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.”
They vied with each other in filling their capitals with poets and
learned men, and rewarded them with boundless prodigality. Such were the
Moorish kings of Seville of the illustrious line of the Beni Abbad,
“with whom,” says the same writer, “resided fruit and palm-trees and
pomegranates; who became the centre of eloquence in prose and verse;
every day of whose reign was a solemn festivity; whose history abounds
in generous actions and heroic deeds, that will last through surrounding
ages and live forever in the memory of man!”
No place, however, profited more in point of civilization and refinement
by the downfall of the Western Caliphat than Granada. It succeeded to
Cordova in splendor, while it surpassed it in romantic beauty of
situation. The amenity of its climate, where the ardent heats of a
southern summer were tempered by breezes from snow-clad mountains; the
voluptuous repose of its valleys and the bosky luxuriance of its groves
and gardens all awakened sensations of delight, and disposed the mind to
love and poetry. Hence the great number of amatory poets that flourished
in Granada. Hence those amorous canticles breathing of love and war, and
wreathing chivalrous grace round the stern exercise of arms. Those
ballads which still form the pride and delight of Spanish literature are
but the echoes of amatory and chivalric lays, which once delighted the
Moslem courts of Andalus; and in which a modern historian of Granada
pretends to find the origin of the _rima Castellana_ and the type of the
“gay science” of the troubadours.[20]
Poetry was cultivated in Granada by both sexes. “Had Allah,” says
Ash-Shakandi, “bestowed no other boon on Granada than that of making it
the birthplace of so many poetesses, that alone would be sufficient for
its glory.”
Among the most famous of these was Hafsah; renowned, says the old
chronicler, for beauty, talents, nobility, and wealth. We have a mere
relic of her poetry in some verses, addressed to her lover, Ahmed,
recalling an evening passed together in the garden of Maumal.
“Allah has given us a happy night, such as he never vouchsafes to the
wicked and the ignoble. We have beheld the cypresses of Maumal gently
bowing their heads before the mountain breeze,--the sweet perfumed
breeze that smelt of gillyflowers; the dove murmured her love among the
trees; the sweet basil inclined its boughs to the limpid brook.”
The garden of Maumal was famous among the Moors for its rivulets, its
fountains, its flowers, and above all, its cypresses. It had its name
from a vizier of Abdallah, grandson of Aben Habuz, and Sultan of
Granada. Under the administration of this vizier many of the noblest
public works were executed. He constructed an aqueduct by which water
was brought from the mountains of Alfacar to irrigate the hills and
orchards north of the city. He planted a public walk with cypress-trees,
and “made delicious gardens for the solace of the melancholy Moors.”
“The name of Maumal,” says Alcántara, “ought to be preserved in Granada
in letters of gold.” Perhaps it is as well preserved by being associated
with the garden he planted; and by being mentioned in the verses of
Hafsah. How often does a casual word from a poet confer immortality!
Perhaps the reader may be curious to learn something of the story of
Hafsah and her lover, thus connected with one of the beautiful
localities of Granada. The following are all the particulars I have been
able to rescue out of the darkness and oblivion which have settled upon
the brightest names and geniuses of Moslem Spain.
Ahmed and Hafsah flourished in the sixth century of the Hegira; the
twelfth of the Christian Era. Ahmed was the son of the Alcayde of Alcala
la Real. His father designed him for public and military life, and would
have made him his lieutenant; but the youth was of a poetical
temperament, and preferred a life of lettered ease in the delightful
abodes of Granada. Here he surrounded himself by objects of taste in the
arts, and by the works of the learned; he divided his time between study
and social enjoyment. He was fond of the sports of the field, and kept
horses, hawks, and hounds. He devoted himself to literature, became
renowned for erudition, and his compositions in prose and verse were
extolled for their beauty, and in the mouths of every one.
Of a tender, susceptible heart, and extremely sensible to female charms,
he became the devoted lover of Hafsah. The passion was mutual, and for
once the course of true love appeared to run smooth. The lovers were
both young, equal in merit, fame, rank, and fortune, enamored of each
other’s genius as well as person, and inhabiting a region formed to be a
realm of love and poetry. A poetical intercourse was carried on between
them that formed the delight of Granada. They were continually
interchanging verses and epistles; “the poetry of which,” says the
Arabian writer, Al Makkari, “was like the language of doves.”
