His fancy grew full of what he used to read about in his books—enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, agonies, and all sorts of impossible nonsense; and it so possessed his mind that the whole fabric of invention and fancy he read of was true, that to him no history in the world had more reality in it. He used to say the Cid Ruy Diaz was a very good knight, but that he was not to be compared with the Knight of the Burning Sword, who with one back stroke cut in half two fierce and monstrous giants. He thought more of Bernardo del Carpio because at Roncesvalles he slew Roland in spite of enchantments, availing himself of the artifice of Hercules when he strangled Antæus the son of Terra in his arms. He approved highly of the giant Morgante, because although of the giant breed, which is always arrogant and ill-conditioned, he alone was affable and well-bred. But above all he admired Reinaldos of Montalban; especially when he saw him sallying forth from his castle and robbing every one he met, and when beyond the seas he stole that image of Mahomet which, as his history says, was entirely of gold. And to have a bout of kicking at that traitor of a Ganelon he would have given his housekeeper, and his niece into the bargain.
In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon: and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honor as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armor and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant; righting every kind of wrong, and exposing himself to peril and danger from which, in the issue, he was to reap eternal renown and fame. Already the poor man saw himself crowned, by the might of his arm, Emperor of Trebizond at least; and so, led away by the intense enjoyment he found in these pleasant fancies, he set himself forthwith to put his scheme into execution.
The first thing he did was to clean up some armor that had belonged to his great-grandfather, and had been for ages lying forgotten in a corner, eaten with rust and covered with mildew. He scoured and polished it as best he could, but he perceived one great defect in it; that it had no closed helmet, nothing but a simple morion. This deficiency, however, his ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a kind of half-helmet of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion, looked like a whole one. It is true that in order to see if it was strong and fit to stand a cut he drew his sword and gave it a couple of slashes, the first of which undid in an instant what had taken him a week to do. The ease with which he had knocked it to pieces disconcerted him somewhat, and to guard against that danger he set to work again, fixing bars of iron on the inside until he was satisfied with its strength; and then, not caring to try any more experiments with it, he passed it and adopted it as a helmet of the most perfect construction.
He next proceeded to inspect his hack, which, with more quartos than a real and more blemishes than the steed of Gonela, that "tantum pellis et ossa fuit," surpassed in his eyes the Bucephalus of Alexander or the Babieca of the Cid. Four days were spent in thinking what name to give him; because (as he said to himself) it was not right that a horse belonging to a knight so famous, and one with such merits of his own, should be without some distinctive name, and he strove to adapt it so as to indicate what he had been before belonging to a knight-errant, and what he then was; for it was only reasonable that, his master taking a new character, he should take a new name, and that it should be a distinguished and full-sounding one, befitting the new order and calling he was about to follow. And so after having composed, struck out, rejected, added to, unmade, and remade a multitude of names out of his memory and fancy, he decided upon calling him Rosinante,—to his thinking lofty, sonorous, and significant of his condition as a hack before he became what he now was, the first and foremost of all the hacks in the world.
Having got a name for his horse so much to his taste, he was anxious to get one for himself, and he was eight days more pondering over this point, till at last he made up his mind to call himself Don Quixote, whence, as has already been said, the authors of this veracious history have inferred that his name must have been beyond a doubt Quixada, and not Quesada as others would have it. Recollecting however that the valiant Amadis was not content to call himself curtly Amadis and nothing more, but added the name of his kingdom and country to make it famous, and called himself Amadis of Gaul: he, like a good knight, resolved to add on the name of his and to style himself Don Quixote of La Mancha; whereby he considered he described accurately his origin and country, and did honor to it in taking his surname from it.
So then, his armor being furbished, his morion turned into a helmet, his hack christened, and he himself confirmed, he came to the conclusion that nothing more was needed now but to look out for a lady to be in love with; for a knight-errant without love was like a tree without leaves or fruit, or a body without a soul. As he said to himself:—"If for my sins or by my good fortune I come across some giant hereabouts,—a common occurrence with knights-errant,—and overthrow him in one onslaught, or cleave him asunder to the waist, or in short, vanquish and subdue him, will it not be well to have some one I may send him to as a present, that he may come in and fall on his knees before my sweet lady and in a humble, submissive voice say:—'I am the giant Caraculiambro, lord of the island of Malindrania, vanquished in single combat by the never-sufficiently-extolled knight Don Quixote of La Mancha, who has commanded me to present myself before your Grace, that your Highness dispose of me at your pleasure'"? Oh, how our good gentleman enjoyed the delivery of this speech, especially when he had thought of some one to call his Lady! There was, so the story goes, in a village near his own a very good-looking farm-girl with whom he had been at one time in love, though so far as is known, she never knew it nor gave a thought to the matter. Her name was Aldonza Lorenzo, and upon her he thought fit to confer the title of Lady of his Thoughts; and after some search for a name which should not be out of harmony with her own, and should suggest and indicate that of a princess and great lady, he decided upon calling her Dulcinea del Toboso—she being of El Toboso—a name, to his mind, musical, uncommon, and significant, like all those he had already bestowed upon himself and the things belonging to him.
OF WHAT HAPPENED TO DON QUIXOTE WHEN HE LEFT THE INN
Day was dawning when Don Quixote quitted the inn, so happy, so gay, so exhilarated at finding himself dubbed a knight, that his joy was like to burst his horse-girths. However, recalling the advice of his host as to the requisites he ought to carry with him, especially that referring to money and shirts, he determined to go home and provide himself with all, and also with a squire; for he reckoned upon securing a farm-laborer, a neighbor of his, a poor man with a family, but very well qualified for the office of squire to a knight. With this object he turned his horse's head towards his village, and Rosinante, thus reminded of his old quarters, stepped out so briskly that he hardly seemed to tread the earth.
He had not gone far, when out of a thicket on his right there seemed to come feeble cries as of some one in distress; and the instant he heard them he exclaimed:—"Thanks be to heaven for the favor it accords me, that it so soon offers me an opportunity of fulfilling the obligation I have undertaken, and gathering the fruit of my ambition. These cries no doubt come from some man or woman in want of help, and needing my aid and protection;" and wheeling, he turned Rosinante in the direction whence the cries seemed to proceed. He had gone but a few paces into the wood when he saw a mare tied to an oak, and tied to another, and stripped from the waist upwards, a youth of about fifteen years of age, from whom the cries came. Nor were they without cause, for a lusty farmer was flogging him with a belt and following up every blow with scoldings and commands; repeating, "Your mouth shut and your eyes open!" while the youth made answer, "I won't do it again, master mine; by God's passion, I won't do it again, and I'll take more care of the flock another time."
Seeing what was going on, Don Quixote said in an angry voice, "Discourteous knight, it ill becomes you to assail one who cannot defend himself; mount your steed and take your lance" (for there was a lance leaning against the oak to which the mare was tied), "and I will make you know that you are behaving as a coward." The farmer, seeing before him this figure in full armor, brandishing a lance over his head, gave himself up for dead and made answer meekly:—"Sir Knight, this youth that I am chastising is my servant, employed by me to watch a flock of sheep that I have hard by; and he is so careless that I lose one every day, and when I punish him for his carelessness and knavery he says I do it out of niggardliness, to escape paying him the wages I owe him, and before God, and on my soul, he lies."
"Lies before me, base clown!" said Don Quixote. "By the sun that shines on us, I have a mind to run you through with this lance. Pay him at once, without another word; if not, by the God that rules us, I will make an end of you, and annihilate you on the spot; release him instantly."
The farmer hung his head, and without a word untied his servant, of whom Don Quixote asked how much his master owed him.
He replied, nine months at seven reals a month. Don Quixote added it up, found that it came to sixty-three reals, and told the farmer to pay it down immediately if he did not want to die for it.
The trembling clown replied that as he lived and by the oath he had sworn (though he had not sworn any) it was not so much; for there were to be taken into account and deducted three pairs of shoes he had given him, and a real for two blood-lettings when he was sick.
"All that is very well," said Don Quixote; "but let the shoes and the blood-lettings stand as a set-off against the blows you have given him without any cause; for if he spoiled the leather of the shoes you paid for, you have damaged that of his body, and if the barber took blood from him when he was sick, you have drawn it when he was sound; so on that score he owes you nothing."
"The difficulty is, Sir Knight, that I have no money here; let Andres come home with me, and I will pay him all, real by real."
"I go with him!" said the youth. "Nay, God forbid! no, señor, not for the world; for once alone with me, he would flay me like a Saint Bartholomew."
"He will do nothing of the kind," said Don Quixote; "I have only to command and he will obey me, and he has sworn to me by the order of knighthood which he has received. I leave him free, and I guarantee the payment."
"Consider what you are saying, señor," said the youth; "this master of mine is not a knight, nor has he received any order of knighthood; for he is Juan Haldudo the Rich, of Quintanar."
"That matters little," replied Don Quixote; "there may be Haldudos knights; moreover, every one is the son of his works."
"That is true," said Andres; "but this master of mine—of what work is he the son, when he refuses me the wages of my sweat and labor?"
"I do not refuse, brother Andres," said the farmer; "be good enough to come along with me, and I swear by all the orders of knighthood there are in the world to pay you as I have agreed, real by real, and perfumed."
"For the perfumery I excuse you," said Don Quixote; "give it to him in reals, and I shall be satisfied; and see that you do as you have sworn; if not, by the same oath I swear to come back and hunt you out and punish you; and I shall find you though you should lie closer than a lizard. And if you desire to know who it is lays this command upon you, that you may be more firmly bound to obey it, know that I am the valorous Don Quixote of La Mancha, the undoer of wrongs and injustices; and so God be with you, and keep in mind what you have promised and sworn under those penalties that have been already declared to you."
So saying, he gave Rosinante the spur and was soon out of reach. The farmer followed him with his eyes, and when he saw that he had cleared the wood and was no longer in sight, he turned to his boy Andres and said, "Come here, my son; I want to pay you what I owe you, as that undoer of wrongs has commanded me."
