not only many Hebrew words are mixed with the old Spanish, but that,
_prô dolor!_ the black and stinking Jewish blood had been mingled with
the most pure blood of the Spaniards. (p. 96.) They were very anxious,
he says, to intermarry, and spoil the pure blood. And he adds, that
the Spaniards call them _putos_, quia _putant_. “But,” says Sir Thomas
Browne, “that an unsavoury odour is gentilitious, or national to the
Jews, we cannot well concede. And if, (according to good relations,)
where they may freely speak it, they forbear not to boast that there
are at present many thousand Jews in Spain, France, and England, and
some dispensed withal even to the degree of priesthood, it is a matter
very considerable, and could they be smelled out, would much advantage
not only the church of Christ, but also the coffers of princes.—The
ground that begat or propagated this assertion might be the distasteful
averseness of the Christian from the Jew upon the villainy of that fact,
which made them abominable, and ‘stink in the nostrils of all men.’
Which real practice and metaphorical expression did after proceed into
a literal construction, but was a fraudulent illation; for such an evil
savour their father Jacob acknowledged in himself, when he said his
sons had made him stink in the land, that is, to be abominable unto
the inhabitants thereof.—Another cause is urged by Campegius, and much
received by Christians; that this ill savour is a curse derived upon them
by Christ, and stands as a badge or brand of a generation that crucified
their _Salvator_. But this is a conceit without all warrant, and an easy
way to take off dispute in what point of obscurity soever.” _Vulgar
Errors_, Book iv. ch. 10.
The Mahommedans also hold a like opinion of the unsavouriness of the
Jews, and account for it by this legend which is given by Sale. “Some of
the children of Israel abandoned their dwellings because of a pestilence,
or, as others say, to avoid serving in a religious war; but as they fled,
God struck them all dead in a certain valley. About eight days or more
after, when their bodies were corrupted, the Prophet Ezekiel happening
to pass that way, at the sight wept; whereupon God said to him, ‘Call
to them, O Ezekiel, and I will restore them to life.’ And accordingly,
on the prophet’s call, they all arose, and lived several years after;
but they retained the colour and stench of dead corpses as long as they
lived, and the clothes they wore were changed as black as pitch, which
qualities they transmitted to their posterity.”
One of our own travellers[7] tells us of a curious practical application
of this belief in Barbary. “The Moors of Tangier,” he says, “when they
want rain, and have prayed in vain for it, set the Jews to work, saying,
that though God would not grant it to the prayers of the faithful, he
would to the Jews, in order to be rid of their stink.” Ludicrous as
this is, South has a passage concerning the Jews, which is little more
reasonable, in one of his sermons. “The truth is,” he says, “they were
all along a cross, odd, untoward sort of people, and such as God seems to
have chosen, and (as the Prophets sometimes phrase it) to have espoused
to himself, upon the very same account that Socrates espoused Xantippe,
only for her extreme ill conditions, above all that he could possibly
find or pick out of that sex: and so the fittest argument both to
exercise and declare his admirable patience to the world.”—Vol. i. 421.
* * * * *
_A yoke
Of iron servitude oppress’d and gall’d
The children of the soil._—I. p. 1.
Of the condition of slaves under the Spanish Wisigoths, I have given an
account in the Introduction of the Chronicle of the Cid. This also, like
the persecution of the Jews, must greatly have facilitated the Moorish
conquest. Another facilitating cause was, that notwithstanding their
frequent civil disturbances, they had in great measure ceased to be a
warlike people. The many laws in the Fuero Juzgo, for compelling men to
military service, prove this. These laws are full of complaints that the
people would avoid the service if they could. Habits of settled life
seem throughout Europe to have effeminated the northern conquerors, till
the Normans renovated the race, and the institutions of chivalry and the
crusades produced a new era.
