Who comes?--why rushes fast and loud,
Through lane and street the hurtling crowd,
Is Rhodes on fire?--Hurrah!--along
Faster and fast storms the throng!
High towers a shape in knightly garb--
Behold the Rider and the Barb!
Behind is dragg'd a wondrous load;
Beneath what monster groans the road?
The horrid jaws--the Crocodile,
The shape the mightier Dragon, shows--
From Man to Monster all the while--
The alternate wonder glancing goes.
Shout thousands, with a single voice,
"Behold the Dragon, and rejoice,
Safe roves the herd, and safe the swain!
Lo!--there the Slayer--here the Slain!
Full many a breast, a gallant life,
Has waged against the ghastly strife,
And ne'er return'd to mortal sight--
Hurrah, then, for the Hero Knight!"
So to the Cloister, where the vow'd
And peerless Brethren of St John
In conclave sit--that sea-like crowd,
Wave upon wave, goes thundering on.
High o'er the rest, the chief is seen--
There wends the Knight with modest mien;
Pours through the galleries raised for all
Above that Hero-council Hall,
The crowd--And thus the Victor One:--
"Prince--the knight's duty I have done.
The Dragon that devour'd the land
Lies slain beneath thy servant's hand;
Free, o'er the pasture, rove the flocks--
And free the idler's steps may stray--
And freely o'er the lonely rocks,
The holier pilgrim wends his way!"
A lofty look the Master gave,
"Certes," he said; "thy deed is brave;
Dread was the danger, dread the fight--
Bold deeds bring fame to vulgar knight;
But say, what sways with holier laws
The knight who sees in Christ his cause,
And wears the cross?"--Then every cheek
Grew pale to hear the Master speak;
But nobler was the blush that spread
His face--the Victor's of the day--
As bending lowly--"Prince," he said;
"His noblest duty--TO OBEY!"
"And yet that duty, son," replied
The chief, "methinks thou hast denied;
And dared thy sacred sword to wield
For fame in a forbidden field."
"Master, thy judgment, howsoe'er
It lean, till all is told, forbear--
Thy law in spirit and in will,
I had no thought but to fulfil.
Not rash, as some, did I depart
A Christian's blood in vain to shed;
But hoped by skill, and strove by art,
To make my life avenge the dead.
"Five of our Order, in renown
The war-gems of our saintly crown,
The martyr's glory bought with life;
'Twas then thy law forbade the strife.
Yet in my heart there gnaw'd, like fire,
Proud sorrow, fed with stern desire:
In the still visions of the night,
Panting, I fought the fancied fight;
And when the morrow glimmering came,
With tales of ravage freshly done,
The dream remember'd, turn'd to shame,
That night should dare what day should shun.
"And thus my fiery musings ran--
'What youth has learn'd should nerve the man;
How lived the great in days of old,
Whose Fame to time by bards is told--
Who, heathens though they were, became
As gods--upborne to heaven by fame?
How proved they best the hero's worth?
They chased the monster from the earth--
They sought the lion in his den--
They pierced the Cretan's deadly maze--
Their noble blood gave humble men
Their happy birthright--peaceful days.
"'What! sacred, but against the horde
Of Mahound, is the Christian's sword?
All strife, save one, should he forbear?
No! earth itself the Christian's care--
From every ill and every harm,
Man's shield should be the Christian's arm.
Yet art o'er strength will oft prevail,
And mind must aid where heart may fail!'
Thus musing, oft I roam'd alone,
Where wont the Hell-born Beast to lie;
Till sudden light upon me shone,
And on my hope broke victory!
"Then, Prince, I sought thee with the prayer
To breathe once more my native air;
The license given--the ocean past--
I reach'd the shores of home at last.
Scarce hail'd the old beloved land,
Than huge, beneath the artist's hand,
To every hideous feature true,
The Dragon's monster-model grew.
The dwarf'd, deformed limbs upbore
The lengthen'd body's ponderous load;
The scales the impervious surface wore,
Like links of burnish'd harness, glow'd.
"Life-like, the huge neck seem'd to swell,
And widely, as some porch to hell
You might the horrent jaws survey,
Griesly, and greeding for their prey.
Grim fangs an added terror gave,
Like crags that whiten through a cave.
The very tongue a sword in seeming--
The deep-sunk eyes in sparkles gleaming.
