The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864

The romance now proceeds to bring the different princes of chivalry from the West, as it has brought Calafia from the East. As soon as Amadis arrives at Constantinople, he sends for his son Esplandian, who was already in alliance with the Emperor of Greece. The Pagan Sultan of Liquia, and the Queen Calafia, hearing of their arrival, send them the following challenge:—

"Radiaro, Sultan of Liquia, shield and rampart of the Pagan Law, destroyer of Christians, cruel enemy of the enemies of the Gods, and the very Mighty Queen Calafia, Lady of the great island of California, famous for its great abundance of gold and precious stones: we have to announce to you, Amadis of Gaul, King of Great Britain, and you his son, Knight of the Great Serpent, that we are come into these parts with the intention of destroying this city of Constantinople, on account of the injury and loss which the much honored King Amato of Persia, our cousin and friend, has received from this bad Emperor, giving him favor and aid, because a part of his territory has been taken away from him by fraud. And as our desire in this thing is also to gain glory and fame in it, so also has fortune treated us favorably in that regard, for we know the great news, which has gone through all the world, of your great chivalry. We have agreed, therefore, if it is agreeable to you, or if your might is sufficient for it, to attempt a battle of our persons against yours in presence of this great company of the nations, the conquered to submit to the will of the conquerors, or to go to any place where they may order. And if you refuse this, we shall be able, with much cause, to join all your past glories to our own, counting them as being gained by us, whence it will clearly be seen in the future how the victory will be on our side."

This challenge was taken to the Christian camp by a black and beautiful damsel, richly attired, and was discussed there in council. Amadis put an end to the discussion by saying,—

"'My good lords, as the affairs of men, like those of nations, are in the hands and will of God, whence no one can escape but as He wills, if we should in any way withdraw from this demand, it would give great courage to our enemies, and, more than this, great injury to our honor; especially so in this country, where we are strangers, and no one has seen what our power is, which in our own land is notorious, so that, while there we may be esteemed for courage, here we should be judged the greatest of cowards. Thus, placing confidence in the mercy of the Lord, I determine that the battle shall take place without delay.'

"'If this is your wish,' said King Lisuarte and King Perion, 'so may it be, and may God help you with His grace!'

"Then the King Amadis said to the damsel,—

"'Friend, tell your lord and the Queen Calafia that we desire the battle with those arms that are most agreeable to them; that the field shall be this field, divided in the middle,—I giving my word that for nothing which may happen will we be succored by our own. And let them give the same order to their own; and if they wish the battle now, now it shall be.'

"The damsel departed with this reply, which she repeated to those two princes. And the Queen Calafia asked her how the Christians appeared.

"'Very nobly,' replied she, 'for they are all handsome and well armed. Yet I tell you, Queen, that, among them, this Knight of the Serpent [Esplandian, son of Amadis] is such as neither the past nor the present, nor, I believe, any who are to come, have ever seen one so handsome and so elegant, nor will see in the days which are to be. O Queen, what shall I say to you, but that, if he were of our faith, we might believe that our Gods had made him with their own hands, with all their power and wisdom, so that he lacks in nothing?'

"The Queen, who heard her, said,—

"'Damsel, my friend, your words are too great.'

"'It is not so,' said she; 'for, excepting the sight of him, there is nothing else which can give account of his great excellence.'

"'Then I say to you,' said the Queen, 'that I will not fight with such a man until I have first seen and talked with him; and I make this request to the Sultan, that he will gratify me in this thing, and arrange that I may see him.'

"The Sultan said,—

"'I will do everything, O Queen, agreeably to your wish.'

"'Then,' said the damsel, 'I will go and obtain that which you ask for, according to your desire.'

"And turning her horse, she approached the camp again, so that all thought that she brought the agreement for the battle. But as she approached, she called the Kings to the door of the tent, and said,—

"'King Amadis, the Queen Calafia demands of you that you give order for her safe conduct, that she may come to-morrow morning and see your son.'

"Amadis began to laugh, and said to the Kings,—

"'How does this demand seem to you?'

