VERSÃO INGLEZA
I
See, Don Ramiro’s galley speeds
Across the heavy seas,
His pennant which the moor so dreads
Now flutters in the breeze.
Oh! when he went, his heart was moved
With grief that would not hide...
To part with her he long had loved
Though lately called his bride!
Spain’s loveliest maids or royal queen
In charms could not compare
With Violante, had she been
True as her form was fair.
Against the castle’s flanking tower
Wild beats the surging deep,
And there a watch at midnight hour
Would not submit to sleep:
All else lulled by the breaker’s jar
In slumber calm reposed,
And as its lord was distant far
His castle gates were closed.
But lo! a bark at dead of night
Alone doth swiftly glide
Beneath the tower from whence a light
Shines glimmering on the tide.
And many a darksome night the bark,
As falls that hour, returns;
Through wind and wave its path to mark
The signal torch-light burns.
Roderigo, rouse thee up from sleep;
The oath which thou didst swear
To thy good lord, how canst thou keep
When strangers come so near!
For knowest thou not, where softest swell[16]
The waves around thy strand,
With sail unstretched, a caravel
Remains upon the sand?
Ah! in a stormy night and dark
It reckless left the shore;
Who was its pilot none could mark
But it came back no more.
Yet at the hour, the guiding light
On high began to burn,
’Twas vain—no eye observed, this night,
The little bark return.
Far down the rugged rock that spread
Its masses round the tower,
Was placed a secret gate which led
To Violante’s bower.
Within this postern, steps were heard
At night approaching near,
And on her door so firmly barred
A knock aroused her ear;
—‘Oh! who can thus, unknown advance
And knock so boldly there?’—
—’Tis Bernal, lady, thine of France:
He seeks thy smile to share.’
From couch of gold she reached the floor
And rent her vestment gay,
And as she gently opened the door
It quenched her taper’s ray.
His clay cold hand she seized him by
And led him to her bower!
—‘Love, tremble not: within our sky
No clouds of sorrow lower.’
Then on her fair and glowing breast
That, heaving, throbbed the more
She pressed his hands: and fondly kissed
His cold lips o’er and o’er.
—‘Far have you come!’—‘Yes very far.’
—‘Rough was the raging sea?’
—‘It was.’—‘Why come you armed for war?
Nay tell thy thoughts to me.’
She doffed his armour, and the dew
Of roses, scenting wide,
In liquid drops she o’er him threw
And laid him by her side.
—‘Twelve hours hath rung the castle bell;
To her, who loves thee, turn
Thy face, as thou wert wont, and tell
What gives thee cause to mourn.
‘Oh! if my brothers thou dost fear,
They will not come to me;
My husband’s brother, were he here,
Can never cope with thee.
‘My serfs and vassals, through the halls,
Will sleep till morning light;
Nor can they deem that, in my walls,
I welcome such a knight.
‘My husband, fond of martial fray,
To distant lands is gone,
And may the Moors prolong his stay,
Regret here left he none.’
—‘They are my own, I need not fear
Those kneeling slaves of thine,
Nor brothers, for the badge they wear
Above their helms is mine.
‘Nor do I dread thy husband’s wrath;
Know... he reposes here,
Even by his lady, void of faith,
’Tis she who well may fear.’
II
The sun dispelled morn’s shadows dim,
And on the castle shone,
When Violante, more fair than him,
To meet her doom hath gone:
Her lovely form, a garment long
And coarse was wrapped around,
A knotted rope, like cable strong,
Her graceful person bound.
And gushing tear drops blind the eye
Of page and maiden fair;
Nor are Ramiro’s lashes dry,
Fresh moisture glistens there
Pealed from lhe tower the signal bell,
The axe was lifted high
O’er Violante... Ere it fell
She saw her husband nigh.
—‘My lord’ she cried ‘I merit death,
Yet on my bended knee,
Ere from my bosom parts my breath,
I pardon crave from thee.
’Tis not through blighted years to live
Lamenting o’er the past,
But my offense to thee, forgive,
This hour is now my last.
‘On me, for I have wronged thy bed,
Alone let vengeance light,
Nor wreck thy rage upon the head
Of Bernal, hapless knight.’
To grant her wish, Ramiro’s breast
With rising pity burned,
But when she urged her last request,
His former hate returned.
Dark lowered his brow, fierce flashed his eye,
As when his faulchion brave
Repelled the foe,—his left hand high
The fatal signal gave.
Then on that neck of grace and love,
Whose blue veins shining tell
The pureness of the skin above,
The headsman’s weapon fell.
