Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (speed reading book TXT) 📗

The attention of the Cardinal Acquaviva was called to him through his composition of "Filena," and, in 1568 or 1569, he joined the household of the cardinal and accompanied him to Rome. It is sad to think that only a few meagre items are all that remain to tell us of his daily life at this important period of his life. By some of his biographers he is mentioned as being under the protection of the cardinal; by one as seeking to better his penniless condition; by another as having the place of valet de chambre; and still again, we find him mentioned as a chamberlain in the household. Monsignor Guilio Acquaviva, in 1568, went as ambassador to Spain to offer the king the condolences of the Pontiff on the death of Don Carlos. The cardinal was a man of high position, young, yet of great accomplishments, and with cultivated literary tastes. What then could have been more natural than that he should have found companionship in Cervantes, and have desired to attach him to himself as a friend or as a confidential secretary, to be always near him. It is more than probable that his impressions of Southern France, which he immortalized in his early pastoral romance of "Galatea" were imbibed while making the journey to Rome with the cardinal, in whose service he must have remained three years, as in October 7, 1571, we find him joining the united Venetian, Papal, and Spanish expedition commanded by Don John of Austria, against the Turks and the African corsairs.

In the naval engagement at Lepanto, Cervantes was badly wounded, and finally lost his left hand and part of the arm. For six months he was immured in the hospital at Messina. After his recovery, he joined the expedition to the Levant, commanded by Marco Antonio Colonna, Duke of Valiano. He joined at intervals various other expeditions, and not till after his prominence in the engagement at Tunis, did he, in 1575, start to return to Spain, the land of his heart, the theme of the poet, and the region supposed by the Moors to have dropped from heaven. Don John of Austria and Don Carlos of Arragon, Viceroy of Sicily, each bore the warmest testimony to the bravery and heroism of our poet, and each gave him strong letters of commendation to the king of Spain.

In company with his own brother Roderigo, and other wounded soldiers who were returning home, he started in the ship El Sol, which had the misfortune, September 26, 1575, to be captured by an Algerine squadron. Then it happened that the letters from the two kings, so highly prized and upon which he had built so many hopes, proved a great misfortune to him. The pirates cast lots for the captives. Cervantes fell to the share of the captain, Dali Mami by name, who, in consequence of finding these two letters, imagined he must be some Don of great importance and worth a heavy ransom. He was watched and guarded with great strictness, loaded with heavy fetters, and subjected to cruelties of every kind, till his captor, not finding him of so much account as he had supposed, and no money being offered for his ransom, the captain finally sold him for five hundred escudos to the Dey Azan.

Inasmuch as a change might lead to something better, Cervantes rejoiced. His gallant spirit, ever hopeful, looked for the open door in misfortune. But, alas! his increased sufferings with the Dey reached a climax almost beyond endurance. He made every struggle to escape; but even in the midst of all his own sufferings, he found ways of aiding his fellow-victims and inspiring them with the hopes denied to himself. Roderigo had escaped long before, and from that time was making constant exertion to raise the needful amount to redeem Miguel from the Dey, but not till September, 1580, did he succeed in effecting his release; some biographers making it a still later date.

His father had long been dead, and his mother and sisters gathered what they could, but the combined family efforts were insufficient. There was a society of pious and generous monks, who made special exertions to assist in the liberation of Christian captives, and they finally made up the amount demanded by Azan for Cervantes' release.

Worn down in spirit, broken in health, crushed at heart, who may venture to speak of the effect upon him when he once more found himself at home and in the embraces of his family? He himself says: "What transport in life can equal that which a man feels on the restoration of his liberty?" There is probably no more thrilling or exact an account of the Algerine slavery than he has given in "Don Quixote." Whether his love for a military life still pursued him, whether he desired an opportunity for revenge upon his persecutors, or whether it was fatality,—maimed and ruined as he was he once more entered the army. We cannot analyze his motive. He makes his bachelor Sampson say, "The historian must pen things not as they ought to have been but as they really were, without adding to or diminishing aught from the truth." The lives of literary men are not always devoid of stirring incidents. M. Viardot says of him: "Cervantes was an illustrious man before he became an illustrious author; the doer of great deeds before he produced an immortal book." Don Lope de Figueras then commanded a regiment of tried and veteran soldiers in the army of the Duke of Alva, in Portugal. His brother Roderigo was serving in it when he joined it; and as Figueras had known Cervantes in former campaigns, it is most probable he was in his regiment. Later on, we find Cervantes accompanying the Marquis de Santa Cruz on an expedition to the Azores, serving long and bravely under him. The conquest of the Azores is described as a fiercely won but brilliant victory over all the islands; and Cervantes immortalized the genius and gallantry of the admiral in a sonnet.

