Iberia Won 51

Iberia Won 51

Ne’er was such unfading truth,

Love so pure beheld in maiden;

Never was such radiant youth

With such boundless virtue laden.

Pity felt her heart for wo,

For Iberia deep devotion;

While her damask cheek would show

Of her soul the least emotion.

Vascongada, mourn!

 

 

3

 

San Sebastian’s daughters, weep,

Yet a blessing call upon her;

Even the dread Cathedral leap

Chose the maid before dishonour!

Red the lily, torn its charms,

Fiery-tongued for pity pleading.

Carlos, ah, thy frozen arms

Cannot fold thy angel bleeding.

Vascongada, mourn.

 

 

 

 

HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES TO CANTO IX.

 

 

The terrible scenes consequent upon the siege and storming of San

Sebastian, which occupy considerable portions of this and the

preceding Canto, and form in their bare recital an illustration

never surpassed of the horrors of War, are attested by so many

authorities, that to enter into minute corroborative details

would far exceed the limits which I have prescribed to myself.

The following brief but vigorous description is from Gleig’s

_Subaltern_:

 

“The reader will easily believe that a man who has spent some of

the best years of his life amid scenes of violence and bloodshed,

must have witnessed many spectacles highly revolting to the purest

feelings of our nature; but a more appalling picture of war passed

by--of war in its darkest colours,--those which distinguish it

when its din is over--than was presented by St. Sebastian, and

the country in its immediate vicinity, I certainly never beheld.

Whilst an army is stationary in any district, you are wholly

unconscious of the work of devastation which is proceeding--you see

only the hurry and pomp of hostile operations. But, when the tide

has rolled on, and you return by chance to the spot over which it

has last swept, the effect upon your mind is such, as cannot even

be imagined by him who has not experienced it. Little more than a

week had elapsed, since the division employed in the siege of St.

Sebastian had moved forward. Their trenches were not yet filled up,

nor their batteries demolished; yet the former had, in some places,

fallen in of their own accord, and the latter were beginning to

crumble to pieces. We passed them by, however, without much notice.

It was, indeed, impossible not to acknowledge, that the perfect

silence which prevailed was far more awful than the bustle and

stir that lately pervaded them; whilst the dilapidated condition of

the convent, and of the few cottages which stood near it, stripped,

as they were, of roofs, doors, and windows, and perforated with

cannon shot, inspired us with gloomy sensations.

 

“As we pursued the main road, and approached St. Sebastian by

its ordinary entrance, we were at first surprised at the slight

degree of damage done to its fortifications by the fire of our

batteries. The walls and battlements beside the gateway appeared

wholly uninjured, the very embrasures being hardly defaced. But

the delusion grew gradually more faint as we drew nearer, and

had totally vanished before we reached the glacis. We found the

draw-bridge fallen down across the ditch, in such a fashion that

the endeavour to pass it was not without danger. The folding gates

were torn from their hinges, one lying flat upon the ground, and

the other leaning against the wall; whilst our own steps, as we

moved along the arched passage, sounded loud and melancholy.

 

“Having crossed this, we found ourselves at the commencement of

what had once been the principal street in the place. No doubt it

was, in its day, both neat and regular; but of the houses nothing

now remained except the outward shells, which, however, appeared

to be of an uniform height and style of architecture. As far as

I could judge, they stood five stories from the ground, and were

faced with a sort of freestone, so thoroughly blackened and defiled

as to be hardly cognizable. The street itself was, moreover, choked

up with heaps of ruins, among which were strewed about fragments

of household furniture and clothing, mixed with caps, military

accoutrements, round shot, pieces of shells, and all the other

implements of strife. Neither were there wanting other evidences

of the drama which had been lately acted here, in the shape of

dead bodies, putrefying, and infecting the air with the most

horrible stench. Of living creatures, on the other hand, not one

was to be seen, not even a dog or a cat; indeed, we traversed the

whole city without meeting more than six human beings. These, from

their dress and abject appearance, struck me as being some of the

inhabitants who had survived the assault. They looked wild and

haggard, and moved about here and there, poking among the ruins, as

if they were either in search of the bodies of their slaughtered

relatives, or hoped to find some little remnant of their property.”

