The Spanish gypsy. A poem

Front matter

A POE M BV GEORGE ELIOT ' SECOND EDITION WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXVIII The Right of Translation is reserved This Work was originally written in the winter oj 1864-5 > after a visit to Spain in 1867 it zeas rewritten and amplified. Tlie reader conversant with Spanish poetry will see that in two of the Lyrics an attempt has been made to imitate the trochaic measure and assonance of the Spanish Ballad. May 1868. THE SPANISH GYPSY

Book I. The Spanish Gypsy. Book I

'Tis the warm South, where Europe spreads her lands Like fretted leaflets, breathing on the deep : Broad-breasted Spain, leaning with equal love (A calm earth-goddess crowned with corn and vines) On the Mid Sea that moans with memories, And on the untravelled Ocean, whose vast tides Pant dumbly passionate with dreams of youth. This river, shadowed by the battlements And gleaming silvery towards the northern sky, Feeds the famed stream that waters Andalus And loiters, amorous of the fragrant air, By Cordova and Seville to the bay Fronting Algarva and the wandering flood Of Guadiana. This deep mountain gorge Slopes widening on the olive-plumdd plains Of fair Granada : one far-stretching arm Points to Elvira, one to eastward heights Of Alpujarras where the new-bathed Day With oriflamme uplifted o'er the peaks Saddens the breasts of northward-looking snows That loved the night, and soared with soaring stars Flashing the signals of his nearing swiftness From Almen'a's purple-shadowed bay On to the far-off rocks that gaze and glow — On to Alhambra, strong and ruddy heart Of glorious Morisma, gasping now, A maimed giant in his agony.

This town that dips its feet within the stream, And seems to sit a tower-crowned Cybele, Spreading her ample robe adown the rocks, Is rich Bedmar : 'twas Moorish long ago, But now the Cross is sparkling on the Mosque, And bells make Catholic the trembling air. The fortress gleams in Spanish sunshine now ('Tis south a mile before the rays are Moorish) — Hereditary jewel, agraffe bright On all the many-titled privilege Of young Duke Silva. No Castilian knight That serves Queen Isabel has higher charge ; For near this frontier sits the Moorish king, Not Boabdil the waverer, who usurps A throne he trembles in, and fawning licks The feet of conquerors, but that fierce lion they Grisly El Zagal, who has made his lair In Guadix' fort, and rushing thence with strength Half his own fierceness, half the untainted heart Of mountain bands that fight for holiday, Wastes the fair lands that lie by Alcala, Wreathing his horse's neck with Christian heads.

To keep the Christian frontier — such high trust Is young Duke Silva's ; and the time is great. (What times are little ? To the sentinel That hour is regal when he mounts on guard.) The fifteenth century since the Man Divine Taught and was hated in Capernaum Is near its end — is falling as a husk Away from all the fruit its years have ripened. The Moslem faith, now flickering like a torch In a night struggle on this shore of Spain, Glares, a broad column of advancing flame, Along the Danube and the Illyrian shore Far into Italy, where eager monks, Who watch in dreams and dream the while watch, See Christ grow paler in the baleful light, Crying again the cry of the forsaken. But faith, the stronger for extremity, Becomes prophetic, hears the far-off tread Of western chivalry, sees downward sweep The archangel Michael with the gleaming sword And listens for the shriek of hurrying fiends Chased from their revels in God's sanctuary.

So trusts the monk, and lifts appealing eyes To the high dome, the Church's firmament, Where the blue light-pierced curtain, rolled away Reveals the throne and Him who sits thereon. So trust the men whose best hope for the world Is ever that the world is near its end : Impatient of the stars that keep their course And make no pathway for the coming Judge. But other sutures stir the world's great heart. Europe is come to her majority, And enters on the vast inheritance Won from the tombs of mighty ancestors, The seeds, the gold, the gems, the silent harps That lay deep buried with the memories Of old renown. No more, as once in sunny Avignon, The poet-scholar spreads the Homeric page, And gazes sadly, like the deaf at song ; For now the old epic voices ring again And vibrate with the beat and melody Stirred by the warmth of old Ionian days.

