By WALLACE BRUCE.
“The burning sun of Syria had not yet attained its highest point in
the horizon, when a knight of the Red Cross, who had left his distant
northern home, and joined the host of the Crusaders in Palestine, was
pacing slowly along the sandy deserts which lie in the vicinity of the
Dead Sea, or as it is called, the Lake Asphalites, where the waves of
the Jordan pour themselves into an inland sea, from which there is no
discharge of waters.”
This is the graphic opening of “The Talisman.” The steel clad pilgrim
was entering upon that great plain, once watered even as the Garden of
the Lord, now an arid and sterile wilderness, sloping away to the Dead
Sea, which hides beneath its sluggish waves the once proud cities of
Sodom and Gomorrah;—a dark mass of water “Which holds no living fish in
its bosom, bears no skiff on its surface, and sends no tribute to the
ocean.” It was a scene of desolation still testifying to the just wrath
of the Almighty. As in the days of Moses, “The whole land was brimstone
and salt; it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth thereon.”
The first sentence of the chapter revealed the descriptive and artistic
power of the novelist, for the desolation is made more desolate by the
introduction of the solitary horseman, journeying slowly through the
flitting sand, under the noontide splendor of the eastern sun.
Almost a century has passed since the triumph of the first crusade. The
Latin Kingdom, founded by its leaders, had lasted only eighty-eight
years. Jerusalem is again in the hands of the Saracens. The crescent
gleams on the Mosque of St. Omar. The cross has been torn from her
temples, her shrines profaned, and the worshipers of the Holy Sepulcher
murdered or exiled. The second crusade had been a failure, and its
history a series of disasters. Thousands perished in the long march
across Asia Minor. Those who reached Palestine undertook the siege of
Damascus, but the attempt was disastrous. In 1187 a powerful leader
of the East appeared in the high-souled and chivalrous Saladin. By
wise counsel he united the factions of the Mohammedans, which had
been at variance for two hundred years; and on the arrival of the
third crusade, with which event we are now dealing, he was enabled to
present a solid front of warriors “like unto the sand of the desert in
multitude.”
The land, where “peace and good will to men” had been proclaimed by the
voices of angels, and emphasized by the blessed words of the Son of
God, was again converted into a vast tournament field for the armies of
Europe and Asia: aye more, even in the mountain passes that guard the
Holy City, the mission of the crusaders was sacrificed to petty insults
and rivalries. Richard the Lion-hearted and King Philip of France were
repeating the old story of Achilles and Agamemnon. The military orders
of the Knights of the Temple and the Knights of St. John, which had
grown up in Jerusalem, founded as fraternities devoted to works of
mercy in behalf of poor pilgrims, had become powerful rivals of each
other and the clergy, and by intrigue and dissension purposely fomented
the discord. According to the historian Michaud, “On the one side were
the French, the German, the Templars and the Genoese; on the other the
English, the Pisans, and the Knights of St. John.”
These are the historical circumstances with which Scott has to deal;
and it is on a mission from such a council, made up of discordant
factions, convened during the sickness of Richard, that we find the
Knight of the Red Cross, or as he is afterward styled, Kenneth the
Scot, bearing a message to the celebrated Hermit of Engaddi. His
adventures by the way are as romantic as any recorded in the Knights
of the Round-Table; for, as he directed his course toward a cluster of
palm trees, he saw suddenly emerge therefrom a Saracen chief mounted
on a fleet Arabian horse. As they drew near each other they prepared
for battle, each after the manner of his own country. “On the desert,”
according to an Eastern proverb, “no man meets a friend.” The heavy
armor of the crusader and his powerful horse are more than an even
match for the wily Saracen. The Scottish knight might have been likened
in the conflict to a bold rock in the sea, and the swift assaults
of the Eastern warrior to the waves dashing against it only to be
broken into foam. After a long struggle, which was worthy of a larger
audience, the Saracen calls a truce, and the Mohammedan and Christian,
so lately in deadly conflict, make their way side by side, each
respecting the other’s courage, to the well under the clustered palms.
The student of history will find in the description of this
hand-to-hand conflict an object-lesson of the garb and manners of the
Eastern and Western races; and will learn more in the conversation that
follows, as they partake of their scanty meal, of the sentiments and
customs of the hostile races than can be gathered from the pages of any
history with which I am acquainted: for Sir Walter had the marvelous
faculty of absorbing history. He saw everything so vividly that he was
able to reproduce it in living forms. As we read his description, we
sit with them under the palms; we hear them now responding in courtesy,
and again in sharp discussion, as allusion is made to their respective
religions or modes of life; and, as they resume their journey, we feel
grateful to the novelist for the beautiful figure which he puts in
the mouth of the Scottish knight in answer to the Saracen’s boast of
harem-life as contrasted with a Christian household.