* * * * *
_Thou, Calpe, sawest their coming: ancient Rock
Renown’d, no longer now shalt thou be call’d
From Gods and Heroes of the years of yore,
Kronos, or hundred-handed Briareus,
Bacchus or Hercules; but doom’d to bear
The name of thy new conqueror._—I. p. 2.
Gibel-al-Tarif, the mountain Tarif, is the received etymology of
Gibraltar: Ben Hazel, a Granadan Moor, says expressly, that the mountain
derived its name from this general. Its former appellations may be seen
in the _Historia de Gibraltar_, by Don Ignacio Lopez de Ayala. The
derivation of the word Calpe is not known: Florian de Ocampo identifies
it with the English word _golloping_, in a passage which may amuse
the Spanish scholar. “_La segunda nombradia fue llamarle Calpe, cuya
razon, segun dicen algunos, procedio de que los Andaluces ancianos en
su lengua vieja solian llamar Calepas y Calpes a qualesquier cosas
enhiestas y levantadas, agora fuesen peñascos, o pizarras, o maderos,
o piedras menores, como lo significamos en los diez y ocho capitulos
precedentes: y dicen que con estar alli junto de Gibraltar sobre sus
marinas el risco, que ya dixe muy encumbrado y enhiesto, qual hoy dia
parece, lo llamaban Calpes aquellos Andaluces pasados: y por su respecto
la mesma poblacion vino tambien a tener despues aquel proprio nombre. No
faltan otras personas que siguiendo las Escrituras Griegas pongan esta
razon del nombre Calpes mucho diversamente, diciendo, que quando los
cosarios Argonautas desembarcaron en España, cerca del estrecho, segun
ya lo declaramos, el tiempo que hacian sus exercicios arriba dichos,
de saltos y luchas, y musicas acordadas, bien asi como los pastores
Españoles comarcanos recibian contentamientos grande, mirado las tales
desenvolturas y ligerezas, no menos aquellos Griegos recien venidos
notaban algunos juegos, dudo que trabajosos y dificiles, que los mesmos
pastores obraban entre si para su recreacion y deporte; particularmente
consideraran un regocijo de caballos, donde ciertos dias aplazados venian
todos a se juntar como para cosa de gran pundonor._
“_El qual regocijo hacian desta manera. Tomaban yeguas en pelo, quanto
mas corredoras y ligeras podian haber, y puestos ellos encima desnudos
sin alguna ropa, ataban en las quixadas barbicachos de rama, torcidos
y majados a manera de freno, con que salian del puesto dos a dos a
la par corriendo lo mas que sus yeguas podian, para llegar a cierta
senal de pizarras enhiestas o de maderos hincados y levantados en fin
de la carrera. Venidos al medio trecho de su corrida saltaban de las
yeguas en tierra, no las parando ni deteniendo: y asi trabados por el
barbicacho, corrian tambien ellos á pie, sin las dexar, puesto que mas
furia llevasen: porque si las dexaban ó se desprendian dellas, y no
sustentaban el freno continuamente, hasta ser pasada la carrera, perdian
la reputation y las apuestas, quedando tan amenguados y vencidos,
quanto quedaria triunfante quien primero llegase con su yegua para
tomar la presa que tenian en el fin de la carrera sobre las pizarras o
maderos hincados. Quando saltaban de sus yeguas, dicen que les iban
hablando porque no se detuviesen, voceandoles y diciendoles a menudo
palabras animosos y dulces: llamabanles pies hermosas, generosas en el
correr, casta real, hembras preciosas, acrecentadoras de sus honras, y
mas otras razones muchas con que las tenian vezadas, a no se parar ni
perder el impetu comenzado: de manera que los tropeles en este punto,
los pundonores y regocijos de correr, y de no mostrar floxedad era cosa
mucho de notar, asi por la parte de los hombres, como por parte de las