The martyred sage, the Attic orator, Immortally incarnate, like the gods, In spiritual bodies, winged words Holding a universe impalpable, Find a new audience. For evermore, With grander resurrection than was feigned Of Attila's fierce Huns, the soul of Greece Conquers the bulk of Persia. The maimed form Of calmly-joyous beauty, marble-limbed, Yet breathing with the thought that shaped its lips, Looks mild reproach from out its opened grave At creeds of terror ; and the vine-wreathed god Rising, a stifled question from the silence, Fronts the pierced Image with the crown of thorns. The soul of man is widening towards the past : No longer hanging at the breast of life Feeding in blindness to his parentage — Quenching all w-onder with Omnipotence, Praising a name with indolent piety — He spells the record of his long descent, More largely conscious of the life that was.

And from the height that shows where morning shone On far-off summits pale and gloomy now, The horizon widens round him, and the west Looks vast with untracked waves whereon his gaze Follows the flight of the swift-vanished bird That like the sunken sun is mirrored still Upon the yearning soul within the eye. And so in Cordova through patient nights Columbus watches, or he sails in dreams Between the setting stars and finds new day ; Then wakes again to the old weary days, Girds on the cord and frock of pale Saint Francis, And like him zealous pleads with foolish men. " I ask but for a million maravedis : Give me three caravels to find a world, New shores, new realms, new soldiers for the Cross. Sou cosas grandest " Thus he pleads in vain ; Yet faints not utterly, but pleads anew, Thinking, " God means it, and has chosen me."

For this man is the pulse of all mankind Feeding an embryo future, offspring strange Of the fond Present, that with mother-prayers And mother-fancies looks for championship Of all her loved beliefs and old-world ways From that young Time she bears within her womb. The sacred places shall be purged again, The Turk converted, and the Holy Church, Like the mild Virgin with the outspread robe, Shall fold all tongues and nations lovingly. But since God works by armies, who shall be The modern Cyrus ? Is it France most Christian, Who with his lilies and brocaded knights, French oaths, French vices, and the newest style Of out-puffed sleeve, shall pass from west to east, A winnowing fan to purify the seed For fair millennial harvests soon to come ? Or is not Spain the land of chosen warriors ? — Crusaders consecrated from the womb, Carrying the sword-cross stamped upon their souls By the long yearnings of a nation's life, Through all the seven patient centuries Since first Pelayo and his resolute band Trusted the God within their Gothic hearts At Covadunga, and defied Mahound ; Beginning so the Holy War of Spain That now is panting with the eagerness Of labour near its end.

The silver cross Glitters o'er Malaga and streams dread light On Moslem galleys, turning all their stores From threats to gifts. What Spanish knight is he Who, living now, holds it not shame to live Apart from that hereditary battle Which needs his sword ? Castilian gentlemen Choose not their task — they choose to do it well. The time is great, and greater no man's trust Than his who keeps the fortress for his king, Wearing great honours as some delicate robe Brocaded o'er with names 'twere sin to tarnish. Born de la Cerda, Calatravan knight, Count of Segura, fourth Duke of Bedmar, Offshoot from that high stock of old Castile Whose topmost branch is proud Medina Celi — Such titles with their blazonry are his Who keeps this fortress, sworn Alcayde, Lord of the valley, master of the town, Commanding whom he will, himself commanded By Christ his Lord who sees him from the Cross And from bright heaven where the Mother pleads ;- By good Saint James upon the milk-white steed, Who leaves his bliss to fight for chosen Spain ; — By the dead gaze of all his ancestors ; — And by the mystery of his Spanish blood Charged with the awe and glories of the past.

See now with soldiers in his front and rear He winds at evening through the narrow streets That toward the Castle gate climb devious : His charger, of fine Andalusian stock, An Indian beauty, black but delicate, Is conscious of the herald trumpet note, The gathering glances, and familiar ways That lead fast homeward : she forgets fatigue, And at the light touch of the master's spur Thrills with the zeal to bear him royally, Arches her neck and clambers up the stones As if disdainful of the difficult steep. Night-black the charger, black the rider's plume, But all between is bright with morning hues — Seems ivory and gold and deep blue gems, And starry flashing steel and pale vermilion, All set in jasper : on his surcoat white Glitter the swordbelt and the jewelled hilt, Red on the back and breast the holy cross, And 'twixt the helmet and the soft-spun white Thick tawny wavelets like the lion's mane Turn backward from his brow, pale, wide, erect, Shadowing blue eyes — blue as the rain-washed sky That braced the earl)- stem of Gothic kings He claims for ancestry.

