[ERCILLA]
1533-1600.
The Spanish muse has produced numerous epic poems, most of which are unknown beyond the limits of Spain, and many even there have been consigned to merited oblivion. The Araucana alone has been admitted to a station in general literature. This is owing partly to its own intrinsic merits, but in a greater degree to the novelty of its argument, and to the circumstances under which it was written. Unlike other poets, Ercilla was himself an actor in the scenes which he describes. The chronicler of his own story, he avowedly rejects the aid of fiction. Veracity and accuracy are the qualities in winch, as a poetical writer, he is peculiar. His descriptions and characters are portraits taken from nature; invention is therefore a talent which he never exerts. If his imagination has any play, it is only in the grouping and distribution of his pictures. His scenery, his manners, his personages, are all copied from originals which he had actually before his eyes. The objects of his observation, the subject-matter of his poetry, were, moreover, of a class strikingly novel,—a new world, savage nations, for the first time brought into contact and collision with civilised man: on one side the love of independence; on the other, the thirst of plunder, the fury of religious zeal, and a misguided spirit of chivalrous enterprise. No ordinary talents were required to do justice to so rich a theme, whilst even ordinary abilities were sufficient to give interest to a poem founded on such a basis. To great genius the Spanish poet cannot lay a claim; he is indeed inferior to his labour: yet he had that cleverness requisite to produce a work not totally devoid of interest, occasionally abounding in beauties; such, in short, as entitles him to a respectable though not a very high station in the literary world.
Don Alonso de Ercilla was born in Madrid on the 7th of March, 1533. [Note 1.] His family was noble; by which word a meaning is conveyed different from that attached in this country to the notion of nobility, it being tantamount to saying that his ancestors were and had been for a long time gentlemen. Fortun Garcia de Ercilla, the father of Ercilla, a native of Biscay, was an industrious writer, whose labours as a jurist were highly prized, and obtained for him the cognomen of the "subtle Spaniard." He wrote generally in Latin, though a Spanish manuscript work of his upon the challenge sent by the emperor Charles V. to Francis I. king of France is recorded by the author of the Bibliotheca Hispana. [Note 2.] Fortun's wife. Doña Leonor de Zuñiga (ladies in Spain do not take their husband's names), was a woman of illustrious descent, the feudal lady of the town of Bobadilla, the domain of which, after her husband's death, was transferred to the crown, she having been admitted into the household of the empress. Three sons were the offspring of their union, of whom Alonso the poet was the youngest. He received his education at the royal palace, and since his tender years became a menino [Note 3.], or page of the heir to the crown, prince Philip, afterwards so famous as Philip II. of Spain. What sort of education he received under such circumstances we are not enabled to say. It is not probable that it was one suited to a man intended for literary pursuits. His works, however, prove him not to have been unacquainted with the Latin and Italian poets; and though his knowledge of the latter was probably acquired in the course of his travels, he must have been indebted to his early studies for his introduction to the former. The words "gentleman" and "soldier" were at that time nearly synonymous; and Don Alonso, though bred a courtier, and following his royal master in that capacity, was probably considered to be intended for the military profession. In his earlier years Philip was directed by his father to travel over his future extensive dominions, which formed a very considerable, and, with the exception of France, at that time the best, part of Europe. In this tour Ercilla was a constant attendant of the young prince, profiting, as he himself boasts[33], by his travels, indulging his own inquisitive propensities, and, in imitation of Ulysses, acquiring an ample store of information and wisdom, derived from his observations of nations and manners. [Note 4.]