yeguas. A los Griegos Argonautas les parecio juego tan varonil que muchas
veces lo probaron tambien ellos a revuelta de los Espanoles, como quiera
que jamas pudieron tener aquella vigilancia ni ligereza, ni reciura
que tenian estos otros para durar con sus yeguas. Y dado que las tales
yeguas corriesen harto furiosas, y les ensenasen muchos dias antes a
seguir estas parejas, quanto mejor entendian a la verdad, ni las de los
unos, ni las de los otros corrian tanto despues que saltaban dellas,
como quando los traian encima: y asi las palabras que los Griegos en
aquella sazon puestos a pie hablaban eran tambien al mesmo proposito
conformes a las de los Andaluces Españoles en su lengua, provincial,
nombrandolas Calopes, Calopes, Calopes a la contina, que fue palabra
Griega, compuesta de dos vocablos: uno Calos, que significa cosa hermosa,
ligera y agraciada: otro Pus, que quiere decir pie, como que las llamasen
pies agraciados, o pies desenvueltos y ligeros: y por abreviar mas el
vocablo, para que sus yeguas lo pudiesen mas presto sentir, acortabanlo
con una letra menos en el medio, y en lugar de nombrarlas Calopes, les
deciam Calpes, que significa lo mesmo Calopes: la qual palabra me parece
dura todavia hasta nuestro siglo presente, donde pocas letras mudadas,
por decir Calopes o Calpes, lo pronunciamos Galopes, quando los caballos
y yeguas, o qualesquier otros animales, no corren a todo poder sino trote
largo seguido. Vino desto que las mesmas fiestas y manera del juego se
nombraron Calpes: dado que para conmigo bastara saber la victoria deste
juego consistir en ligereza de pies, y por eso solo deberse llamar
Calopes a Calpe, sin anadir lo que hablaban a las yeguas, pues aquello
primero comprehende bastantemente la razon deste vocablo. Pero si todavia
fue cierto que les decian aquellas palabras quando corrian sus parejas,
ninguna cosa daña dexarlas aquí puestas._”—Coronica General de Espana, c.
38.
* * * * *
_Famine and Pestilence had wasted them._—I. p. 3.
In the reign of Egica, Witiza’s father,—_plaga inguinalis
immisericorditer illabitur_. (Isid. Pacensis.) And for two years before
the Moorish invasion,—_habia habido continua hambre y pestilencia en
Espana, con que se habian debilitado mucho los cuerpos, sin lo que el
ocio las habia enflaquecido_.—Morales, 12. 69. 5.
St. Isidore, in his History of the Goths, distinctly describes the
Northern Lights among the signs that announced the wars of Attila.
“_Multa eodem tempore cœli et terræ signa præcesserunt, quorum prodigiis
tam crudele bellum significaretur. Nam, assiduis terræ motibus factis, a
parte Orientis Luna fuscata est, a solis occasu stella cometes apparuit,
atque ingenti magnitudine aliquandiu fulsit._ Ab aquilonis plaga cœlum
rubens, sicut ignis aut sanguis, effectus est, permistis perigneum
ruborem lineis clarioribus in speciem hastarum rutilantium deformatis.
_Nec mirum, ut in tam ingenti cæsorum strage, divinitus tam multa
signorum demonstraretur ostensio._”—España Sagrada, t. vi. 491.
* * * * *
_And worst of enemies, their Sins were arm’d
Against them._—I. p. 3.
The following description of the state of the Christian world when the
Saracens began their conquests, is taken from a singular manuscript,
“wherein the history of the Cruisades and of all the Mahommedan emperors
from A. D. 558, to A. D. 1588, is gathered out of the Chronikes of
William Archbishop of Tyreus, the protoscribe of Palestine, of Basilius
Jhohannes Heraldus, and sundry others, and reduced into a poem epike by
Robert Barret, 1610.” The author was an old soldier, whose language is a
compound of Josuah Sylvester and King Cambyses, with a strong relish of
Ancient Pistol.