A goodly knight, A noble caballero, broad of chest And long of limb. So much the August sun, Now in the west but shooting half its beams Past a dark rocky profile toward the plain, At winding opportunities across the slope Makes suddenly luminous for all who see : For women smiling from the terraced roofs ; For boys that prone on trucks with head up-propped, Lazy and curious, stare irreverent ; For men who make obeisance with degrees Of good-will shading towards servility, Where good-will ends and secret fear begins, And curses, too, low-muttered through the teeth, Explanatory to the God of Shem. Five, grouped within a whitened tavern court Of Moorish fashion, where the trellised vines Purpling above their heads make odorous shade, Note through the open door the passers-by, Getting some rills of novelty to speed The lagging stream of talk and help the wine. 'Tis Christian to drink wine : whoso denies His flesh at bidding save of Holy Church, Let him beware and take to Christian sins Lest he be taxed with Moslem sanctity.

The souls are five, the talkers only three. (No time, most tainted by wrong faith and rule, But holds some listeners and dumb animals.) Mine Host is one : he with the well-arched nose, Soft-eyed, fat-handed, loving men for nought But his own humour, patting old and young Upon the back, and mentioning the cost With confidential blandness, as a tax That he collected much against his will From Spaniards who were all his bosom friends : Warranted Christian — else how keep an inn, Which calling asks true faith ? though like his wine Of cheaper sort, a trifle over-new. His father was a convert, chose the chrism As men choose physic, kept his chimney warm With smokiest wood upon a Saturday, Counted his gains and grudges on a chaplet, And crossed himself asleep for fear of spies ; Trusting the God of Israel would see 'Twas Christian tyranny that made him base.

Our host his son was born ten years too soon, Had heard his mother call him Ephraim, Knew holy things from common, thought it sin To feast on days when Israel's children mourned, pas So had to be converted with his sire, To doff the awe he learned as Ephraim, And suit his manners to a Christian name. But infant awe, that unborn breathing thing, Dies with what nourished it, can never rise From the dead womb and walk and seek new ture. Baptism seemed to him a merry game Not tried before, all sacraments a mode Of doing homage for one's property, 'And all religions a queer human whim Or else a vice, according to degrees : As, 'tis a whim to like your chestnuts hot, Burn your own mouth and draw your face awry, A vice to pelt frogs with them — animals Content to take life coolly. And Lorenzo Would have all lives made easy, even lives Of spiders and inquisitors, yet still Wishing so well to flies and Moors and Jews He rather wished the others easy death ; For loving all men clearly was deferred Till all men loved each other.

Such mine Host With chiselled smile caressing Seneca, The solemn mastiff leaning on his knee. His right-hand guest is solemn as the dog, Square-faced and massive : Blasco is his name, A prosperous silversmith from Aragon ; In speech not silvery, rather tuned as notes From a deep vessel made of plenteous iron, Or some great bell of slow but certain swing That, if you only wait, will tell the hour As well as flippant clocks that strike in haste And set off chiming a superfluous tune — Like JUAN there, the spare man with the lute, Who makes you dizzy with his rapid tongue, Whirring athwart your mind with comment swift On speech you would have finished by-and-by, Shooting your bird for you while you are loading, Cheapening your wisdom as a pattern known, Woven by any shuttle on demand. Can never sit quite still, too : sees a wasp And kills it with a movement like a flash ; Whistles low notes or seems to thrum his lute As a mere hyphen 'twixt two syllables Of any steadier man ; walks up and down And snuffs the orange flowers and shoots a pea To hit a streak of light let through the awning.

