Pelayo (c. 685 – 737) was a Visigothic nobleman who founded the Kingdom of Asturias, ruling it from 718 until his death.
CONTENTS
I. RODERICK AND ROMANO.
II. RODERICK IN SOLITUDE.
III. ADOSINDA.
IV. THE MONASTERY OF ST. FELIX.
V. RODERICK AND SIVERIAN.
VI. RODERICK IN TIMES PAST.
VII. RODERICK AND PELAYO.
VIII. ALPHONSO.
IX. FLORINDA.
X. RODERICK AND FLORINDA.
XI. COUNT PEDRO’S CASTLE.
XII. THE VOW.
XIII. COUNT EUDON.
XIV. THE RESCUE.
XV. RODERICK AT CANGAS.
XVI. COVADONGA.
XVII. RODERICK AND SIVERIAN.
XVIII. THE ACCLAMATION.
XIX. RODERICK AND RUSILLA.
XX. THE MOORISH CAMP.
XXI. THE FOUNTAIN IN THE FOREST.
XXII. THE MOORISH COUNCIL.
XXIII. THE VALE OF COVADONGA.
XXIV. RODERICK AND COUNT JULIAN.
XXV. RODERICK IN BATTLE.
Southey by Edward Nash, 1820
RODERICK, THE LAST OF THE GOTHS.
I. RODERICK AND ROMANO.
LONG had the crimes of Spain cried out to Heaven:
At length the measure of offence was full.
Count Julian call’d the invaders; not because
Inhuman priests with unoffending blood
Had stain’d their country; not because a yoke
Of iron servitude oppress’d and gall’d
The children of the soil: a private wrong
Housed the remorseless Baron. Mad to wreak
His vengeance, for his violated child,
On Roderick’s head, in evil hour for Spain,
For that unhappy daughter, and himself,
Desperate apostate! — on the Moors he call’d;
And like a cloud of locusts, whom the South
Wafts from the plains of wasted Africa,
The Mussulmen upon Iberia’s shore
Descend. A countless multitude they came;
Syrian, Moor, Saracen, Greek renegade,
Persian, and Copt, and Tatar, in one bond
Of erring faith conjoin’d, — strong in the youth
And heat of zeal, — a dreadful brotherhood,
In whom all turbulent vices were let loose;
While Conscience, with their impious creed accurs’d
Drunk as with wine, had sanctified to them
All bloody, all abominable things.
Thou, Calpe, saw’st 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, and thenceforth
To stand his everlasting monument.
Thou saw’st the dark-blue waters flash before
Their ominous way, and whiten round their keels;
Their swarthy myriads darkening o’er thy sands.
There, on the beach, the Misbelievers spread
Their banners, flaunting to the sun and breeze;
Fair shone the sun upon their proud array,
White turbans, glittering armor, shields engrail’d
With gold, and cimeters of Syrian steel;
And gently did the breezes, as in sport,
His horned helmet and enamell’d mail, he cast aside, and taking from the dead
A peasant’s garment, in those weeds involved
Stole like a thief in darkness from the field.
Curl their long flags outrolling, and display
The blazon’d scrolls of blasphemy. Too soon
The gules of Spain from that unhappy land
Wafted, as from an open charnel-house,
The taint of death; and that bright sun, from fields
Of slaughter, with the morning dew drew up
Corruption through the infected atmosphere.
Then fell the kingdom of the Goths; their hour
Was come, and Vengeance, long withheld, went loose.
Famine and Pestilence had wasted them,
And Treason, like an old and eating sore,
Consumed the bones and sinews of their strength;
And, worst of enemies, their Sins were arm’d
Against them. Yet the sceptre from their hands
Pass’d not away inglorious, nor was shame
Left for their children’s lasting heritage;
Eight summer days, from morn till latest eve,
The fatal light endured, till perfidy
Prevailing to their overthrow, they sunk
Defeated, not dishonor’d. On the banks
Of Chrysus, Roderick’s royal car was found,
His battle-horse Orelio, and that helm
Whose horns, amid the thickest of the fray
Eminent, had mark’d his presence. Did the stream
Receive him with the undistinguish’d dead,
Christian and Moor, who clogg’d its course that day?
So thought the Conqueror; and from that day forth,
Memorial of his perfect victory,
He bade the river bear the name of Joy.
So thought the Goths; they said no prayer for him,
For him no service sung, nor mourning made,
But charged their crimes upon his head, and cursed
His memory.
Bravely in that eight-days’ fight
The King had striven, — for victory first, while hope
Remain’d, then desperately in search of death.