Now in this sin-flood age not only in East
Did the impious imps the faithful persecute,
But like affliction them pursued in West,
And in all parts the good trod under foot;
For Faith in some was cold, from others fled,
And fear of God dislodged out human hearts;
Astrea flown to skies, and in her stead
Iniquity enthronized; in all parts
Violence had vogue, and on sathanized earth
Fraud, Mischief, Murder martialled the camp;
Sweet Virtue fled the field: Hope, out of breath;
And Vice, all-stainer, every soul did stamp;
So that it seem’d World drew to’s evening tide,
Nought else expecting but Christ’s second coming;
For Charity was cold on every side,
And Truth and Trust were gone from earth a-mumming.
All things confused ran, so that it seemed
The World return would to his chaos old;
Princes the path of justice not esteemed,
Headlong with prince ran people young and old.
All sainct confederations infringed,
And for light cause would prince with prince enquarrel;
Countries bestreamed with blood, with fire besinged,
All set to each, all murders sorts unbarrelled.
No wight his own could own; ’twas current coin
Each man to strip, provided he were rich.
The church sacriledged, choir made cot for swine,
And zealous ministers were made to scritche.
Robbing was made fair purchase, murder manhood,
And none secure by land ne sea could pass;
The humble heartless, ireful hearts ran wood,
Esteemed most who mischief most could dress
All lubrick lusts shamelese without comptroll
Ran full career; each would a rider be;
And Heaven’s friend, all sainct Continency,
Was banished quite: Lasciviousness did roll,
Frugality, healthful Sobriety
No place could find; all parts enquartered were
With Bacchus-brutes and Satyres-luxury.
All lawless games bore sway, with blasphemes roare,
’Twixt Clerk and Laick difference was none,
Disguized all, phantastick out of norme;
But as the Prophet says, as Priests do run,
So run the people, peevish in disform.
The Bishops graded once, dumb dogs become,
Their heads sin vyncting, flocks abandon soon;
Princes applauders, person-acceptors,
The good’s debarrers and the bad’s abetters;
Fleshly all, all filthy simonized,
Preferring profit ’fore the Eternal’s praise.
The church enschismed, court all atheized,
The commons kankred, all all in distrayes;
The plotting politician’s pate admired,
Their skill consisting in preventions scull,
Pathicks preferred, Cyprin ware desired,
Ocean of mischiefs flowing moon-tide full:
So that it seem’d that all flesh desperately
Like wolf-scared sheep were plunged headlong down
In pit of hell: puddled all pestfully
The court, church, commons, province, city, town;
All haggards; none reclaimed once could be,
Ne by the word, the word ’bused by organs bad,
Ne yet by signs that spotted chrystal sky,
Ne other prodigies, presages sad,
Neither gust shakings of this settled globe;
Neither sharpe pencil of war, famine, pest,
Could once one ray engrave in steeled breast,
Or Christians cause their sin-jagged robe disrobe.
Thus stood the sad state of that sin-stain’d time,
And Christians of this our all-zeal cold time,
Let us now par’llel that time with our time,
Our parallel’d time will parallel that time,
Then triple-sainct, thou just geometer true,
Our time not parallel by thy justice line,
But with thy mercy’s paralleling brow,
Reform our crimeful Angles by grace thine.
* * * * *
_Eight summer days, from morn till latest eve,
The fatal fight endured._—I. p. 3.
_Ocho veces la lampara febea
Salio alumbrando el mundo, y ocho veces
La negra sombra de la noche fea
De la luna alteró las blancas teces;
Y tantos dias la mortal pelea,
El sol y las estrellas por jueces,
En España duro, sin durar ella
Mas en su libertad, que en fenecella._
Balbuena, El Bernardo, t. ii. 275.
* * * * *
_Roderick’s royal car._—I. p. 3.
