Condidit Alcides; renovavit Julius urbem,
Restituit Christo Fernandus tertius Heros.
—Alcides founded the city, Julius Cæsar rebuilt it, and Ferdinand III., the Hero, restored it to Christ; a proud inscription, showing the antiquity of Seville. Hercules himself, who played so great a rôle in Spain, founded it, as you see; its historians say just two thousand two hundred and twenty-eight years after the creation of the world. On the Puerta de Jerez it is written: “Hercules built me, Julius Cæsar surrounded me with walls, and the Holy King conquered me with the aid of Garcia Perez de Vargas.” Hercules’ name has been given to one of the principal promenades of
the city, where his statue is to be seen on a column, opposite to another of Julius Cæsar.
The above-mentioned Garcia Perez and Alfonso el Sabio are both buried in the Royal Chapel. Close beside it is the chapel of the Immaculate Conception, with some old paintings of that mystery, which Seville was one of the foremost cities in the world to maintain. Andalusia is the true land of the Immaculate Conception, and Seville was the first to raise a cry of remonstrance against those who dared attack the most precious prerogative of the Virgin. Its clergy and people sent deputies to Rome, and had silence imposed on all who were audacious enough to dispute it. And when Pope Paul V. published his bull authorizing the festival of the Immaculate Conception, and forbidding any one’s preaching or teaching to the contrary, Seville could not contain itself for joy, but broke out into tournaments and banquets, bull-fights and the roaring of cannon. When the festival came round, this joy took another form, and expressed itself in true Oriental fashion by dances before the Virgin, as the Royal Harper danced before the ark. Nor was this a novelty. Religious dances had been practised from remote times in Spain. They formed part of the Mozarabic rite, which Cardinal Ximenes reestablished at Toledo, authorizing dances in the choir and nave. St. Basil, among other fathers, approved of imitating the tripudium angelorum—the dance of the angelic choirs that
“Sing, and, singing in their glory, move.”
At the Cathedral of Seville the choir-boys, called Los Seises—the Sixes—used to dance to the sound of ivory castanets before the Host
on Corpus Christi, and in the chapel of the Virgin on the 8th of December, when they were dressed in blue and white. Sometimes they sang as they danced. One of their hymns began: “Hail, O Virgin, purer and fairer than the dawn or star of day! Daughter, Mother, Spouse, Maria! and the Eastern Gate of God!” with the chorus: “Sing, brothers, sing, to the praise of the Mother of God; of Spain the royal patroness, conceived without sin!” There was nothing profane in this dance. It was a kind of cadence, decorous, and not without religious effect. Several of the archbishops of Seville, however, endeavored to suppress it, but the lower clergy long clung to the custom. Pope Eugenius IV., in 1439, authorized the dance of the Seises. St. Thomas of Villanueva speaks approvingly of the religious dances of Seville in his day. They were also practised in Portugal, where we read of their being celebrated at the canonization of St. Charles Borromeo, as in Spain for that of St. Ignatius de Loyola. These, however, were of a less austere character, and were not performed in church. In honor of the latter, quadrilles were formed of children, personifying the four quarters of the globe, with costumes in accordance. America had the greatest success, executed by children eight or ten years old, dressed as monkeys, parrots, etc.—tropical America, evidently. These were varied in one place by the representation of the taking of Troy, the wooden horse included.
The Immaculate Conception is still the favorite dogma of this region. Ave Maria Purissima! is still a common exclamation. There are few churches without a Virgin dressed in blue and white; few
houses without a picture, at least, of Mary Most Pure. There are numerous confraternities of the Virgin, some of whom come together at dawn to recite the Rosario de la Aurora. Among the hymns they sing is a verse in which Mary is compared to a vessel of grace, of which St. Joseph is the sail, the child Jesus the helm, and the oars are the pious members, who devoutly pray: