Book One: The Barbarous Isle (Chapters 1–23)

Dedication

To Don Pedro Fernández de Castro, Count of Lemos.

Those old verses that were famous in their day, which begin "With my foot already in the stirrup," I wish did not fit so well into this letter of mine, for with almost the same words I can begin it, saying:

With my foot already in the stirrup, and with the pangs of death upon me, great lord, I write this to you.

Yesterday they gave me extreme unction, and today I write this. Time is short, the pangs grow, hopes diminish; and with all this I keep my life on the wish I have to live, and I would like to put a stop to it until I kiss Your Excellency's feet; for it might be that the joy of seeing Your Excellency safe and sound in Spain would give me back my life. But if it is decreed that I must lose it, let the will of heaven be done; and at least let Your Excellency know this wish of mine, and know that you had in me so devoted a servant that he wished to show his devotion even beyond death. Madrid, the nineteenth of April, sixteen hundred and sixteen.

Prologue

It happened, dearest reader, that as two friends and I were coming from the famous town of Esquivias, we heard someone behind us whipping his mount hard, and calling to us to wait. It was a student, dressed in grey, with gaiters and round-toed shoes, a sword in a sheath, and a starched collar. "Is this the one-handed one who is sound, the famous everything, the merry writer — in short, the delight of the Muses?" he cried, when he heard my name; and he came up and seized my left hand, and I embraced him; and we rode on together. He found that I had dropsy, which all the water of the ocean, though it were sweet, could not cure; and told me to put a limit on drinking, and not forget to eat. "Many have told me so," I said, "but I cannot stop drinking as if I had been born for nothing else. My life is coming to an end, and by the record of my pulse it will end its course, at the latest, next Sunday." At the Toledo bridge we parted. Time will come, perhaps, when I may tie up this broken thread, and say what I have left out here. Farewell, graces; farewell, wit; farewell, merry friends; for I am dying, and wishing to see you soon happy in the other life.

Chapters 1–4

Corsicurbo, the barbarian, was shouting at the mouth of the narrow pit, which was more a tomb than a prison, for the many living bodies buried in it; and though his terrible voice could be heard far off, no one understood his words except the unhappy Cloelia, captive in that abyss. "Bring out, Cloelia, as you are ordered, that boy who was given to you two days ago." They hauled up, bound, a youth of about nineteen, dressed in linen like a sailor, of extraordinary beauty; and he, looking up at the sky, said in a language that was not theirs: "Thanks be to you, immense and merciful heavens, who have brought me to see your light once more before I die." They put him on a raft of logs tied with green osiers, and took him to another island, to sacrifice him; and as one of them was aiming an arrow at his heart, a sudden storm broke over the sea and scattered the raft; and the youth, still bound, clinging to a plank, was carried by the waves into a calm bay, where a great ship lay. Its boat picked him up, half dead; and the captain, a young man of noble bearing, had him dressed and fed.

In the cabin, through a partition, he heard a woman lamenting, and he said to her: "Whoever you are that weep, if a stranger's sympathy can ease you, tell me your trouble; for misfortunes, when they are shared, weigh less." It was Taurisa, the servant of the captain. Her master, she said, was Arnaldo, the hereditary prince of Denmark, who loved a lady called Auristela, of more than human beauty, whom his father had bought from some pirates; she had refused him, saying she had vowed to keep her virginity all her life; and while he waited for her to yield, corsairs had stolen her from the coast, with Taurisa, and Arnaldo had searched for her ever since. He feared that the corsairs had sold her to the barbarians of these islands, who believed — because one of their wizards had foretold it — that from them would come a king who would conquer the world, and that he would be the son of one of their number who had drunk the powdered heart of a sacrificed man without grimacing, and of the most beautiful woman they could find; and so they bought beautiful maidens from the corsairs, and killed and burned men. "I am that Auristela's brother," said the youth, whose name was Periandro; "and I will gladly go among the barbarians to find her." Arnaldo, though he wondered that so young a brother should be so ready, accepted; and it was agreed that Periandro should be dressed as a woman and sold to the barbarians as a maiden, and that, if he found that Auristela was on the island, Arnaldo would come back and sell them Taurisa, to have a second friend among them; and if she was not, Arnaldo would rescue him, by force if need be.

They dressed him in women's clothes, rich and fine, and he looked the most beautiful maiden in the world. When the boat came to the shore, the barbarians gathered, waving white cloths in sign of peace; and a woman among them, a captive, who knew their tongue and that of the strangers, served as interpreter. The barbarian governor, seeing the supposed maiden, was struck as if by something divine, and paid a great price in gold and pearls; the ship fired its guns, and the barbarians answered with their rough music; and Periandro, weeping, was handed over to them. They took him to a tent and served him, as if he were the destined mother of their conquering king.

When the sacrifice of a man was prepared, the prisoner brought up from the pit was a youth dressed as a man, of such beauty that the barbarians were amazed: and Cloelia, who had kept her company in the dungeon, revealed to Periandro that this was his sister Auristela, whom the corsairs had sold disguised as a man. The two embraced; and Bradamiro, one of the chief barbarians, seized by love for the supposed maiden Periandro, declared that he would have her; the governor, enraged, shot him with an arrow; and Corsicurbo's son, in revenge, killed the governor with a dagger of stone; the barbarians fought one another, and set the woods on fire; and in the confusion a young barbarian who spoke Castilian came to them, and, with his father carrying a torch, led them through a cave to a hidden refuge in the rocks.

