Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

XI.

'There, of Numantian fire a swarthy spark
Still lightens in the sun-burnt native's eye;
The stately port, slow step, and visage dark,
Still mark enduring pride and constancy.
And, if the glow of feudal chivalry

Beam not, as once, thy nobles' dearest pride,
Iberia! oft thy crestless peasantry

Have seen the plumed Hidalgo quit their side,
Have seen, yet dauntless stood-'gainst fortune fought and died.

XII.

I

"And cherish'd still by that unchanging race, '
Are themes for minstrelsy more high than thine;
Of strange tradition many a mystic trace,

Legend and vision, prophecy and sign;
Where wonders wild of Arabesque combine
With Gothic imagery of darker shade,
Forming a model meet for minstrel line.

Go, seek such theme!"—The Mountain Spirit said :
With filial awe I heard-I heard, and I obey'd.'

THE VISION OF DON RODERICK.

I.

Rearing their crests amid the cloudless skies,
And darkly clustering in the pale moonlight,
Toledo's holy towers and spires arise,

As from a trembling lake of silver white.
Their mingled shadows intercept the sight
Of the broad burial-ground outstretch'd below,
And nought disturbs the silence of the night;

All sleeps in sullen shade, or silver glow,
All save the heavy swell of Teio's ceaseless flow.3

2

[MS." And lingering still mid that unchanging race."]

["The Introduction, we confess," says the Quarterly Reviewer, "does not please us so well as the rest of the poem, though the reply of the Mountain Spirit is exquisitely written." The Edinburgh critic, after quoting stanzas ix. x. and xi. says "the Introduc tion, though splendidly written, is too long for so short a poem ; and the poet's dialogue with his native mountains is somewhat too startling and unnatural. The most spirited part of it, we think, is their direction to Spanish themes."]

3 [The Monthly Review, for 4844, in quoting this stanza, says "Scarcely any poet, of any age or country, has excelled Mr. Scott in bringing before our sight the very scene which he is describing-in giving a reality of existence to every object on which he dwells; and it is on such occasions, especially suited as they seem to the habits of his mind, that his style itself catches a character of harmony, which is far from being universally its own. How vivid, yet how soft, is this picture!"]

II.

All save the rushing swell of Teio's tide,

Or, distant heard, a courser's neigh or tramp;
Their changing rounds as watchful horsemen ride,
To guard the limits of King Roderick's camp.
For, through the river's night-fog rolling damp,
Was many a proud pavilion dimly seen,'
Which glimmer'd back against the moon's fair lamp,
Tissue of silk and silver twisted sheen,

And standards proudly pitch'd, and warders arm'd between.

III.

But of their Monarch's person keeping ward,
Since last the deep-mouth'd bell of vespers toll'd,
The chosen soldiers of the royal guard

The post beneath the proud Cathedral hold:
A band unlike their Gothic sires of old,

Who, for the cap of steel and iron mace,

Bear slender darts,' and casques bedeck'd with gold,
While silver-studded belts their shoulders grace,
Where ivory quivers ring in the broad falchion's place.3

IV.

In the light language of an idle court,

They murmur'd at their master's long delay,
And held his lengthen'd orisons in sport :-

"What! will Don Roderick here till morning stay,
To wear in shrift and prayer the night away?
And are his hours in such dull penance past,
For fair Florinda's plunder'd charms to pay?”

1

[MS.-"For, stretch'd beside the river's margin damp,

Their proud pavilions hide the meadow green."],
LMS." Bore javelins slight," etc.]

3 [The Critical Reviewer, having quoted stanzas i. ii. and iii. says "To the specimens with which his former works abound, of Mr. Scott's unrivalled excellence in the descriptions, both of natural scenery and romantic manners and costume, these stanzas will be thought no mean addition."]

4 Almost all the Spanish historians, as well as the voice of tradition, ascribe the invasion of the Moors to the forcible violation committed by Roderick upon Fiorinda, called by the Moors, Caba or Cava. She was the daughter of Count Julian, one of the Gothic monarch's principal lieutenants, who, when the crime was perpetrated, was engaged in the defence of Ceuta against the Moors. In his indignation at the ingratitude of his sovereign, and the dishonour of his daughter, Count Julian forgot the duties of a Christian and a patriot, and, forming an alliance with Musa, then the caliph's lieutenant in Africa, he countenanced the invasion of Spain by a body of Saracens and Africans, commanded by the celebrated Tarik; the issue of which was the defeat and death of Roderick, and the occupation of almost the whole peninsula by the Moors. Voltaire, in his General History, expresses his doubts of this popular story, and Gibbon gives him some countenance; but the universal tradition is quite sufficient for the purposes of poetry. The Spaniards, in detestation of Florinda's memory, are said, by Cervantes, never to bestow that name upon any human female, reserving it for their dogs. Nor is the tradition less inveterate among the Moors, since the same author

Then to the east their weary eyes they cast,

And wish'd the lingering dawn would glimmer forth at last.

V.

But, far within, Toledo's Prelate lent
An ear of fearful wonder to the King;
The silver lamp a fitful lustre sent,

So long that sad confession witnessing:
For Roderick told of many a hidden thing,
Such as are loathly utter'd to the air,

When Fear, Remorse, and Shame, the bosom wring,
And Guilt his secret burden cannot bear,
And Conscience seeks in speech a respite from Despair.

VI.