In the height of their happiness a change took place in the government
of Granada. It was the time when the Almohades, a Berber tribe of Mount
Atlas, had acquired the control of Moslem Spain, and removed the seat of
government from Cordova to Morocco. The Sultan Abdelmuman governed Spain
through his Walis and Alcaydes; and his son, Sidi Abu Said, was made
Wali of Granada. He governed in his father’s name with royal state and
splendor, and with despotic sway. Being a stranger in the country, and a
Moor by birth, he sought to strengthen himself by drawing round him
popular persons of the Arab race; and to this effect made Ahmed, who was
then in the zenith of his fame and popularity, his vizier. Ahmed would
have declined the post, but the Wali was peremptory. Its duties were
irksome to him, and he spurned at its restraint. On a hawking-party,
with some of his gay companions, he gave way to his poetic vein,
exulting in his breaking away from the thraldom of a despotic master
like a hawk from the jesses of the falconer, to follow the soaring
impulses of his soul.
His words were repeated to Sidi Abu Said. “Ahmed,” said the informant,
“spurns at restraint and scoffs at thy authority.” The poet was
instantly dismissed from office. The loss of an irksome post was no
grievance to one of his joyous temperament; but he soon discovered the
real cause of his removal. The Wali was his rival. He had seen and
become enamored of Hafsah. What was worse, Hafsah was dazzled with the
conquest she had made.
For a time Ahmed treated the matter with ridicule; and appealed to the
prejudice existing between the Arab and Moorish races. Sidi Abu Said was
of a dark olive complexion. “How canst thou endure that black man?” said
he, scornfully. “By Allah, for twenty dinars I can buy thee a better
than he in the slave-market.”
The scoff reached the ears of Sidi Abu Said and rankled in his heart.
At other times Ahmed gave way to grief and tenderness, recalling past
scenes of happiness, reproaching Hafsah with her inconstancy, and
warning her in despairing accents that she would be the cause of his
death. His words were unheeded. The idea of having the son of the Sultan
for a lover had captivated the imagination of the poetess.
Maddened by jealousy and despair, Ahmed joined in a conspiracy against
the ruling dynasty. It was discovered, and the conspirators fled from
Granada. Some escaped to a castle on the mountains, Ahmed took refuge in
Malaga, where he concealed himself, intending to embark for Valencia. He
was discovered, loaded with chains, and thrown into a dungeon, to abide
the decision of Sidi Abu Said.
He was visited in prison by a nephew, who has left on record an account
of the interview. The youth was moved to tears at seeing his illustrious
relative, late so prosperous and honored, fettered like a malefactor.
“Why dost thou weep?” said Ahmed. “Are these tears shed for me? For me,
who have enjoyed all that the world could give? Weep not for me. I have
had my share of happiness; banqueted on the daintiest fare; quaffed out
of crystal cups; slept on beds of down; been arrayed in the richest
silks and brocades; ridden the fleetest steeds; enjoyed the loves of the
fairest maidens. Weep not for me. My present reverse is but the
inevitable course of fate. I have committed acts which render pardon
hopeless. I must await my punishment.”
His presentiment was correct. The vengeance of Sidi Abu Said was only to
be satisfied by the blood of his rival, and the unfortunate Ahmed was
beheaded at Malaga, in the month Jumadi, in the year 559 of the Hegira
(April, 1164). When the news was brought to the fickle-hearted Hafsah,
she was struck with sorrow and remorse, and put on mourning; recalling
his warning words, and reproaching herself with being the cause of his
death.
* * * * *
Of the after fortunes of Hafsah I have no further trace than that she
died in Morocco, in 1184, outliving both her lovers, for Sidi Abu Said
died in Morocco of the plague in 1175. A memorial of his residence in
Granada remained in a palace which he built on the banks of the Xenil.
The garden of Maumal, the scene of the early lives of Ahmed and Hafsah,
is no longer in existence. Its site may be found by the antiquary in
poetical research.[21]
AN EXPEDITION IN QUEST OF A DIPLOMA
One of the most important occurrences in the domestic life of the
Alhambra, was the departure of Manuel, the nephew of Doña Antonia, for
Malaga, to stand examination as a physician. I have already informed the
reader that, on his success in obtaining a degree depended in a great
measure the union and future fortunes of himself and his cousin Dolores;
at least so I was privately informed by Mateo Ximenes, and various
circumstances concurred to corroborate his information. Their courtship,
however, was carried on very quietly and discreetly, and I scarce think
I should have discovered it, if I had not been put on the alert by the
all-observant Mateo.
