His sons fall bravely at his side, bewail’d
The unhappy chance which, rescuing him from death,
Left him the last of all his family;
Yet he rejoiced to think that none who drew
Their blood from him remain’d to wear the yoke,
Be at the miscreant’s beck, and propagate
A breed of slaves to serve them. Here sat one
Who told of fair possessions lost, and babes
To goodly fortunes born, of all bereft.
Another for a virgin daughter mourn’d,
The lewd barbarian’s spoil. A fourth had seen
His only child forsake him in his age,
And for a Moor renounce her hope in Christ.
His was the heaviest grief of all, he said;
And clinching, as he spake, his hoary locks,
He cursed King Roderick’s soul.
Oh, curse him not!
Roderick exclaim’d, all shuddering as he spake.
Oh, for the love of Jesus, curse him not!
Sufficient is the dreadful load of guilt
That lies upon his miserable soul!
O brother, do not curse that sinful soul,
Which Jesus suffer’d on the cross to save!
But then an old man, who had sat thus long
A silent listener, from his seat arose,
And moving round to Roderick, took his hand;
Christ bless thee, brother, for that Christian speech,
He said; and shame on me that any tongue
Readier than mine was found to utter it!
His own emotion fill’d him while he spake,
So that he did not feel how Roderick’s hand
Shook like a palsied limb; and none could see
How, at his well-known voice, the countenance
Of that poor traveller suddenly was changed,
And sunk with deadlier paleness; for the flame
Was spent, and from behind him, on the wall
High hung, the lamp with feeble glimmering play’d.
Oh, it is ever thus! the old man pursued;
The crimes and woes of universal Spain
Are charged on him; and curses, which should aim
At living heads, pursue beyond the grave
His poor unhappy soul! As if his sin
Had wrought the fall of our old monarchy!
As if the Mussulmen, in their career,
Would ne’er have overleap’d the gulf which parts
Iberia from the Mauritanian shore,
If Julian had not beckon’d them! — Alas!
The evils which drew on our overthrow,
Would soon by other means have wrought their end,
Though Julian’s daughter should have lived and died
A virgin vow’d and veil’d.
Touch not on that,
Shrinking with inward shiverings at the thought,
The penitent exclaim’d Oh, if thou lovest
The soul of Roderick, touch not on that deed!
God, in his mercy, may forgive it him,
But human tongue must never speak his name
Without reproach and utter infamy,
For that abhorred act. Even thou — But here
Siverian taking up the word, brake off,
Unwittingly, the incautious speech. Even I,
Quoth he, who nursed him in his father’s hall,
Even I can only for that deed of shame
Offer in agony my secret prayers.
But Spain hath witness’d other crimes as foul:
Have we not seen Favila’s shameless wife,
Throned in Witiza’s ivory car, parade
Our towns with regal pageantry, and bid
The murderous tyrant in her husband’s blood
Dip his adulterous hand? Did we not sec
Pelayo, by that bloody king’s pursuit,
And that unnatural mother, from the land
With open outcry, like an outlaw’d thief,
Hunted? And saw ye not Theodofred,
As through the streets I guided his dark steps,
Roll mournfully toward the noon-day sun
His blank and senseless eyeballs? Spain saw this,
And suffer’d it! — I seek not to excuse
The sin of Roderick. Jesu, who beholds
The burning tears I shed in solitude,
Knows how I plead for him in midnight prayer.
But if, when he victoriously revenged
The wrongs of Chindasuintho’s house, his sword
Had not for mercy turn’d aside its edge,
Oh what a day of glory had there been
Upon the banks of Chrysus! Curse not him,
Who in that fatal conflict to the last
So valiantly maintain’d his country’s cause;
But if your sorrow needs must have its vent
In curses, let your imprecations strike
The caitiffs, who, when Roderick’s hornëd helm
Rose eminent amid the thickest fight,
Betraying him who spared and trusted them,
Forsook their King, their Country, and their God,
And gave the Moor his conquest.
Ay! they said,
These were Witiza’s hateful progeny;
And in an evil hour the unhappy King
Had spared the viperous brood. With that they talk’d
How Sisibert and Ebba through the land
Guided the foe; and Orpas, who had cast
The mitre from his renegado brow,
Went with the armies of the infidels;
And how in Hispalis, even where his hands
Had minister’d so oft the bread of life,
The circumcised apostate did not shame
To show in open day his turban’d head.
The Queen too, Egilona, one exclaim’d;
Was she not married to the enemy,
The Moor, the Misbeliever? What a heart
Were hers, that she could pride and plume herself
To rank among his herd of concubines,
Having been what she had been! And who could say
How far domestic wrongs and discontent
Had wrought upon the King! — Hereat the old man.