Where the vast body ends, succeed
The serpent spires around it roll'd--
Woe--woe to rider, woe to steed,
Whom coils as fearful e'er enfold!
"All to the awful life was done--
The very hue, so ghastly, won--
The grey, dull tint:--the labour ceased,
It stood--half reptile and half beast!
And now began the mimic chase;
Two dogs I sought, of noblest race,
Fierce, nimble, fleet, and wont to scorn
The wild bull's wrath and levell'd horn;
These, docile to my cheering cry,
I train'd to bound, and rend, and spring,
Now round the Monster-shape to fly,
Now to the Monster-shape to cling!
"And where their gripe the best assails,
The belly left unsheath'd in scales,
I taught the dexterous hounds to hang
And find the spot to fix the fang;
Whilst I, with lance and mailèd garb,
Launch'd on the beast mine Arab barb.
From purest race that Arab came,
And steeds, like men, are fired by fame.
Beneath the spur he chafes to rage;
Onwards we ride in full career--
I seem, in truth, the war to wage--
The monster reels beneath my spear!
"Albeit, when first the _destrier_[9] eyed
The laidly thing, it swerved aside,
Snorted and rear'd--and even they,
The fierce hounds, shrank with startled bay;
I ceased not, till, by custom bold,
After three tedious moons were told,
Both barb and hounds were train'd--nay, more,
Fierce for the fight--then left the shore!
Three days have fleeted since I prest
(Return'd at length) this welcome soil,
Nor once would lay my limbs to rest,
Till wrought the glorious crowning toil.
"For much it moved my soul to know
The unslack'ning curse of that grim foe.
Fresh rent, mens' bones lay bleach'd and bare
Around the hell-worm's swampy lair;
And pity nerved me into steel:--
Advice?--I had a heart to feel,
And strength to dare! So, to the deed.--
I call'd my squires--bestrode my steed,
And with my stalwart hounds, and by
Lone secret paths, we gaily go
Unseen--at least by human eye--
Against a worse than human foe!
"Thou know'st the sharp rock--steep and hoar?--
The abyss?--the chapel glimmering o'er?
Built by the Fearless Master's hand,
The fane looks down on all the land.
Humble and mean that house of prayer--
Yet God hath shrined a wonder there:--
Mother and Child, to whom of old
The Three Kings knelt with gifts, behold!
By three times thirty steps, the shrine
The pilgrim gains--and faint, and dim,
And dizzy with the height, divine
Strength on the sudden springs to him!
"Yawns wide within that holy steep
A mighty cavern dark and deep--
By blessed sunbeam never lit--
Rank foetid swamps engirdle it;
And there by night, and there by day,
Ever at watch, the fiend-worm lay,
Holding the Hell of its abode
Fast by the hallow'd House of God.
And when the pilgrim gladly ween'd
His feet had found the healing way,
Forth from its ambush rush'd the fiend,
And down to darkness dragg'd the prey.
"With solemn soul, that solemn height
I clomb, ere yet I sought the fight--
Kneeling before the cross within,
My heart, confessing, clear'd its sin.
Then, as befits the Christian knight,
I donn'd the spotless surplice white,
And, by the altar, grasp'd the spear:--
So down I strode with conscience clear--
Bade my leal squires afar the deed,
By death or conquest crown'd, await--
Leapt lightly on my lithesome steed,
And gave to God his soldier's fate!
"Before me wide the marshes lay--
Started the hounds with sudden bay--
Aghast the swerving charger slanting
Snorted--then stood abrupt and panting--
For curling there, in coilèd fold,
The Unutterable Beast behold!
Lazily basking in the sun.
Forth sprang the dogs. The fight's begun!
But lo! the hounds in cowering fly
Before the mighty poison-breath--
A yell, most like the jackall's cry,
Howl'd, mingling with that wind of death!
"No halt--I gave one cheering sound;
Lustily springs each dauntless hound--
Swift as the dauntless hounds advance,
Whirringly skirrs my stalwart lance--
Whirringly skirrs; and from the scale
Bounds, as a reed aslant the mail.
Onward--but no!--the craven steed
Shrinks from his lord in that dread need--
Smitten and scared before that eye
Of basilisk horror, and that blast
Of death, it only seeks to fly--
And half the mighty hope is past!