Has a queer face : eyes large as plums, a nose Small, round, uneven, like a bit of wax Melted and cooled by chance. Thin-fingered, lithe And as a squirrel noiseless, startling men Only by quickness. In his speech and look A touch of graceful wildness, as of things Not trained or tamed for uses of the world ; Most like the Fauns that roamed in days of old About the listening whispering woods, and shared The subtler sense of sylvan ears and eyes LTndulled by scheming thought, yet joined the rout Of men and women on the festal days, And played the syrinx too, and knew love's pains, Turning their anguish into melody. For Juan was a minstrel still, in times When minstrelsy was held a thing outworn. Spirits seem buried and their epitaph Is writ in Latin by severest pens, Yet still they flit above the trodden grave And find new bodies, animating them In quaint and ghostly way with antique souls.

So Juan was a troubadour revived, Freshening life's dusty road with babbling rills Of wit and song, living 'mid harnessed men With limbs ungalled by armour, ready so To soothe them wear)-, and to cheer them sad. Guest at the board, companion in the camp, A crystal mirror to the life around, Flashing the comment keen of simple fact Defined in words ; lending brief lyric voice To grief and sadness ; hardly taking note Of difference betwixt his own and others' ; But rather singing as a listener To the deep moans, the cries, the wild strong joys Of universal Nature, old yet young. pence Such Juan, the third talker, shimmering bright As butterfly or bird with quickest life. The silent Roldan has his brightness too, But only in his spangles and rosettes. His parti-coloured vest and crimson hose Are dulled with old Valencian dust, his eyes With straining fifty years at gilded balls To catch them dancing, or with brazen looks At men and women as he made his jests Some thousand times and watched to count the His wife was gathering.

His olive face Has an old writing in it, characters Stamped deep by grins that had no merriment The soul's rude mark proclaiming all its blank As on some faces that have long grown old In listing tapers up to forms obscene On ancient walls and chuckling with false zest To please my lord, who gives the larger fee For that hard industry in apishness. Roldan would gladly never laugh again ; Pensioned, he would be grave as any ox, And having beans and crumbs and oil secured Would borrowno man's jokes for evermore. 'Tis harder now because his wife is sone, Who had quick feet, and danced to ravishment Of every ring jewelled with Spanish eyes, But died and left this boy, lame from his birth, And sad and obstinate, though when he will He sings God-taught such marrow-thrilling strains As seem the very voice of dying Spring, A flute-like wail that mourns the blossoms gone, And sinks, and is not, like their fragrant breath, With fine transition on the trembling air.

He sits as if imprisoned by some fear, Motionless, with wide eyes that seem not made For hungry glancing of a twelve-year' d boy To mark the living thing that he could teaze, But for the gaze of some primeval sadness Dark twin with light in the creative ra)'. This little Pablo has his spangles too, And large rosettes to hide his poor left foot Rounded like any hoof (his mother thought God willed it so to punish all her sins). I said the souls were five — besides the dog. But there was still a sixth, with wrinkled face, Grave and disgusted with all merriment Not less than Roldan. It is Annibal, The experienced monkey who performs the tricks, Jumps through the hoops, and carries round the hat. Once full of sallies and impromptu feats, Now cautions not to light on aught that's new, Lest he be whipped to do it o'er again From A to Z, and make the gentry laugh : A misanthropic monkey, grey and grim, B Bearing a lot that has no remedy For want of concert in the monkey tribe.

We see the company, above their heads The braided matting, golden as ripe corn, Stretched in a curving strip close by the grapes, Elsewhere rolled back to greet the cooler sky ; A fountain near, vase-shapen and broad-lipped, Where timorous birds alight with tiny feet, And hesitate and bend wise listening ears, And fly away again with undipped beak. On the stone floor the juggler's heaped-up goods, Carpet and hoops, viol and tambourine, Where Annibal sits perched with brows severe, A serious ape whom none take seriously, Obliged in this fool's world to earn his nuts By hard buffoonery. We see them all, And hear their talk — the talk of Spanish men, With Southern intonation, vowels turned Caressingly between the consonants, Persuasive, willing, with such intervals As music borrows from the wooing birds, That plead with subtly curving, sweet descent — And yet can quarrel, as these Spaniards can.

