The Bible in Spain. Volume 2 of 2

101

He had succeeded to that title on the death of his uncle, December 22, 1838.

102

I.e. “My Lord the Sustainer of the Kingdom.” See preface to The Zincali, second edition.

103

Tio. A common method of address, conveying no reference to real relationship. So the Boers in South Africa speak of “Oom (uncle) Paul.”

104

“What beautiful, what charming reading!”

105

No hay otro en el mundo.

106

See note on p. 147.

107

Κατὰ τὸν τόπον καὶ ὁ τρόπος, as Antonio said. – [Note by Borrow]. I.e. “As is the place, such is the character (of the people).”

108

Alcalá de Henares. See note, vol. i. p. 223.

109

“Good night!”

110

“Good night to you!”

111

Or Nevski = of the Neva; as we have a Thames Street.

112

Spanish, duende. See p. 238. Oddly enough in Germanía, or thieves’ slang, duende = ronda, a night patrol.

113

Madrid is not a city or ciudad, but only the chief of villas.

114

In Romany, Chuquel sos pirela cocal terela.

115

El Nuevo Testamento Traducido al Español de la Vulgata Latino por el Rmo. P. Phelipe Scio de S. Miguel de las Escuelas Pias Obispo Electo de Segovia. Madrid. Imprenta á cargo de D. Joaquin de la Barrera. 1837.

116

The church of San Gines is in the Calle del Arenal; the chapel of Santa Cruz in the Concepcion Jerónima.

117

This is a curious slip; the spelling is found in the first and all subsequent editions. The true name of the defile – it is between Velez el Rubio and Lorca – is, as might be supposed, La Rambla, but the narrowest part of the pass is known as the Puerto de Lumbreras (the Pass of Illumination), and from Rambla and Lumbrera Borrow or the printer of 1843 evolved the strange compound Rumblar!

118

This would naturally mean, “Most reverend sir, art thou still saying, or, dost thou still say Mass?” which seems somewhat irrelevant. Possibly what “the prophetess” meant to ask was, “Most reverend sir, hast thou yet said Mass?”

119

“Knowest thou the land where the lemon-trees bloom?” The song of Mignon in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, introduced in the opera of Faust.

120

See note, vol. i. p. 216.

121

Born at Amalfi, 1623, a simple fisherman. He headed the rebellion of the Neapolitans against the Spanish viceroy, in 1647. His success as a leader led to a revulsion of popular feeling, and he was executed or murdered within a few days of his greatest triumph.

122

Chiefly in their pronunciation of the characteristic G and Z of the Castilian as S instead of TH. The South-American Spaniards, so largely recruited from Andalusia, maintain the same sibilation, which is about as offensive to a true Castilian as the dropping of an H is to an educated Englishman.

123

Safacoro is the Romany name for Seville; and Len Baro for the great river, arabicé Wady al Kebir, the Guadalquivir. See Glossary.

124

For further information about Manuel and Luis Lobo, who compiled a manuscript collection of the pseudo-gypsy writings of los del aficion, or those addicted to the Gitanos and their language, see The Zincali, part iii. chap. ii.

125

Κύριε, voc. of κύριος, the usual mode of address, “sir.”

126

The name of a famous family of Dutch printers (1594–1680).

127

Priests. Greek, παπᾶς; not Spanish, in which language Papa means the Pope (of Rome).

128

Τίποτε = nothing at all.

129

The secondary signification of “prosperity” or “good fortune” is more familiar to English ears; the word having come to us by way of the Spanish, American, and Californian mining camps.

130

“The Illustrious Scullion.”

131

Lit. a butterfly.

132

This was Mr. John Brackenbury.

133

The great Danish poet, born in 1779, died 1850; see ante, note, vol. i. p. 29.

134

October 21, 1805.

135

It is an American in our own day, Captain Mahan, U.S.N., who has called attention, in his masterly influence of Sea Power upon History, to the transcendent importance of the battle of Trafalgar, hardly realized by the most patriotic Englishman, who had well-nigh forgotten Trafalgar in celebrating the more attractive glories of Waterloo.

136

Storm of east wind; wind from the Levant.

137

I.e. Kafirs, the Arabic term of reproach, signifying an unbeliever; one who is not a Moslem!

138

The title formally granted to this Alonzo Perez de Guzman, under the sign-manual of King Sancho the Bravo, was that of “The Good.” His son was not crucified, but stabbed to death by the Infante Don John, with the knife that had been flung over the battlements of the city by the poor lad’s father, a. d. 1294 (see Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de España, tom. xxxix. pp. 1–397).

139

Rather of Muza, the commander-in-chief of the army that conquered Gothic Spain in 711. Tarifa similarly perpetuates the memory of one of his lieutenants, Tárif; and Gibraltar is Gibil Tarik, after Tarik, his second in command (see Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i. pp. 110–120).

140

The hill of the baboons.

141

Rather, “The Island;” Al Jezirah.

142

According to Don Pascual de Gayangos, Thursday, April 30, 711.

143

In more modern slang, “a rock scorpion.”

144

Του λόγου σας, a polite locution in modern Greek, signifying “you,” “your good self, or, selves.”

145

More correctly, the Preobazhenski, Semeonovski, and Findlandski polks. The first is a very crack regiment, and was formed by Peter the Great in 1682. In 1692 it took part in the capture of Azov (Toll, “Nastolny Slovar,” Encyclop. tom. iii.).

146

This would have been General Sir A. Woodford, K.C.B., G.C.M.G.

147

“A holy man this, from the kingdoms of the East.”

148

A street in West Hamburg, near the port and the notorious Heiligegeist, frequented by a low class of Jews and seafaring men.

149

The living waters.