The spirit of adventure ran high among the Castilians, while the whole nation was at the same time in course of mental as well as moral development. We are obliged to acknowledge that Spain in many ways was far behind Italy, though hardly as some would have it, at the distance of half a century. We must remember that, in 1530, there were only two hundred printing-presses in the whole of Europe, and that when the first one was set up in London, the Westminster abbot exclaimed, "Brethren, this is a tremendous engine! We must control it, or it will conquer us." The first press in Spain was set up in Valencia, in 1474, and Clemencin says that more printing-presses in the infancy of the art were probably at work in Spain than there are at the present day.

A change seemed to have crept gradually over the whole national character of Spain after the brilliant and prosperous reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, commencing with the severity of the Inquisition and continuing under the tyranny of Philip II., predisposing the army to savage deeds, till even the women and children were infected and the literature of the period slightly tinged.

Cervantes is too often merged into Don Quixote as if he had no separate existence. He accomplished more for the improvement of Spanish literature with his well-timed satire than all the laws or sermons could effect. His remarkable mind seems to have escaped the influence of the times, unless we make an exception of his drama "Numancia," which, while it excites the imagination, fills us with horror at its details, and fails to touch our hearts, but is full of historical truths. Schlegel, however, reviews it with enthusiasm. He calls his "Life in Algiers" a comedy, but undoubtedly it is a true picture of his own captivity. We are touched and filled with gloom at its perusal, and only remember it as a tragedy. These two dramas were lost sight of till the end of the eighteenth century, and they are superior to later dramatic efforts. He was proud of his original conception of a tragedy composed of ideal and allegorical characters which he permitted to have part in the "Life in Algiers," as well as in "Numancia." Of the thirty plays spoken of as given to the stage but few now remain; but others may yet be found. The Spaniards say the faults of a great writer are not left in the ink-stand. Spain, in Cervantes' day, had passed the chivalric age, though many relics of it still remained in its legends, songs, and proverbs. Cervantes becomes his own critic in his "Supplement to a Journey to Parnassus," and speaking of his dramas, says: "I should declare them worthy the favor they have received were they not my own." Unfortunately, his comedy of "La Confusa" is among the lost ones. He alludes to it as a good one among the best.

We have known Cervantes as a student, a soldier, a captive, and an author, and now we have to imagine our maimed and bronzed soldier-poet, after his many fortunes of war, in the new character of a lover. In thought we trace his noble features, his intelligent look and expressive eye, combined with his dignified bearing and thoughtful manner, and in so tracing we find it congenial to imagine him as being well dressed and enveloped in the ample Spanish cloak thrown gracefully over his breast and left shoulder, concealing the poor mutilated arm, and at the same time making it all the more difficult to believe that the right one had ever wielded a "Toledo blade" or sworn that very strongest vow of loyalty, "A fe de Rodrigo."1

We find him much interested in the quaint old-fashioned town of Esquivias, making many friends therein, and sometimes gossiping with the host of the fonda, so famed for the generous wines of Esquivias that it needed no "bush;" and while enjoying his cigarito and taking an occasional morsel from the dish of quisado before him, he is learning from the same gossiping host many items of interest about the very illustrious families of Esquivias,—for it was famed for its chivalrous prowess and its "claims of long descent." He had commenced his "Galatea," and in it he was painting living portraits, and with great delicacy he was, as the shepherd Elicio, portraying his passion for Catalina, the daughter of Fernando de Salazar ý Voxmediano and Catalina de Palacios, both of illustrious families. Her father was dead, and she had been educated by her uncle, Francisco de Salazar, who left her a legacy in his will.

The fair Catalina, like other Spanish señoritas, was under the espionage of a strict dueña, and his opportunities of seeing her were very limited. Sometimes we fancy him awaiting the passing of the hour of the siesta and knocking at the grating of the heavy door of the house of the Salazars, and in reply to the porter's question of Quien es? answering, in his melodious tones, Gente de paz (literally, "a friend"),—a precaution which still continues