The arrows pass’d him by to right and left;
The spear-point pierced him not; the cimeter
Glanced from his helmet. Is the shield of Heaven
Wretch that I am, extended over me?
Cried Roderick; and he dropp’d Orelio’s reins,
And threw his hands aloft in frantic prayer,
Death is the only mercy that I crave,
Death soon and short, death and forgetfulness!
Aloud he cried; but in his inmost heart
There answer’d him a secret voice, that spake
Of righteousness and judgment after death,
And God’s redeeming love, which fain would save
The guilty soul alive. ’Twas agony,
And yet ’twas hope; — a momentary light,
That flash’d through utter darkness on the Cross
To point salvation, then left all within
Dark as before. Fear, never felt till then,
Sudden and irresistible as stroke
Of lightning, smote him. From his horse he dropp’d,
Whether with human impulse, or by Heaven
Struck down, he knew not; loosen’d from his wrist
The sword-chain, and let fall the sword, whose hilt
Clung to his palm a moment ere it fell,
Glued there with Moorish gore. His royal robe,
Evening closed round to favor him. All night
He fled, the sound of battle in his ear
Ringing, and sights of death before his eyes,
With forms more horrible of eager fiends
That seem’d to hover round, and gulfs of fire
Opening beneath his feet. At times the groan
Of some poor fugitive, who, bearing with him
His mortal hurt, had fallen beside the way,
Roused him from these dread visions, and he call’d
In answering groans on his Redeemer’s name,
That word the only prayer that pass’d his lips,
Or rose within his heart. Then would he see
The Cross whereon a bleeding Savior hung,
Who call’d on him to come and cleanse his soul
In those all-healing streams, which from his wounds,
As from perpetual springs, forever flow’d.
No hart e’er panted for the water-brooks
As Roderick thirsted there to drink and live;
But Hell was interposed; and worse than Hell —
Yea, to his eyes more dreadful than the fiends
Who flock’d like hungry ravens round his head,
Florinda stood between, and warn’d him off
With her abhorrent hands, — that agony
Still in her face, which, when the deed was done,
Inflicted on her ravisher the curse
That it invoked from Heaven. — Oh, what a night
Of waking horrors! Nor, when morning came,
Did the realities of light and day
Bring aught of comfort; wheresoe’er he went
The tidings of defeat had gone before;
And leaving their defenceless homes to seek
What shelter walls and battlements might yield,
Old men with feeble feet, and tottering babes,
And widows with their infants in their arms,
Hurried along. Nor royal festival,
Nor sacred pageant, with like multitudes
E’er fill’d the public way. All whom the sword
Had spared were here; bed-rid infirmity
Alone was left behind; the cripple plied
His crutches; with her child of yesterday
The mother fled, and she whose hour was come
Fell by the road.
Less dreadful than this view
Of outward suffering which the day disclosed,
Had night and darkness seem’d to Roderick’s heart,
With all their dread creations. From the throng
He turn’d aside, unable to endure
This burden of the general woe; nor walls,
Nor towers, nor mountain fastnesses he sought;
A firmer hold his spirit yearn’d to find,
A rock of surer strength. Unknowing where,
Straight through the wild he hasten’d on all day,
And with unslacken’d speed was travelling still
When evening gather’d round. Seven days, from morn
Till night, he travell’d thus; the forest oaks,
The fig-grove by the fearful husbandman
Forsaken to the spoiler, and the vines,
Where fox and household dog together now
Fed on the vintage, gave him food; the hand
Of Heaven was on him, and the agony
Which wrought within, supplied a strength beyond
All natural force of man.
When the eighth eve
Was come, he found himself on Ana’s banks,
Fast by the Caulian Schools. It was the hour
Of vespers; but no vesper-bell was heard,
Nor other sound, than of the passing stream,
Or stork, who, flapping with wide wing the air,
Sought her broad nest upon the silent tower.
Brethren and pupils thence alike had fled
To save themselves within the embattled walls
Of neighboring Merida. One aged Monk
Alone was left behind; he would not leave
The sacred spot beloved, for having served
There, from his childhood up to ripe old age,
God’s holy altar, it became him now,
He thought, before that altar to await
The merciless misbelievers, and lay down
H is life, a willing martyr. So he staid
When all were gone, and duly fed the lamps,
And kept devotedly the altar dress’d,
And duly offer’d up the sacrifice.
Four days and nights he thus had pass’d alone,
In such high mood of saintly fortitude,
That hope of Heaven became a heavenly joy;
And now at evening to the gate he went,
If he might spy the Moors, — for it seem’d long
To tarry for his crown.
