The Alhambra

by Washington Irving

One evening, at the shadowy hour of twilight, the warden sounded his horn. “I see,” cried he, “a numerous train winding up the valley. There are mingled Moors and Christians. The banner of my lord is in the advance. Joyful tidings!” exclaimed the old seneschal; “my lord returns in triumph, and brings captives!” Then the castle courts rang with shouts of joy; and the standard was displayed, and the trumpets were sounded, and the drawbridge was lowered, and Doña Maria went forth with her ladies, and her knights, and her pages, and her minstrels, to welcome her lord from the wars. But as the train drew nigh, she beheld a sumptuous bier, covered with black velvet, and on it lay a warrior, as if taking his repose: he lay in his armor, with his helmet on his head, and his sword in his hand, as one who had never been conquered, and around the bier were the escutcheons of the house of Hinojosa.

A number of Moorish cavaliers attended the bier, with emblems of mourning, and with dejected countenances; and their leader cast himself at the feet of Doña Maria, and hid his face in his hands. She beheld in him the gallant Abadil, whom she had once welcomed with his bride to her castle; but who now came with the body of her lord, whom he had unknowingly slain in battle!

The sepulchre erected in the cloisters of the convent of San Domingo, was achieved at the expense of the Moor Abadil, as a feeble testimony of his grief for the death of the good knight Don Munio, and his reverence for his memory. The tender and faithful Doña Maria soon followed her lord to the tomb. On one of the stones of a small arch, beside his sepulchre, is the following simple inscription: “Hic jacet Maria Palacin, uxor Munonis Sancij De Finojosa”;—Here lies Maria Palacin, wife of Munio Sancho de Hinojosa.

The legend of Don Munio Sancho does not conclude with his death. On the same day on which the battle took place on the plain of Salmanara, a chaplain of the Holy Temple at Jerusalem, while standing at the outer gate, beheld a train of Christian cavaliers advancing, as if in pilgrimage. The chaplain was a native of Spain, and as the pilgrims approached, he knew the foremost to be Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa, with whom he had been well acquainted in former times. Hastening to the patriarch, he told him of the honorable rank of the pilgrims at the gate. The patriarch, therefore, went forth with a grand procession of priests and monks, and received the pilgrims with all due honor. There were seventy cavaliers, beside their leader,—all stark and lofty warriors. They carried their helmets in their hands, and their faces were deadly pale. They greeted no one, nor looked either to the right or to the left, but entered the chapel, and kneeling before the sepulchre of our Saviour, performed their orisons in silence. When they had concluded, they rose as if to depart, and the patriarch and his attendants advanced to speak to them, but they were no more to be seen. Every one marvelled what could be the meaning of this prodigy. The patriarch carefully noted down the day, and sent to Castile to learn tidings of Don Munio Sancho de Hinojosa. He received for reply, that on the very day specified, that worthy knight, with seventy of his followers, had been slain in battle. These, therefore, must have been the blessed spirits of those Christian warriors, come to fulfil their vow of pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. Such was Castilian faith in the olden time, which kept its word, even beyond the grave.

If any one should doubt of the miraculous apparition of these phantom knights, let him consult the History of the Kings of Castile and Leon, by the learned and pious Fray Prudencio de Sandoval, bishop of Pamplona, where he will find it recorded in the History of King Don Alonzo VI., on the hundred and second page. It is too precious a legend to be lightly abandoned to the doubter.

POETS AND POETRY OF MOSLEM ANDALUS

DURING the latter part of my sojourn in the Alhambra I was more than once visited by the Moor of Tetuan, with whom I took great pleasure in rambling through the halls and courts, and getting him to explain to me the Arabic inscriptions. He endeavored to do so faithfully; but, though he succeeded in giving me the thought, he despaired of imparting an idea of the grace and beauty of the language. The aroma of the poetry, said he, is all lost in translation. Enough was imparted, however, to increase the stock of my delightful associations with this extraordinary pile. Perhaps there never was a monument more characteristic of an age and people than the Alhambra; a rugged fortress without, a voluptuous palace within; war frowning from its battlements; poetry breathing throughout the fairy architecture of its halls. One is irresistibly transported in imagination to those times when Moslem Spain was a region of light amid Christian, yet benighted Europe; externally a warrior power fighting for existence; internally a realm devoted to literature, science, and the arts; where philosophy was cultivated with passion, though wrought up into subtleties and refinements; and where the luxuries of sense were transcended by those of thought and imagination.

Arab poetry, we are told, arrived at its highest splendor under the Ommiades of Spain, who for a long time centred the power and splendor of the western Caliphat at Cordova. Most of the sovereigns of that brilliant line were themselves poets. One of the last of them was Mahomed ben Abderahman. He led the life of a sybarite in the famous palace and gardens of Azahara, surrounding himself with all that could excite the imagination and delight the senses. His palace was the resort of poets. His vizier, Ibn Zeydun, was called the Horace of Moslem Spain, from his exquisite verses, which were recited with enthusiasm even in the saloons of the Eastern Caliphs. The vizier became passionately enamored of the princess Walada, daughter of Mahomed. She was the idol of her father’s court, a poetess of the highest order, and renowned for beauty as well as talent. If Ibn Zeydun was the Horace of Moslem Spain, she was its Sappho. The princess became the subject of the vizier’s most impassioned verses; especially of a famous risáleh or epistle addressed to her which the historian Ash-Shakandi declares has never been equalled for tenderness and melancholy. Whether the poet was happy in his love, the authors I have consulted do not say; but one intimates that the princess was discreet as she was beautiful, and caused many a lover to sigh in vain. In fact, the reign of love and poetry in the delicious abode of Zahara, was soon brought to a close by a popular insurrection. Mahomed with his family took refuge in the fortress of Ucles, near Toledo, where he was treacherously poisoned by the Alcayde; and thus perished one of the last of the Ommiades.

The downfall of that brilliant dynasty, which had concentrated everything at Cordova, was favorable to the general literature of Morisco Spain.

“After the breaking of the necklace and the scattering of its pearls,” says Ash-Shakandi, “the kings of small states divided among themselves the patrimony of the Beni Ommiah.”