Honra que en cierto dia el sol renueve."
"In that excellent marvellous work, greater than all that has ever been painted, which Buonarroti made with his divine hand in the Etruscan Vatican!
"Look how the new Prometheus, rising in lofty flight, extends his wings so wide that above the starry sky he has obtained a part of the celestial fire; with it, returning, he enriched the earth with new marvels and new surprises, giving life, with eternal splendors, to marble, bronze, and colors. More than mortal man! angel divine! or what shall I call thee? Surely thou art not human, who from the empyrean circle came, bringing life and harmony to chisel and brush! Thou hast shown men the road hidden for a thousand ages, uncertain of the sovereign virtue; to thee belongs honor which one day the sun will bestow."
Murmuring these lines, I came out into the street of Juan de Mena, the Ennius of Spain, as his compatriots call him, the author of a phantasmagorial poem called "The Labyrinth," an imitation of The Divina Commedia very famous in its day, and in truth not without some pages of inspired and noble poetry, but, on the whole, cold and overloaded with pedantic mysticism. John II., king of Castile, went mad over this "Labyrinth," kept it beside the missal in his cabinet, and carried it with him to the hunt; but witness the caprice of a king! The poem had only three hundred stanzas, and to John II. this number seemed too small, and do you know the reason? It was this: the year contains three hundred and sixty-five days, and it seemed to him that there ought to be as many stanzas in the poem as there are days in the year, and so he besought the poet to compose sixty-five other stanzas, and the poet complied with his request—most cheerfully, the flatterer!—to gain an occasion for flattering still more, although he had already flattered his sovereign to the extent of asking him to correct the poem.
From the street of Juan de Mena I passed into the street of Gongora, the Marini of Spain, and no less a genius than he, but perhaps one who corrupted the literature of his country even more than Marini corrupted that of Italy, for he spoiled, abused, and corrupted the language in a thousand ways: for this reason Lope de Vega wittily makes a poet of the Gongorist school ask one of his hearers, "Do you understand me?"—"Yes," he replies; and the poet retorts, "You lie! for I do not even understand myself." But Lope himself is not entirely free from Gongorism, for he has the courage to write that Tasso was only the rising of Marini's sun; nor is Calderon entirely free of it, nor some other great men. But enough of poetry: I must not digress.
After the siesta I hunted up my two companions, who took me through the suburbs of the city, and here, for the first time, I saw men and women of the true Andalusian type as I had imagined them, with eyes, coloring, and attitudes like the Arabians, and here too, for the first time, I heard the real speech of the Andalusian people, softer and more musical than in the Castiles, and also gayer and more imaginative, and accompanied by livelier gestures. I asked my companions whether that report about Andalusia is true, affirming that with their early physical development vice is more common, manners more voluptuous, and passion less restrained. "Too true," they replied, giving explanations, descriptions, and citing cases which I forbear to repeat. On returning to the city they took me to a splendid casino, with gardens and magnificent rooms, in one of which, the largest and richest, adorned with paintings of all the illustrious men of Cordova, rises a sort of stage where the poets stand to read their works on evenings appointed for public contests of genius; and the victors receive a laurel crown from the hands of the most beautiful and cultured girls in the city, who, crowned with roses, look on from a semi-circle of seats. That evening I had the pleasure of meeting several young Cordovese ardently attached, as they say in Spain, to the cultivation of the Muses—frank, courteous, and vivacious, with a medley of verses in their heads, and a smattering of Italian literature; and so imagine how from dusk to midnight, through those mysterious streets, which from the first evening had made my head whirl, there was a constant, noisy interchange of sonnets, hymns, and ballads in the two languages, from Petrarch to Prati, from Cervantes to Zorilla; and a delightful conversation closed and sealed by many cordial hand-clasps and eager promises to write, to send books, to come to Italy, to visit Spain again, etc. etc.—merely words, as is always the case, but words not less dear on that account.
In the morning I left for Seville. At the station I saw Frascuelo, Lagartijo, Cuco, and the whole band of toreros from Madrid, who saluted me with a benevolent look of protection. I hurried into a dusty carriage, and as the train moved off and my eyes rested on Cordova for the last time, I bade the city adieu in the lines of the Arabian poet—a little too tropical, if you will, for the taste of a European, but, after all, admirable for the occasion:
"Adieu, Cordova! Would that my life were as long as Noah's, that I might live for ever within thy walls! Would that I had the treasures of Pharaoh, to spend them upon wine and the beautiful women of Cordova with the gentle eyes which invite kisses!"