"Thy name, Isabella,
Through all earth shall be sounded,
Columbus has triumphed,
His foes are confounded!"
To Aragon and Castile Columbus had "given a new world." Peals of golden horns shook the delighted cities, where balconies overflowed with flowers.
Barcelona
His reception at Barcelona by the King and Queen had been made inconceivably splendid:
"That was a glorious day
That dawned on Barcelona. Banners filled
The thronging towers, the old bells rung, and blasts
Of lordly trumpets seemed to reach the sky
Cerulean. All Spain had gathered there,
And waited there his coming; Castilian knights,
Gay cavaliers, hidalgos young, and e'en the old
Puissant grandees of far Aragon,
With glittering mail and waving plumes and all
The peasant multitude with bannerets
And charms and flowers.
"Beneath pavilions
Of brocades of gold, the Court had met.
The dual crowns of Leon old and proud Castile
There waited him, the peasant mariner.
"The heralds waited
Near the open gates; the minstrels young and fair
Upon the tapestries and arrased walls,
And everywhere from all the happy provinces
The wandering troubadours.
"Afar was heard
A cry, a long acclaim. Afar was seen
A proud and stately steed with nodding plumes,
Bridled with gold, whose rider stately rode,
And still afar a long and sinuous train
Of silvery cavaliers. A shout arose,
And all the city, all the vales and hills,
With acclamations rung.
"He came, the Genoese,
With reverent look and calm and lofty mien,
And saw the wondering eyes and heard the cries,
And trumpet peals, as one who followed still
Some Guide unseen.
"Before his steed
Crowned Indians marched with lowly faces,
And wondered at the new world that they saw;
Gay parrots screamed from their gold-circled arms,
And from their crests swept airy plumes. The sun
Shone full in splendor on the scene, and here
The old and new world met!"
The young Italian Chevalier, Pigafetta, Knight of Rhodes, visited the scenes that his own countryman had made immortal by his voyage.
He thought of the plumed Indians and of the birds of splendid plumage that Columbus had brought back.
He heard much of Magellan, the "new Columbus." Why might he not go out upon unknown seas with him and discover new races, and bring back with him tropic spices, birds, and flowers?