“Roderike, the first day after the battayle, observing the auncient
guise of his countrey, came into the fielde apparailled in a gowne of
beaten golde, having also on his head a crown of gold, and golden shoes,
and all his other apparaile set with rich pearles and precious stones,
ryding in a horse-litter of ivorie, drawne by two goodly horses; which
order the Goths used alwayes in battailes for this consideration, that
the souldiours, well knowing their king could not escape away by flight
from them, shuld be assured that there was none other way but either to
die togither in that place, or else to winne the victorie; for it had
bene a thing most shamefull and reproachful to forsake their prince and
anoynted soveraigne. Which custome and maner many free confederate cities
of Italie folowing, trimmed and adorned for the warres a certain chayre
of estate, called _Carocio_, wherein were set the penons and ensigns
of all the confederates; this chayre, in battaile, was drawn by many
oxen, wherby the whole hoast was given to understand that they could not
with any honesty flie, by reason of the slow pace and unweldinesse of
those heavie beasts.”—_A Notable Historie of the Saracens, drawen out of
Augustine Curio, and sundry other good Authours. By Thomas Newton, 1575._
_En ruedas de marfil, envuelto en sedas,
De oro la frente orlada, y mas dispuesto
Al triunfo y al festin que a la pelea,
El sucesor indigno de Alarico
Llevo tras si la maldicion eterna.
Ah! yo la vi: la lid por siete dias
Duro, mas no fue lid, fue una sangrienta
Carniceria: huyeron los cobardes
Los traidores vendieron sus banderas,
Los fuertes, los leales perecieron._—QUINTANA.
The author of the chivalrous Chronicle of King Don Rodrigo gives a
singular description of this car, upon the authority of his pretended
original Eleastras; for he, “seeing that calamities went on increasing,
and that the destruction of the Goths was at hand, thought that if things
were to end as they had begun, it would be a marvel if there should be
in Spain any king or lord of the lineage of the Goths after the death of
King Don Rodrigo; and therefore it imported much that he should leave
behind him a remembrance of the customs of the Gothic kings, and of the
manner in which they were wont to enter into battle and how they went to
war. And he says, that the king used to go in a car made after a strange
fashion. The wheels of this car were made of the bones of elephants, and
the axle-tree was of fine silver, and the perch was of fine gold. It was
drawn by two horses, who were of great size and gentle; and upon the car
there was pitched a tent, so large that it covered the whole car, and it
was of fine cloth of gold, upon which were wrought all the great feats
in arms which had been achieved until that time; and the pillar of the
tent was of gold, and many stones of great value were set in it, which
sent forth such splendour, that by night there was no need of any other
light therein. And the car and the horses bore the same adornments as the
king, and these were full of pearls the largest which could be found. And
in the middle of the car there was a seat placed against the pillar of
the tent; and this seat was of great price, insomuch that the value of
it cannot be summed up, so many and so great were the stones which were
set in it; and it was wrought so subtly, and of such rare workmanship,
that they who saw it marvelled thereat. And upon this seat the king was
seated, being lifted up so high that all in the host, little or great,
might behold him. And in this manner it was appointed that the king
should go to war. And round about the car there were to go a thousand
knights, who had all been knighted by the hand of the king, all armed;
and in the day of battle they were to be on foot round about the car;
and all plighted homage to the king not to depart from it in any manner
whatsoever, and that they would rather receive their death there, than
go from their place beside the car. And the king had his crown upon his
head. And in this guise all the kings of the Goths, who had been lords of
Spain, were to go to battle; and this custom they had all observed till
the King Don Rodrigo; but he, because of the great grief which he had in
his heart, would never ascend the car, neither did he go in it into the
battle.”—Part i. c. 215.