"My oath on it," said Andres, "your Worship will be well advised to obey the command of that good knight—may he live a thousand years!—for as he is a valiant and just judge, by Roque, if you do not pay me, he will come back and do as he said."
"My oath on it too," said the farmer; "but as I have a strong affection for you, I want to add to the debt in order to add to the payment;" and seizing him by the arm, he tied him up to the oak again, where he gave him such a flogging that he left him for dead.
CERVANTES.
"Now, Master Andres," said the farmer, "call on the undoer of wrongs; you will find he won't undo that, though I am not sure that I have quite done with you, for I have a good mind to flay you alive as you feared." But at last he untied him, and gave him leave to go look for his judge in order to put the sentence pronounced into execution.
Andres went off rather down in the mouth, swearing he would go to look for the valiant Don Quixote of La Mancha and tell him exactly what had happened, and that all would have to be repaid him sevenfold; but for all that he went off weeping, while his master stood laughing.
Thus did the valiant Don Quixote right that wrong; and thoroughly satisfied with what had taken place, as he considered he had made a very happy and noble beginning with his knighthood, he took the road towards his village in perfect self-content, saying in a low voice:—"Well mayest them this day call thyself fortunate above all on earth, O Dulcinea del Toboso, fairest of the fair! since it has fallen to thy lot to hold subject and submissive to thy full will and pleasure a knight so renowned as is and will be Don Quixote of La Mancha, who as all the world knows, yesterday received the order of knighthood, and hath to-day righted the greatest wrong and grievance that ever injustice conceived and cruelty perpetrated; who hath to-day plucked the rod from the hand of yonder ruthless oppressor so wantonly lashing that tender child."
He now came to a road branching in four directions, and immediately he was reminded of those cross-roads where knights-errant used to stop to consider which road they should take. In imitation of them he halted for a while, and after having deeply considered it, he gave Rosinante his head, submitting his own will to that of his hack, who followed out his first intention, which was to make straight for his own stable. After he had gone about two miles Don Quixote perceived a large party of people, who as afterwards appeared were some Toledo traders, on their way to buy silk at Murcia. There were six of them coming along under their sun-shades, with four servants mounted, and three muleteers on foot. Scarcely had Don Quixote descried them when the fancy possessed him that this must be some new adventure; and to help him to imitate as far as he could those passages he had read of in his books, here seemed to come one made on purpose, which he resolved to attempt. So with a lofty bearing and determination he fixed himself firmly in his stirrups, got his lance ready, brought his buckler before his breast, and planting himself in the middle of the road, stood waiting the approach of these knights-errant, for such he now considered and held them to be; and when they had come near enough to see and hear, he exclaimed with a haughty gesture:—"All the world stand, unless all the world confess that in all the world there is no maiden fairer than the Empress of La Mancha, the peerless Dulcinea del Toboso."
The traders halted at the sound of this language and the sight of the strange figure that uttered it, and from both figure and language at once guessed the craze of their owner; they wished however to learn quietly what was the object of this confession that was demanded of them, and one of them, who was rather fond of a joke and was very sharp-witted, said to him:—"Sir Knight, we do not know who this good lady is that you speak of; show her to us, for if she be of such beauty as you suggest, with all our hearts and without any pressure we will confess the truth that is on your part required of us."
"If I were to show her to you," replied Don Quixote, "what merit would you have in confessing a truth so manifest? The essential point is that without seeing her you must believe, confess, affirm, swear, and defend it; else ye have to do with me in battle, ill-conditioned arrogant rabble that ye are: and come ye on, one by one as the order of knighthood requires, or all together as is the custom and vile usage of your breed; here do I bide and await you, relying on the justice of the cause I maintain."
"Sir Knight," replied the trader, "I entreat your Worship in the name of this present company of princes, that to save us from charging our consciences with the confession of a thing we have never seen or heard of, and one moreover so much to the prejudice of the Empresses and Queens of the Alcarria and Estremadura, your worship will be pleased to show us some portrait of this lady, though it be no bigger than a grain of wheat; for by the thread one gets at the ball, and in this way we shall be satisfied and easy, and you will be content and pleased: nay, I believe we are already so far agreed with you that even though her portrait should show her blind of one eye, and distilling vermilion and sulphur from the other, we would nevertheless, to gratify your Worship, say all in her favor that you desire."
"She distills nothing of the kind, vile rabble," said Don Quixote, burning with rage; "nothing of the kind, I say; only ambergris and civet in cotton; nor is she one-eyed or hump-backed, but straighter than a Guadarrama spindle: but ye must pay for the blasphemy ye have uttered against beauty like that of my lady."
And so saying he charged with leveled lance against the one who had spoken, with such fury and fierceness that, if luck had not contrived that Rosinante should stumble midway and come down, it would have gone hard with the rash trader. Down went Rosinante, and over went his master, rolling along the ground for some distance; and when he tried to rise he was unable, so incumbered was he with lance, buckler, spurs, helmet, and the weight of his old armor; and all the while he was struggling to get up, he kept saying, "Fly not, cowards and caitiffs! stay, for not by my fault, but my horse's, am I stretched here."
One of the muleteers in attendance, who could not have had much good-nature in him, hearing the poor prostrate man blustering in this style, was unable to refrain from giving him an answer on his ribs; and coming up to him he seized his lance, and having broken it in pieces, with one of them he began so to belabor our Don Quixote that, notwithstanding and in spite of his armor, he milled him like a measure of wheat. His masters called out not to lay on so hard and to leave him alone, but the muleteer's blood was up, and he did not care to drop the game until he had vented the rest of his wrath; and gathering up the remaining fragments of the lance he finished with a discharge upon the unhappy victim, who all through the storm of sticks that rained on him never ceased threatening heaven, and earth, and the brigands—for such they seemed to him. At last the muleteer was tired, and the traders continued their journey, taking with them matter for talk about the poor fellow who had been cudgeled. He, when he found himself alone, made another effort to rise; but if he was unable when whole and sound, how was he to rise after having been thrashed and well-nigh knocked to pieces! And yet he esteemed himself fortunate, as it seemed to him that this was a regular knight-errant's mishap, and entirely, he considered, the fault of his horse. However, battered in body as he was, to rise was beyond his power.
DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANZA SALLY FORTH: AND THE ADVENTURE WITH THE WINDMILLS
He remained at home fifteen days very quietly, without showing any signs of a desire to take up with his former delusions; and during this time he held lively discussions with his two gossips, the curate and the barber, on the point he maintained, that knights-errant were what the world stood most in need of, and that in him was to be accomplished the revival of knight-errantry. The curate sometimes contradicted him, sometimes agreed with him, for if he had not observed this precaution he would have been unable to bring him to reason.
Meanwhile Don Quixote worked upon a farm-laborer, a neighbor of his, an honest man (if indeed that title can be given to him who is poor), but with very little wit in his pate. In a word, he so talked him over, and with such persuasions and promises, that the poor clown made up his mind to sally forth with him and serve him as esquire. Don Quixote, among other things, told him he ought to be ready to go with him gladly, because at any moment an adventure might occur, that might win an island in the twinkling of an eye and leave him governor of it. On these and the like promises Sancho Panza (for so the laborer was called) left wife and children, and engaged himself as esquire to his neighbor. Don Quixote next set about getting some money; and selling one thing and pawning another, and making a bad bargain in every case, he got together a fair sum. He provided himself with a buckler, which he begged as a loan from a friend, and restoring his battered helmet as best he could, he warned his squire Sancho of the day and hour he meant to set out, that he might provide himself with what he thought most needful. Above all, he charged him to take alforjas with him. The other said he would, and that he meant to take also a very good ass he had, as he was not much given to going on foot. About the ass, Don Quixote hesitated a little, trying whether he could call to mind any knight-errant taking with him an esquire mounted on ass-back, but no instance occurred to his memory. For all that, however, he determined to take him; intending to furnish him with a more honorable mount when a chance of it presented itself, by appropriating the horse of the first discourteous knight he encountered. Himself he provided with shirts and such other things as he could, according to the advice the host had given him; all which being settled and done, without taking leave, Sancho Panza of his wife and children, or Don Quixote of his housekeeper and niece, they sallied forth unseen by anybody from the village one night, and made such good way in the course of it that by daylight they held themselves safe from discovery, even should search be made for them.
Sancho rode on his ass like a patriarch, with his alforjas and bota, and longing to see himself soon governor of the island his master had promised him. Don Quixote decided upon taking the same route and road he had taken on his first journey, that over the Campo de Montiel, which he traveled with less discomfort than on the last occasion; for as it was early morning and the rays of the sun fell on them obliquely, the heat did not distress them.
And now said Sancho Panza to his master, "Your Worship will take care, Señor Knight-Errant, not to forget about the island you have promised me, for be it ever so big I'll be equal to governing it."
To which Don Quixote replied:—"Thou must know, friend Sancho Panza, that it was a practice very much in vogue with the knights-errant of old to make their squires governors of the islands or kingdoms they won, and I am determined that there shall be no failure on my part in so liberal a custom; on the contrary, I mean to improve upon it, for they sometimes, and perhaps most frequently, waited until their squires were old, and then when they had had enough of service and hard days and worse nights, they gave them some title or other, of count, or at the most marquis, of some valley or province more or less; but if thou livest and I live, it may well be that before six days are over I may have won some kingdom that has others dependent upon it, which will be just the thing to enable thee to be crowned king of one of them. Nor needst thou count this wonderful, for things and chances fall to the lot of such knights in ways so unexampled and unexpected that I might easily give thee even more than I promise thee."
"In that case," said Sancho Panza, "if I should become a king by one of those miracles your Worship speaks of, even Juana Gutierrez, my old woman, would come to be queen and my children infantes."
"Well, who doubts it?" said Don Quixote.