"'I say, let her come,' said King Lisuarte; 'it is a very good thing to see the most distinguished woman in the world.'

"'Take this for your reply,' said Amadis to the damsel; 'and say that she shall be treated with all truth and honor.'

"The damsel, having received this message, returned with great pleasure to the Queen, and told her what it was. The Queen said to the Sultan,—

"'Wait and prosper, then, till I have seen him; and charge your people that in the mean time there may be no outbreak.'

"'Of that,' he said, 'you may be secure.'

"At once she returned to her ships; and she spent the whole night thinking whether she would go with arms or without them. But at last she determined that it would be more dignified to go in the dress of a woman. And when the morning came, she rose and directed them to bring one of her dresses, all of gold, with many precious stones, and a turban wrought with great art. It had a volume of many folds, in the manner of a toca, and she placed it upon her head as if it had been a hood [capellina]; it was all of gold, embroidered with stones of great value. They brought out an animal which she rode, the strangest that ever was seen. It had ears as large as two shields; a broad forehead which had but one eye, like a mirror; the openings of its nostrils were very large, but its nose was short and blunt. From its mouth turned up two tusks, each of them two palms long. Its color was yellow, and it had many violet spots upon its skin, like an ounce. It was larger than a dromedary, had its feet cleft like those of an ox, and ran as swiftly as the wind, and skipped over the rocks as lightly, and held itself erect on any part of them, as do the mountain-goats. Its food was dates and figs and peas, and nothing else. Its flank and haunches and breast were very beautiful. On this animal, of which you have thus heard, mounted this beautiful Queen, and there rode behind her two thousand women of her train, dressed in the very richest clothes. There brought up the rear twenty damsels clothed in uniform, the trains of whose dresses extended so far, that, falling from each beast, they dragged four fathoms on the ground.

"With this equipment and ornament the Queen proceeded to the Emperor's camp, where she saw all the Kings, who had come out upon the plain. They had seated themselves on very rich chairs, upon cloth of gold, and they themselves were armed, because they had not much confidence in the promises of the Pagans. So they sallied out to receive her at the door of the tent, where she was dismounted into the arms of Don Quadragante;4 and the two Kings, Lisuarte and Perion, took her by the hands, and placed her between them in a chair. When she was seated, looking from one side to the other, she saw Esplandian next to King Lisuarte, who held him by the hand; and from the superiority of his beauty to that of all the others, she knew at once who he was, and said to herself, 'Oh, my Gods! what is this? I declare to you, I have never seen any one who can be compared to him, nor shall I ever see any one.' And he turning his beautiful eyes upon her beautiful face, she perceived that the rays which leaped out from his resplendent beauty, entering in at her eyes, penetrated to her heart in such a way, that, if she were not conquered yet by the great force of arms, or by the great attacks of her enemies, she was softened and broken by that sight and by her amorous passion, as if she had passed between mallets of iron. And as she saw this, she reflected, that, if she stayed longer, the great fame which she had acquired as a manly cavalier, by so many dangers and labors, would be greatly hazarded. She saw that by any delay she should expose herself to the risk of dishonor, by being turned to that native softness which women of nature consider to be an ornament; and therefore resisting, with great pain, the feelings which she had subjected to her will, she rose from her seat and said,—

"'Knight of the Great Serpent, for two excellences which distinguish you above all mortals I have made inquiry. The first, that of your great beauty, which, if one has not seen, no relation is enough to tell the greatness of; the other, the valor and force of your brave heart. The one of these I have seen, which is such as I have never seen nor could hope to see, though many years of searching should be granted me. The other shall be made manifest on the field, against this valiant Radiaro, Sultan of Liquia. Mine shall be shown against this mighty king your father; and if fortune grant that we come alive from this battle, as we hope to come from other battles, then I will talk with you, before I return to my home, of some things of my own affairs.'

"Then, turning towards the Kings, she said to them,—

"'Kings, rest in good health. I go hence to that place where you shall see me with very different dress from this which I now wear, hoping that in that field the King Amadis, who trusts in fickle fortune that he may never be conquered by any knight, however valiant, nor by any beast, however terrible, may there be conquered by a woman.'