_Entrò Rodrigo en la batalla fiera,
Armado en blanco de un arnes dorado,
El yelmo coronado de una esfera
Que en luzes vence al circulo estrellado:
En unas ricas andas, ô litera
Que al hijo de Climene despeñado
Engañaran mejor que el carro de oro
De ygual peligro, y de mayor tesoro._
_La purpura real las armas cubre,
El grave rostro en magestad le baña,
El ceptro por quien era le descubre
Rodrigo ultimo Godo Rey de Espana:
Mas de la suerte que en lluvioso Otubre
Lo verde que le veste ya compaña,
Desnuda al olmo blanco, rompe y quita
Vulturno ayrado que al invierno incita._
_Caen las hojas sobre el agua clara
Que le bañava el pie, y el ornamento
Del tronco imita nuestra edad que para
En su primero humilde fundamento:
Desierta queda la frondosa vara,
Sigue la rama, en remolino, al viento,
Que la aparta del arbol, que saltea
Su blanca, verde, y palida librea._
_Assi Rodrigo el miserable dia
Ultimo de esta guerra desdichada,
Quedo en el campo, donde ya tenia
La magestad del ombro derribada:
Alli la rota purpura yazia
Teñida en sangre, y en sudor vañada,
Alli el verde laurel, y el ceptro de oro,
Siendo el arbol su cuerpo, el viento el Moro._
LOPE DE VEGA. Jerusalen Conquistada, l. vi. f. 136.
* * * * *
_That helm
Whose horns, amid the thickest of the fray
Eminent, had mark’d his presence._—I. p. 3.
Morales describes this horned helmet from a coin. “_Tiene de la una parte
su rostro, harto diferente de los que en las otras Monedas de estas Reyes
parecen. Tiene manera de estar armado, y salenle por cima de la celada
unas puntas como cuernos pequeños y derechos por ambos lados, que lo
hacen estraño y espantable._” Florez has given this coin in his _Medallas
de Espana_, from the only one which was known to be in existence, and
which was then in the collection of the Infante D. Gabriel. It was struck
at Egitania, the present Idana, and, like all the coins of the Visigoth
kings, is of the rudest kind. The lines which Morales describes are
sufficiently apparent, and if they are not intended for horns, it is
impossible to guess what else they may have been meant to represent.
“These Gothic coins,” says P. D. Jeronymo Contador de Argote, “have a
thousand barbarisms, as well in their letters as in other circumstances.
They mingle Greek characters with Latin ones; and in what regards the
relief or figure, nothing can be more dissimilar than the representation
to the thing which it is intended to represent. I will relate what
happened to me with one, however much D. Egidio de Albornos de Macedo
may reprehend me for it in his _Parecer Anathomico_. Valerio Pinto de
Sa, an honourable citizen of Braga, of whom, in various parts of these
Memoirs, I have made well-deserved mention, and of whose friendship I
have been proud ever since I have been in that city, gave me, some six
or seven years ago, a gold coin of King Leovigildo, who was the first of
the Gothic kings of Spain that coined money, for till then both Goths and
Sueves used the Roman. I examined it leisurely, and what I clearly saw
was a cross on the one side upon some steps, and some ill-shaped letters
around it; and on the reverse something, I knew not what: It seemed to me
like a tree, or a stake which shot out some branches: Round about were
some letters, more distinct; I could not, however, ascertain what they
signified. It happened about that time that I had the honour of a visit
from the most illustrious Sr. D. Francisco de Almeida, then a most worthy
Academician of the Royal Academy, and at present a most deserving and
eminent Principal of the Holy Patriarchal Church. He saw this coin, and
he also was puzzled by the side which represented what I called a tree.
He asked me to lend it him, that he might examine it more at leisure.
He took it away, and after some days returned it, saying, that he had
examined it with a microscope, and that what I had taken for a stake was
without question the portrait of King Leovigildo. I confess that I was
not yet entirely satisfied: however, I showed it afterwards to divers
persons, all of whom said they knew not what the said figure could be;
but when I desired them to see if it could be this portrait, they all
agreed that it was. This undeceived me, and by looking at the coin in
every possible light, at last I came to see it also, and acknowledge the
truth with the rest. And afterwards I found in the Dialogues of Antonio
Agostinho, treating of these Gothic coins, that there are some of such
rude workmanship, that where a face should be represented, some represent
a pitcher, and others an urn.”—_Memorias de Braga_, t. iii. p. lix.
* * * * *
_He bade the river bear the name of Joy._—I. p. 3.