"I doubt it," replied Sancho Panza; "because for my part I am persuaded that though God should shower down kingdoms upon earth, not one of them would fit the head of Mari Gutierrez. Let me tell you, señor, she is not worth two maravedis for a queen; countess will fit her better, and that only with God's help."
"Leave it to God, Sancho," returned Don Quixote, "for he will give her what suits her best; but do not undervalue thyself so much as to come to be content with anything less than being governor of a province."
"I will not, señor," answered Sancho; "especially as I have a man of such quality for master in your Worship, who will be able to give me all that will be suitable for me and that I can bear."
At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that there are on that plain, and as soon as Don Quixote saw them he said to his squire, "Fortune is arranging matters for us better than we could have shaped our desires ourselves; for look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants present themselves, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes; for this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."
"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.
"Those thou seest there," answered his master, "with the long arms; and some have them nearly two leagues long."
"Look, your Worship," said Sancho; "what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstones go."
"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that thou art not used to this business of adventures; those are giants; and if thou art afraid, away with thee out of this and betake thyself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."
So saying, he gave the spur to his steed Rosinante, heedless of the cries his squire Sancho sent after him, warning him that most certainly they were windmills and not giants he was going to attack. He however was so positive they were giants that he neither heard the cries of Sancho, nor perceived, near as he was, what they were; but made at them, shouting, "Fly not, cowards and vile beings, for it is a single knight that attacks you!"
A slight breeze at this moment sprang up, and the great sails began to move; seeing which, Don Quixote exclaimed, "Though ye flourish more arms than the giant Briareus, ye have to reckon with me."
So saying, and commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, imploring her to support him in such a peril, with lance in rest and covered by his buckler, he charged at Rosinante's fullest gallop and fell upon the first mill that stood in front of him; but as he drove his lance-point into the sail the wind whirled it round with such force that it shivered the lance to pieces, sweeping with it horse and rider, who went rolling over on the plain in a sorry condition. Sancho hastened to his assistance as fast as his ass could go, and when he came up found him unable to move, with such a shock had Rosinante fallen with him.
"God bless me!" said Sancho, "did I not tell your Worship to mind what you were about, for they were only windmills? and no one could have made any mistake about it but one who had something of the same kind in his head."
"Hush, friend Sancho," replied Don Quixote; "the fortunes of war more than any other are liable to frequent fluctuations; and moreover I think, and it is the truth, that that same sage Friston who carried off my study and books has turned these giants into mills in order to rob me of the glory of vanquishing them,—such is the enmity he bears me; but in the end his wicked arts will avail but little against my good sword."
"God order it as he may," said Sancho Panza; and helping him to rise, got him up again on Rosinante, whose shoulder was half out; and then, discussing the late adventure, they followed the road to Puerto Lapice, for there, said Don Quixote, they could not fail to find adventures in abundance and variety, as it was a great thoroughfare.
SANCHO PANZA AND HIS WIFE TERESA CONVERSE SHREWDLY
The translator of this history, when he comes to write this fifth chapter, says that he considers it apocryphal, because in it Sancho Panza speaks in a style unlike that which might have been expected from his limited intelligence, and says things so subtle that he does not think it possible he could have conceived them; however, desirous of doing what his task imposed upon him, he was unwilling to leave it untranslated, and therefore he went on to say:—
Sancho came home in such glee and spirits that his wife noticed his happiness a bowshot off, so much so that it made her ask him, "What have you got, Sancho friend, that you are so glad?"
To which he replied, "Wife, if it were God's will, I should be very glad not to be so well pleased as I show myself."
"I don't understand you, husband," said she, "and I don't know what you mean by saying you would be glad, if it were God's will, not to be well pleased; for fool as I am, I don't know how one can find pleasure in not having it."
"Hark ye, Teresa," replied Sancho, "I am glad because I have made up my mind to go back to the service of my master Don Quixote, who means to go out a third time to seek for adventures; and I am going with him again, for my necessities will have it so, and also the hope that cheers me with the thought that I may find another hundred crowns like those we have spent; though it makes me sad to have to leave thee and the children; and if God would be pleased to let me have my daily bread, dry-shod and at home, without taking me out into the byways and cross-roads—and he could do it at small cost by merely willing it—it is clear my happiness would be more solid and lasting, for the happiness I have is mingled with sorrow at leaving thee; so that I was right in saying I would be glad, if it were God's will, not to be well pleased."
"Look here, Sancho," said Teresa; "ever since you joined on to a knight-errant you talk in such a roundabout way that there is no understanding you."
"It is enough that God understands me, wife," replied Sancho; "for he is the understander of all things; that will do: but mind, sister, you must look to Dapple carefully for the next three days, so that he may be fit to take arms; double his feed, and see to the pack-saddle and other harness, for it is not to a wedding we are bound, but to go round the world, and play at give-and-take with giants and dragons and monsters, and hear hissings and roarings and bellowings and howlings; and even all this would be lavender, if we had not to reckon with Yanguesans and enchanted Moors."
"I know well enough, husband," said Teresa, "that squires-errant don't eat their bread for nothing, and so I will be always praying to our Lord to deliver you speedily from all that hard fortune."
"I can tell you, wife," said Sancho, "if I did not expect to see myself governor of an island before long, I would drop down dead on the spot."
"Nay then, husband," said Teresa, "let the hen live, though it be with her pip; live, and let the devil take all the governments in the world: you came out of your mother's womb without a government, you have lived until now without a government, and when it is God's will you will go, or be carried, to your grave without a government. How many there are in the world who live without a government, and continue to live all the same, and are reckoned in the number of the people. The best sauce in the world is hunger, and as the poor are never without that, they always eat with a relish. But mind, Sancho, if by good luck you should find yourself with some government, don't forget me and your children. Remember that Sanchico is now full fifteen, and it is right he should go to school, if his uncle the abbot has a mind to have him trained for the Church. Consider, too, that your daughter Maria-Sancha will not die of grief if we marry her; for I have my suspicions that she is as eager to get a husband as you to get a government; and after all, a daughter looks better ill married than well kept."
"By my faith," replied Sancho, "if God brings me to get any sort of a government, I intend, wife, to make such a high match for Maria-Sancha that there will be no approaching her without calling her 'my lady.'"
"Nay, Sancho," returned Teresa, "marry her to her equal, that is the safest plan; for if you put her out of wooden clogs into high-heeled shoes, out of her gray flannel petticoat into hoops and silk gowns, out of the plain 'Marica' and 'thou' into 'Doña So-and-so' and 'my lady,' the girl won't know where she is, and at every turn she will fall into a thousand blunders that will show the thread of her coarse homespun stuff."
"Tut, you fool," said Sancho; "it will be only to practice it for two or three years, and then dignity and decorum will fit her as easily as a glove, and if not, what matter? Let her be 'my lady,' and never mind what happens."
"Keep to your own station, Sancho," replied Teresa; "don't try to raise yourself higher, and bear in mind the proverb that says, 'Wipe the nose of your neighbor's son, and take him into your house.' A fine thing it would be, indeed, to marry our Maria to some great count or grand gentleman who when the humor took him would abuse her, and call her 'clown-bred' and 'clodhopper's daughter' and 'spinning-wench.' I have not been bringing up my daughter for that all this time, I can tell you, husband. Do you bring home money, Sancho, and leave marrying her to my care: there is Lope Tocho, Juan Tocho's son, a stout, sturdy young fellow that we know, and I can see he does not look sour at the girl; and with him, one of our own sort, she will be well married, and we shall have her always under our eyes, and be all one family, parents and children, grandchildren and sons-in-law, and the peace and blessing of God will dwell among us; so don't you go marrying her in those courts and grand palaces where they won't know what to make of her, or she what to make of herself."
"Why, you idiot and wife for Barabbas," said Sancho, "what do you mean by trying, without why or wherefore, to keep me from marrying my daughter to one who will give me grandchildren that will be called 'your Lordship'? Look ye, Teresa, I have always heard my elders say that he who does not know how to take advantage of luck when it comes to him, has no right to complain if it gives him the go-by; and now that it is knocking at our door, it will not do to shut it out; let us go with the favoring breeze that blows upon us." (It is this sort of talk, and what Sancho says lower down, that made the translator of the history say he considered this chapter apocryphal.) "Don't you see, you animal," continued Sancho, "that it will be well for me to drop into some profitable government that will lift us out of the mire, and marry Mari-Sancha to whom I like; and you yourself will find yourself called 'Doña Teresa Panza,' and sitting in church on a fine carpet and cushions and draperies, in spite and in defiance of all the born ladies of the town? No, stay as you are, growing neither greater nor less, like a tapestry figure.—Let us say no more about it, for Sanchica shall be a countess, say what you will."
"Are you sure of all you say, husband?" replied Teresa. "Well, for all that, I am afraid this rank of countess for my daughter will be her ruin. You do as you like, make a duchess or a princess of her, but I can tell you it will not be with my will and consent. I was always a lover of equality, brother, and I can't bear to see people give themselves airs without any right. They called me Teresa at my baptism,—a plain, simple name, without any additions or tags or fringes of Dons or Doñas; Cascajo was my father's name, and as I am your wife, I am called Teresa Panza, though by right I ought to be called Teresa Cascajo; but 'kings go where laws like,' and I am content with this name without having the 'Don' put on top of it to make it so heavy that I cannot carry it; and I don't want to make people talk about me when they see me go dressed like a countess or governor's wife; for they will say at once, 'See what airs the slut gives herself! Only yesterday she was always spinning flax, and used to go to mass with the tail of her petticoat over her head instead of a mantle; and there she goes to-day in a hooped gown with her brooches and airs, as if we didn't know her!' If God keeps me in my seven senses, or five, or whatever number I have, I am not going to bring myself to such a pass; go you, brother, and be a government or an island man, and swagger as much as you like; for by the soul of my mother, neither my daughter nor I are going to stir a step from our village; a respectable woman should have a broken leg and keep at home, and to be busy at something is a virtuous damsel's holiday; be off to your adventures, along with your Don Quixote, and leave us to our misadventures, for God will mend them for us according as we deserve it. I don't know, I'm sure, who fixed the 'Don' to him, what neither his father nor grandfather ever had."