In the present instance, Dolores was less on the reserve, and had busied
herself for several days in fitting out honest Manuel for his
expedition. All his clothes had been arranged and packed in the
neatest order, and above all she had worked a smart Andalusian
travelling-jacket, for him with her own hands. On the morning appointed
for his departure, a stout mule on which he was to perform the journey
was paraded at the portal of the Alhambra, and Tio Polo (Uncle Polo), an
old invalid soldier, attended to caparison him. This veteran was one of
the curiosities of the place. He had a leathern lantern visage, tanned
in the tropics, a long Roman nose, and a black beetle eye. I had
frequently observed him reading, apparently with intense interest, an
old parchment-bound volume; sometimes he would be surrounded by a group
of his brother invalids; some seated on the parapets, some lying on the
grass, listening with fixed attention, while he read slowly and
deliberately out of his favorite work, sometimes pausing to explain or
expound for the benefit of his less enlightened auditors.
I took occasion one day to inform myself of this ancient book, which
appeared to be his _vade mecum_, and found it to be an odd volume of the
works of Padre Benito Geronymo Feyjoo; and that one which treats about
the Magic of Spain, the mysterious caves of Salamanca and Toledo, the
Purgatory of San Patricio (St. Patrick), and other mystic subjects of
the kind. From that time I kept my eye upon the veteran.
On the present occasion I amused myself with watching him fit out the
steed of Manuel with all the forecast of an old campaigner. First he
took a considerable time in adjusting to the back of the mule a cumbrous
saddle of antique fashion, high in front and behind, with Moorish
stirrups like shovels; the whole looking like a relic of the old armory
of the Alhambra; then a fleecy sheep-skin was accommodated to the deep
seat of the saddle; then a maleta, neatly packed by the hand of Dolores,
was buckled behind; then a manta was thrown over it to serve either as
cloak or couch; then the all-important alforjas, carefully stocked with
provant, were hung in front, together with the bota, or leathern bottle
for either wine or water, and lastly the trabucho, which the old soldier
slung behind, giving it his benediction. It was like the fitting out in
old times of a Moorish cavalier for a foray or a joust in the
Vivarrambla. A number of the lazzaroni of the fortress had gathered
round, with some of the invalids, all looking on, all offering their
aid, and all giving advice, to the great annoyance of Tio Polo.
When all was ready Manuel took leave of the household; Tio Polo held his
stirrup while he mounted, adjusted the girths and saddle, and cheered
him off in military style; then turning to Dolores, who stood admiring
her cavalier as he trotted off, “Ah Dolorocita,” exclaimed he, with a
nod and a wink, “_es muy guapo Manuelito in su Xaqueta_,” (Ah Dolores,
Manuel is mighty fine in his jacket.) The little damsel blushed and
laughed, and ran into the house.
Days elapsed without tidings from Manuel, though he had promised to
write. The heart of Dolores began to misgive her. Had anything happened
to him on the road? Had he failed in his examination? A circumstance
occurred in her little household to add to her uneasiness and fill her
mind with foreboding. It was almost equal to the escapado of her pigeon.
Her tortoise-shell cat eloped at night and clambered to the tiled roof
of the Alhambra. In the dead of the night there was a fearful
caterwauling; some grimalkin was uncivil to her; then there was a
scramble; then a clapper-clawing; then both parties rolled off the roof
and tumbled from a great height among the trees on the hill-side.
Nothing more was seen or heard of the fugitive, and poor Dolores
considered it but the prelude to greater calamities.
At the end of ten days, however, Manuel returned in triumph, duly
authorized to kill or cure; and all Dolores’ cares were over. There was
a general gathering in the evening of the humble friends and hangers-on
of Dame Antonio to congratulate her and to pay their respects to _el
Señor Medico_, who, peradventure, at some future day, might have all
their lives in his hands. One of the most important of these guests was
old Tio Polo; and I gladly seized the occasion to prosecute my
acquaintance with him. “Oh Señor,” cried Dolores, “you who are so eager
to learn all the old histories of the Alhambra, Tio Polo knows more
about them than any one else about the place. More than Mateo Ximenes
and his whole family put together.” _Vaya_--_Vaya_--Tio Polo, tell the
Señor all those stories you told us one evening, about enchanted Moors,
and the haunted bridge over the Darro, and the old stone pomegranates,
that have been there since the days of King Chico.
