Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (no david read aloud TXT) π
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- Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Read book online Β«Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (no david read aloud TXT) πΒ». Author - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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CERVANTES. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.The most trivial act of the daily life of some men has a unique interest, independent of idle curiosity, which dissatisfies us with the meagre food of date, place, and pedigree. So in the "Cartas de Indias" was published, two years ago, in Spain, a facsimile letter from Cervantes when tax-gatherer to Philip II., informing him of the efforts he had made to collect the taxes in certain Andalusian villages.
It is difficult, from the slight social record that we have of Cervantes, to draw the line where imagination begins and facts end.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the contemporary of Shakspeare, Galileo, Camoens, Rubens, Tasso, and Lope de Vega, was born obscurely and in poverty, but with good antecedents. His grandfather, Juan de Cervantes, was the corregidor, or mayor, of Ossuna, and our poet was the youngest son of Rodrigo and Leonora de CortiΓ±os, of the Barajas family. On either side he belonged to illustrious houses. He speaks of his birthplace xxii as the "famous Henares,"β"Alcala de Henares," sometimes called Alcala de San Justo, from the saint San Justo having there suffered martyrdom under the traitor Daciamos. The town is beautifully situated on the borders of the Henares River, two thousand feet above the level of the sea.
He was born on Sunday, October 9, 1547, and was baptized in the church of Santa Maria la Mayor, receiving his name on the fΓͺte day of his patron Saint Miguel, which some biographers have confounded with that of his birthday.
We may be forgiven for a few words about Alcala de Henares, since, had it only produced so rare a man as was Cervantes, it would have had sufficient distinction; but it was a town of an eventful historical record. It was destroyed about the year 1000, and rebuilt and possessed by the Moors, was afterwards conquered by Bernardo, Archbishop of Toledo. Three hundred years later it was the favorite retreat of Ximenes, then Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, who returned to it, after his splendid conquests, laden with gold and silver spoil taken from the mosques of Oran, and with a far richer treasure of precious Arabian manuscripts, intended for such a university as had long been his ambition to create, and the corner-stone of which he laid with his own hands in 1500. There was a very solemn ceremonial at the founding of this famous university, and a xxiii hiding away of coins and inscriptions under its massive walls, and a pious invocation to Heaven for a special blessing on the archbishop's design! At the end of eight years the extensive and splendid buildings were finished and the whole town improved. With the quickening of literary labor and the increase of opportunities of acquiring knowledge, the reputation of the university was of the highest.
The cardinal's comprehensive mind included in its professorships all that he considered useful in the arts. Emulation was encouraged, and every effort was made to draw talent from obscurity. To this enlightened ecclesiastic is the world indebted for the undertaking of the Polyglot Bible, which, in connection with other learned works, led the university to be spoken of as one of the greatest educational establishments in the world. From far and near were people drawn to it. King Ferdinand paid homage to his subject's noble testimonial of labor, by visiting the cardinal at Alcala de Henares, and acknowledging that his own reign had received both benefit and glory from it. The people of Alcala punningly said, the church of Toledo had never had a bishop of greater edification than Ximenes; and Erasmus, in a letter to his friend Vergara, perpetrates a Greek pun on the classic name of Alcala, intimating the highest opinion of the state of science there. The reclining statue of Ximenes, beautifully carved in alabaster, xxiv now ornaments his sepulchre in the College of St. Ildefonso.
Cervantes shared the honor of the birthplace with the Emperor Ferdinand; he of "blessed memory," who failed to obtain permission from the Pope for priests to marry, but who, in spite of turbulent times, maintained religious peace in Germany, and lived to see the closing of the Council of Trent, marking his reign as one of the most enlightened of the age.
Alcala also claims Antonio de Solis, the well-known historian, whose "Conquest of Mexico" has been translated into many languages, as well as Teodora de Beza, a zealous Calvinistic reformer and famous divine, a sharer of Calvin's labors in Switzerland and author of the celebrated manuscripts known as Beza's manuscripts.
Judging from the character of the town and the refining educational influence that so grand a university must have had over its inhabitants, we have a right to believe that Cervantes was early imbued with all that was noble and good, and it is difficult to understand why, with all the advantages which the College of St. Ildefonso opened to him, he should have been sent away from it to that of Salamanca. Even allowing that the supposition of early poverty was correct, it would have appeared an additional reason for his being educated in his native town, particularly as liberal founxxvdations were made for indigent students. The fact of his being sent to Salamanca would seem to disprove the supposition of pecuniary necessity. In its early days, the university of Salamanca was justly celebrated for its progress in astronomy and familiarity with Greek and Arabian writers; but, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it seems to have remained very stationary, little attention being paid to aught beside medicine and dogmatic theology.
After being two years at Salamanca he changed to Madrid, where he is supposed to have made great progress, under the care of Juan Lopez de Hoyos, a professor of belles lettres, who spoke of Cervantes as "our dear and beloved pupil." Hoyos was himself a poet, and occasionally published collections to which Cervantes contributed his pastoral "Filena," which was much admired at the time. He also wrote several ballads; but ballads generally belong to their own age, and those that remain to us of his have lost much of their poignancy. Two poems, written on the death of Isabella of Valois, wife of Philip II., specially pleased Hoyos, who at the time gave full credit to his promising pupil. That eighth wonder of the world, the Escurial, was in progress during Cervantes' time in Madrid; built as expiatory by the king, the husband of the same unfortunate Isabella. He was that subtle tyrant of Spain, who had the grace to say, on the destructionxxvi of the Invincible Armada, "I sent my fleet to combat with the English, not with the elements. God's will be done."
While he was yet a boy, bull-fights were introduced into Spain:β
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 havexxvii 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 xxviii 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 xxix 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,βmaimed 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. xxx 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
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