Before the Cross
Roderick had thrown himself; his body raised,
Half kneeling, half at length he lay; his arms
Embraced its foot, and from his lifted face
Tears streaming down bedew’d the senseless stone.
He had not wept till now; and at the gush
Of these first tears, it seem’d as if his heart,
From a long winter’s icy thrall let loose,
Had open’d to the genial influences
Of Heaven. In attitude, but not in act
Of prayer he lay; an agony of tears
Was all his soul could offer. When the Monk
Beheld him suffering thus, he raised him up,
And took him by the arm, and led him in;
And there, before the altar, in the name
Of Him whose bleeding image there was hung,
Spake comfort, and adjured him in that name
There to lay down the burden of his sins.
Lo! said Romano, I am waiting here
The coming of the Moors, that from their hands
My spirit may receive the purple robe
Of martyrdom, and rise to claim its crown.
That God who willeth not the sinner’s death
Hath led thee hither. Threescore years and five,
Even from the hour when I, a five-years’ child,
Enter’d the schools, have I continued here,
And served the altar: not in all those years
Hath such a contrite and a broken heart
Appear’d before me. O my brother, Heaven
Hath sent thee for thy comfort, and for mine,
That my last earthly act may reconcile
A sinner to his God.
Then Roderick knelt
Before the holy man, and strove to speak.
Thou seest, he cried, — thou seest, — but memory
And suffocating thoughts repress’d the word,
And shudderings like an ague-fit, from head
To foot convulsed him; till at length, subduing
His nature to the effort, he exclaim’d,
Spreading his hands and lifting up his face,
As if resolved in penitence to bear
A human eye upon his shame, — Thou seest
Roderick the Goth! That name would have sufficed
To tell its whole abhorred history:
He not the less pursued, — the ravisher,
The cause of all this ruin! Having said,
In the same posture motionless he knelt,
Arms straighten’d down, and hands outspread, and eyes
Raised to the Monk, like one who from his voice
Awaited life or death.
All night the old man
Pray’d with his penitent, and minister’d
Unto the wounded soul, till he infused
A healing hope of mercy that allay’d
Its heat of anguish. But Romano saw
What strong temptations of despair beset,
And how he needed in this second birth,
Even like a yearling child, a fosterer’s care.
Father in Heaven, he cried, thy will be done!
Surely I hoped that I this day should sing
Hosannahs at thy throne; but thou hast yet
Work for thy servant here. He girt his loins,
And from her altar took, with reverent hands,
Our Lady’s image down: In this, quoth he,
We have our guide, and guard, and comforter,
The best provision for our perilous way.
Fear not but we shall find a resting-place;
The Almighty’s hand is on us.
They went forth;
They cross’d the stream and when Romano turn’d
For his last look toward the Canlian towers,
Far off the Moorish standards in the light
Of morn were glittering, where the miscreant host
Toward the Lusitanian capital
To lay their siege advanced; the eastern breeze
&n
bsp; Bore to the fearful travellers far away
The sound of horn and tambour o’er the plain.
All day they hasten’d, and when evening fell,
Sped toward the setting sun as if its line
Of glory came from Heaven to point their course.
But feeble were the feet of that old man
For such a weary length of way; and now
Being pass’d the danger, (for in Merida
Saearn long in resolute defence
Withstood the tide of war,) with easier pace
The wanderers journey’d on; till having cross’d
Rich Tagus, and the rapid Zezere,
They from Albardos’ hoary height beheld
Pine-forest, fruitful vale, and that fair lake
Where Alcoa, mingled there with Baza’s stream,
Rests on its passage to the western sea,
That sea the aim and boundary of their toil.
The fourth week of their painful pilgrimage
Was full, when they arrived where from the land
A rocky hill, rising with steep ascent,
O’erhung the glittering beach; there, on the top,
A little, lowly hermitage they found,
And a rude Cross, and at its foot a grave,
Bearing no name, nor other monument.
Where better could they rest than here, where faith,
And secret penitence, and happiest death,
Had bless’d the spot, and brought good Angels down,
And open’d, as it were, a way to Heaven?
Behind them was the desert, offering fruit
And water for their need; on either side
The white sand sparkling to the sun; in front,
Great Ocean with its everlasting voice,
As in perpetual jubilee, proclaim’d
The wonders of the Almighty, filling thus
The pauses of their fervent orisons.
Where better could the wanderers rest than here?
II. RODERICK IN SOLITUDE.
TWELVE months they sojourn’d in their solitude,
And then beneath the burden of old age
Romano sunk. No brethren were there here
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 157