150

Into the hands of some one else —manû alicujus. Peluni is the Fulaneh of the Arabs, the Don Fulano of the Spaniards; Mr. So-and-So; Monsieur Chose.

151

I.e. “The Hill of the English,” near Vitoria. Here, in the year 1367, Don Tello, with a force of six thousand knights, cut to pieces a body of four hundred men-at-arms and archers, under the command of Sir Thomas Felton, Seneschal of Guienne, and his brother Sir William. See Froissart, i. chap. 239; Ayala, Cronicas de los Reyes de Castilla, i. p. 446; Mérimée, Histoire de Don Pèdre Ier, p. 486.

152

The popular name for Etna– an etymology most suggestive, Mons (Latin) and gibil (Arabic) each signifying “a mountain.”

153

The book Zohar (Hebrew, “Brilliancy”) is, next to the canonical Scripture, one of the ablest books in Hebrew literature, having been written by the Rabbi Simeon bar Jochaï, “The Great Light” and “Spark of Moses,” early in the second century of our era. The mysteries contained in the Zohar are said to have been communicated to Jochaï during his twelve years’ seclusion in a cave; and they are specially revered by a sect of modern Jews known as Zoharites, or Sabbathians, from their founder Sabbataï Zevi, who was born at Smyrna in 1625, and claimed to be the true Messiah, but who, to save himself from death as an impostor, embraced the faith of Islám at Adrianople, and died a Moslem in 1676. Yet a hundred years later another Zoharite pretender, Jankiev Lejbovicz, who acquired the name of Jacob Frank, of Offenbach, near Frankfort, and died only in 1792, made himself famous in Germany. The Zoharites were Cabalistic, as opposed to Talmudic, in their theology or theosophy, and in later times have claimed to have much in common with Christianity. – See M. J. Mayers (of Yarmouth), A Brief Account of the Zoharite Jews (Cambridge, 1826); and Graetz, History of the Jews, vol. v. pp. 125, 289.

154

Rabat.

155

1 Kings xix. 11–13.

156

On as a termination is usually indicative of size without admiration, bigness rather than greatness, as in the Italian one.

157

The tomato was hardly known in England in 1839, and was not common for forty years after, so Borrow may be excused for giving the word in its Spanish form. The plant was introduced into Spain from Peru in the sixteenth century.

158

“Lord of the World.” Adun or Adon is the well-known Hebrew word for Lord, and is said to be the origin of the Spanish title Don. Oulem is the Arab ‘Olam. The following lines are the first poem in the Targum, a collection of translations by Borrow from thirty languages, printed at St. Petersburg in 1835: —

“Reigned the universe’s Master, ere were earthly things begun:When his mandate all created Ruler was the name he won;And alone he’ll rule tremendous when all things are past and gone,He no equal has, nor consort, he, the singular and lone,Has no end and no beginning; his the sceptre, might and throne.He’s my God and living Saviour, rock to whom in need I run;He’s my banner and my refuge, fount of weal when called upon;In his hand I place my spirit at nightfall and rise of sun,And therewith my body also; God’s my God – I fear no one.”

159

In 1684, on the familiar official plea of “economy.”

160

“Good morning, O my lord.”

161

“There is no God but one.”

162

“Buy here, buy here.”

163

This youth followed Borrow to England, where he was introduced to Mr. Petulengro as a pal, but rejected by him as “no Roman.” See The Zincali, Preface to Second Edition.

164

“Hail, Mary, full of grace, pray for me.”

165

“Remove the faithless race from the borders of the believers, that we may gladly pay due praises to Christ.”

166

This has been already alluded to as regards Southern Spain.

167

Algiers.

168

Essence of white flowers. The Arabic attar = essence is well known in combination as otto or attar of roses. Nuar is a form of Nawār = flowers.

169

This was still market-day in 1892.

170

Nowhere has the destruction of locusts been undertaken in a more systematic manner, or carried to greater perfection than in the island of Cyprus, where a special tax is levied by the British Government to defray the expenses of what is called “the war.” The system is the invention of a Cypriote gentleman, Mr. Mattei.

171

More commonly known as the prickly pear (Opuntia vulgaris).

172

The house of the trades [Borrow], or rather “of the handicrafts.”

173

Seashore. See the Glossary.

174

Friday.

175

The etymology of Granada is doubtful. Before the invasion of Spain by the Arabs, a small town of Phœnician origin, known as Karnattah, existed near Illiberis (Elvira), and probably on the site of the more modern city of Granada. The syllable Kar would, in Phœnician, signify “a town.” The meaning of nattah is unknown (Gayangos, i. 347; Casiri, Bib. Ar. Hisp. Esc., ii. 251; Conde, Hist. Dom., i. pp. 37–51). The supposition that the city owes its name to its resemblance to a ripe pomegranate (granada) is clearly inadmissible. As in the case of Leon, the device was adopted in consequence of its appropriateness to an existing name – although the modern city of Granada is probably not older than 1020. The Arabic word, moreover, for a pomegranate is romàn; and Soto de Roma, the name of the Duke of Wellington’s estate in Andalusia, means “the wood of the pomegranates;” and an ensalada romana is not a Roman, but a pomegranate salad (see Pedaza, Hist. Eccl. de Granada [1618], fol. 21, 22; Romey, Hist., i. 474, 475). – Burke’s Hist. of Spain, vol. i. p. 116.

176

The most powerful, or the most respected, man in Tangier. Power and respect are usually enjoyed by the same individual in the East.

177

“It does not signify.”

178

See note, vol. i. p. 240.

179

“Algerine,

Moor so keen,

No drink wine,

No taste swine.”

180

“That is not lawful.”

181

“Everything is lawful.”

182

“Hail, star of the sea, benign Mother of God, and for ever virgin, blessed gate of heaven.”

183

Andalusian for ciego.