Chapters 5–9

The father was the Spaniard Antonio. Born in a town of Spain to parents of middling rank, he had fought in Flanders in the wars of the Emperor Charles V, and come home with some honour; and, at home, a quarrel with a gentleman over a form of address — whether he should be called "vuestra merced" or "vos" — had led him to strike him and wound him, and he had fled to Lisbon, and taken ship for England. There, for another quarrel with an English sailor, they had set him adrift in a little boat with some bread and water; and after many days he came to an island of rocks, where a wolf spoke to him in a human voice, telling him to go elsewhere. At last he came to this barbarous island, where a young barbarian woman, Ricla, brought him food, and loved him; he taught her his language and his faith, and baptised her with his own hands, and married her; and they had two children, Antonio and Constanza, whom he brought up as Christians in the cave, far from the barbarians. Cloelia died that night, of the hardships of her captivity, asking Auristela to tell her kin that she died a Christian.

They buried Cloelia in the cave, with many tears. The island was burning; and when six merchant boats came to the island, Ricla, who had gold, bought four of them; and they set out to sea — Periandro, Auristela, Antonio and his family, the interpreter, and some prisoners freed from the dungeon. As they put out, a man in barbarian dress cried out to them from the shore in Italian, begging Christians to take him; and those who had come out of the dungeon vouched for him, saying he had warned them of the fire; and Periandro had the boat turn back and take him aboard. A great ship appeared on the sea, which Periandro thought was Arnaldo's; and he and Auristela, who did not wish to meet Arnaldo yet, were glad when the wind changed and it sailed away. They made for an island whose snowy mountains seemed near, and were far; and they landed near midnight, in a bitter cold; and the women huddled together in one boat, while the men kept watch. To pass the night, Antonio asked the Italian to tell his story. His name was Rutilio; he was a dancing master of Siena, who had eloped with a rich gentleman's daughter; caught, he was condemned to death; and a woman in his prison, said to be a witch, offered to save him if he would marry her. She wrapped him in her cloak, and he felt himself carried through the air; and he, who had been taught as a Christian that these things were tales, was terrified, and silently called on the saints, until she told him to be still. After about four hours, dawn showed them an unknown land. There she tried to embrace him; and as he pushed her away, he saw her turn into a wolf, and stabbed her with a knife; and she fell dead, a woman again. Following the sound of voices, he found a man of Italian descent, who told him that he was in Norway, and that such shapes were illusions of the devil, which God permits in punishment of sin; and he told him of the nature of those northern lands, where for months the night does not end, and for months the sun does not set. Rutilio, having no trade but dancing, which was useless there, learned the goldsmith's trade, and within a few months could earn his bread; and, shipwrecked, he came to the barbarous island, where, in the skins of a hanged barbarian, he pretended to be deaf and dumb, and lived by capering for them, three years, learning their language and their superstitions, until the fire; and then he ran to the dungeon to warn the prisoners, and so came to the shore.

Chapters 10–14

Day dawned; Auristela gave Periandro two balls of wax which Cloelia had kept for her, holding a cross of diamonds and two great pearls, signs of their rank. On another island, they met a young man in a boat who sang, in Portuguese and Castilian, of constancy in love. Ricla thought him an idle fellow, since he sang in such straits; but Periandro and Auristela invited him into their boat. "My sorrows," he said, "have left me hanging by a thread." "No sorrow kills," said Periandro, "if it is borne." "And hope," said Auristela, "is firmest when things are worst; to despair is the act of a coward." He was the Portuguese Manuel de Sosa Coitiño. He told them that he had loved Leonor, a lady of Lisbon, and had been promised her hand; and he had gone to serve in Africa; and when he came back, on the very day set for their wedding, before the altar, she declared that she had chosen a better husband — Christ — and took the veil. He had left Portugal, and sailed with no aim; and having told his story, he fell dead of grief before their eyes. They buried him on the island; and Antonio's son carved an epitaph on a tree.

Arnaldo's ship found them again; and on it were others they came to know. Transila, the daughter of Mauricio, a learned gentleman from an island near England, told how, on her wedding night, by an old barbarous custom of her country, her husband's kinsmen were to have her before him; and she had refused, and fled with a knife in her hand, and had been captured by pirates. Her father Mauricio, a learned man and an astrologer, and her betrothed Ladislao had come looking for her, and found her among them. And there were in chains on the same ship Rosamunda — once the mistress of a king of England, who had used her power cruelly — and Clodio, a malicious slanderer, both exiled by the king, so that they might be put ashore on some island and trouble the world no more.

Chapters 15–23

Arnaldo was overjoyed to find Auristela; and she, though she treated him with courtesy, told him she would not marry until she had made her pilgrimage to Rome. Taurisa, who was being taken to Ireland, fell ill and died. Mauricio, reading the stars, warned of danger at sea; and soon after, two soldiers, wanting to carry off Transila, bored holes in the ship to sink it, meaning to escape in the boat; the ship began to fill; and in the confusion Periandro and Auristela were separated. Auristela, with Ricla, Constanza and the others, was saved in the boat; Periandro, they feared, was lost.

They came to a snow-covered island, and found there a corsair ship; its captain told them of the king Policarpo, of a neighbouring island, who held games and contests every year; and how, that year, a young man of great beauty had come, and had won every prize — the race, the wrestling, the archery — and had received the prize from the hand of the king's daughter, the beautiful Sinforosa. Auristela, hearing the description, knew it was Periandro; and when she heard how Sinforosa had looked at him, and how she had crowned him, she felt for the first time the bitter pangs of jealousy. The weather turned, and a great storm came up as the book ends.