The town is so very wide; solid it rings you. The breaks are breathings for a palm, or a wide wall with crenellated top or a tiled dome like a jewel in the breast of Seville. Thick town ... intricate, turning roofs. Until the sudden stop! Seville does not linger. There is thick town, then huerta. Country gardens are perfumed brasiers. A wandering ribbon of low trees marks the sleepy river creeping down to the copper wall of sunset....
It is cool now. They have drawn to the roof tops the canopies that shield the streets. Now let you go down into Seville.
. . . . . .
Varying weathers fall upon Seville. In summer days, she smiles resilient and cool within a fire that shrivels the river. In winter, under a slatey sky with her streets drenched, she is smiling still. Weather and invasions come upon Seville; she masters them all.
She is an Eastern goddess unknown of the Greeks, whose cult is sung with cymbals and in blood. She is no Semite; she is the antistrophe in this, as in all things, of her great brother of the north: Toledo. Within the huddle of her streets, lives clarity; within her sudden and esconded curves, glows coolness. She is immeasurably far from the hot Jew and Arab. Seville is Pagan. But her pagan spirit is uniquely hers. It is not dark and carnal like the Sumerian; not analytic, open-eyed like the Greek; it lacks the Italic will. Nor is it Berber. This spirit has a spirit; the Giralda. To see Giralda from the town is to see both the tower and Seville. Everywhere al-minar follows. It is cool in the sun; in the damp of winter it is gleam. On the river’s margin where vessels coal, it is a yesterday when ships had sails. Its simple face is strength above the prone complexity of life. Variant, it is constant, sovereignly self-contained. It mirrors men’s perceptions, who can see of it at each moment but a flash of time. It stands for Seville whose traits and deeds are facets of a Crystal.
This fixity, this intricate appearance within fixity is the deep trait of Seville. Her genius, her emotions, her religion are in fixity for they are held unwavering to herself. She looks not at Spain nor the world. Not like Venus does this goddess walk and give herself to men. Not like Astarte, thirst for the blood of others. Not like Isis is she concerned with the cycles of sun and planet. Seville loves only herself; and the moon and stars are brilliants for her hair.
. . . . . .
The narcism of Seville is fecund. The gorgeous litany of the Semana Santa is but the most famous of her arts. Religion is but the most obvious pretext of her self-worship. Seville abounds in dramas and in altars of her self-delight. Wander through her streets, commune with her churches and cafés, watch her ample daughters dance to the splendor of their own high breasts; read the legends—Don Juan, La Macarena. An hour will come, perhaps at dusk in the park along the river, when she will tell her secret:
“The Guadalquivir is my scarf of saffron; the orange blossoms sing the chant of my flesh; the sky is a mantón of rose and purple on my white shoulders. Church and God, love, blood and death are castanets! I am Real. I am the dancer. I am Isbilíya.”
. . . . . .