Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote 7 – Saavedra · Verses Across
Literature · Humor
Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote 7Chrysostom'S Song
18
Literature · Humor
Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote 7
Chrysostom'S Song
SaavedraEnglish
I.
Since, cruel maid, you force me to proclaim
From clime to clime, the triumph of your scorn,
Let hell itself inspire my tortured breast
With mournful numbers, and untune my voice;
Whilst the sad pieces of my broken heart
Mix with the doleful accents of my tongue,
At once to tell my griefs and thy exploits,
Hear, then, and listen with attentive ear--
Not to harmonious sounds, but echoing groans,
Fetched from the bottom of my laboring breast,
To ease, in spite of thee, my raging smart.
II.
The lion's roar, the howl of midnight wolves,
The scaly serpent's hiss, the raven's croak,
The burst of fighting winds that vex the main,
The widowed owl and turtle's plaintive moan,
With all the din of hell's infernal crew,
From my grieved soul forth issue in one sound--
Leaving my senses all confused and lost.
For ah! no common language can express
The cruel pains that torture my sad heart.
III.
Yet let not Echo bear the mournful sounds
To where old Tagus rolls his yellow sands,
Or Betis, crowned with olives, pours his flood,
But here, 'midst rocks and precipices deep,
Or to obscure and silent vales removed,
On shores by human footsteps never trod,
Where the gay sun ne'er lifts his radiant orb,
Or with the envenomed face of savage beasts
That range the howling wilderness for food,
Will I proclaim the story of my woes--
Poor privilege of grief!--while echoes hoarse
Catch the sad tale, and spread it round the world.
IV.
Disdain gives death; suspicions, true or false,
O'erturn the impatient mind: with surer stroke
Fell jealousy destroys; the pangs of absence
No lover can support; nor firmest hope
Can dissipate the dread of cold neglect;
Yet I, strange fate! though jealous, though disdained,
Absent, and sure of cold neglect, still live.
And amidst the various torments I endure,
No ray of hope e'er darted on my soul,
Nor would I hope; rather in deep despair
Will I sit down, and, brooding o'er my griefs,
Vow everlasting absence from her sight.
V.
Can hope and fear at once the soul possess,
Or hope subsist with surer cause of fear?
Shall I, to shut out frightful jealousy,
Close my sad eyes, when every pang I feel
Presents the hideous phantom to my view?
What wretch so credulous but must embrace
Distrust with open arms, when he beholds
Disdain avowed, suspicions realized,
And truth itself converted to a lie?
Oh, cruel tyrant of the realm of love,
Fierce Jealousy, arm with a sword this hand,
Or thou, Disdain, a twisted cord bestow!
VI.
Let me not blame my fate; but, dying, think
The man most blest who loves, the soul most free
That love has most enthralled. Still to my thoughts
Let fancy paint the tyrant of my heart
Beauteous in mind as face, and in myself
Still let me find the source of her disdain,
Content to suffer, since imperial Love
By lover's woes maintains his sovereign state.
With this persuasion, and the fatal noose,
I hasten to the doom her scorn demands,
And, dying, offer up my breathless corse,
Uncrowned with garlands, to the whistling winds.
VII.
Oh thou, whose unrelenting rigor's force
First drove me to despair, and now to death;
When the sad tale of my untimely fall
Shall reach thy ear, though it deserve a sigh,
Veil not the heaven of those bright eyes in grief,
Nor drop one pitying tear, to tell the world
At length my death has triumphed o'er thy scorn:
But dress thy face in smiles, and celebrate
With laughter and each circumstance of joy
The festival of my disastrous end.
Ah! need I bid thee smile? too well I know
My death's thy utmost glory and thy pride.
VIII.
Come, all ye phantoms of the dark abyss:
Bring, Tantalus, thy unextinguished thirst,
And Sisyphus, thy still returning stone;
Come, Tityus, with the vulture at thy heart;
And thou, Ixion, bring thy giddy wheel;
Nor let the toiling sisters stay behind.
Pour your united griefs into this breast,
And in low murmurs sing sad obsequies
(If a despairing wretch such rites may claim)
O'er my cold limbs, denied a winding sheet.
And let the triple porter of the shades,
The sister Furies, and chimeras dire,
With notes of woe the mournful chorus join.
Such funeral pomp alone befits the wretch
By beauty sent untimely to the grave.
IX.
And thou, my song, sad child of my despair,
Complain no more; but since thy wretched fate
Improves her happier lot who gave thee birth,
Be all thy sorrows buried in my tomb.
None of the shepherds departed until, the grave being made and the papers burnt, the body of Chrysostom was interred, not without many tears from the spectators. They closed the sepulchre with a large fragment of a rock until a tombstone was finished, which Ambrosio said it was his intention to provide, and to inscribe upon it the following epitaph:--