"I declare, thou hast a devil of some sort in thy body!" said Sancho. "God help thee, woman, what a lot of things thou hast strung together, one after the other, without head or tail! What have Cascajo, and the brooches and the proverbs and the airs, to do with what I say? Look here, fool and dolt (for so I may call you when you don't understand my words and run away from good fortune), if I had said that my daughter was to throw herself down from a tower, or go roaming the world, as the Infanta Doña Urraca wanted to do, you would be right in not giving way to my will; but if in an instant, in less than the twinkling of an eye, I put the 'Don' and 'my lady' on her back, and take her out of the stubble and place her under a canopy, on a daïs, and on a couch with more velvet cushions than all the Almohades of Morocco ever had in their family, why won't you consent and fall in with my wishes?"
"Do you know why, husband?" replied Teresa; "because of the proverb that says, 'Who covers thee, discovers thee.' At the poor man people only throw a hasty glance; on the rich man they fix their eyes; and if the said rich man was once on a time poor, it is then there is the sneering and the tattle and spite of backbiters; and in the streets here they swarm as thick as bees."
"Look here, Teresa," said Sancho, "and listen to what I am now going to say to you; maybe you never heard it in all your life; and I do not give my own notions, for what I am about to say are the opinions of his Reverence the preacher who preached in this town last Lent, and who said, if I remember rightly, that all things present that our eyes behold, bring themselves before us and remain and fix themselves on our memory much better and more forcibly than things past." (These observations which Sancho makes here are the other ones on account of which the translator says he regards this chapter as apocryphal, inasmuch as they are beyond Sancho's capacity.) "Whence it arises," he continued, "that when we see any person well dressed and making a figure with rich garments and retinue of servants, it seems to lead and impel us perforce to respect him, though memory may at the same time recall to us some lowly condition in which we have seen him, but which, whether it may have been poverty or low birth, being now a thing of the past has no existence; while the only thing that has any existence is what we see before us; and if this person whom fortune has raised from his original lowly state (these were the very words the padre used) to his present height of prosperity, be well-bred, generous, courteous to all, without seeking to vie with those whose nobility is of ancient date,—depend upon it, Teresa, no one will remember what he was, and every one will respect what he is, except indeed the envious, from whom no fair fortune is safe."
"I do not understand you, husband," replied Teresa; "do as you like, and don't break my head with any more speechifying and rhetoric; and if you have revolved to do what you say—"
"Resolved, you should say, woman," said Sancho, "not revolved."
"Don't set yourself to wrangle with me, husband," said Teresa; "I speak as God pleases, and don't deal in out-of-the-way phrases; and I say if you are bent upon having a government, take your son Sancho with you, and teach him from this time on how to hold a government; for sons ought to inherit and learn the trades of their fathers."
"As soon as I have the government," said Sancho, "I will send for him by post, and I will send thee money, of which I shall have no lack, for there is never any want of people to lend it to governors when they have not got it; and do thou dress him so as to hide what he is and make him look what he is to be."
"You send the money," said Teresa, "and I'll dress him up for you as fine as you please."
"Then we are agreed that our daughter is to be a countess," said Sancho.
"The day that I see her a countess," replied Teresa, "it will be the same to me as if I was burying her; but once more I say do as you please, for we women are born to this burden of being obedient to our husbands, though they be dogs;" and with this she began to weep in downright earnest, as if she already saw Sanchica dead and buried.
Sancho consoled her by saying that though he must make her a countess, he would put it off as long as possible. Here their conversation came to an end, and Sancho went back to see Don Quixote and make arrangements for their departure.
OF SANCHO PANZA'S DELECTABLE DISCOURSE WITH THE DUCHESS
The history records that Sancho did not sleep that afternoon, but in order to keep his word, came, before he had well done dinner, to visit the duchess; who, finding enjoyment in listening to him, made him sit down beside her on a low seat, though Sancho out of pure good breeding wanted not to sit down; the duchess however told him he was to sit down as governor and talk as squire, as in both respects he was worthy of even the chair of Cid Ruy Diaz the Campeador. Sancho shrugged his shoulders, obeyed, and sat down, and all the duchess's damsels and duennas gathered round him, waiting in profound silence to hear what he would say. It was the duchess however who spoke first, saying,—"Now that we are alone, and that there is nobody here to overhear us, I should be glad if the señor governor would relieve me of certain doubts I have, rising out of the history of the great Don Quixote that is now in print. One is: inasmuch as worthy Sancho never saw Dulcinea,—I mean the lady Dulcinea del Toboso,—nor took Don Quixote's letter to her,—for it was left in the memorandum-book in the Sierra Morena, how did he dare to invent the answer and all that about finding her sifting wheat,—the whole story being a deception and falsehood, and so much to the prejudice of the peerless Dulcinea's good name; a thing that is not at all becoming the character and fidelity of a good squire?"
At these words, Sancho, without uttering one in reply, got up from his chair, and with noiseless steps, with his body bent and his finger on his lips, went all round the room lifting up the hangings; and this done, he came back to his seat and said:—"Now, señora, that I have seen that there is no one except the bystanders listening to us on the sly, I will answer what you have asked me, and all you may ask me, without fear or dread. And the first thing I have got to say is, that for my own part I hold my master Don Quixote to be stark mad, though sometimes he says things that to my mind, and indeed everybody's that listens to him, are so wise and run in such a straight furrow that Satan himself could not have said them better; but for all that, really and beyond all question, it's my firm belief he is cracked. Well, then, as this is clear to my mind, I can venture to make him believe things that have neither head nor tail, like that affair of the answer to the letter, and that other of six or eight days ago which is not yet in history,—that is to say, the affair of the enchantment of my lady Dulcinea; for I made him believe she is enchanted, though there's no more truth in it than over the hills of Úbeda."
The duchess begged him to tell her about the enchantment or deception, so Sancho told the whole story exactly as it had happened, and his hearers were not a little amused by it; and then resuming, the duchess said:—"In consequence of what worthy Sancho has told me, a doubt starts up in my mind, and there comes a kind of whisper to my ears that says, 'If Don Quixote be mad, crazy, cracked, and Sancho his squire knows it, and notwithstanding serves and follows him, and goes trusting to his empty promises, there can be no doubt he must be still madder and sillier than his master; and that being so, it will be cast in your teeth, señora Duchess, if you give the said Sancho an island to govern; for how will he who does not know how to govern himself know how to govern others?'"
"My God, señora," said Sancho, "but that doubt comes timely; but your Grace may say it out, and speak plainly, or as you like; for I know what you say is true, and if I were wise I should have left my master long ago: but this was my fate, this was my bad luck; I can't help it, I must follow him; we're from the same village, I have eaten his bread, I'm fond of him, I'm grateful, he gave me his ass-colts, and above all I'm faithful; so it's quite impossible for anything to separate us except the pick-axe and shovel. And if your Highness does not like to give me the government you promised, God made me without it and maybe your not giving it to me will be all the better for my conscience; for fool as I am, I know the proverb 'To her hurt the ant got wings,' and it may be that Sancho the squire will get to heaven sooner than Sancho the governor. 'They make as good bread here as in France'; and 'By night all cats are gray'; and 'A hard case enough his, who hasn't broken his fast at two in the afternoon'; and 'There's no stomach a hand's-breadth bigger than another'; and the same can be filled 'with straw or hay,' as the saying is; and 'The little birds of the field have God for their purveyor and caterer'; and 'Four yards of Cuenca frieze keep one warmer than four of Segovia broadcloth'; and 'When we quit this world and are put underground, the prince travels by as narrow a path as the journeyman'; and 'The Pope's body does not take up more feet of earth than the sacristan's,' for all that the one is higher than the other; for when we go to our graves we all pack ourselves up and make ourselves small, or rather they pack us up and make us small in spite of us, and then—good-night to us. And I say once more, if your ladyship does not like to give me the island because I'm a fool, like a wise man I will take care to give myself no trouble about it; I have heard say that 'Behind the cross there's the devil,' and that 'All that glitters is not gold,' and that from among the oxen and the plows and the yokes, Wamba the husbandman was taken to be made king of Spain; and from among brocades and pleasures and riches, Roderick was taken to be devoured by adders, if the verses of the old ballads don't lie."
"To be sure they don't lie!" exclaimed Doña Rodriguez, the duenna, who was one of the listeners. "Why, there's a ballad that says they put King Rodrigo alive into a tomb full of toads and adders and lizards, and that two days afterwards the king, in a plaintive, feeble voice, cried out from within the tomb—
'They gnaw me now, they gnaw me now,
There where I most did sin.'
And according to that, the gentleman has good reason to say he would rather be a laboring man than a king, if vermin are to eat him."
The duchess could not help laughing at the simplicity of her duenna, or wondering at the language and proverbs of Sancho, to whom she said:—"Worthy Sancho knows very well that when once a knight has made a promise he strives to keep it, though it should cost him his life. My lord and husband the duke, though not one of the errant sort, is none the less a knight for that reason, and will keep his word about the promised island in spite of the envy and malice of the world. Let Sancho be of good cheer; for when he least expects it he will find himself seated on the throne of his island and seat of dignity, and will take possession of his government that he may discard it for another of three-bordered brocade. The charge I give him is, to be careful how he governs his vassals, bearing in mind that they are all loyal and well-born."
"As to governing them well," said Sancho, "there's no need of charging me to do that, for I'm kind-hearted by nature, and full of compassion for the poor; 'There's no stealing the loaf from him who kneads and bakes'; and by my faith, it won't do to throw false dice with me; I am an old dog, and I know all about 'tus, tus'; I can be wide awake if need be, and I don't let clouds come before my eyes, for I know where the shoe pinches me; I say so, because with me the good will have support and protection, and the bad neither footing nor access. And it seems to me that in governments, to make a beginning is everything; and maybe after having been governor a fortnight, I'll take kindly to the work and know more about it than the field labor I have been brought up to."