JUAN (near the doorzeay). You hear the trumpet ? There's old Ramon's blast No bray but his can shake the air so well. He takes his trumpeting as solemnly As angel charged to wake the dead ; thinks war Was made for trumpeters, and their great art Made solely for themselves who understand it. His features all have shaped themselves to blowing, And when his trumpet's bagged or left at home He seems a chattel in a broker's booth, A spoutless watering-can, a promise to pay No sum particular. O fine old Ramon ! The blasts get louder and the clattering hoofs ; They crack the ear as well as heaven's thunder For owls that listen blinking. There's the banner. HOST (joining him : the others follow to the door) The Duke has finished reconnoitring, then ? We shall hear news. They say he means a sally — Would strike El Zagal's Moors as they push home Like ants with booty heavier than themselves ; Then, joined by other nobles with their bands, Lay siege to Guadix.

Juan, you're a bird That nest within the Castle. What say you ? JUAN. Nought, I say nought. 'Tis but a toilsome game To bet upon that feather Policy, And guess where after twice a hundred puffs 'Twill catch another feather crossing it : Guess how the cardinal will blow and how the king What force my lady's fan has ; how a cough Seizing the Padre's throat may raise a gust, And how the queen may sigh the feather down. Such catching at imaginary threads, Such spinning twisted air, is not for me. If I should want a game, I'll rather bet On racing snails, two large, slow, lingering snails No spurring, equal weights — a chance sublime, Nothing to guess at, pure uncertainty. Here comes the Duke. They give but feeble shouts. And some look sour. Host. That spoils a fair occasion. Civility brings no conclusions with it, And cheerful Vivas make the moments glide Instead of grating like a rusty wheel.

JUAN. O they are dullards, kick because they're stung, And bruise a friend to show they hate a wasp. Host. Best treat your wasp with delicate regard ; When the right moment comes say, " By your leave Use your heel — so ! and make an end of him. That's if we talked of wasps ; but our young Duke- Spain holds not a more gallant gentleman. Live, live, Duke Silva ! 'Tis a rare smile he has, But seldom seen. Juan. A true hidalgo's smile, That gives much favour, but beseeches none. His smile is sweetened by his gravity : It comes like dawn upon Sierra snows, Seeming more generous for the coldness gone ; Breaks from the calm — a sudden opening flower On dark deep waters : one moment shrouded close, A mystic shrine, the next a full-rayed star, Thrilling, pulse-quickening as a living word. I'll make a song of that.

Host. Prithee, not now. You'll fall to staring like a wooden saint, And wag your head as it were set on wires. Here's fresh sherbet. Sit, be good company. (To BLASCO) You are a stranger, sir, and cannot know How our Duke's nature suits his princely frame. BLASCO. Nay, but I marked his spurs — chased cunningly ! A duke should know good gold and silver plate ; Then he will know the quality of mine. I've ware for tables and for altars too, Our Lady in all sizes, crosses, bells : He'll need such weapons full as much as swords If he would capture any Moorish town. For, let me tell you, when a mosque is cleansed Juan. The demons fly so thick from sound of bells And smell of incense, you may see the air Streaked as with smoke. Why, they are spirits You may well think how crowded they must be To make a sort of haze.

BLASCO. I knew not that. Still, they're of smoky nature, demons are ; And since you say so — well, it proves the more The need of bells and censers. Ay, your Duke Sat well : a true hidalgo. I can judge — Of harness specially. I saw the camp, The royal camp at Velez Malaga. 'Twas like the court of heaven — such liveries ! And torches carried by the score at night Before the nobles. Sirs, I made a dish To set an emerald in would fit a crown, For Don Alonzo, lord of Aguilar. Your Duke's no whit behind him in his mien Or harness either. But you seem to say The people love him not. Host. They've nought against him But certain winds will make men's temper bad. When the Solano blows hot venomed breath, It acts upon men's knives : steel takes to stabbing Which else, with cooler winds, were honest steel, Cutting but garlick.

There's a wind just now- Blows right from Seville BLASCO. A)-, you mean the wind Yes, yes, a wind that's rather hot Host. With faggots. Juan. A wind that suits not with our townsmen's blood. Abram, 'tis said, objected to be scorched, And, as the learned Arabs vouch, he gave The antipathy in full to Ishmael. 'Tis true, these patriarchs had their oddities. BLASCO. Oddities? I'm of their mind, I know. Though, as to Abraham and Ishmael, I'm an old Christian, and owe nought to them Or any Jew among them. But I know We made a stir in Saragossa — we : The men of Aragon ring hard — true metal. Sirs, I'm no friend to heresy, but then A Christian's money is not safe. As how ? A lapsing Jew or any heretic May owe me twenty ounces : suddenly He's prisoned, suffers penalties — 'tis well : If men will not believe, 'tis good to make them, But let the penalties fall on them alone.