"A moment, and to earth I leapt;
Swift from its sheath the falchion swept;
Swift on that rock-like mail it plied--
The rock-like mail the sword defied:
The monster lash'd its mighty coil--
Down hurl'd--behold me on the soil!
Behold the hell-jaws gaping wide--
When lo! they bound--the flesh is found;
Upon the scaleless parts they spring!
Springs either hound;--the flesh is found--
It roars; the blood-dogs cleave and cling!
"No time to foil its fast'ning foes--
Light, as it writhed, I sprang, and rose;
The all-unguarded place explored,
Up to the hilt I plunged the sword--
Buried one instant in the blood--
The next, upsprang the bubbling flood!
The next, one Vastness spread the plain--
Crush'd down--the victor with the slain;
And all was dark--and on the ground
My life, suspended, lost the sun,
Till waking--lo my squires around--
And the dead foe!--my tale is done."
Then burst, as from a common breast,
The eager laud so long supprest--
A thousand voices, choral-blending,
Up to the vaulted dome ascending--
From groined roof and banner'd wall,
Invisible echoes answering all--
The very Brethren, grave and high,
Forget their state, and join the cry.
"With laurel wreaths his brows be crown'd,
Let throng to throng his triumph tell;
Hail him all Rhodes!"--the Master frown'd,
And raised his hand--and silence fell.
"Well," said that solemn voice, "thy hand
From the wild-beast hath freed the land.
An idol to the People be!
A foe our Order frowns on thee!
For in thy heart, superb and vain,
A hell-worm laidlier than the slain,
To discord which engenders death,
Poisons each thought with baleful breath!
That hell-worm is the stubborn Will--
Oh! What were man and nations worth
If each his own desire fulfil,
And law be banish'd from the earth?
"_Valour_ the Heathen gives to story--
_Obedience_ is the Christian's glory;
And on that soil our Saviour-God
As the meek low-born mortal trod.
We the Apostle-knights were sworn
To laws thy daring laughs to scorn--
Not _fame_, but _duty_ to fulfil--
Our noblest offering--man's wild will.
Vain-glory doth thy soul betray--
Begone--thy conquest is thy loss:
No breast too haughty to obey,
Is worthy of the Christian's cross!"
From their cold awe the crowds awaken,
As with some storm the halls are shaken;
The noble brethren plead for grace--
Mute stands the doom'd, with downward face;
And mutely loosen'd from its band
The badge, and kiss'd the Master's hand,
And meekly turn'd him to depart:
A moist eye follow'd, "To my heart
Come back, my son!"--the Master cries:
"Thy grace a harder fight obtains;
When Valour risks the Christian's prize,
Lo, how Humility regains!"
[In the ballad just presented to the reader, Schiller designed, as he
wrote to Goethe, to depict the old Christian chivalry--half-knightly,
half-monastic. The attempt is strikingly successful; and, even in so
humble a translation, the unadorned simplicity and earnest vigour of a
great poet, enamoured of his subject, may be sufficiently visible to a
discerning critic. "The Fight of the Dragon" appears to us the most
spirited and nervous of all Schiller's ballads, with the single
exception of "The Diver;" and if its interest is less intense than that
of the matchless "Diver," and its descriptions less poetically striking
and effective, its interior meaning or philosophical conception is at
once more profound and more elevated. The main distinction, indeed,
between the ancient ballad and the modern, as revived and recreated by
Goethe and Schiller, is, that the former is a simple narrative, and the
latter a narrative which conveys some intellectual idea--some dim, but
important truth. The one has but the good faith of the minstrel, the
other the high wisdom of the poet. In "The Fight of the Dragon,"
is expressed the moral of that humility which consists in
self-conquest--even merit may lead to vain-glory--and, after vanquishing
the fiercest enemies without, Man has still to contend with his worst
foe,--the pride or disobedience of his own heart. "Every one," as a
recent and acute, but somewhat over-refining critic has remarked, "has
more or less--his own 'fight with the Dragon,'--his own double victory
(without and within) to achieve." The origin of this poem is to be found
in the Annals of the Order of Malta--and the details may be seen in
Vertot's History. The date assigned to the conquest of the Dragon is
1342. Helion de Villeneuve was the name of the Grand Master--that of the
Knight, Dieu-Donné de Gozon. Thevenot declares, that the head of the
monster, (to whatever species it really belonged,) or its effigies, was
still placed over one of the gates of the city in his time.]
[9] War-horse.
* * * * *