Raising beneath the knit and curly brow
His mournful eyes, replied, This I can tell,
That that unquiet spirit and unblest,
Though Roderick never told his sorrows, drove
Rusilla from the palace of her son.
She could not bear to see his generous mind
Wither beneath the unwholesome influence,
And cankering at the core And I know well,
That oft, when she deplored his barren bed,
The thought of Egilona’s qualities
Came like a bitter medicine for her grief,
And to the extinction of her husband’s line,
Sad consolation, reconciled her heart.
But Roderick, while they communed thus, had ceased
To hear, such painfulest anxiety
The sight of that old, venerable man
Awoke. A sickening fear came over him:
The hope which led him from his hermitage
Now seem’d forever gone; for well he knew
Nothing but death could break the ties which bound
That faithful servant to his father’s house.
She then for whose forgiveness he had yearn’d,
Who in her blessing would have given and found
The peace of Heaven, — she then was to the grave
Gone down disconsolate at last; in this,
Of all the woes of her unhappy life
Unhappiest, that she did not live to see
God had vouchsafed repentance to her child.
But then a hope arose that yet she lived;
The weighty cause which led Siverian here
Might draw him from her side; better to know
The worst than fear it. A
nd with that he bent
Over the ambers, and with head half raised
Aslant, and shadow’d by his hand, he said,
Where is King Roderick’s mother? lives she still?
God hath upheld her, the old man replied;
She bears this last and heaviest of her griefs,
Not as she bore her husband’s wrongs, when hope
And her indignant heart supported her;
But patiently, like one who finds from Heaven
A comfort which the world can neither give
Nor take away. — Roderick inquired no more;
He breathed a silent prayer in gratitude,
Then wrapt his cloak around him, and lay down
Where he might weep unseen.
When morning came,
Earliest of all the travellers he went forth,
And linger’d for Siverian by the way,
Beside a fountain, where the constant fall
Of water its perpetual gurgling made,
To the wayfaring or the musing man
Sweetest of all sweet sounds. The Christian hand,
Whose general charity for man and beast
Built it in better times, had with a cross
Of well-hewn stone crested the pious work,
Which now the misbelievers had cast down,
And broken in the dust it lay defiled.
Roderick beheld it lying at his feet,
And gathering reverently the fragments up,
Placed them within the cistern, and restored
With careful collocation its dear form,
So might the waters, like a crystal shrine,
Preserve it from pollution. Kneeling then,
O’er the memorial of redeeming love
He bent, and mingled with the fount his tears,
And pour’d his spirit to the Crucified.
A Moor came by, and seeing him, exclaim’d,
Ah, Kaffer! worshipper of wood and stone,
God’s curse confound thee! And as Roderick turn’d
His face, the miscreant spurn’d him with his foot
Between the eyes. The indignant King arose,
And fell’d him to the ground. But then the Moor
Drew forth his dagger, rising as he cried,
What! darest thou, thou infidel and slave,
Strike a believer? and he aim’d a blow
At Roderick’s breast. But Roderick caught his arm,
And closed, and wrench’d the dagger from his hold,
Such timely strength did those emaciate limbs
From indignation draw, — and in his neck
With mortal stroke he drove the avenging steel
Hilt deep. Then, as the thirsty sand drank in
The expiring miscreant’s blood, he look’d around
In sudden apprehension, lest the Moors
Had seen them; but Siverian was in sight,
The only traveller, and he smote his mule,
And hasten’d up. Ah, brother! said the old man,
Thine is a spirit of the ancient mould!
And would to God a thousand men like thee
Had fought at Roderick’s side on that last day
When treason overpower’d him! Now, alas!
A manly Gothic heart doth ill accord
With these unhappy times. Come, let us hide
This carrion, while the favoring hour permits.
So saying, he alighted. Soon they scoop’d
Amid loose-lying sand a hasty grave,
And levell’d over it the easy soil.
Father, said Roderick, as they journey’d on,
Let this thing be a seal and sacrament
Of truth between us. Wherefore should there be
Concealment between two right Gothic hearts
In evil days like ours? What thou hast seen
Is but the first fruit of the sacrifice,
Which on this injured and polluted soil,
As on a bloody altar, I have sworn
To offer to insulted Heaven for Spain,
Her vengeance and her expiation. This
Was but a hasty act, by sudden wrong
Provoked: but I am bound for Cordoba,
On weighty mission from Visonia sent,
To breathe into Pelayo’s ear a voice
Of spirit-stirring power, which like the trump
Of the Archangel, shall awake dead Spain.