The Jew is stripped, his goods are confiscate ; Now, where, I pray you, go my twenty ounces ? God knows, and perhaps the King may, but not I. And more, my son may lose his young wife's dower Because 'twas promised since her father's soul Fell to wrong thinking. How was I to know ? I could but use my sense and cross myself. Christian is Christian — I give in — but still Taxing is taxing, though you call it holy. We Saragossans liked not this new tax They call the — nonsense, I'm from Aragon ! I speak too bluntly. But, for Holy Church, No man believes more. Host. Nay, sir, never fear. Good Master Roldan here is no delator. ? deep ROLDAN (starting from a reverie). You speak to me, sirs ? I perform to-night — The Placa Santiago. Twenty tricks. All different. I dance, too. And the boy Sings like a bird.

I crave your patronage. BLASCO. Faith, you shall have it, sir. In travelling I take a little freedom, and am gay. You marked not what I said just now? Roldan. I ? no. I pray your pardon. I've a twinging knee, That makes it hard to listen. You were saying BLASCO. Nay, it was nought. (Aside to HOST) Is it his ness ? Host. No. He's deep in nothing but his poverty. BLASCO. But 'twas his poverty that made me think Host. His piety might wish to keep the feasts As well as fasts. No fear ; he hears not. BLASCO. Good. I speak my mind about the penalties, But, look you, I'm against assassination. You know my meaning — Master Arbues, The grand Inquisitor in Aragon. I knew nought — paid no copper towards the deed. But I was there, at prayers, within the church. How could I help it ? Why, the saints were there, And looked straight on above the altars.

I . . . JUAN. Looked carefully another way BLASCO. Why, at my beads 'Twas after midnight, and the canons all Were chanting matins. I was not in church To gape and stare. I saw the martyr kneel I never liked the look of him alive — He was no martyr then. I thought he made An ugly shadow as he crept athwart The bands of light, then passed within the gloom By the broad pillar. 'Twas in our great Seo, At Saragossa. The pillars tower so large You cross yourself to see them, lest white Death Should hide behind their dark. And so it was. I looked away again and told my beads Unthinkingly ; but still a man has ears ; And right across the chanting came a sound As if a tree had crashed above the roar Of some great torrent. So it seemed to me ; For when you listen long and shut your eyes Small sounds get thunderous.

And he'd a shell Like any lobster : a good iron suit From top to toe beneath the innocent serge. That made the tell-tale sound. But then came shrieks. The chanting stopped and turned to rushing feet, And in the midst lay Master Arbues, Felled like an ox. 'Twas wicked butchery. Some honest men had hoped it would have scared The Inquisition out of Aragon. 'Twas money thrown away — I would say, crime — Clean thrown away. Host. That was a pity now. Next to a missing thrust, what irks me most Is a neat well-aimed stroke that kills your man, Yet ends in mischief — as in Aragon. It was a lesson to our people here. Else there's a monk within our city walls, A holy, high-born, stern Dominican, They might have made the great mistake to kill. BLASCO. What ! is he ? Host. Yes ; a Master Arbues Of finer quality.

The Prior here And uncle to our Duke. BLASCO. He will want plate : A holy pillar or a crucifix. But, did you say, he was like Arbues ? JUAN. As a black eagle with gold beak and claws Is like a raven. Even in his cowl, Covered from head to foot, the Prior is known From all the black herd round. When he uncovers And stands white-frocked, with ivory face, his eyes Black-gleaming, black his crown of hair Like shredded jasper, he seems less a man With struggling aims than pure incarnate Will, Fit to subdue rebellious nations, nay, with That human flesh he breathes in, charged passion Which quivers in his nostril and his lip, But disciplined by long-indwelling will To silent labour in the yoke of law. A truce to thy comparisons, Lorenzo ! Thine is no subtle nose for difference ; 'Tis dulled by feigning and civility.