The Pilgrim of Castile; or, El Pelegrino in Su Patria

by Lope de Vega

Very aptly might Nisa at that time have revenged the motions which Pamphilus had to agree to Flerida’s will: if love had been a spirit (as some have believed) which might have told them to her.

But it was not just that so rare a faith should be spotted with any infamy. Thesander's love in the meantime, springing from this first spark and increased by Nisa’s resistance, like a fire which a little water makes more violent; or like palm trees growing most, when a weight is laid on them.

Nisa waxed strong and walked abroad, when desperate Thesander revealed himself to a physician, who encouraged him either to manifest his evil or else as the best remedy, against his love to work from his imagination this deep melancholy, and to divert it by some honest exercise, and that the courage of the practiser is the first matter on which the heavens imprint the form of their succours, for as much as their favour is not obtained by womanish prayers and vows but by the vigorous actions of men, agreeing to which the Greek adage says that the Gods do sell their blessings unto men, in exchange of their labours. Thesander was animated by these counsels, but finding that divisions were weak remedies against the splendour of Nisa's beauty, fell into a relapse, and grew so weak that he was constrained to reveal the cause of his sickness. The pitiful father who was already informed of Nisa’s quality conjured her with tears to be mistress of his wealth, and marry his son, of whose sickness there was no other remedy: Nisa admiring at the several ways whereby fortune sought to separate her from Pamphilus, revealed then to the good old man the whole history of her life, and laid before him all the impossibilities which did excuse her from satisfying so many courtesies; the chiefest whereof was, in his willingness to admit her to the highest degree of honour and affection that was possible for him to do, she being a stranger, and in such an indecent habit, for a woman fit to be his son's wife. By this means she satisfied the father: but poor Thesander was so desperate that falling into greater extremity, he was at the last point of his life; like unto trees whose boughs do not lose their greenness until that their humour which doth quicken them do absolutely fail, because that hope is the radical moisture which doth keep us alive, and is to us as oil to our fire. Nisa seeing that Thesander was for her sake upon the point of losing his life, and she herself had not now lived, but out of his father's pity, was exceedingly perplexed that she could not satisfy so just an obligation: and not being able to rest in these confused thoughts, the representations of Pamphilus' labours did always appear in her mind, who she thought to be prisoner still at Valencia. Thesander's evil increased, Nisa deferred the remedy, and the father accused this poor amorous man, in my opinion innocent, because, that in things natural, we do neither merit nor demerit: In brief, all the whole family entreated Nisa that she would have pity of Thesander's young years, and that at the least she would assuage his passion with one amorous word.

Amongst all the variable fortunes as well by land as sea which our pilgrim had suffered, there was none so difficult for her as this. Nevertheless she resolved to entertain Thesander until he had recovered some strength, that thereby he might the better be able to bear the subtlety which she intended. And in this she did not deceive herself, for our spirits have some resemblance with the nature of young horses, which are easier managed with gentle bits than with hard; the sweet words, the feigned hopes and embraces of Nisa within few days restored Thesander's weakened spirit, during which time Celio was delivered out of prison with an exceeding desire to see her, as well because he had heard news of her health, as because he imagined that if Finia were not in her company, yet at the least he might hear some news of her. Nevertheless the sorrowful Nisa believing that Celio desired to kill her, not knowing what Pamphilus had told him of her disguising herself in the habit of a pilgrim; so soon as she heard of his freedom, fled secretly from Barcelona. In the meantime Lisard the eldest brother to Celio and Nisa, who as you heard was a soldier in Flanders, disembarking in the same town of Barcelona, far from thinking that persons so near him were there: having met with Finia on the way, on the first day of her travel, although almost in the last of the tragical comedy of her fortunes, sorry to see so fair a pilgrim go a-foot, understanding which way she was bound, offered to accompany her into Castile: Finia willing to be gone from Celio, whom she thought never to be able to appease, and not knowing that this was his brother, accepted his offer and went with him to Toledo. Where being received of his parents with all kinds of joy, his desire was that Finia might also be well entertained and kindly used, telling them in what manner he had found her. His parents received her with a great deal of honour and embraces, yet not without some suspicions that she was some spoil of the Flanders war. Lisard then asked for his brother Celio and for his sister Nisa, they telling him the cause of their absence. Finia thereby knew that the house wherein she was come was her husband's father's, and that he who had brought her thither was his brother, whereat not sufficiently wondering, she then thought that fortune began to look on her misfortunes with a more clear countenance.