"Then taking the two older Kings by the hand, she permitted them to help her mount upon her strange steed."

At this point the novel assumes a tone of high virtue (virtus, mannishness, prejudice of the more brutal sex) on the subject of woman's rights, in especial of woman's right to fight in the field with gold armor, lance in rest, and casque closed. We will show the reader, as she follows us, how careful she must be, if, in any island of the sea which has been slipped by unknown by the last five centuries, she ever happen to meet a cavalier of the true school of chivalry.

Esplandian himself would not in any way salute the Queen Calafia, as she left him. Nor was this a copperhead prejudice of color; for that prejudice was not yet known.

"He made no reply to her, both because he looked at her as something strange, however beautiful she appeared to him, and because he saw her come thus in arms, so different from the style in which a woman should have come. For he considered it as very dishonorable that she should attempt anything so different from what the word of God commanded her, that the woman should be in subjection to the man, but rather should prefer to be the ruler of all men, not by her courtesy, but by force of arms, and, above all, because he hated to place himself in relations with her, because she was one of the infidels, whom he mortally despised and had taken a vow to destroy."

The romance then goes into an account of the preparations for the contest on both sides.

After all the preliminaries were arranged, "they separated for a little and rode together furiously in full career. The Sultan struck Esplandian in the shield with so hard a blow that a part of the lance passed through it for as much as an ell, so that all who saw it thought that it had passed through the body. But it was not so, but the lance passed under the arm next the body, and went out on the other side without touching him. But Esplandian, who knew that his much-loved lady was looking on, [Leonorina, the daughter of the Emperor of Constantinople,] so struck the Sultan's shield, that the iron passed through it and struck him on some of the strongest plates of his armor, upon which the spear turned. But, with the force of the encounter, it shook him so roughly from the saddle that it rolled him upon the ground, and so shook the helmet as to tear it off from his head, and thus Esplandian passed by him very handsomely, without receiving any stroke himself. The Queen rushed upon Amadis, and he upon her, and, before they met, each pointed lance at the other, and they received the blows upon their shields in such guise, that her spear flew in pieces, while that of Amadis slipped off and was thrown on one side. Then they both met, shield to shield, with such force that the Queen was thrown upon the ground, and the horse of Amadis was so wounded that he fell with his head cut in two, and held Amadis with one leg under him. When Esplandian saw this, he leaped from his horse and saved him from that peril. Meanwhile, the Queen, being put to her defence, put hand to her sword, and joined herself to the Sultan, who had raised himself with great difficulty, because his fall was very heavy, and stood there with his sword and helmet in his hand. They came on to fight very bravely, but Esplandian, standing, as I told you, in presence of the Infanta, whom he prized so much, gave the Sultan such hard pressure with such heavy blows, that, although he was one of the bravest knights of the Pagans, and by his own prowess had won many dangerous battles, and was very dexterous in that art, yet all this served him for nothing; he could neither give nor parry blows, and constantly lost ground. The Queen, who had joined fight with Amadis, began giving him many fierce blows, some of which he received upon his shield, while he let others be lost; yet he would not put his hand upon his sword, but, instead of that, took a fragment of the lance which she had driven through his shield, and struck her on the top of the helmet with it, so that in a little while he had knocked the crest away."

We warned those of our fair readers who may have occasion to defend their rights at the point of the lance, that the days of chivalry or the cavaliers of chivalry will be very unhandsome in applying to them the rules of the tourney. Amadis, it will be observed here, does not condescend to use his sword against a woman. And this is not from tenderness, but from contempt. For when the Queen saw that he only took the broken truncheon of his lance to her, she fairly asked him why.

"'How is this, Amadis?' she said; 'do you consider my force so slight that you think to conquer me with sticks?'

"And he said to her,—

"'Queen, I have always been in the habit of serving women and aiding them; and as you are a woman, if I should use any weapon against you, I should deserve to lose all the honors I have ever gained.'