“That diamond signet,” says the knight, “which thou
wearest on thy finger, thou holdest it doubtless of
inestimable value?” “Bagdad can not show the like,”
replied the Saracen; “But what avails it to our
purpose?” “Much,” replied the Frank, “as thou shalt
thyself confess. Take my war-axe and dash the stone
into twenty shivers; would each fragment be as valuable
as the original gem, or would they, all collected, bear
the tenth part of its estimation?”
“That is a child’s question,” answered the Saracen;
“the fragments of a stone would not equal the entire
jewel in the degree of hundreds to one.”
“Saracen,” replied the Christian warrior, “the love
which a true knight binds on one only, fair and
faithful, is the gem entire; the affection thou
flingest among thy enslaved wives, and half-wedded
slaves, is worthless, comparatively, as the sparkling
shivers of the broken diamond.”
We find both soldiers courteous in conversation, and their example
teaches a good lesson to modern controversy; but the “courtesy of the
Christian seemed to flow rather from a good natured sense of what was
due to others; that of the Moslem, from a high feeling of what was
to be expected from himself. The manners of the Eastern warrior were
grave, graceful and decorous;” he might have been compared to “his
sheeny and crescent-shaped saber, with its narrow and light, but bright
and keen, Damascus blade, contrasted with the long and ponderous Gothic
war-sword which was flung unbuckled on the same sod.”
They pursue their march to the grotto of the Hermit of Engaddi; a man
respected alike by Christian and Mohammedan; revered by the Latins
for his austere devotion, and by the Arabs on account of his symptoms
of insanity, which they ascribed to inspiration. The hermit, once
a crusader, was the man whom Kenneth was to meet. He delivers his
message; but at night, while the Saracen slept, Kenneth is conducted to
a subterraneous, but elegantly carved chapel, where he meets by chance
with the noble sister of King Richard, who with Richard’s newly wedded
wife, had come hither to pray for the king’s recovery. She drops a
rose at the knight’s feet confirming the approbation which her smiles
had already expressed to him in camp, and the story of true love, not
destined to run smoothly, is fairly commenced. But as with “Count
Robert of Paris,” “The Talisman” is not so much a romance as a picture
of the strife and jealousy of haughty and rival leaders. Its value, as
a historical novel, lies in the portrayal of these discordant elements.
We may read the best history of the crusades, page by page, line by
line, only to forget the next month, or the next year, everything save
the issue of the long struggle; but “The Talisman,” by its wondrous
reality, makes a lasting impression upon our minds. We see Richard
tossing upon his couch, impatient of his fever and protracted delays.
We see the Marquis of Montserrat, and the Grand Master of the Knights
Templar walking together in close-whispered conspiracy. We see Leopold,
the Grand Duke of Austria, lifting his own banner, with overweening
pride, by the side of England’s standard. We see Richard dashing aside
the attendants of his sick bed, half-clad, rushing forth to avenge the
insult, splintering the staff, and trampling upon the Austrian flag. We
stand with Kenneth under the starlight, guarding alone the dignity of
England’s banner, but decoyed away in an unlucky hour by the ring of
King Richard’s sister, which had been obtained by artifice. We see the
flag stolen in that fatal absence, and the noble knight condemned to
death, to be saved only by miracle from the fierce wrath of Richard. He
is given as a present to the Arabian physician whose art had restored
the king to health. We see him again with Richard in the disguise
of a Nubian slave. We see a strolling Saracen with poisoned dagger
attempting the life of Richard, but saved by the faithful Kenneth. We
find Richard considering in his mind the giving of his royal sister
in marriage to Saladin; an affair which fortunately needed the lady’s
consent, who had in her veins too much of the proud Plantagenet blood
to know the meaning of compulsion. We see the tournament which decided
the treachery of Conrad, and the triumph of Kenneth, who turns out to
be no other than the Earl of Huntingdon, heir of the Scottish throne.
The comrade of Kenneth, and the physician who waited upon the king,
chances to be the same person, and no less renowned a hero than the
Emperor Saladin, who sends as a nuptial present to Kenneth and Edith
Plantagenet the celebrated talisman by which he had wrought so many
notable cures; which, according to Scott, is still in existence in the
family of Sir Simon of Lee.
This tale of the crusaders is so complete that we need after closing
the volume only a few lines of history to complete the record. The
city of Ptolemais was captured after a three years’ siege. More than
one hundred skirmishes and nine great battles were fought under its
walls. Both parties were animated by religious zeal. It is said
that the King of Jerusalem marched to battle with the books of the
Evangelists borne before him; and that Saladin often paused upon the
field of battle to recite a prayer, or read a chapter from the Koran.