"You are right, Sancho," said the duchess; "for no one is born ready taught, and the bishops are made out of men and not out of stones. But to return to the subject we were discussing just now, the enchantment of the lady Dulcinea: I look upon it as certain, and something more than evident, that Sancho's idea of practicing a deception upon his master, making him believe that the peasant girl was Dulcinea and that if he did not recognize her it must be because she was enchanted, was all a device of one of the enchanters that persecute Don Quixote. For in truth and earnest, I know from good authority that the coarse country wench who jumped up on the ass was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, and that worthy Sancho, though he fancies himself the deceiver, is the one that is deceived; and that there is no more reason to doubt the truth of this, than of anything else we never saw. Señor Sancho Panza must know that we too have enchanters here, that are well disposed to us, and tell us what goes on in the world, plainly and distinctly, without subterfuge or deception; and believe me, Sancho, that agile country lass was and is Dulcinea del Toboso, who is as much enchanted as the mother that bore her; and when we least expect it, we shall see her in her own proper form, and then Sancho will be disabused of the error he is under at present."
"All that's very possible," said Sancho Panza; "and now I'm willing to believe what my master says about what he saw in the cave of Montesinos, where he says he saw the lady Dulcinea del Toboso in the very same dress and apparel that I said I had seen her in when I enchanted her all to please myself. It must be all exactly the other way, as your ladyship says; because it is impossible to suppose that out of my poor wit such a cunning trick could be concocted in a moment, nor do I think my master is so mad that by my weak and feeble persuasion he could be made to believe a thing so out of all reason. But, señora, your Excellence must not therefore think me ill-disposed, for a dolt like me is not bound to see into the thoughts and plots of those vile enchanters. I invented all that to escape my master's scolding, and not with any intention of hurting him; and if it has turned out differently, there is a God in heaven who judges our hearts."
"That is true," said the duchess; "but tell me, Sancho, what is this you say about the cave of Montesinos, for I should like to know."
Sancho, upon this, related to her word for word what has been said already touching that adventure; and having heard it, the duchess said:—"From this occurrence it may be inferred that as the great Don Quixote says he saw there the same country wench Sancho saw on the way from El Toboso, it is no doubt Dulcinea, and there are some very active and exceedingly busy enchanters about."
"So I say," said Sancho; "and if my lady Dulcinea is enchanted, so much the worse for her, and I'm not going to pick a quarrel with my master's enemies, who seem to be many and spiteful. The truth is that the one I saw was a country wench, and I set her down to be a country wench; and if that was Dulcinea it must not be laid at my door, nor should I be called to answer for it or take the consequences. But they must go nagging at me at every step—'Sancho said it, Sancho did it; Sancho here, Sancho there,' as if Sancho was nobody at all, and not that same Sancho Panza that's now going all over the world in books, so Samson Carrasco told me, and he's at any rate one that's a bachelor of Salamanca; and people of that sort can't lie, except when the whim seizes them or they have some very good reason for it. So there's no occasion for anybody to quarrel with me; and then I have a good character, and as I have heard my master say, 'A good name is better than great riches'; let them only stick me into this government and they'll see wonders, for one who has been a good squire will be a good governor."
"All worthy Sancho's observations," said the duchess, "are Catonian sentences, or at any rate out of the very heart of Michael Verino himself, who florentibus occidit annis. In fact, to speak in his own style, 'Under a bad cloak there's often a good drinker.'"
"Indeed, señora," said Sancho, "I never yet drank out of wickedness; from thirst I have, very likely, for I have nothing of the hypocrite in me; I drink when I'm inclined, or, if I'm not inclined, when they offer it to me, so as not to look either strait-laced or ill-bred; for when a friend drinks one's health, what heart can be so hard as not to return it? But if I put on my shoes I don't dirty them; besides, squires to knights-errant mostly drink water, for they are always wandering among woods, forests, and meadows, mountains and crags, without a drop of wine to be had if they gave their eyes for it."
"So I believe," said the duchess; "and now let Sancho go and take his sleep, and we will talk by-and-by at greater length, and settle how he may soon go and stick himself into the government, as he says."
Sancho once more kissed the duchess's hand, and entreated her to be so kind as to let good care be taken of his Dapple, for he was the light of his eyes.
"What is Dapple?" said the duchess.
"My ass," said Sancho, "which, not to mention him by that name, I'm accustomed to call Dapple; I begged this lady duenna here to take care of him when I came into the castle, and she got as angry as if I had said she was ugly or old, though it ought to be more natural and proper for duennas to feed asses than to ornament chambers. God bless me! what a spite a gentleman of my village had against these ladies!"
"He must have been some clown," said Doña Rodriguez, the duenna; "for if he had been a gentleman and well-born he would have exalted them higher than the horns of the moon."
"That will do," said the duchess; "no more of this; hush, Doña Rodriguez, and let Señor Panza rest easy and leave the treatment of Dapple in my charge; for as he is a treasure of Sancho's, I'll put him on the apple of my eye."
"It will be enough for him to be in the stable," said Sancho, "for neither he nor I are worthy to rest a moment in the apple of your Highness's eye, and I'd as soon stab myself as consent to it; for though my master says that in civilities it is better to lose by a card too many than a card too few, when it comes to civilities to asses we must mind what we are about and keep within due bounds."
"Take him to your government, Sancho," said the duchess, "and there you will be able to make as much of him as you like, and even release him from work and pension him off."
"Don't think, señora duchess, that you have said anything absurd," said Sancho: "I have seen more than two asses go to governments, and for me to take mine with me would be nothing new."
Sancho's words made the duchess laugh again, and gave her fresh amusement, and dismissing him to sleep she went away to tell the duke the conversation she had had with him.
SANCHO PANZA AS GOVERNOR
The history says that from the justice court they carried Sancho to a sumptuous palace, where in a spacious chamber there was a table laid out with royal magnificence. The clarions sounded as Sancho entered the room, and four pages came forward to present him with water for his hands, which Sancho received with great dignity. The music ceased, and Sancho seated himself at the head of the table; for there was only that seat placed, and no more than the one cover laid. A personage, who it appeared afterwards was a physician, placed himself standing by his side, with a whalebone wand in his hand. They then lifted up a fine white cloth covering fruit and a great variety of dishes of different sorts; one who looked like a student said grace, and a page put a laced bib on Sancho, while another who played the part of head carver placed a dish of fruit before him. But hardly had he tasted a morsel when the man with the wand touched the plate with it, and they took it away from before him with the utmost celerity. The carver however brought him another dish, and Sancho proceeded to try it; but before he could get at it, not to say taste it, already the wand had touched it and a page had carried it off with the same promptitude as the fruit. Sancho seeing this was puzzled, and looking from one to another, asked if this dinner was to be eaten after the fashion of a jugglery trick.
To this he with the wand replied:—"It is not to be eaten, señor governor, except as is usual and customary in other islands where there are governors. I, señor, am a physician, and I am paid a salary in this island to serve its governors as such; and I have a much greater regard for their health than for my own, studying day and night and making myself acquainted with the governor's constitution, in order to be able to cure him when he falls sick. The chief thing I have to do is to attend at his dinners and suppers, and allow him to eat what appears to me to be fit for him, and keep from him what I think will do him harm and be injurious to his stomach: and therefore I ordered that plate of fruit to be removed as being too moist, and that other dish I ordered to be removed as being too hot and containing many spices that stimulate thirst; for he who drinks much kills and consumes the radical moisture wherein life consists."
"Well then," said Sancho, "that dish of roast partridges there that seems so savory will not do me any harm."
To this the physician replied, "Of those my lord the governor shall not eat so long as I live."
"Why so?" said Sancho.
"Because," replied the doctor, "our master Hippocrates, the pole-star and beacon of medicine, says in one of his aphorisms, Omnis saturatio mala, perdicis autem pessima; which means, 'All repletion is bad, but that of partridge is the worst of all.'"
"In that case," said Sancho, "let señor doctor see among the dishes that are on the table what will do me most good and least harm, and let me eat it, without tapping it with his stick: for by the life of the governor, and so may God suffer me to enjoy it, but I'm dying of hunger; and in spite of the doctor and all he may say, to deny me food is the way to take my life instead of prolonging it."
"Your worship is right, señor governor," said the physician; "and therefore your worship, I consider, should not eat of those stewed rabbits there, because it is a furry kind of food: if that veal were not roasted and served with pickles, you might try it; but it is out of the question."
"That big dish that is smoking farther off," said Sancho, "seems to me to be an olla-podrida; and out of the diversity of things in such ollas, I can't fail to light upon something tasty and good for me."
"Absit," said the doctor; "far from us be any such base thought! There is nothing in the world less nourishing than an olla-podrida; to canons, or rectors of colleges, or peasants' weddings with your ollas-podridas, but let us have none of them on the tables of governors, where everything that is present should be delicate and refined: and the reason is that always, everywhere and by everybody, simple medicines are more esteemed than compound ones; for we cannot go wrong in those that are simple, while in the compound we may, by merely altering the quantity of the things composing them. But what I am of opinion the governor should eat now, in order to preserve and fortify his health, is a hundred or so of wafer cakes and a few thin slices of conserve of quinces, which will settle his stomach and help his digestion."
Sancho on hearing this threw himself back in his chair and surveyed the doctor steadily, and in a solemn tone asked him what his name was and where he had studied.
He replied, "My name, señor governor, is Doctor Pedro Recio de Aguero; I am a native of a place called Tirteafuera, which lies between Caracuel and Almodóvar del Campo, on the right-hand side; and I have the degree of doctor from the university of Osuna."
