Gazul, despairing, issues
From high Villalba's gate,
Cursing the evil fortune
That left him desolate.
Unmoved he in Granada saw
What feuds between the foes
The great Abencerrajes
And the Andallas rose.
He envied not the Moors who stood
In favor with the King!
He did not crave the honors
That rank and office bring.
He only cared that Zaida,
Her soft heart led astray
By lying words of slander,
Had flung his love away.
And thinking on her beauteous face,
Her bearing proud and high,
The bosom of the valiant Moor
Heaved with a mournful sigh.
"And who has brought me this disdain,
And who my hope betrayed,
And thee, the beauteous Zaida,
False to thy purpose made?
And who has caused my spoils of war,
The palm and laurel leaf,
To wither on my forehead, bowed
Beneath the load of grief?'
'Tis that some hearts of treachery black
With lies have crossed thy way,
And changed thee to a lioness,
By hunters brought to bay.
O tongues of malediction!
O slanderers of my fame!
Thieves of my knightly honor!
Ye lay up naught but shame.
Ye are but citadels of fraud,
And castles of deceit;
When ye your sentence pass, ye tread
The law beneath your feet.
May Allah on your cruel plots
Send down the wrath divine,
That ye my sufferings may feel,
In the same plight as mine.
And may ye learn, ye pitiless,
How heavy is the rod
That brings on human cruelty
The chastisement of God.
Ye who profess in word and deed
The path of truth to hold
Are viler than the nightly wolves
That waste the quiet fold."
So forth he rode, that Moorish knight,
Consumed by passion's flame,
Scorned and repulsed by Zaida,
The lovely Moorish dame.
Then spake he to the dancing waves
Of Tagus' holy tide,
"Oh, that thou hadst a tongue, to speak
My story far and wide!
That all might learn, who gaze on thee
At evening, night, or morn,
Westward to happy Portugal,
The sufferings I have borne."