Full on the Prelate's face, and silver hair,

The stream of failing light was feebly roll'd; '
But Roderick's visage, though his head was bare,
Was shadow'd by his hand and mantle's fold.
While of his hidden soul the sins he told,

Proud Alaric's descendant could not brook,"
That mortal man his bearing should behold,

Or boast that he had seen, when Conscience shook,

Fear tame a monarch's brow, Remorse a warrior's look.3

mentions a promontory on the coast of Barbary, called "The Cape of the Caba Rumia, which, in our tongue, is the Cape of the Wicked Christian Woman; and it is a tradition among the Moors, that Caba, the daughter of Count Julian, who was the cause of the loss of Spain, lies buried there, and they think it ominous to be forced into that bay; for they never go in otherwise than by necessity."]

[MS.-"The feeble lamp in dying lustre

roll'd."]

The waves of broken light were feebly
[MS." The haughty monarch's heart could evil brook."]

3 [The Quarterly Reviewer says,-"The moonlight scenery of the camp and burialground is evidently by the same powerful hand which sketched the Abbey of Melrose; and in this picture of Roderick's confession, there are traits of even a higher cast of sublimity and pathos."

The Edinburgh Reviewer introduces his quotations of the i. ii., v., and vi. stanzas thus,"The poem is substantially divided into two compartments;-the one representing the fabulous or prodigious acts of Don Roderick's own time,-and the other the recent occurrences which have since signalized the same quarter of the world. Mr. Scott, we think, is most at home in the first of these fields; and we think, upon the whole, has most success in it. The opening affords a fine specimen of his unrivalled powers of description." The reader may be gratified with having the following lines from Mr. Southey's Roderick inserted here:

"Then Roderick knelt

Before the holy man, and strove to speak :
'Thou seest,' he cried,-thou seest'-but memory
And suffocating thoughts represt the word,
And shudderings, like an, ague fit, from bead
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-'Thon seest

I

VII.

The old man's faded cheek wax'd yet more pale,
As many a secret sad the King bewray'd;
As sign and glance eked out the unfinish'd tale,
When in the midst his faltering whisper staid.-
"Thus royal Witiza was slain," he said,
66 Yet, holy Father, deem not it was I."
Thus still Ambition strives her crimes to shade.-
"Oh rather deem 'twas stern necessity!
Self-preservation bade, and I must kill or die.

VIII.

"And if Florinda's shrieks alarm'd the air,
If she invoked her absent sire in vain,
And on her knees implored that I would spare,
Yet, reverend priest, thy sentence rash refrain !-
All is not as it seems-the female train

Know by their bearing to disguise their mood."-
But Conscience here, as if in high disdain,

Sent to the Monarch's cheek the burning blood-
He stay'd his speech abrupt-and up the Prelate stood.

IX.

"O harden'd offspring of an iron race!

What of thy crimes, Don Roderick, shall I say?
What alms, or prayers, or penance, can efface
Murder's dark spot, wash treason's stain away!
For the foul ravisher how shall I pray,

Who, scarce repentant, makes his crime his boast?
How hope Almighty vengeance shall delay,

Unless, in mercy to yon Christian host,

2

He spare the shepherd, lest the guiltless sheep be lost."

Roderick the Goth! That name should have sufficed

To tell the 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 straiten'd down, and hands outspread, and eyes

Raised to the monk, like one who from his voice
Expected life or death."-

Mr. Southey, in a note to these lines, says, "The Vision of Don Roderick supplies a singular contrast to the picture which is represented in this passage. I have great pleasure in quoting the stanzas (v. and vi.); if the contrast had been intentional, it could not have been more complete."]

The predecessor of Roderick upon the Spanish throne, and slain by his connivance, as is affirmed by Rodriguez of Toledo, the father of Spanish history.

2

[MS." He spare to smite the shepherd, lest the sheep be lost."]

X.

Then kindled the dark Tyrant in his mood,

And to his brow return'd its dauntless gloom;
"And welcome then," he cried," be blood for blood,
For treason treachery, for dishonour doom!
Yet will I know whence come they, or by whom.
Show, for thou canst—give forth the fated key,
And guide me, Priest, to that mysterious room,'

Where, if aught true in old tradition be,
His nation's future fates a Spanish King shall see.'

XI.

"Ill-fated Prince! recall the desperate word,
Or pause ere yet the omen thou obey !'
Bethink, yon spell-bound portal would afford3
Never to former Monarch entrance-way;
Nor shall it ever ope, old records say,

Save to a King, the last of all his line,
What time his empire totters to decay,

2

And treason digs, beneath, her fatal mine,
And, high above, impends avenging wrath divine."-

XII.

"Prelate! a Monarch's fate brooks no delay;
Lead on!"-The ponderous key the old man took,
And held the winking lamp, and led the way,
By winding stair, dark aisle, and secret nook,
Then on an ancient gateway bent his look;

And, as the key the desperate King essay'd,
Low mutter'd thunders the Cathedral shook,

And twice he stopp'd, and twice new effort made, Till the huge bolts roll'd back, and the loud hinges bray'd.

XIII.

Long, large, and lofty, was that vaulted hall;

Roof, walls, and floor, were all of marble stone,

Of polish'd marble, black as funeral pall,

Carved o'er with signs and characters unknown. A paly light, as of the dawning, shone

[MS.-"And guide me, prelate, to that secret room."]

2 [See Appendix, Note A.]

[blocks in formation]
« AnteriorContinuar »