To which Sancho, glowing all over with rage, returned, "Then let Doctor Pedro Recio de Mal-aguero, native of Tirteafuera, a place that's on the right-hand side as we go from Caracuel to Almodóvar del Campo, graduate of Osuna, get out of my presence at once! or I swear by the sun I'll take a cudgel, and by dint of blows, beginning with him, I'll not leave a doctor in the whole island: at least of those I know to be ignorant; for as to learned, wise, sensible physicians, them I will reverence and honor as divine persons. Once more I say, let Pedro Recio get out this, or I'll take this chair I am sitting on and break it over his head. And if they call me to account for it, I'll clear myself by saying I served God in killing a bad doctor—a general executioner. And now give me something to eat, or else take your government; for a trade that does not feed its master is not worth two beans...."
Sancho, fool, boor, and clown as he was, held his own against them all, saying to those round him, and to Doctor Pedro Recio, who as soon as the private business of the duke's letter was disposed of had returned to the room:—"Now I see plainly enough that judges and governors ought to be and must be made of brass, not to feel the importunities of the applicants that at all times and all seasons insist on being heard and having their business dispatched, and their own affairs and no others attended to, come what may; and if the poor judge does not hear them and settle the matter,—either because he cannot or because that is not the time set apart for hearing them,—forthwith they abuse him, run him down, and gnaw at his bones, and even pick holes in his pedigree. You silly stupid applicant, don't be in a hurry; wait for the proper time and season for doing business; don't come at dinner-hour or at bedtime: for judges are only flesh and blood, and must give to Nature what she naturally demands of them; all except myself, for in my case I give her nothing to eat, thanks to Señor Doctor Pedro Recio Tirteafuera here, who would have me die of hunger, and declares that death to be life; and the same sort of life may God give him and all his kind—I mean the bad doctors; for the good ones deserve palms and laurels."
All who knew Sancho Panza were astonished to hear him speak so elegantly, and did not know what to attribute it to, unless it were that office and grave responsibility either smarten or stupefy men's wits. At last Doctor Pedro Recio Aguero of Tirteafuera promised to let him have supper that night, though it might be in contravention of all the aphorisms of Hippocrates. With this the governor was satisfied, and looked forward to the approach of night and supper-time with great anxiety; and though time to his mind stood still and made no progress, nevertheless the hour he so longed for came, and they gave him a beef salad with onions, and some boiled calves' feet rather far gone.
At this he fell to with greater relish than if they had given him francolins from Milan, pheasants from Rome, veal from Sorrento, partridges from Moron, or geese from Lavajos; and turning to the doctor at supper he said to him:—"Look here, señor doctor, for the future don't trouble yourself about giving me dainty things or choice dishes to eat, for it will be only taking my stomach off its hinges: it is accustomed to goat, cow, bacon, hung beef, turnips and onions; and if by any chance it is given these palace dishes, it receives them squeamishly, and sometimes with loathing. What the head carver had best do is to serve me with what they call ollas-podridas (and the rottener they are the better they smell); and he can put whatever he likes into them, so long as it is good to eat, and I'll be obliged to him, and will requite him some day. But let nobody play pranks on me, for either we are or we are not; let us live and eat in peace and good-fellowship; for when God sends the dawn, he sends it for all. I mean to govern this island without giving up a right or taking a bribe: let every one keep his eye open and look out for the arrow; for I can tell them 'the Devil's in Cantillana,' and if they drive me to it they'll see something that will astonish them. Nay! make yourself honey and the flies will eat you."
"Of a truth, señor governor," said the carver, "your worship is in the right of it in everything you have said; and I promise you in the name of all the inhabitants of this island that they will serve your worship with all zeal, affection, and good-will, for the mild kind of government you have given a sample of to begin with, leaves them no ground for doing or thinking anything to your worship's disadvantage."
"That I believe," said Sancho; "and they would be great fools if they did or thought otherwise; once more I say, see to my feeding and my Dapple's, for that is the great point and what is most to the purpose; and when the hour comes let us go the rounds: for it is my intention to purge this island of all manner of uncleanness and of all idle good-for-nothing vagabonds; for I would have you know, my friends, that lazy idlers are the same thing in a State as the drones in a hive, and eat up the honey the industrious bees make. I mean to protect the husbandman, to preserve to the gentleman his privileges, to reward the virtuous, and above all to respect religion and honor its ministers. What say you to that, my friends? Is there anything in what I say, or am I talking to no purpose?"
"There is so much in what your worship says, señor governor," said the major-domo, "that I am filled with wonder when I see a man like your worship, entirely without learning (for I believe you have none at all), say such things, and so full of sound maxims and sage remarks, very different from what was expected of your worship's intelligence by those who sent us or by us who came here. Every day we see something new in this world; jokes become realities, and the jokers find the tables turned upon them."
Day came after the night of the governor's round: a night which the head carver passed without sleeping, so full were his thoughts of the face and air and beauty of the disguised damsel, while the major-domo spent what was left of it in writing an account to his lord and lady of all Sancho said and did, being as much amazed at his sayings as at his doings; for there was a mixture of shrewdness and simplicity in all his words and deeds. The señor governor got up, and by Doctor Pedro Recio's directions they made him break his fast on a little conserve and four sups of cold water, which Sancho would have readily exchanged for a piece of bread and a bunch of grapes: but seeing there was no help for it, he submitted with no little sorrow of heart and discomfort of stomach; Pedro Recio having persuaded him that light and delicate diet enlivened the wits, and that was what was most essential for persons placed in command and in responsible situations, where they have to employ not only the bodily powers but those of the mind also.
By means of this sophistry Sancho was made to endure hunger, and hunger so keen that in his heart he cursed the government and even him who had given it to him. However, with his hunger and his conserve he undertook to deliver judgments that day; and the first thing that came before him was a question that was submitted to him by a stranger in the presence of the major-domo and the other attendants, and it was in these words:—"Señor, a large river separated two districts of one and the same lordship—will your worship please to pay attention? for the case is an important and a rather knotty one. Well then, on this river there was a bridge, and at one end of it a gallows, and a sort of tribunal, where four judges commonly sat to administer the law which the lord of the river bridge and the lordship had enacted, and which was to this effect: 'If any one crosses by this bridge from one side to the other, he shall declare on oath where he is going and with what object; and if he swears truly, he shall be allowed to pass; but if falsely, he shall be put to death for it by hanging on the gallows erected there, without any remission.' Though the law and its severe penalty were known, many persons crossed; but in their declarations it was easy to see at once they were telling the truth, and the judges let them pass free. It happened however that one man, when they came to take his declaration, swore and said that by the oath he took, he was going to die upon that gallows that stood there, and nothing else. The judges held a consultation over the oath, and they said:—'If we let this man pass free, he has sworn falsely, and by the law he ought to die; but if we hang him, as he swore he was going to die on that gallows, and therefore swore the truth, by the same law he ought to go free.' It is asked of your lordship, señor governor, what are the judges to do with this man? For they are still in doubt and perplexity; and having heard of your worship's acute and exalted intellect, they have sent me to entreat your worship on their behalf to give your opinion on this very intricate and puzzling case."
To this Sancho made answer:—"Indeed, those gentlemen the judges that send you to me might have spared themselves the trouble, for I have more of the obtuse than the acute in me; however, repeat the case over again so that I may understand it, and then perhaps I may be able to hit the point."
The querist repeated again and again what he had said before, and then Sancho said:—"It seems to me I can set the matter right in a moment, and in this way: the man swears that he is going to die upon the gallows; but if he dies upon it, he has sworn the truth, and by the law enacted deserves to go free and pass over the bridge; but if they don't hang him, then he has sworn falsely, and by the same law deserves to be hanged."
"It is as the señor governor says," said the messenger; "and as regards a complete comprehension of the case, there is nothing left to desire or hesitate about."
"Well then, I say," said Sancho, "that of this man they should let pass the part that has sworn truly, and hang the part that has lied; and in this way the conditions of the passage will be fully complied with."
"But then, señor governor," replied the querist, "the man will have to be divided into two parts; and if he is divided, of course he will die; and so none of the requirements of the law will be carried out, and it is absolutely necessary to comply with it."
"Look here, my good sir," said Sancho; "either I'm a numskull or else there is the same reason for this passenger dying as for his living and passing over the bridge; for if the truth saves him, the falsehood equally condemns him; and that being the case, it is my opinion you should say to the gentlemen who sent you to me, that as the arguments for condemning him and for absolving him are exactly balanced, they should let him pass freely, as it is always more praiseworthy to do good than to do evil; this I would give signed with my name if I knew how to sign; and what I have said in this case is not out of my own head, but one of the many precepts my master Don Quixote gave me the night before I left to become governor of this island, that came into my mind, and it was this: that when there was any doubt about the justice of a case I should lean to mercy; and it is God's will that I should recollect it now, for it fits this case as if it was made for it."
"That is true," said the major-domo; "and I maintain that Lycurgus himself, who gave laws to the Lacedæmonians, could not have pronounced a better decision than the great Panza has given; let the morning's audience close with this, and I will see that the senor governor has dinner entirely to his liking."
"That's all I ask for—fair play," said Sancho; "give me my dinner, and then let it rain cases and questions on me, and I'll dispatch them in a twinkling."
The major-domo kept his word, for he felt it against his conscience to kill so wise a governor by hunger; particularly as he intended to have done with him that same night, playing off the last joke he was commissioned to practice upon him.
It came to pass then, that after he had dined that day in opposition to the rules and aphorisms of Doctor Tirteafuera, as they were taking away the cloth there came a courier with a letter from Don Quixote for the governor. Sancho ordered the secretary to read it to himself, and if there was nothing in it that demanded secrecy, to read it aloud. The secretary did so, and after he had skimmed the contents he said, "It may well be read aloud, for what Señor Don Quixote writes to your worship deserves to be printed or written in letters of gold, and it is as follows."
