The islanders venerate another zemes, made of marble, which is of the feminine sex, and is accompanied by two male zemes who serve as attendants; one acting as herald to summon other zemes to the woman's assistance when she wishes to raise storms or draw down clouds and rains; the other is supposed to collect the water which flows down from the high mountains into the valleys, and upon the command of the female zemes to let it loose in the form of torrents which devastate the country whenever the islanders have failed to pay her idol the honours due to it. One more thing worthy of remembrance and I shall have finished my book. The natives of Hispaniola were much impressed by the arrival of the Spaniards. Formerly two caciques, of whom one was the father of Guarionex, fasted for fifteen days in order to consult the zemes about the future. This fast having disposed the zemes in their favour, they answered that within a few years a race of men wearing clothes would land in the island and would overthrow their religious rites and ceremonies, massacre their children, and make them slaves. This prophecy had been taken by the younger generation to apply to the cannibals; and thus whenever it became known that the cannibals had landed anywhere, the people took flight without even attempting any resistance. But when the Spaniards landed, the islanders then referred the prophecy to them, as being the people whose coming was announced. And in this they were not wrong, for they are all under the dominion of the Christians, and those who resisted have been killed; all the zemes having been removed to Spain, to teach us the foolishness of those images and the deceits of devils, nothing remaining of them but a memory. I have brought some things to your knowledge, Most Illustrious Prince, and you will learn many others later, since you will probably leave to-morrow to accompany your great-aunt to Naples, in obedience to the orders of your uncle, King Frederick. You are ready to leave and I am weary. Therefore, fare you well, and keep the remembrance of your Martyr, whom you have constrained in the name of your uncle, Frederick, to choose these few from amongst many great things.
BOOK [X]
AND EPILOGUE TO THE DECADE
TO INIGO LOPEZ MENDOZA, COUNT OF TENDILLA, VICEROY
OF GRANADA
I have been prompted by the letters of my friends and of high personages to compose a complete chronicle of all that has happened since the first discoveries and the conquest of the ocean by Columbus, and of all that shall occur. My correspondents were lost in admiration at the thought of these discoveries of islands, inhabited by unknown peoples, living without clothes and satisfied with what nature gave them, and they were consumed by desire to be kept regularly informed. Ascanio, whose authority never allowed my pen to rest, was degraded from the high position he occupied when his brother Ludovico[1] was driven by the French from Milan. I had dedicated the first two books of this decade to him, without mentioning many other treatises I had selected from my unedited memoirs. Simultaneously with his overthrow I ceased to write, for, buffeted by the storm, he ceased to exhort me, while my fervour in making enquiries languished; but in the year 1500, when the Court was in residence at Granada, Ludovico, Cardinal of Aragon, and nephew of King Frederick, who had accompanied the Queen of Naples, sister of King Frederick, to Grenada, sent me letters addressed to me by the King himself, urging me to select the necessary documents and to continue the first two books addressed to Ascanio. The King and the Cardinal already possessed the writings I had formerly addressed to Ascanio. You are aware that I was ill at the time, yet, unwilling to refuse, I resolved to continue. Amongst the great mass of material furnished me at my request by the discoverers, I selected such deeds as were most worthy to be recorded. Since you now desire to include my complete works amongst the numerous volumes in your library, I have determined to add to those of my former writings by taking up the narrative of the principal events between the years 1500 and 1510, and, God giving me life, I shall one day treat them more fully.
[Note 1: His downfall was greeted with rejoicing throughout Italy. In Venice the joy-bells rang and the children danced and sang a canzone in Piazza San Marco
Ora il Moro fa la danza
Viva San Marco e il re di Franzia.
Milan fell a prey to Louis XII., and all northern Italy passed under the French yoke. The Pope rewarded the bearer of the news with a present of one hundred ducats, and at once seized Cardinal Ascanio's palace with its art treasures. The Cardinal was captured near Rivolta by the Venetians, who delivered him to the French. He was kept in the citadel of Bourges until 1502, when he was released at the request of the Cardinal d'Amboise to take his place in the conclave which elected Pius III. He died in 1505; and his former enemy, Guiliano della Rovere, reigning as Pope Julius II., erected the magnificent monument to his memory which still stands in Santa Maria del Popolo.]
To complete the decade, I had written a book which remained unfinished, treating of the superstitions of the islanders; this new book, which will be called the tenth and last, I wish to dedicate to you, without rewriting my work or sending you my draft. Therefore, if on reading the ninth book you come across promises which are not realised, do not be astonished; it is not necessary to be always consistent.[2]
[Note 2: Non semper oportet stare pollicitis.]