"'What, then!' said the Queen, 'do you rank me among them? You shall see!'

"And taking her sword in both her hands, she struck him with great rage. Amadis raised his shield and received the blow upon it, which was so brave and strong that the shield was cut in two. Then, seeing her joined to him so closely, he passed the stick into his left hand, seized her by the rim of her shield, and pulled her so forcibly, that, breaking the great thongs by which she held upon it, he took it from her, lifting it up in one hand, and forced her to kneel with one knee on the ground; and when she lightly sprang up, Amadis threw away his own shield, and, seizing the other, took the stick and sprang to her, saying,—

"'Queen, yield yourself my prisoner, now that your Sultan is conquered.'

"She turned her head, and saw that Esplandian had the Sultan already surrendered as his prize. But she said, 'Let me try fortune yet one more turn'; and then, raising her sword with both her hands, she struck upon the crest of his helmet, thinking she could cut it and his head in two. But Amadis warded the blow very lightly and turned it off, and struck her so heavy a stroke with that fragment of the lance upon the crest of her helmet, that he stunned her and made her sword fall from her hands. Amadis seized the sword, and, when she was thus disarmed, caught at her helmet so strongly that he dragged it from her head, and said,—

"'Now are you my prisoner?'

"'Yes,' replied she; 'for there is nothing left for me to do.'

"At this moment Esplandian came to them with the Sultan, who had surrendered himself, and, in sight of all the army, they repaired to the royal encampment, where they were received with great pleasure, not only on account of the great victory in battle, which, after the great deeds in arms which they had wrought before, as this history has shown, they did not regard as very remarkable, but because they took this success as a good omen for the future. The King Amadis asked the Count Gandalin to lead their prisoners to the Infanta Leonorina, in his behalf and that of his son Esplandian, and to say to her that he begged her to do honor to the Sultan, because he was so great a prince and so strong a knight, and, withal, very noble; and to do honor to the Queen, because she was a woman; and to say that he trusted in God that thus they should send to her all those whom they took captive alive in the battles which awaited them.

"The Count took them in charge, and, as the city was very near, they soon arrived at the palace. Then, coming into the presence of the Infanta, he delivered to her the prisoners, and gave the message with which he was intrusted. The Infanta replied to him,—

"'Tell King Amadis that I thank him greatly for this present which he sends me,—that I am sure that the good fortune and great courage which appear in this adventure will appear in those which await us,—and that we are very desirous to see him here, that, when we discharge our obligation to his son, we may have him as a judge between us.'

"The Count kissed her hand, and returned to the royal camp. Then the Infanta sent to the Empress, her mother, for a rich robe and head-dress, and, having disarmed the Queen, made her array herself in them; and she did the same for the Sultan, having sent for other robes from the Emperor, her father, and having dressed their wounds with certain preparations made by Master Helisabat. Then the Queen, though of so great fortune, was much astonished to see the great beauty of Leonorina, and said,—

"'I tell you, Infanta, that in the same measure in which I was astonished to see the beauty of your cavalier, Esplandian, am I now overwhelmed, beholding yours. If your deeds correspond to your appearance, I hold it no dishonor to be your prisoner.'

"'Queen,' said the Infanta, 'I hope the God in whom I trust will so direct events that I shall be able to fulfil every obligation which conquerors acknowledge toward those who submit to them.'"

With this chivalrous little conversation the Queen of California disappears from the romance, and consequently from all written history, till the very dénouement of the whole story, where, when the rest is "wound up," she is wound up also, to be set a-going again in her own land of California. And if the chroniclers of California find no records of her in any of the griffin caves of the Black Cañon, it is not our fault, but theirs. Or, possibly, did she and her party suffer shipwreck on the return passage from Constantinople to the Golden Gate? Their probable route must have been through the Ægean, over Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon to the Euphrates, ("I will sail a fleet over the Alps," said Cromwell,) down Chesney's route to the Persian Gulf, and so home.

