“Right! You can’t say it too often or too loud. When you hear the Jews abused, speak up, tell the old story over again. In the Dark Ages, when in the rest of Europe, Greece and Rome were forgotten, asleep, seemingly dead, the spirit of Athens and of Rome was alive here in Cordova. Art, philosophy, science,—our great inheritance from the older civilizations—were held in trust for you and me right here by the Jews and Arabs of Cordova.”
“That won’t be forgotten while Dante is read.” Patsy quoted a line from the Inferno:
“Averrois che il gran commento feo.”
“No, six words from Dante give a man a patent of nobility in the Republic of Letters that outlives any title an emperor confers. Well, that Averroes, that same Hebrew Jew whom Dante met along with those other Cordovans, Seneca and Lucan, in the place of the sighing, unbaptized spirits, lived and wrote his great Commentary on Aristotle here in Cordova. He probably walked through this court every day, he washed perhaps in that fountain; ate oranges, may be, from those trees—how should I know the life of an orange?”
“Those two men,” said J. to me, “would rather talk about a thing any day than see it.” So we left Patsy and the Argentino reconstructing old Cordova, and went to look at the Mosque.
Inside we soon lost ourselves in a forest of columns, with long aisles running in every direction. Every path we chose led to beauty. The columns are of many different marbles, porphyry, jasper, Africano, alabaster, verde antique; of all styles, and many periods. We found some from the old Roman temple of Janus; some with smooth polished shafts; some twisted, with Roman, Arab, Byzantine or Visigothic capitals. The mosque has been compared to the bed of Procrustes,—if the column was too short, it was lengthened by adding a base; if too long, it was sunk into the ground. Whatever the columns might have been originally, they now are all of the same height, and serve to hold up the beautiful double arches that support the roof.
We found our way to the Mihrâb, a wonderful little octagonal chapel. The roof is a shell hollowed from a single block of marble, the walls are of marble finely carved. A deep groove is worn in the pavement by the knees of the pilgrims who made the tour of the Mihrâb seven times, for in those days a pilgrimage to Cordova was as good as one to Mecca.
“Los Moros que te labraron
capilla del Zancarrón
merecián ser Cristianos.”
“That means the Moors that made you, chapel of the bare bone, deserved to be Christians,” said Patsy, coming up behind us. “Bare bone, because one of Mohammed’s shin-bones is supposed to have been worshipped here.”
“Si hoy mismo resucitaran
aqui en Cordoba los moros
cada cual se iba á su casa.”