The northern mountaineers are unsubdued;
They call upon Pelayo for their chief;
Odoar and Urban tell him that the hour
Is come. Thou, too, I ween, old man, art charged,
With no light errand, or thou wouldst not now
Have left the ruins of thy master’s house.
Who art thou? cried Siverian, as he search’d
The wan and wither’d features of the King.
Thy face is of a stranger; but thy voice
Disturbs me like a dream.
Roderick replied,
Thou seest me as I am, — a stranger; one
Whose fortunes in the general wreck were lost,
His name and lineage utterly extinct,
Himself in mercy spared, surviving all;
In mercy, that the bitter cup might heal
A soul diseased. Now, having cast the slough
Of old offences, thou beholdest me
A man new-born; in second baptism named,
Like those who in Judea bravely raised
Against the Heathen’s impious tyranny
The banner of Jehovah, Maccabee;
So call me. In that name hath Urban laid
His consecrating hands upon my head;
And in that name have I myself for Spain
Devoted. Tell me now why thou art sent
To Cordoba; for sure thou goëst not
An idle gazer to the Conqueror’s court.
Thou judgest well, the old man replied. I, too,
Seek the Cantabrian Prince, the hope of Spain,
With other tidings charged, for other end
Designed, yet such as well may work with thine.
My noble mistress sends me to avert
The shame that threats his house. The renegade
Numacian, he who, for the infidels,
Oppresses Gegio, insolently wooes
His sister. Moulded in a wicked womb,
The unworthy Guisla hath inherited
Her mother’s leprous taint; and, willingly,
She to the circumcised and upstart slave,
Disdaining all admonishment, gives ear.
The Lady Gaudiosa sees in this,
With the quick foresight of maternal care,
The impending danger to her husband’s house,
Knowing his generous spirit ne’er will brook
The base alliance. Guisla lewdly sets
His will at nought; but that vile renegade,
From hatred, and from avarice, and from fear,
Will seek the extinction of Pelayo’s line.
This, too, my venerable mistress sees;
Wherefore these valiant and high-minded dames
Send me to Cordoba; that, if the Prince
Cannot, by timely interdiction, stop
The irrevocable act of infamy,
He may, at least, to his own safety look,
Being timely warn’d.
Thy mistress sojourns then
With Gaudiosa, in Pelayo’s hall?
Said Roderick. ’Tis her natural home, rejoin’d
Siverian: Chindasuintho’s royal race
Have ever shared one lot of weal or woe;
And she who hath beheld her own fair shoot,
The goodly summit of that ancient tree,
Struck by Heaven’s bolt, seeks shelter now beneath
The only branch of its majestic stem
That still survives the storm.
Thus they pursued
Their journey, each from other gathering store
&nb
sp; For thought, with many a silent interval
Of mournful meditation, till they saw
The temples and the towers of Cordoba
Shining majestic in the light of eve.
Before them. Betis roll’d his glittering stream,
In many a silvery winding traced afar
Amid the ample plain. Behind the walls
And stately piles, which crown’d its margin, rich
With olives, and with sunny slope of vines,
And many a lovely hamlet interspersed,
Whose citron bowers were once the abode of peace,
Height above height, receding hills were seen
Imbued with evening hues; and over all
The summits of the dark sierra rose,
Lifting their heads amid the silent sky.
The traveller who, with a heart at ease,
Had seen the goodly vision, would have loved
To linger, seeking with insatiate sight
To treasure up its image, deep impress’d,
A joy for years to come. O Cordoba,
Exclaim’d the old man, how princely are thy towers,
How fair thy vales, thy hills how beautiful!
The sun who sheds on thee his parting smiles
Sees not in all his wide career a scene
Lovelier, nor more exuberantly blest
By bounteous earth and heaven. The very gales
Of Eden waft not from the immortal bowers
Odors to sense more exquisite, than these
Which, breathing from thy groves and gardens, now
Recall in me such thoughts of bitterness.
The time has been when happy was their lot
Who had their birthright here; but happy now
Are they who to thy bosom are gone home,
Because they feel not in their graves the feet
That trample upon Spain. ’Tis well that age
Hath made me like a child, that I can weep:
My heart would else have broken, overcharged,
And I, false servant, should lie down to rest
Before my work is done.
Hard by their path,
A little way without the walls, there stood
An edifice, whereto, as by a spell,
Siverian’s heart was drawn. Brother, quoth he,
’Tis like the urgency of our return
Will brook of no retardment; and this spot
It were a sin if I should pass, and leave
Unvisited. Beseech you turn with me,
The while I offer up one duteous prayer.
Roderick made no reply. He had not dared
To turn his face toward those walls; but now
He follow’d where the old man led the way.
Lord! in his heart the silent sufferer said,
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 161