It was some time before the old invalid could be brought into a
narrative vein. He shook his head--they were all idle tales; not worthy
of being told to a cavallero like myself. It was only by telling some
stories of the kind myself I at last got him to open his budget. It was
a whimsical farrago, partly made up of what he had heard in the
Alhambra, partly of what he had read in Padre Feyjoo. I will endeavor to
give the reader the substance of it, but I will not promise to give it
in the very words of Tio Polo.
THE LEGEND OF THE ENCHANTED SOLDIER
Everybody has heard of the Cave of St. Cyprian at Salamanca, where in
old times judicial astronomy, necromancy, chiromancy, and other dark and
damnable arts were secretly taught by an ancient sacristan; or, as some
will have it, by the devil himself, in that disguise. The cave has long
been shut up and the very site of it forgotten; though, according to
tradition, the entrance was somewhere about where the stone cross stands
in the small square of the seminary of Carvajal; and this tradition
appears in some degree corroborated by the circumstances of the
following story.
There was at one time a student of Salamanca, Don Vicente by name, of
that merry but mendicant class, who set out on the road to learning
without a penny in pouch for the journey, and who, during college
vacations, beg from town to town and village to village to raise funds
to enable them to pursue their studies through the ensuing term. He was
now about to set forth on his wanderings; and being somewhat musical,
slung on his back a guitar with which to amuse the villagers, and pay
for a meal or a night’s lodgings.
As he passed by the stone cross in the seminary square, he pulled off
his hat and made a short invocation to St. Cyprian, for good luck; when
casting his eyes upon the earth, he perceived something glitter at the
foot of the cross. On picking it up, it proved to be a seal-ring of
mixed metal, in which gold and silver appeared to be blended. The seal
bore as a device two triangles crossing each other, so as to form a
star. This device is said to be a cabalistic sign, invented by King
Solomon the Wise, and of mighty power in all cases of enchantment; but
the honest student, being neither sage nor conjurer, knew nothing of the
matter. He took the ring as a present from St. Cyprian in reward of his
prayer; slipped it on his finger, made a bow to the cross, and strumming
his guitar, set off merrily on his wandering.
The life of a mendicant student in Spain is not the most miserable in
the world; especially if he has any talent at making himself agreeable.
He rambles at large from village to village, and city to city,
where-ever curiosity or caprice may conduct him. The country curates,
who, for the most part, have been mendicant students in their time, give
him shelter for the night, and a comfortable meal, and often enrich him
with several quartos, or halfpence in the morning. As he presents
himself from door to door in the streets of the cities, he meets with no
harsh rebuff, no chilling contempt, for there is no disgrace attending
his mendicity, many of the most learned men in Spain having commenced
their career in this manner; but if, like the student in question, he is
a good-looking varlet and a merry companion; and, above all, if he can
play the guitar, he is sure of a hearty welcome among the peasants, and
smiles and favors from their wives and daughters.
In this way, then, did our ragged and musical son of learning make his
way over half the kingdom; with the fixed determination to visit the
famous city of Granada before his return. Sometimes he was gathered for
the night into the fold of some village pastor; sometimes he was
sheltered under the humble but hospitable roof of the peasant. Seated at
the cottage-door with his guitar, he delighted the simple folk with his
ditties; or striking up a fandango or bolero, set the brown country lads
and lasses dancing in the mellow twilight. In the morning he departed
with kind words from host and hostess, and kind looks and, peradventure,
a squeeze of the hand from the daughter.
At length he arrived at the great object of his musical vagabondizing,
the far-famed city of Granada, and hailed with wonder and delight its
Moorish towers, its lovely Vega, and its snowy mountains glistening
through a summer atmosphere. It is needless to say with what eager
curiosity he entered its gates and wandered through its streets, and
gazed upon its Oriental monuments. Every female face peering through a
window or beaming from a balcony was to him a Zorayda or a Zelinda, nor
could he meet a stately dame on the Alameda but he was ready to fancy
her a Moorish princess, and to spread his student’s robe beneath her
feet.
His musical talent, his happy humor, his youth and his good looks, won
him a universal welcome in spite of his ragged robes, and for several
days he led a gay life in the old Moorish capital and its environs. One
of his occasional haunts was the fountain of Avellanos, in the valley of
Darro. It is one of the popular resorts of Granada, and has been so
since the days of the Moors; and here the student had an opportunity of
pursuing his studies of female beauty; a branch of study to which he was
a little prone.