The day following, Lisard resolving to seek for his sister Nisa and to kill Pamphilus, told his parents that he had some pretensions at the court, on which he built the necessity of a new voyage, showing them some attestations in writing of that which he had done in Flanders, for which he hoped of good recompense. His Father perspicuously knowing his mind through his reasons, wherewith he endeavoured to colour his journey, and fearing to lose him with the other, propounded a thousand objections, telling him that he should now rest after his voyage, and from the travails of war, contenting himself with the honour which he had gotten, because that in this age the reward did fly from the merit. Lisard thus persuaded by his father remained in the house, although it grieved him that after he had bought so much renown with the loss of his blood so far from his own country, he should now lie still and rust with infamy; finally being discontent that he was beheld as he thought with this mark, he went into the country to shun the first encounter of the people's sight, into the same village where amongst the other servants of his father's farmer, Pamphilus lived, who was never before known of Lisard; and as one day he beheld him more curiously then he did all the others, for hardly could the baseness and indignity of his habit disguise his person and beauty; he called him to him, and inquired of the cause, why he lived in this base office. The excuses which he made did not seem current (indeed being feigned by Pamphilus, who already knew that Lisard was Nisa’s eldest brother). Wherefore Lisard said to him that he should do better if leaving this rustic life, he would abide in his service and take the charge of two horses which he had, for which he would give him wages, and convenient clothes; Pamphilus refused this offer, not that he was not willing to return into the happy house in which he had first known Nisa: but fearing that being known in her absence, he should run a dangerous fortune of his life. Nevertheless, being weary of the austere life which he led amongst these mountains, for there is nothing more true (as the philosophers say) than that those which are solitary are either gods or devils, he resolved in the end to accept this condition, wishing rather that he might die by Nisa’s parents' hands, then live any longer in these solitary deserts.

Now you see how forward we are in bringing back our pilgrim from his long travels, seeing that from being a courtier, he became a soldier; from a soldier, a captive; from a captive, a pilgrim; from a pilgrim, a prisoner; from a prisoner, a madman; from a madman, a herdsman; from a herdsman, a miserable lackey, in the same house where all his misfortunes began: to the end that you seeing this circle of fortune from one pole to another, without one moment of rest, or any of good in the beginning, middle or end of his adventures: you may learn to know, how travelling abroad brings honour, profit and many times the contrary. All consists in the disposition of heaven, whose influence guides the passages of our life, as it pleases them; because that although the empire of free-will be above, yet few persons be found who resist their motions; it is therefore a weakness unworthy of a gentle heart not to dare hazardously to enterprise anything, seeing it is evident that if those who have effected great things had not begun them, they had never achieved them. As also hazardous enterprises belong only to brave courage; although heaven disposes of the success. Above all things the election imports much, as Propertius says, all things are not equal unto all. Seneca tells of an old man who being asked how he could live to those years in following the court, answered that it was in doing good turns and not excepting against injuries; but this patience doth not seem honourable to me, nor that it is any virtue to serve to live. And if posterity doth render unto everybody his honour, as Tacitus says, what renown can he leave behind him, who dies as it were in the cradle, and from his swaddling clouts to his hearse hath hardly shifted a shirt; like the plant which hath the form of a living lamb, the stock whereof growing out of the ground to the stomach, and not being able to eat more grass than that which grows round about it, dies for want of nourishment. Glorious was Darius, when being come to the river Tearus, which takes his beginning from two fountains, whereof the one is hot and the other cold, he caused the famous inscription whereof Herodotus speaks to be made: To this place, against the Scythians, came the most famous of all men, Darius the son of Hystaspes. Who hath ever obtained anything without running for it? Who hath ever run for it, if he have not seen it? And what rest can he know, who hath never proved any storm or adversity by sea or land? For there are no days so sweet and comfortable as those which we spend in the arms of our friends, after long travel and great dangers; nor any nights so sweet, as those which are spent about the fire with an attentive family, unto the discourses of one's former dangers and adventures; as Ulysses within Zacinth to his dear Penelope and his son Telemachus. So after many divers adventures, Pamphilus comes to the happy day of his rest, and though he were not at the siege of Troy, nor at the conquest of the New World with Cortes, yet it was no small valour in him to defend himself from so many different and perilous assaults of fortune, and in the end to have merited by so many labours, the rest which shortly he shall enjoy in his own country.