Don Quixote of La Mancha's Letter to Sancha Panza, Governor of the Island of Barataria
"When I was expecting to hear of thy stupidities and blunders, friend Sancho, I have received intelligence of thy displays of good sense; for which I give special thanks to Heaven, that can raise the poor from the dunghill and of fools to make wise men. They tell me thou dost govern as if thou wert a man, and art a man as if thou wert a beast, so great is the humility wherewith thou dost comport thyself. But I would have thee bear in mind, Sancho, that very often it is fitting and necessary for the authority of office to resist the humility of the heart; for the seemly array of one who is invested with grave duties should be such as they require, and not measured by what his own humble tastes may lead him to prefer. Dress well; a stick dressed up does not look like a stick: I do not say thou shouldst wear trinkets or fine raiment, or that being a judge thou shouldst dress like a soldier, but that thou shouldst array thyself in the apparel thy office requires, and that at the same time it be neat and handsome. To win the good-will of the people thou governest, there are two things among others that thou must do: one is to be civil to all (this however I told thee before), and the other to take care that food be abundant; for there is nothing that vexes the heart of the poor more than hunger and high prices. Make not many proclamations; but those thou makest take care that they be good ones, and above all that they be observed and carried out: for proclamations that are not observed are the same as if they did not exist; nay, they encourage the idea that the prince who had the wisdom and authority to make them had not the power to enforce them; and laws that threaten and are not enforced come to be like the log, the king of the frogs, that frightened them at first, but that in time they despised and mounted upon. Be a father to virtue and a stepfather to vice. Be not always strict, nor yet always lenient, but observe a mean between these two extremes, for in that is the aim of wisdom. Visit the jails, the slaughter-houses, and the market-places; for the presence of the governor is of great importance in such places: it comforts the prisoners who are in hopes of a speedy release; it is the bugbear of the butchers, who have then to give just weight; and it is the terror of the market-women for the same reason. Let it not be seen that thou art (even if perchance thou art, which I do not believe) covetous, a follower of women, or a glutton; for when the people and those that have dealings with thee become aware of thy special weakness they will bring their batteries to bear upon thee in that quarter, till they have brought thee down to the depths of perdition. Consider and reconsider, con and con over again the advice and the instructions I gave thee before thy departure hence to thy government, and thou wilt see that in them, if thou dost follow them, thou hast a help at hand that will lighten for thee the troubles and difficulties that beset governors at every step. Write to thy lord and lady, and show thyself grateful to them: for ingratitude is the daughter of pride, and one of the greatest sins we know of; and he who is grateful to those who have been good to him shows that he will be so to God also, who has bestowed and still bestows so many blessings upon him.
"My lady the duchess sent off a messenger with thy suit and another present to thy wife Teresa Panza; we expect the answer every moment. I have been a little indisposed through a certain scratching I came in for, not very much to the benefit of my nose: but it was nothing; for if there are enchanters who maltreat me, there are also some who defend me. Let me know if the major-domo who is with thee had any share in the Trifaldi performance, as thou didst suspect: and keep me informed of everything that happens thee, as the distance is so short; all the more as I am thinking of giving over very shortly this idle life I am now leading, for I was not born for it. A thing has occurred to me which I am inclined to think will put me out of favor with the duke and duchess; but though I am sorry for it, I do not care, for after all I must obey my calling rather than their pleasure, in accordance with the common saying, Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. I quote this Latin to thee because I conclude that since thou hast been a governor thou wilt have learned it. Adieu; God keep thee from being an object of pity to any one.
"Thy friend
"Don Quixote of La Mancha."
Sancho listened to the letter with great attention, and it was praised and considered wise by all who heard it: he then rose up from table, and calling his secretary, shut himself in with him in his own room, and without putting it off any longer set about answering his master Don Quixote at once; and he bade the secretary write down what he told him, without adding or suppressing anything, which he did; and the answer was to the following effect.
Sancho Panza's Letter to Don Quixote of La Mancha
"The pressure of business is so great upon me that I have no time to scratch my head or even to cut my nails; and I have them so long—God send a remedy for it. I say this, master of my soul, that you may not be surprised if I have not until now sent you word of how I fare, well or ill, in this government, in which I am suffering more hunger than when we two were wandering through the woods and wastes.
"My lord the duke wrote to me the other day to warn me that certain spies had got into this island to kill me: but up to the present I have not found out any except a certain doctor who receives a salary in this town for killing all the governors that come here; he is called Doctor Pedro Recio, and is from Tirteafuera; so you see what a name he has to make me dread dying under his hands. This doctor says of himself that he does not cure diseases when there are any, but prevents them coming, and the medicines he uses are diet and more diet, until he brings one down to bare bones; as if leanness was not worse than fever.
"In short, he is killing me with hunger, and I am dying myself of vexation: for when I thought I was coming to this government to get my meat hot and my drink cool, and take my ease between holland sheets on feather-beds, I find I have come to do penance as if I was a hermit; and as I don't do it willingly, I suspect that in the end the Devil will carry me off.
"So far I have not handled any dues or taken any bribes, and I don't know what to think of it: for here they tell me that the governors that come to this island, before entering it, have plenty of money either given to them or lent to them by the people of the town; and that this is the usual custom, not only here but with all who enter upon governments.
"Last night going the rounds I came upon a fair damsel in man's clothes, and a brother of hers dressed as a woman: my head carver has fallen in love with the girl, and has in his own mind chosen her for a wife, so he says, and I have chosen the youth for a son-in-law; to-day we are going to explain our intentions to the father of the pair, who is one Diego de la Llana, a gentleman and an old Christian as much as you please.
"I have visited the market-places, as your worship advises me, and yesterday I found a stall-keeper selling new hazel-nuts, and proved her to have mixed a bushel of old empty rotten nuts with a bushel of new; I confiscated the whole for the children of the charity school, who will know how to distinguish them well enough, and I sentenced her not to come into the market-place for a fortnight: they told me I did bravely. I can tell your worship it is commonly said in this town that there are no people worse than the market-women, for they are all barefaced, unconscionable, and impudent; and I can well believe it from what I have seen of them in other towns.
"I am very glad my lady the duchess has written to my wife Teresa Panza and sent her the present your worship speaks of; and I will try to show myself grateful when the time comes: kiss her hands for me, and tell her I say she has not thrown it into a sack with a hole in it, as she will see in the end. I should not like your worship to have any difference with my lord and lady; for if you fall out with them it is plain it must do me harm; and as you give me advice to be grateful, it will not do for your worship not to be so yourself to those who have shown you such kindness, and by whom you have been treated so hospitably in their castle.
"That about the scratching I don't understand; but I suppose it must be one of the ill turns the wicked enchanters are always doing your worship; when we meet I shall know all about it. I wish I could send your worship something; but I don't know what to send, unless it be some very curious clyster pipes to work with bladders, that they make in this island; but if the office remains with me I'll find out something to send, one way or another. If my wife Teresa Panza writes to me, pay the postage and send me the letter, for I have a very great desire to hear how my house and wife and children are going on. And so, may God deliver your worship from evil-minded enchanters, and bring me well and peacefully out of this government; which I doubt, for I expect to take leave of it and my life together, from the way Doctor Pedro Recio treats me.
"Your worship's servant,
"Sancho Panza the Governor."
The secretary sealed the letter and immediately dismissed the courier; and those who were carrying on the joke against Sancho, putting their heads together, arranged how he was to be dismissed from the government. Sancho spent the afternoon in drawing up certain ordinances relating to the good government of what he fancied the island.... He reduced the prices of shoes, boots, and stockings, but of shoes in particular, as they seemed to him to run extravagantly high. He established a fixed rate for servants' wages, which were becoming recklessly exorbitant. He laid extremely heavy penalties upon those who sang lewd or loose songs either by day or night. He decreed that no blind man should sing of any miracle in verse unless he could produce authentic evidence that it was true; for it was his opinion that most of those the blind men sing are trumped up, to the detriment of the true ones. He established and created an alguacil of the poor, not to harass them, but to examine them and see whether they really were so; for many a sturdy thief or drunkard goes about under cover of a make-believe crippled limb or a sham sore. In a word, he made so many good rules that to this day they are preserved there, and are called The constitutions of the great governor Sancho Panza.
THE ENDING OF ALL DON QUIXOTE'S ADVENTURES
Of How Don Quixote Fell Sick, and of the Will He Made, and How He Died
As nothing that is man's can last forever, but all tends ever downwards from its beginning to its end, and above all, man's life; and as Don Quixote's enjoyed no special dispensation from Heaven to stay its course,—its end and close came when he least looked for it. For—whether it was of the dejection the thought of his defeat produced, or of Heaven's will that so ordered it—a fever settled upon him and kept him in his bed for six days, during which he was often visited by his friends the curate, the bachelor, and the barber, while his good squire Sancho Panza never quitted his bedside. They, persuaded that it was grief at finding himself vanquished, and the object of his heart, the liberation and disenchantment of Dulcinea, unattained, that kept him in this state, strove by all the means in their power to cheer him up: the bachelor bidding him take heart and get up to begin his pastoral life; for which he himself, he said, had already composed an eclogue that would take the shine out of all Sannazaro[A] had ever written, and had bought with his own money two famous dogs to guard the flock, one called Barcino and the other Butron, which a herdsman of Quintanar had sold him.
But for all this Don Quixote could not shake off his sadness. His friends called in the doctor, who felt his pulse and was not very well satisfied with it, and said that in any case it would be well for him to attend to the health of his soul, as that of his body was in a bad way. Don Quixote heard this calmly; but not so his housekeeper, his niece, and his squire, who fell weeping bitterly, as if they had him lying dead before them. The doctor's opinion was that melancholy and depression were bringing him to his end. Don Quixote begged them to leave him to himself, as he had a wish to sleep a little. They obeyed, and he slept at one stretch, as the saying is, more than six hours, so that the housekeeper and niece thought he was going to sleep forever. But at the end of that time he woke up, and in a loud voice exclaimed, "Blessed be Almighty God, who has shown me such goodness! In truth his mercies are boundless, and the sins of men can neither limit them nor keep them back!"