Philip finally returns to France. Richard remains in command of one
hundred thousand soldiers. He conquers the Saracens in battle, repairs
the fortifications of Jaffa and Ascalon, but in the intoxication
of pleasure forgets the conquest of Jerusalem. His victories were
fruitless. He obtained from Saladin merely a truce of three years
and eight months, “which insured to pilgrims the right of entering
Jerusalem untaxed,” and, without fulfilling his promise of striking
his lance against the gates of the Holy City, sets off on his homeward
journey, to be taken captive and held a prisoner in a Tyrolese castle.
In brief the history of the Third Crusade is that of a house divided
against itself.
As “The Betrothed” brought us back from Constantinople and Palestine
to Merrie England, so “Ivanhoe” transports the reader, and some of
the prominent actors of the drama, from the eastern shores of the
Mediterranean to the pleasant district of the West Riding of Yorkshire,
watered by the river Don, “where flourished in ancient times those
bands of gallant outlaws, whose deeds have been rendered so popular in
English song.”
The prominent historical features which Scott illustrates in the
romantic story of “Ivanhoe” are the domestic and civil relations
existing between the Saxon and the Norman about the year 1196, when the
return of Richard the First from Palestine and captivity was an event
rather hoped for than expected; and an event _not_ hoped for by King
John and his followers.
The Saxon spirit had been well nigh subdued by the strict and unjust
laws imposed by the Norman kings. For one hundred and thirty years
Norman-French had been the language of the court, the language of law,
of chivalry and justice. The laws of the chase and the curfew,—and
many others unknown to the Saxon constitution,—had been placed upon
the necks of the inhabitants of the soil. With few exceptions the race
of Saxon princes had been extirpated; and it was not until the reign
of Edward III. that England became thoroughly united as one people.
The English language at the close of the twelfth century was not yet
born. The Saxon mother and Norman father were not yet wedded; the two
languages were gradually getting acquainted with each other; or, as
Scott has logically expressed it, “the necessary intercourse between
the lords of the soil, and those oppressed inferior beings by whom that
soil was cultivated, occasioned the formation of a dialect, compounded
betwixt the French and the Anglo-Saxon, in which they could render
themselves mutually intelligible to each other; and from this necessity
arose by degrees the structure of our present English language, in
which the speech of the victors and the vanquished has been so happily
blended together, and which has since been so richly improved by
importations from the classical languages, and from those spoken by
the southern nations of Europe.” In the first chapter—and it is always
well to read carefully the first chapter of Scott—we are introduced
to a swine-herd, born thrall of Cedric of Rotherwood, one of the few
powerful Saxon families existing in England at the time of our story.
He is attended by a domestic clown, or jester, maintained at that time
in the houses of the wealthy. With an art and unity like Shakspere,
Scott emphasizes at the very outset the chief historic feature of his
story, by putting the following conversation in the mouths of these
Saxon menials:
“How call you those grunting brutes running about on
their four legs?” demanded Wamba, the jester.
“Swine,” said the herd.
“And swine is good Saxon,” said the jester; “but how
call you it when quartered?”
“Pork,” answered the cow-herd.
“And pork,” said Wamba, “is good Norman-French; and
so when the brute lives, and is in the charge of a
Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a
Norman, and is called _pork_, when she is carried to
the castle-hall to feast among the nobles. Nay, I can
tell you more,” said Wamba, in the same tone, “there is
Alderman Ox, who continues to hold his Saxon epithet,
while he is under the charge of serfs and bondsmen such
as thou, but becomes _beef_, a fiery French gallant,
when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are
destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf, too, becomes
Monsieur de _Veau_ in the like manner; he is Saxon when
he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he
becomes matter of enjoyment.”
The third chapter brings together a strange gathering under the roof
of the hospitable Cedric: Brian de Bois Gilbert, a haughty Templar;
Prior Aymer, of free and jovial character; a poor Palmer, just returned
from the Holy Land, and a Jew known as Isaac of York; all journeying
on their way to a tournament to be held a few miles distant at Ashby
de la Zouche. Lady Rowena, descended from the noble line of Alfred,
graced the table with her presence, a ward destined by Cedric, but not
by fate, to be the wife of Athelstane,—a Saxon descended from Edward
the Confessor: in the furtherance of which idea his only son had been
exiled, when it became known that he aspired to the hand of the Saxon
beauty.
