El Buscapié

by Adolfo de Castro

Hoyos wrote a narrative of the death and funeral of the Queen,[9] and in that narrative are inserted an elegy, a sonnet, and some redondillas, by Miguel de Cervantes, who is styled by his old tutor, “mi claro y amado discipulo,”—(my clever and beloved pupil). At this time Cervantes was twenty-one years of age; and the praise bestowed on the first effusions of his muse encouraged him to take a loftier poetic flight. There is reason to believe that about this period of his life he produced Filena, a pastoral romance, in the style of Montemayor and Gil Polo; but this, together with most of his early productions, are now lost; a few only being preserved in the Romancero General.

The time soon arrived when the young poet felt the necessity of directing his talents and energies to the means of obtaining a livelihood; for his father, though in circumstances which enabled him to pay for his education, was not sufficiently rich to maintain him. An opportunity which placed it in his power to gain some little emolument occurred in the year 1568, when Cardinal Julio Acquaviva visited the Court of Castile in the quality of Legate from Pope Pius V. Cervantes entered the service of the Cardinal, and in the same year accompanied him to Rome. He filled the situation of Camarero, which may be presumed to have been an office partaking somewhat of a domestic character; but it is a well-known fact that even young Spanish nobles did not, at that period, disdain to accept similar appointments in the households of popes and cardinals. The desire of seeing the world, or the prospect of gaining a powerful patron and a good ecclesiastical appointment were inducements for filling situations which otherwise might have been considered degrading. The vivid impressions produced by this first great journey on the mind of Cervantes are obvious even in the works of his later life. In Persiles y Sigismunda he makes two pilgrims wend their course through Valencia, Catalonia, and Provence to Italy, the route by which there is reason to infer he himself travelled to Rome. The descriptions of scenery in the production just named, bear the stamp of personal recollections. That he was particularly charmed with Catalonia, is evident from the interesting sketches of scenery and manners of that part of Spain, interspersed through the Galatea, as well as from those in the novel of Las dos Doncellas and Don Quixote.

The residence of Cervantes in Rome, though not long in duration, was permanent in his remembrance. In his novel of the Licenciado Vidriera he apostrophises Rome as the “sovereign of the world and the queen of cities.” “As the claws of the lion,” he adds, “denote the animal’s bulk and strength, so may the magnitude and power of Rome be judged by her fragments of marble, her ruined arches, her baths and her colonnades, her colossal amphitheatres, and her river—that river which is rendered sacred by the many relics and martyrs buried beneath its waves.”

After the lapse of a short time, Cervantes exchanged the tranquil occupations he pursued in the service of his spiritual patron for the more stirring duties of a soldier’s life. That he always cherished a peculiar predilection for military adventure is evident from many observations scattered through his writings. Like many of his countrymen in that age, his taste seems to have disposed him to the profession of arms no less than to that of letters. Cervantes was of opinion that military courage and literary talent are more nearly allied than is generally supposed. In Persiles he says,—“There are no better soldiers than those who have been transplanted from the field of study to the field of war. There never has been an instance in which students have taken up arms, that they have not proved themselves to be the bravest and best of soldiers, for when courage is joined to genius, and genius is allied to courage, thereby is formed a combination of qualities in which Mars rejoices.”[10]

Cervantes entered the army as a private soldier, and he served in one of the numerous Spanish regiments then in Italy.[11] It would appear that he was quartered either in Naples or its vicinity. In 1571 the threatened incursions of the Turks and the depredations of the African corsairs disturbed the tranquillity of the southern states of Europe, and once more raised up a league of the Cross against the Crescent. Pope Pius V. conjointly with Phillip II. and the Republic of Venice, entered into a coalition, and fitted out a combined fleet of galleys for the subjugation of the common enemy of Christendom. Marco Antonio Colonna had the command of the Pope’s galleys; those of King Phillip were commanded by Giovanni Andrea Doria, and those of the Republic by Sebastian Veniero. Don John of Austria, son of the Emperor Charles V. was appointed commander of the whole combined squadrons.

Cervantes, with many other young Spaniards, left Naples and proceeded to Messina, then the mustering place of the combined fleets. He enlisted in the corps of Diego de Urbina, which sailed in Colonna’s galleys to the Gulf of Lepanto, and he took part in the celebrated battle fought there on the 7th of October, 1571. During the voyage he had suffered from a fever, and he had not recovered when the action commenced. His commander as well as his comrades recommended him to remain quietly in his cabin; but this he refused to do, declaring his wish to die in the service of God and his King rather than to save his life by ingloriously keeping aloof from danger. He entreated that one of the most exposed posts might be assigned to him. His urgent desire was complied with; and it is stated that he fought with more resolute courage than any man on board the vessel. By the fire of that galley alone it is said more than five hundred Turks were killed. Cervantes, who exposed himself to the fiercest assault of the enemy, received three wounds from arquebus balls, two entered his breast, and the other so dreadfully shattered his left hand that he subsequently had it amputated. But so far from regretting this mutilation, he prided himself on it, and regarded it as an insignia of honour. In his preface to the second part of Don Quixote, he declares that he views his maimed hand as “a memorial of one of the most glorious events that past or present ages have seen, or that the future can hope to see;[12] and,” he adds, “could an impossibility be rendered practicable, and could the same opportunity be recalled, I would rather be again present in that prodigious action than whole and sound without sharing in the glory of it.”

The memorable 7th of October, 1571, was to Cervantes like a ray of light beaming through the clouds of his past recollections. Even in the Journey to Parnassus, which he wrote in his latter years, he says, alluding to the battle of Lepanto, “My eye wandered over the smooth surface of the sea, which recalled to my memory the heroic exploit of the heroic Don John; when aided by courage, and by a heart throbbing for military glory, I had a share (humble though it was) in the victory.”[13]

Cervantes was four and twenty years of age when the Battle of Lepanto was fought. The signal courage he displayed on that occasion obtained for him the complimentary notice of Don John of Austria. On the day after the battle that Prince reviewed the combined fleet, and visited the wounded, presenting to each soldier who had particularly distinguished himself, a sum of money over and above the amount of his pay. Cervantes received from the hand of the prince one of these honourable gratuities.