Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada, from the mss. of Fray Antonio Agapida. Вашингтон Ирвинг
the land and laying desolate the pride and hopes of palaces. It was a sorrow that visited the marble hall and silken pillow. Stately dames mourned over the loss of their sons, the joy and glory of their age, and many a fair cheek was blanched with woe which had lately mantled with secret admiration. “All Andalusia,” says a historian of the time, “was overwhelmed by a great affliction; there was no drying of the eyes which wept in her.” *
* Cura de los Palacios.
Fear and trembling reigned for a time along the frontier. Their spear seemed broken, their buckler cleft in twain: every border town dreaded an attack, and the mother caught her infant to her bosom when the watch-dog howled in the night, fancying it the war-cry of the Moor. All for a time seemed lost, and despondency even found its way to the royal breasts of Ferdinand and Isabella amidst the splendors of their court.
Great, on the other hand, was the joy of the Moors when they saw whole legions of Christian warriors brought captive into their towns by rude mountain-peasantry. They thought it the work of Allah in favor of the faithful. But when they recognized among the captives thus dejected and broken down some of the proudest of Christian chivalry; when they saw several of the banners and devices of the noblest houses of Spain, which they had been accustomed to behold in the foremost of the battle, now trailed ignominiously through their streets; when, in short, they witnessed the arrival of the count of Cifuentes, the royal standard-bearer of Spain, with his gallant brother, Don Pedro de Silva, brought prisoners into the gates of Granada,—there were no bounds to their exultation. They thought that the days of their ancient glory were about to return, and that they were to renew their career of triumph over the unbelievers.
The Christian historians of the time are sorely perplexed to account for this misfortune, and why so many Christian knights, fighting in the cause of the holy faith, should thus miraculously, as it were, be given captive to a handful of infidel boors, for we are assured that all this rout and destruction was effected by five hundred foot and fifty horse, and those mere mountaineers without science or discipline.* “It was intended,” observes one historiographer, “as a lesson to their confidence and vainglory, overrating their own prowess and thinking that so chosen a band of chivalry had but to appear in the land of the enemy and conquer. It was to teach them that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that God alone giveth the victory.”
* Cura de los Palacios.
The worthy father Fray Antonio Agapida, however, asserts it to be a punishment for the avarice of the Spanish warriors. They did not enter the kingdom of the infidels with the pure spirit of Christian knights, zealous only for the glory of the faith, but rather as greedy men of traffic, to enrich themselves by vending the spoils of the infidels. Instead of preparing themselves by confession and communion, and executing their testaments, and making donations and bequests to churches and convents, they thought only of arranging bargains and sales of their anticipated booty. Instead of taking with them holy monks to aid them with their prayers, they were followed by a train of trading-men to keep alive their worldly and sordid ideas, and to turn what ought to be holy triumphs into scenes of brawling traffic. Such is the opinion of the excellent Agapida, in which he is joined by that most worthy and upright of chroniclers, the curate of Los Palacios. Agapida comforts himself, however, with the reflection that this visitation was meant in mercy to try the Castilian heart, and to extract from its present humiliation the elements of future success, as gold is extracted from amidst the impurities of earth; and in this reflection he is supported by the venerable historian Pedro Abarca of the Society of Jesuits.*
* Abarca, Anales de Aragon, Rey 30, cap. 2, \0xA4 7.
CHAPTER XIV.
HOW KING BOABDIL EL CHICO MARCHED OVER THE BORDER.
The defeat of the Christian cavaliers among the mountains of Malaga, and the successful inroad of Muley Abul Hassan into the lands of Medina Sidonia, had produced a favorable effect on the fortunes of the old monarch. The inconstant populace began to shout forth his name in the streets, and to sneer at the inactivity of his son Boabdil el Chico. The latter, though in the flower of his age and distinguished for vigor and dexterity in jousts and tournaments, had never yet fleshed his weapon in the field of battle; and it was murmured that he preferred the silken repose of the cool halls of the Alhambra to the fatigue and danger of the foray and the hard encampments of the mountains.
The popularity of these rival kings depended upon their success against the Christians, and Boabdil el Chico found it necessary to strike some signal blow to counterbalance the late triumph of his father. He was further incited by his father-in-law, Ali Atar, alcayde of Loxa, with whom the coals of wrath against the Christians still burned among the ashes of age, and had lately been blown into a flame by the attack made by Ferdinand on the city under his command.
Ali Atar informed Boabdil that the late discomfiture of the Christian knights had stripped Andalusia of the prime of her chivalry and broken the spirit of the country. All the frontier of Cordova and Ecija now lay open to inroad; but he especially pointed out the city of Lucena as an object of attack, being feebly garrisoned and lying in a country rich in pasturage, abounding in cattle and grain, in oil and wine. The fiery old Moor spoke from thorough information, for he had made many an incursion into these parts, and his very name was a terror throughout the country. It had become a by-word in the garrison of Loxa to call Lucena the garden of Ali Atar, for he was accustomed to forage its fertile territories for all his supplies.
Boabdil el Chico listened to the persuasions of this veteran of the borders. He assembled a force of nine thousand foot and seven hundred horse, most of them his own adherents, but many the partisans of his father; for both factions, however they might fight among themselves, were ready to unite in any expedition against the Christians. Many of the most illustrious and valiant of the Moorish nobility assembled round his standard, magnificently arrayed in sumptuous armor and rich embroidery, as though for a festival or a tilt of canes rather than an enterprise of iron war. Boabdil’s mother, the sultana Ayxa la Horra, armed him for the field, and gave him her benediction as she girded his scimetar to his side. His favorite wife Morayma wept as she thought of the evils that might befall him. “Why dost thou weep, daughter of Ali Atar?” said the high-minded Ayxa: “these tears become not the daughter of a warrior nor the wife of a king. Believe me there lurks more danger for a monarch within the strong walls of a palace than within the frail curtains of a tent. It is by perils in the field that thy husband must purchase security on his throne.”
But Morayma still hung upon his neck with tears and sad forebodings, and when he departed from the Alhambra she betook herself to her mirador, overlooking the Vega, whence she watched the army as it went in shining order along the road leading to Loxa, and every burst of warlike melody that came swelling on the breeze was answered by a gush of sorrow.
As the royal cavalcade issued from the palace and descended through the streets of Granada the populace greeted their youthful sovereign with shouts, anticipating deeds of prowess that would wither the laurels of his father. The appearance of Boabdil was well calculated to captivate the public eye, if we may judge from the description given by the abbot of Rute in his manuscript history of the House of Cordova. He was mounted on a superb white charger magnificently caparisoned. His corselets were of polished steel richly ornamented, studded with gold nails, and lined with crimson velvet. He wore a steel casque exquisitely chiselled and embossed; his scimetar and dagger of Damascus were of highest temper; he had a round buckler at his shoulder and bore a ponderous lance. In passing through the gate of Elvira, however, he accidentally broke his lance against the arch. At this certain of his nobles turned pale and entreated him to turn back, for they regarded it as an evil omen. Boabdil scoffed at their fears as idle fancies. He refused to take another spear, but drew forth his scimetar and led the way (adds Agapida)