The ambition of Charles V. was not satisfied with the possession of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, great part of Italy, and the countries recently discovered in America. The rich inheritance which he intended to transmit to his son was to be increased, and as a compensation for the loss of the empire of Germany, to which his brother Ferdinand had been elected successor, he aspired to the crown of England for the future king of Spain. A marriage between Philip and the English queen Mary was brought about; the young prince repaired to London, attended by Ercilla. During their residence in this metropolis, news reached them that the Araucanos, an Indian tribe in South America, had risen against the power of Spain. The insurrection appeared of a more serious nature than those which had hitherto occurred in the annals of Indian warfare. The charge of subduing the refractory patriots, or, as they were called by their invaders, the rebels, was committed to Geronimo de Alderete, who had come over from Peru to England, and soon set out again on his return, having been appointed, by the king, adelantado of Chili,—a title since become obsolete, which was equivalent to hat of military commander of a district. To a man of Ercilla's adventurous disposition, this opportunity of military honour was too tempting to be resisted. He left the personal service of the prince, to follow the adelantado in his distant expedition, and girded on his sword[34], as he himself says, for the first time, being then in the twenty-first year of his age. Geronimo de Alderete, however, did not reach the scene of warfare, having died while on his way, in Taboga near Panama. His young companion proceeded alone to Lima, the metropolis of Peru, to join the expedition.
Those distant possessions, which, for the most part, had been annexed to the Spanish crown by the prowess of obscure and enterprising adventurers, had already begun to rank high in the public estimation, and individuals of noble birth and courtly favour sought to reap the fruits of the labours of the neglected discoverers and conquerors.
Don Andres Hurtado de Mendoza, marquis of Cañete, was at that time viceroy of Peru; a man belonging to one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Spain.
This nobleman entrusted his son, Don Garcia, with the command of the forces destined to subdue the Araucanos. The expedition consisted of a corps of two hundred and fifty men, who went by sea—a brilliant and well armed and equipped band, as we are told by the Spanish historians [Note 5.]; and a nearly equal number which had been sent by land across those extensive regions. With such inconsiderable forces did the Spaniards attempt to conquer and hold in subjection those immense regions of South America!
The expedition having reached the point of its destination, the war proved of a far more important nature than those hitherto waged with the natives of the American continent. Unlike the Indians of the torrid zone, the Araucanos were a hardy and valiant race, whose courage was not less impetuous than persevering. They are described by a Spanish historian as "a people exceedingly brave, robust, and swift, who outstrip the deer in the race; and of so strong a breath, that they persist in the course for a whole day; superior to other Indian tribes, as well in the strength of their frames as in the vigour of their intellects; strong, ferocious, arrogant; filled with a generous spirit, and thus averse to subjection, to avoid which they readily peril their lives.[35] "Though masters," says Ercilla[36], "only of a district of twenty leagues' extent, without a single town, or a wall, or a stronghold in it, destitute even of arms, inhabiting an almost flat country, surrounded by three Spanish towns and two fortresses, they, by dint merely of their valour and tenacity of purpose, not only recovered, but supported and maintained, their freedom." Their gallant stand against the invaders of America was at last crowned with success. Instead of the subjects, they became the honourable foes, and in process of time the allies and friends, of the Spanish monarchy. The poverty of their native land proved their best auxiliary; it deterred the Spaniards from persisting in a contest in which nothing was to be gained which could repay their exertions; and so completely was the animosity of those nations changed into feelings of mutual esteem, that in the late events, which have severed the colonies from their mother-country, the Araucanos have constantly shown, and still preserve, the most decided partiality to the cause and fortunes of the old Spaniards.
In the conflicts of that Indian war Ercilla was eminently distinguished, according to the testimony of nearly all the Spanish writers [Note 6.], and to his own rather boastful account. He had an ample opportunity to indulge his daring spirit of enterprise and his habits of observation. After the tumult of a battle, or the toils of a march, he devoted the hours of night to write his half poetical, half historical, narration; wielding, as he says, by turns the sword and the pen, and writing often upon skins, and sometimes upon scraps of paper so small as to contain scarcely six lines. The ordinary duties, which he shared in common with his fellow-soldiers, were insufficient for his aspiring ambition, and as little did the matter for observation on men and countries, although the supply was unusually copious, satisfy the cravings of his inquisitive mind. Determined to accomplish more, he penetrated into the furthermost parts of the South American continent; left the army, in company with ten of his fellow-soldiers; crossed twice, in a small boat, the dangerous pass of the archipelago of Ancudbox; and in the same manner, though with less of gasconade [Note 7.] than was long after shown by an enterprising French traveller, in an opposite region of the earth, carved upon a tree a record of his having, first of all human beings, reached that distant spot.