For an account of the excesses committed by our soldiery after the

storming, “atrocities degrading to human nature,” see Napier’s

_History_, book xxii. chap. 2. Mr. Ford’s denial, in his otherwise

valuable Hand-book, deserves much censure. I heard those horrors

detailed on the spot.

 

The operations on the Pyrenees on the day of the storming of San

Sebastian, with the rival manœuvrings of Soult and Wellington, the

combat of San Marcial, in which the Spaniards behaved so well, and

the several remarkable incidents of which I have sought to avail

myself, will be found fully recorded in Napier’s _History_, book

xxii. chap. 3. The scene of these, and the subsequent operations,

struck me at passing as grand and majestic in the highest

degree--the lofty and broken Pyrenean range, more fitted, as I have

elsewhere remarked, for the combats of Titans than of men. The

very names have a majestic sound, and their associations are often

supernatural. I have warrant for the lines:--

 

“Zugaramurdi, Echallar a dirge

May roar for him who dares the eagle’s nest.”

 

These terrific mountain-solitudes were celebrated as the scene of

witchcraft in ancient times:--“Las trasformaciones y maleficios,

las zambras, bailes, y comilonas con que se solazaban otras en los

aquelarres ó ayuntamientos nocturnos de Zugaramurdi, en el valle

de Baztan.” (Navarrete, _Vida de Cervantes_.) A number of these

so-called witches were condemned to be whipped publicly in 1810 by

the Inquisition of Logroño.

 

 

V. “Shuddering she nigh fell, till Nial caught

The bruiséd lambkin in his arms.”

 

Illa nihil: neque enim vocem viresque loquendi,

Aut aliquid toto pectore mentis habet;

Sed tremit, ut quondam stabulis deprensa relictis,

Parva sub infesto cùm jacet agna lupo.

Ovid. _Fast._ ii. 797.

 

 

VII. ----“Would I had died,

Would Heaven that I had died this fatal hour!” &c.

 

Ἰοὺ, ἰοὺ, ἀντιπαθῆ

Μεθεῖσα καρδίας σταλαγμὸν

Χθονιαφόρον· ἐκ δὲ τοῦ

Λιχὴν ἄφυλλος, ἄτεκνος,

Βροτοφθόρους κηλίδας ἐν χώρᾳ βαλεῖ.

Æschyl. _Eumen._ 810.

 

“Wo, bitter wo is me! I will shed a drop from my heart which shall

corrupt all earthly things! And thence shall spring a ring-worm

sterile--childless, and fling man-rotting spots through earth

around!”

 

 

XI. “The elements with fierce, o’ershadowing frown.”

 

At pater omnipotens densa inter nubila telum

Contorsit (non ille faces, nec fumea tædis

Lumina) præcipitemque immani turbine adegit.

Virg. _Æn._ vi.

 

 

XXIII. “And halts the strife of man--his pellets cease to fly.”

 

Ἀντίτυπα δ’ ἐπὶ γᾷ πέσε τανταλωθεὶς

Πυρφόρος, ὃς τότε μαινομένᾳ ξὺν ὁρμᾷ

Βακχεύων ἐπέπνει

Ῥιπαῖς ἐχθίστων ἀνέμων.

Soph. _Antig._ 134.

 

“But stricken with the thunder that fiery one fell to earth who

raging before with insane fury had excited the violent winds.”

 

 

XXV. “Dismayed and scattered fly the rival hosts.”

 

Stolto, ch’al Ciel si agguaglia, e in oblio pone

Come di Dio la destra irata tuone!

Tasso. _Ger. Lib._ iv. 2.

 

 

XXIX. ----“The common power

They owned with one accord--of hearts the richest dower.”

 

Die heilige Liebe

Strebt zu der höchsten frucht gleicher gesinungen auf * *

Sich verbinde das paar, finde die höhere welt.

Goethe, “_Metamorphose der Pflanzen_.”

 

“Holy Love strives after the loftiest fruit of equal

dispositions--that those who love may be one, and find the Higher World!”