III
Forth from the castle’s ancient gate,
A dread procession slow
Advanced, who mourned the happless fate
That laid such beauty low.
Above them many a waxen torch,
In darkness of the night,
Shed to the chapel’s gothic porch
A dim and mournful light.
And hooded closely many a friar
Sung prayers the bier around,
The massy bells within the spire
Rung forth an awful sound.
Two nights had passed, no torche’s ray
Illumed the testless tide,
But fleetly o’er the castle bay
Again the skiff did glide.
Swift bark, thy pilot braved the wrath
Of ocean’s wildest war,
But knows not how the damp of death
Has quenched his leading star.
Alas the fair whose beauty lured
His path across the wave,
The headsman’s stroke for him endured
To fill a bloody grave.
Within the chapel of Saint Gil
Intombed she slumbers low;
See, distant torches burning still...
Hark, bells are pealing slow!
All now is past—lies o’er the dead
The cold sepulchral stone;
And, see: a knight doth ceaseless tread
The echoing aisles alone.
His robes are black, but woe doth shroud
His heart in darker gloom;
And lo, he stretches, sobbing loud,
His form upon her tomb.
—‘Oh! open, grave, my heart is riven,
I taste delight no more,
Let death unite us now, whom heaven
In life asunder tore.
‘And her who calmly sleeps beneath
Again to me reveal,
That by her side, I may, in death,
My crime with her conceal.
‘It is not, torn with inward strife,
My wish to linger on,
And live, when she, the very life
Of all my hopes, is gone.’
Then fell his tears; his hands were clasped,
And moanings of despair
Burst from his heart, his blade he grasped
To still the conflict there.
But why inactive did he stand?
A voice unearthly rose
Out of the tomb, and stayed his hand
Till on the hilt it froze.
Like hollow gusts in winter drear,
That sound, appalling, came
So deep and sudden o’er his ear,
It deathlike thrilled his frame.
—‘Live, cavalier, though I no more
Survive, let life be thine,
Since for my crime the stroke I bore
The fault alone was mine.
‘Cold horror dwells beneath this stone,
And all I knew above
Of glowing life from me is gone,
Except remorse and love.
‘The arms shall clasp thy neck no more
Whose shape thou oft hast praised,
The eyes with earth are covered o’er—
That kindly on thee gazed.
‘The mouth whose lips did revel free
On thine, is senseless now;
But that fond heart which beat for thee
Death cannot chill its glow.
‘Live, live, Sir Knight; a soul like thine
To honour should aspire;
Oh! learn to be, from fate like mine,
A husband and a sire.
‘And name the maiden after me
Whose heart shall thee adore:
Than I, more faultless she may be,
But cannot love thee more.
‘And oh! instruct her daughters young
That love may never sway
Their hearts to ill—think how I flung
For thee my life away.’
III
NOITE DE SAN’JOÃO
Este romance é e não é da minha simples composição. Estavam-me na saudosa memoria as vagas reminiscencias d’aquelles cantares tam graciosos com que, na minha infancia, ouvia o povo do Minho festejar a abençoada noite de San’João; estavam-me as fogueiras e as alcachofas de Lisboa a arder tambem na imaginação; e eu era muito longe de Portugal, e muito esperançado de me ver n’elle cedo: aqui está como e quando fiz ésta cantiga.
Foi em San’Miguel, as antenas dos nossos navios ja levantadas para sahir a expedição;—soltámo-las ao vento d’ahi a horas... Isto escrevia-se na quinta do meu velho amigo, o Sr. José Leite, cavalheiro dos mais distinctos, e velho o mais amavel que produziu o archipelago dos Açores.
Tambem alli estavam, para inspirar o poeta, uns olhos pretos de quinze annos, que promettiam arder ainda tanta noite de San’João, fazer queimar tanta alcachofa por sua conta!... Ja os cubriu a terra.
Faz hoje dez annos que aquillo foi; e ainda não invelheci bastante para o esquecer.
O romance é tam feito dos ditos e cantares do povo, que nem uma idea nem talvez um verso inteiro tenha que seja bem e todo meu. Por este motivo, principalmente, lhe dei logar aqui.
Lisboa, 23 de Junho 1842.
Na collecção ja citada, a LUSITANIA ILLUSTRATA, part. II, pelo Sr. J. Adamson appareceu a traducção ingleza d’este romance, que vai transcripta no appendice ao LIVRO II do presente ROMANCEIRO.
Sabe-se tambem de uma versão em Italiano, e de outra em Allemão, que não chegámos a ver ainda.
Abril, 16—1853.
OS EDITORES.