Whilst these things thus passed in the mountains of Toledo, Thesander was being recovered by Nisa’s loving embrace, and she disposed to leave him, as well because his life was assured as because that she desired to assure hers, and deliver herself from the care wherewith she was searched after by her brother Celio.

One night when sleep mastered her lover's senses, and held a silence over the whole family, she went out of the city, and took the way towards Lerida. But night had hardly all hid her black head, crowned both with sleep and fear, when the deceived Thesander waked out of the most sorrowful dream that could possess his fantasy, representing to his imagination the absence of fugitive Nisa, together with her deceitful words, her sweet disdains, and her fair face; a thing which sometime happens principally to him which loves or fears. Inasmuch as those things which threaten us do represent to us in sleeping, the same cares which we have in the day awake. Thesander rising in this imagination, began to search Nisa guided by the light of his soul, and not finding her, it little wanted that he did not die with grief for her departure; neither his father nor the rest of his parents had power enough to keep him from running after. And so he came to Toledo a long time before Nisa, for a lover who follows that which he loves doth go faster than he who flies from that which he doth not love; because he which doth not love grows sorrowful in going, and he which loves by going puts off his grief.

In the meantime, Lisard much pleased with Pamphilus' understanding and person, had taken him to wait in his chamber, not suffering him to live in the baseness of his first office which he had given him, and in this quality he lived at Toledo with his master, always taking great care that his master's parents might not see him, because that if they had viewed him with any consideration, they must needs have known him. But Lisard who with frequent conversation with Finia (whom his parents did use as lovingly as they could have done Nisa) was fallen in love with her, revealed this to Pamphilus, and making him the minister of his passion, gave him charge to speak to her, and to dispose her (with all his power) to be favourable to his desires; Pamphilus obeying his master and taking occasion one festival day, when everybody was abroad, went to find Finia from Lisard: but when in coming to her he knew her to be his sister, and she knew him to be her brother, they both remained astonished, dumb and as immovable as stones. But shortly after this first confusion, Pamphilus began to speak in this manner: Sister, tell me by what means thou came hither, since Celio abandoning thee left thee in Barcelona, for I know already the whole progress of thy misfortune, as conformable unto mine as we are equal in birth.

By his means whom the destinies pleased, said Finia, to whose disposing my will cannot resist: Lisard brother of my husband Celio, having found me on the way from Saragossa brought me hither, where I think I may abide his return with more honour. The same man said Pamphilus, sent me to thee to speak to thee about his love, and he having found me in a grange which he hath in the mountains of Toledo, where I had sheltered myself from the strokes of fortune, under the basest condition of the world, hath brought me now into this place where thou now see me in the quality of a groom; and because that heretofore in the beginning of my fortunes I have been in this house, I kept myself from being seen until this time, as thou may well know, having not been seen until this day by thee. Suffer and abide the end of thy fortune as I have done, and do not say thou know me, for I will entertain Lisard with some lie from thee, until such time that we may see whereunto the revolution of this conjunction of our misfortunes will tend, and when will end the effects of this our honour's eclipse. Thus did Pamphilus and Finia meet, and instead of reprehending one the other they remained there both good friends, for it is ordinary with those who are culpable to dissemble the faults of others, lest they be reprehended for their own. In the meantime, Thesander went from place to place in Toledo inquiring for Nisa, and when this news came to Lisard's ears, that there was a young man which enquired for his sister, he verily thought that it was Pamphilus, who by some sinister accident having lost her, was come thither to find her. And telling Pamphilus the story of Nisa’s ravishing, which he knew much better, told him, that he was now in Toledo in her quest; and that having no man, in whose hands he could better commit the satisfaction of his revenge than his, nor of whose courage and fidelity he could be better assured of, he entreated him, and conjured him to kill him. A notable winding in a success so strange and so embroiled, which is so much the more admirable to me, who know it better then they who read it, how true it is.