After the Sultan and the Queen are taken prisoners, there are reams of terrific fighting, in which King Lisuarte and King Perion and a great many other people are killed; but finally the "Pagans" are all routed, and the Emperor of Greece retires into a monastery, having united Esplandian with his daughter Leonorina, and abdicated the throne in their favor. Among the first acts of their new administration is the disposal of Calafia.

"As soon as the Queen Calafia saw these nuptials, having no more hope of him whom she so much loved, [Esplandian,] for a moment her courage left her; and coming before the new Emperor and these great lords, she thus spoke to them:—

"'I am a queen of a great kingdom, in which there is the greatest abundance of all that is most valued in the world, such as gold and precious stones. My lineage is very old,—for it comes from royal blood so far back that there is no memory of the beginnings of it,—and my honor is as perfect as it was at my birth. My fortune has brought me into these countries, whence I hoped to bring away many captives, but where I am myself a captive. I do not say of this captivity in which you see me, that, after all the great experiences of my life, favorable and adverse, I had believed that I was strong enough to parry the thrusts of fortune; but I have found that my heart was tried and afflicted in my imprisonment, because the great beauty of this new Emperor overwhelmed me in the moment that my eyes looked upon him. I trusted in my greatness, and that immense wealth which excites and unites so many, that, if I would turn to your religion, I might gain him for a husband; but when I came into the presence of this lovely Empress, I regarded it as certain that they belonged to each other by their equal rank; and that argument, which showed the vanity of my thoughts, brought me to the determination in which I now stand. And since Eternal Fortune has taken the direction of my passion, I, throwing all my own strength into oblivion, as the wise do in those affairs which have no remedy, seek, if it please you, to take for my husband some other man, who may be the son of a king, to be of such power as a good knight ought to have; and I will become a Christian. For, as I have seen the ordered order of your religion, and the great disorder of all others, I have seen that it is clear that the law which you follow must be the truth, while that which we follow is lying and falsehood.'

"When the Emperor had heard all this, embracing her with a smile, he said, 'Queen Calafia, my good friend, till now you have had from me neither word nor argument; for my condition is such that I cannot permit my eyes to look, without terrible hatred, upon any but those who are in the holy law of truth, nor wish well to such as are out of it. But now that the Omnipotent Lord has had such mercy on you as to give you such knowledge that you become His servant, you excite in me at once the same love as if the King, my father, had begotten us both. And as for this you ask, I will give you, by my troth, a knight who is even more complete in valor and in lineage than you have demanded.'

"Then, taking by the hand Talanque, his cousin, the son of the King of Sobradisa,—very large he was of person, and very handsome withal,—he said,—

"'Queen, here you see one of my cousins, son of the King whom you here see,—the brother of the King my father,—take him to yourself, that I may secure to you the good fortune which you will bring to him.'

"The Queen looked at him, and finding his appearance good, said,—

"'I am content with his presence, and well satisfied with his lineage and person, since you assure me of them. Be pleased to summon for me Liota, my sister, who is with my fleet in the harbor, that I may send orders to her that there shall be no movement among my people.'

"The Emperor sent the Admiral Tartarie for her immediately, and he, having found her, brought her with him, and placed her before the Emperor. The Queen Calafia told her all her wish, commanding her and entreating her to confirm it. Her sister, Liota, kneeling upon the ground, kissed her hands, and said that there was no reason why she should make any explanation of her will to those who were in her service. The Queen raised her and embraced her, with the tears in her eyes, and led her by the hand to Talanque, saying,—

"'Thou shalt be my lord, and the lord of my land, which is a very great kingdom; and, for thy sake, this island shall change the custom which for a very long time it has preserved, so that the natural generations of men and women shall succeed henceforth, in place of the order in which the men have been separated so long. And if you have here any friend whom you greatly love, who is of the same rank with you, let him be betrothed to my sister here, and no long time shall pass, before, with thy help, she shall be queen of a great land.'

"Talanque greatly loved Maneli the Prudent, both because they were brothers by birth and because they held the same faith. He led him forth, and said to her,—