A moveable pulpit is placed before the church door, from which a friar, possessed of a stentorian voice, delivers an improved history of the Passion, such as was revealed to Saint Bridget, a Franciscan nun, who, from the dictation of the Virgin Mary, has left us a most minute and circumstantial account of the life and death of Christ and his mother. This yearly narrative, however, would have lost most of its interest but for the scenic illustrations which keep up the expectation and rivet the attention of the audience. It was formerly the custom to introduce a living Saint Peter—a character which belonged by a natural and inalienable right to the baldest head in the village—who acted the Apostle’s denial, swearing by Christ, he did not know the man. This edifying part of the performance is omitted at Castilleja; though a practised performer crows with such a shrill and natural note as must be answered with a challenge by every cock of spirit in the neighbourhood. The flourish of a trumpet announces, in the sequel, the publication of the sentence passed by the Roman governor; and the town crier delivers it with legal precision, in the manner it is practised in Spain, before an execution. Hardly has the last word been uttered, when the preacher, in a frantic passion, gives the crier the lie direct, cursing the tongue that has uttered such blasphemies.[40] He then invites an angel to contradict both Pilate and the Jews: when, obedient to the orator’s desire, a boy gaudily dressed, and furnished with a pair of gilt pasteboard wings, appears at the window, and proclaims the true verdict of Heaven. Sometimes in the course of the preacher’s narrative, an image of the Virgin Mary is made to meet that of Christ, on his way to Calvary, both taking an affectionate leave in the street. The appearance, however, of the Virgin bearing a handkerchief to collect a sum for her son’s burial, is never omitted, both because it melts the whole female audience into tears, and because it produces a good collection for the convent. The whole is closed by the Descendimiento, or unnailing a crucifix as large as life from the cross; an operation performed by two friars, who, in the character of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, are seen with ladders and carpenters’ tools, letting down the jointed figure, to be placed on a bier and carried into the church in the form of a funeral.
I have carefully glided over such parts of this absurd performance as would shock many an English reader even in narrative. Yet such is the strange mixture of superstition and profaneness in the people for whose gratification these scenes are exhibited, that though any attempt to expose the indecency of these shows would rouse their zeal “to the knife,” I cannot venture to translate the jokes and sallies of wit that are frequently heard among the Spanish peasantry upon these sacred topics.
SATURDAY BEFORE EASTER.
I have not been able to ascertain the reason why the Roman Catholic celebrate the resurrection this morning, with an anticipation of nearly four and twenty hours, and yet continue the fast till midnight or the beginning of Sunday. This practice is, I believe, of high antiquity.
The service begins this morning without either the sound of bells or of musical instruments. The Paschal Candle is seen by the north-side of the altar. But, before I mention the size of that used at our cathedral, I must protest against all charges of exaggeration. It is, in fact, a pillar of wax, nine yards in height, and thick in proportion, standing on a regular marble pedestal. It weighs eighty arrobas, or two thousand pounds, of twelve ounces. This candle is cast and painted new, every year; the old one being broken to pieces on the Saturday preceding Whitsunday, the day when part of it is used for the consecration of the baptismal font. The sacred torch is lighted with the new fire, which this morning the priest strikes out of a flint, and burns during service till Ascension-day. A chorister in his surplice climbs up a gilt-iron rod, furnished with steps like a flag-staff, and having the top railed in, so as to admit of a seat on a level with the end of the candle. From this crow’s nest, the young man lights up and trims the wax pillar, drawing off the melted wax with a large iron ladle.
High mass begins this day behind the great veil, which for the two last weeks in Lent covers the altar. After some preparatory prayers, the priest strikes up the hymn Gloria in excelsis Deo. At this moment the veil flies off, the explosion of fireworks in the upper galleries reverberates in a thousand echoes from the vaults of the church, and the four-and-twenty large bells of its tower, awake, with their discordant though gladdening sounds, those of the one hundred and forty-six steeples which this religious town boasts of. A brisk firing of musketry, accompanied by the howling of the innumerable dogs, which, unclaimed by any master, live and multiply in our streets, adds strength and variety to this universal din. The firing is directed against several stuffed figures, not unlike the Guy Fawkes of the fifth of November; which are seen hanging by the neck on a rope, extended across the least frequented streets. It is then that the pious rage of the people of Seville is vented against the archtraitor Judas, whom they annually hang, shoot, draw and quarter in effigy.
The church service ends in a procession about the aisles. The priest bears the host in his hands, visible through glass, as a picture within a medallion. The sudden change from the gloomy appearance of the church and its ministers, to the simple and joyous character of this procession, the very name of Pasqua Florída, the flowery Passover, and, more than the name, the flowers themselves, which well-dressed children, mixed with the censer-bearers, scatter on the ground, crowd the mind and heart with the ideas, hopes, and feelings of renovated life, and give to this ceremony, even for those who disbelieve the personal presence in the host, of a Deity triumphant over death; a character of inexpressible tenderness.