The niece listened with attention to her uncle's words, and they struck her as more coherent than what usually fell from him, at least during his illness, so she asked: "What are you saying, señor? Has anything strange occurred? What mercies or what sins of men are you talking of?"
"The mercies, niece," said Don Quixote, "are those that God has this moment shown me, and with him, as I said, my sins are no impediment to them. My reason is now free and clear, rid of the dark shadows of ignorance that my unhappy constant study of those detestable books of chivalry cast over it. Now I see through their absurdities and deceptions, and it only grieves me that this destruction of my illusions has come so late that it leaves me no time to make some amends by reading other books that might be a light to my soul. Niece, I feel myself at the point of death, and I would fain meet it in such a way as to show that my life has not been so ill that I should leave behind me the name of a madman; for though I have been one, I would not that the fact should be made plainer at my death. Call in to me, my dear, my good friends the curate, the bachelor Samson Carrasco, and Master Nicholas the barber, for I wish to confess and make my will."
But his niece was saved the trouble by the entrance of the three. The instant Don Quixote saw them he exclaimed:—"Good news for you, good sirs, that I am no longer Don Quixote of La Mancha, but Alonso Quixano, whose way of life won for him the name of Good. Now am I the enemy of Amadis of Gaul and of the whole countless troop of his descendants; odious to me now are all the profane stories of knight-errantry; now I perceive my folly, and the peril into which reading them brought me; now, by God's mercy schooled into my right senses, I loathe them."
When the three heard him speak in this way, they had no doubt whatever that some new craze had taken possession of him; and said Samson, "What! Señor Don Quixote! Now that we have intelligence of the lady Dulcinea being disenchanted, are you taking this line? now, just as we are on the point of becoming shepherds, to pass our lives singing, like princes, are you thinking of turning hermit? Hush, for heaven's sake; be rational, and let's have no more nonsense."
"All that nonsense," said Don Quixote, "that until now has been a reality to my hurt, my death will with heaven's help turn to my good. I feel, sirs, that I am rapidly drawing near death: a truce to jesting; let me have a confessor to confess me, and a notary to make my will; for in extremities like this, man must not trifle with his soul; and while the curate is confessing me, let some one, I beg, go for the notary."
They looked at one another, wondering at Don Quixote's words; but though uncertain they were inclined to believe him, and one of the signs by which they came to the conclusion he was dying, was this so sudden and complete return to his senses after having been mad; for to the words already quoted he added much more, so well expressed, so devout, and so rational, as to banish all doubt and convince them that he was sound of mind. The curate turned them all out, and left alone with him, confessed him. The bachelor went for the notary, and returned shortly afterwards with him and with Sancho, who, having already learned from the bachelor the condition his master was in, and finding the housekeeper and niece weeping, began to blubber and shed tears.
The confession over, the curate came out saying:—"Alonso Quixano the Good is indeed dying, and is indeed in his right mind; we may now go in to him, while he makes his will."
This news gave a tremendous impulse to the brimming eyes of the housekeeper, niece, and Sancho Panza his good squire, making the tears burst from their eyes and a host of sighs from their hearts; for of a truth, as has been said more than once, whether as plain Alonso Quixano the Good, or as Don Quixote of La Mancha, Don Quixote was always of a gentle disposition and kindly in all his ways, and hence he was beloved not only by those of his own house, but by all who knew him."
The notary came in with the rest, and as soon as the preamble of the will had been set out and Don Quixote had commended his soul to God with all the devout formalities that are usual, coming to the bequests, he said:—"Item: It is my will that, touching certain moneys in the hands of Sancho Panza (whom in my madness I made my squire), inasmuch as between him and me there have been certain accounts and debits and credits, no claim be made against him, nor any account demanded of him in respect of them; but that if anything remain over and above, after he has paid himself what I owe him, the balance, which will be but little, shall be his, and much good may it do him; and if as when I was mad I had a share in giving him the government of an island, so now that I am in my senses I could give him that of a kingdom, it should be his, for the simplicity of his character and the fidelity of his conduct deserve it." And then turning to Sancho, he said, "Forgive me, my friend, that I led thee to seem as mad as myself, making thee fall into the same error I myself fell into, that there were and still are knights-errant in the world."
"Ah!" said Sancho weeping; "don't die, master, but take my advice and live many years; for the foolishest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die without rhyme or reason, without anybody killing him, or any hands but melancholy's making an end of him. Come, don't be lazy, but get up from your bed and let us take to the fields in shepherd's trim as we agreed. Perhaps behind some bush we shall find the lady Dulcinea disenchanted, as fine as fine can be. If it be that you are dying of vexation at having been vanquished, lay the blame on me, and say you were overthrown because I had girthed Rosinante badly; besides, you must have seen in your books of chivalry that it is a common thing for knights to upset one another, and for him who is conquered to-day to be conqueror to-morrow."
"Very true," said Samson, "and good Sancho Panza's view of these cases is quite right."
"Sirs, not so fast," said Don Quixote. "In last year's nests there are no birds this year. I was mad—now I am in my senses; I was Don Quixote of La Mancha—I am now, as I said, Alonso Quixano the Good; and may my repentance and sincerity restore me to the esteem you used to have for me; and now let Master Notary proceed.
"Item—I leave all my property absolutely to Antonia Quixana my niece, here present, after all has been deducted from the most available portion of it that may be required to satisfy the bequests I have made. And the first disbursement I desire to be made is the payment of the wages I owe for the time my housekeeper has served me, with twenty ducats, over and above, for a gown. The curate and the bachelor Samson Carrasco, now present, I appoint my executors.
"Item—It is my wish that if Antonia Quixana, my niece, desires to marry, she shall marry a man of whom it shall be first of all ascertained by information taken that he does not know what books of chivalry are; and if it should be proved that he does, and if in spite of this my niece insists upon marrying him and does marry him, then she shall forfeit the whole of what I have left her, which my executors shall devote to works of charity as they please.
"Item—I entreat the aforesaid gentlemen my executors, that if any happy chance should lead them to discover the author who is said to have written a history now going about under the title of 'Second Part of the Achievements of Don Quixote of La Mancha,' they beg of him on my behalf as earnestly as they can to forgive me for having been, without intending it, the cause of his writing so many and such monstrous absurdities as he has written in it; for I am leaving the world with a feeling of compunction at having provoked him to write them."
With this he closed his will, and a faintness coming over him, he stretched himself out at full length on the bed. All were in a flutter and made haste to relieve him, and during the three days he lived after that on which he made his will, he fainted away very often. The house was all in confusion; but still the niece ate and the housekeeper drank and Sancho Panza enjoyed himself; for inheriting property wipes out or softens down in the heir the feeling of grief the dead man might be expected to leave behind him.
At last Don Quixote's end came, after he had received all the sacraments, and had in full and forcible terms expressed his detestation of books of chivalry. The notary was there at the time, and he said that in no book of chivalry had he ever read of any knight-errant dying in his bed so calmly and so like a Christian as Don Quixote, who amid the tears and lamentations of all present yielded up his spirit,—that is to say, died. On perceiving it, the curate begged the notary to bear witness that Alonso Quixano the Good, commonly called Don Quixote of La Mancha, had passed away from this present life, and died naturally; and said he desired this testimony in order to remove the possibility of any other author save Cid Hamet Benengeli bringing him to life again falsely and making interminable stories out of his achievements.
Such was the end of the Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha, whose village Cid Hamet would not indicate precisely, in order to leave all the towns and villages of La Mancha to contend among themselves for the right to adopt him and claim him as a son, as the seven cities of Greece contended for Homer. The lamentations of Sancho and the niece and housekeeper are omitted here, as well as the new epitaphs upon his tomb; Samson Carrasco, however, put the following:—
"A doughty gentleman lies here,
A stranger all his life to fear;
Nor in his death could Death prevail,
In that last hour, to make him quail.
He for the world but little cared,
And at his feats the world was scared;
A crazy man his life he passed,
But in his senses died at last."
And said most sage Cid Hamet to his pen:—
"Rest here, hung up by this brass wire, upon this shelf. O my pen! whether of skillful make or clumsy cut I know not; here shalt thou remain long ages hence, unless presumptuous or malignant story-tellers take thee down to profane thee. But ere they touch thee warn them, and as best thou canst, say to them:—
'Hold off! ye weaklings; hold your hands!
Adventure it let none,
For this enterprise, my lord the King,
Was meant for me alone.'
For me alone was Don Quixote born, and I for him; it was his to act, mine to write; we two together make but one, notwithstanding and in spite of that pretended Tordesillesque writer who has ventured or would venture with his great coarse ill-trimmed ostrich quill to write the achievements of my valiant knight;—no burden for his shoulders, nor subject for his frozen wit: whom, if perchance thou shouldst come to know him, thou shalt warn to leave at rest where they lie the weary moldering bones of Don Quixote, and not to attempt to carry him off, in opposition to all the privileges of death, to Old Castile, making him rise from the grave where in reality and truth he lies stretched at full length, powerless to make any third expedition or new sally; for the two that he has already made, so much to the enjoyment and approval of everybody to whom they have become known, in this as well as in foreign countries, are quite sufficient for the purpose of turning into ridicule the whole of those made by the whole set of the knights-errant; and so doing shalt thou discharge thy Christian calling, giving good counsel to one that bears ill-will to thee. And I shall remain satisfied, and proud to have been the first who has ever enjoyed the fruit of his writings as fully as he could desire; for my desire has been no other than to deliver over to the detestation of mankind the false and foolish tales of the books of chivalry, which, thanks to that of my true Don Quixote, are even now tottering, and doubtless doomed to fall forever. Farewell."
[A] Jacopo Sannazaro, the Neapolitan poet, author of the 'Arcadia.'