At the tournament the remaining characters of the drama are introduced:
King John, with his retinue; Richard the Lion-Hearted, under the
disguise of the “Black Knight;” Rebecca, the Jewess; the proud baron
Front de Bœuf; Robin Hood, the brave outlaw, under the name of Loxley;
and Ivanhoe, the poor pilgrim, who wins the prize at the tournament
and crowns Rowena Queen of Beauty. At the close of the second day’s
tournament, in which Ivanhoe is again successful, a letter is handed
to King John with the brief sentence, “Take heed to yourself, for
the devil is unchained.” It was like the handwriting on the wall of
Belshazzar’s palace, and proclaimed the end of his kingdom.
Cedric, Rowena, Isaac, Rebecca, Athelstane and Ivanhoe depart their
several ways from the tournament, but are captured and taken to Front
de Bœuf’s castle. Cedric escapes in the guise of a monk. The castle is
stormed, and now occurs one of the most dramatic pictures in the pages
of romantic literature, destined to reveal to all time the undying
hate between the Saxon and the Norman. A Saxon woman, by name Ulrica,
had lived for years in Front de Bœuf’s castle. She had seen her father
and seven brothers killed in defending their home, but she “remained
to administer ignominiously to the murderers of her family. She used
the seductions of her beauty to arm the son against the father; she
heated drunken revelry into murderous broil, and stained with a
parricide the banqueting hall of the conquerors.” She had sold body
and soul to obtain revenge for Norman cruelties; and now, grown old
in servitude, incensed by the contempt of her masters, she determines
upon a deed, which will make the ears of men tingle while the name of
Saxon is remembered. She fires the castle and appears on a turret in
the guise of one of the ancient furies, yelling forth a war-song. “Her
long, dishevelled grey hair flows back from her uncovered head; the
inebriated delight of gratified vengeance contends in her eyes with the
fire of insanity; and she brandishes the distaff which she holds in her
hand, as if she were one of the fatal sisters, who spin and abridge
the thread of human life. At length, with a terrific crash, the whole
turret gives way, and she perishes in the flames which consume her
tyrant.”
There is another historic feature of the times emphasized in this
romance: the oppression of the Jews in England during these cruel and
adventurous times. The character of the race is vividly portrayed in
Isaac of York, in which masterly delineation Scott seems truer to
nature than Shakspere in the character of Shylock. Rebecca, his noble
and beautiful daughter, is the type of all that is pure and womanly.
Her words have the eloquence of the poets and prophets of old: “Know
proud knight,” she says, “we number names amongst us to which your
boasted Northern nobility is as the gourd compared with the cedar—names
that ascend far back to those high times when the Divine Presence shook
the mercy seat between the cherubim, and which derive their splendor
from no earthly prince, but from the awful Voice, which bade their
fathers be nearest of the congregation to the vision; such were the
princes of the house of Jacob; now such no more. They are trampled down
like the shorn grass, and mixed with the mire of the ways; yet there
are those among them who shame not such high descent, and of such shall
be the daughter of Isaac, the son of Adonikam. Farewell! I envy not
thy blood-won honors; I envy not thy barbarous descent from northern
heathens; I envy not thy faith, which is ever in thy mouth, but never
in thy heart nor in thy practice.”
The description of Friar Tuck entertaining King Richard in disguise
is in Scott’s happiest vein; and Robin Hood, with his bold outlaws,
shares the honors gracefully with knights and nobles. But it is alike
unnecessary and unprofitable to attempt a condensation of “Ivanhoe.”
No outline can convey the beauty of a finished picture. It is not to
be taken at second hand. It is only for us to indicate its relation
to history; and it will suffice to say that King Richard was gladly
welcomed by the English people, and that Ivanhoe was wedded to the
beautiful Rowena.
But, do I hear the reader ask, what becomes of the fair Jewess? Scott
has answered the question so beautifully in his preface that I borrow
his own words—a passage to my mind unsurpassed in English prose: “The
character of the fair Jewess found so much favor in the eyes of some
fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when arranging the
fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned the hand of
Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less interesting Rowena. But, not
to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered such an union almost
impossible, the author may, in passing, observe, that he thinks a
character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp, is degraded rather than
exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such
is not the recompense which Providence has deemed worthy of suffering
merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal doctrine to teach young persons,
the most common readers of romance, that rectitude of conduct and of
principle are either naturally allied with, or adequately rewarded
by, the gratification of our passions, or attainment of our wishes.
In a word, if a virtuous and self-denied character is dismissed with
temporal wealth, greatness, rank, or the indulgence of such a rashly
formed or ill-assorted passion as that of Rebecca for Ivanhoe, the
reader will be apt to say, ‘Verily, virtue has had its reward.’ But
a glance on the great picture of life will show that the duties of
self-denial and the sacrifice of passion to principle are seldom thus
remunerated; and that the internal consciousness of their high-minded
discharge of duty produces on their own reflections a more adequate
recompense in the form of that peace which the world can not give or
take away.”