PART I - CHAPTER XXXIX.

by Miguel de Cervantes

　　WHEREIN THE CAPTIVE RELATES HIS LIFE AND ADVENTURESMy family had its origin in a village in the mountains of Leon, andnature had been kinder and more generous to it than fortune; though inthe general poverty of those communities my father passed for being evena rich man; and he would have been so in reality had he been as clever inpreserving his property as he was in spending it. This tendency of his tobe liberal and profuse he had acquired from having been a soldier in hisyouth, for the soldier's life is a school in which the niggard becomesfree-handed and the free-handed prodigal; and if any soldiers are to befound who are misers, they are monsters of rare occurrence. My fatherwent beyond liberality and bordered on prodigality, a disposition by nomeans advantageous to a married man who has children to succeed to hisname and position. My father had three, all sons, and all of sufficientage to make choice of a profession. Finding, then, that he was unable toresist his propensity, he resolved to divest himself of the instrumentand cause of his prodigality and lavishness, to divest himself of wealth,without which Alexander himself would have seemed parsimonious; and socalling us all three aside one day into a room, he addressed us in wordssomewhat to the following effect:"My sons, to assure you that I love you, no more need be known or saidthan that you are my sons; and to encourage a suspicion that I do notlove you, no more is needed than the knowledge that I have noself-control as far as preservation of your patrimony is concerned;therefore, that you may for the future feel sure that I love you like afather, and have no wish to ruin you like a stepfather, I propose to dowith you what I have for some time back meditated, and after maturedeliberation decided upon. You are now of an age to choose your line oflife or at least make choice of a calling that will bring you honour andprofit when you are older; and what I have resolved to do is to divide myproperty into four parts; three I will give to you, to each his portionwithout making any difference, and the other I will retain to live uponand support myself for whatever remainder of life Heaven may be pleasedto grant me. But I wish each of you on taking possession of the sharethat falls to him to follow one of the paths I shall indicate. In thisSpain of ours there is a proverb, to my mind very true--as they all are,being short aphorisms drawn from long practical experience--and the one Irefer to says, 'The church, or the sea, or the king's house;' as much asto say, in plainer language, whoever wants to flourish and become rich,let him follow the church, or go to sea, adopting commerce as hiscalling, or go into the king's service in his household, for they say,'Better a king's crumb than a lord's favour.' I say so because it is mywill and pleasure that one of you should follow letters, another trade,and the third serve the king in the wars, for it is a difficult matter togain admission to his service in his household, and if war does not bringmuch wealth it confers great distinction and fame. Eight days hence Iwill give you your full shares in money, without defrauding you of afarthing, as you will see in the end. Now tell me if you are willing tofollow out my idea and advice as I have laid it before you."Having called upon me as the eldest to answer, I, after urging him not tostrip himself of his property but to spend it all as he pleased, for wewere young men able to gain our living, consented to comply with hiswishes, and said that mine were to follow the profession of arms andthereby serve God and my king. My second brother having made the sameproposal, decided upon going to the Indies, embarking the portion thatfell to him in trade. The youngest, and in my opinion the wisest, said hewould rather follow the church, or go to complete his studies atSalamanca. As soon as we had come to an understanding, and made choice ofour professions, my father embraced us all, and in the short time hementioned carried into effect all he had promised; and when he had givento each his share, which as well as I remember was three thousand ducatsapiece in cash (for an uncle of ours bought the estate and paid for itdown, not to let it go out of the family), we all three on the same daytook leave of our good father; and at the same time, as it seemed to meinhuman to leave my father with such scanty means in his old age, Iinduced him to take two of my three thousand ducats, as the remainderwould be enough to provide me with all a soldier needed. My two brothers,moved by my example, gave him each a thousand ducats, so that there wasleft for my father four thousand ducats in money, besides three thousand,the value of the portion that fell to him which he preferred to retain inland instead of selling it. Finally, as I said, we took leave of him, andof our uncle whom I have mentioned, not without sorrow and tears on bothsides, they charging us to let them know whenever an opportunity offeredhow we fared, whether well or ill. We promised to do so, and when he hadembraced us and given us his blessing, one set out for Salamanca, theother for Seville, and I for Alicante, where I had heard there was aGenoese vessel taking in a cargo of wool for Genoa.It is now some twenty-two years since I left my father's house, and allthat time, though I have written several letters, I have had no newswhatever of him or of my brothers; my own adventures during that period Iwill now relate briefly. I embarked at Alicante, reached Genoa after aprosperous voyage, and proceeded thence to Milan, where I provided myselfwith arms and a few soldier's accoutrements; thence it was my intentionto go and take service in Piedmont, but as I was already on the road toAlessandria della Paglia, I learned that the great Duke of Alva was onhis way to Flanders. I changed my plans, joined him, served under him inthe campaigns he made, was present at the deaths of the Counts Egmont andHorn, and was promoted to be ensign under a famous captain ofGuadalajara, Diego de Urbina by name. Some time after my arrival inFlanders news came of the league that his Holiness Pope Pius V of happymemory, had made with Venice and Spain against the common enemy, theTurk, who had just then with his fleet taken the famous island of Cyprus,which belonged to the Venetians, a loss deplorable and disastrous. It wasknown as a fact that the Most Serene Don John of Austria, natural brotherof our good king Don Philip, was coming as commander-in-chief of theallied forces, and rumours were abroad of the vast warlike preparationswhich were being made, all which stirred my heart and filled me with alonging to take part in the campaign which was expected; and though I hadreason to believe, and almost certain promises, that on the firstopportunity that presented itself I should be promoted to be captain, Ipreferred to leave all and betake myself, as I did, to Italy; and it wasmy good fortune that Don John had just arrived at Genoa, and was going onto Naples to join the Venetian fleet, as he afterwards did at Messina. Imay say, in short, that I took part in that glorious expedition, promotedby this time to be a captain of infantry, to which honourable charge mygood luck rather than my merits raised me; and that day--so fortunate forChristendom, because then all the nations of the earth were disabused ofthe error under which they lay in imagining the Turks to be invincible onsea-on that day, I say, on which the Ottoman pride and arrogance werebroken, among all that were there made happy (for the Christians who diedthat day were happier than those who remained alive and victorious) Ialone was miserable; for, instead of some naval crown that I might haveexpected had it been in Roman times, on the night that followed thatfamous day I found myself with fetters on my feet and manacles on myhands.It happened in this way: El Uchali, the king of Algiers, a daring andsuccessful corsair, having attacked and taken the leading Maltese galley(only three knights being left alive in it, and they badly wounded), thechief galley of John Andrea, on board of which I and my company wereplaced, came to its relief, and doing as was bound to do in such a case,I leaped on board the enemy's galley, which, sheering off from that whichhad attacked it, prevented my men from following me, and so I foundmyself alone in the midst of my enemies, who were in such numbers that Iwas unable to resist; in short I was taken, covered with wounds; ElUchali, as you know, sirs, made his escape with his entire squadron, andI was left a prisoner in his power, the only sad being among so manyfilled with joy, and the only captive among so many free; for there werefifteen thousand Christians, all at the oar in the Turkish fleet, thatregained their longed-for liberty that day.They carried me to Constantinople, where the Grand Turk, Selim, made mymaster general at sea for having done his duty in the battle and carriedoff as evidence of his bravery the standard of the Order of Malta. Thefollowing year, which was the year seventy-two, I found myself atNavarino rowing in the leading galley with the three lanterns. There Isaw and observed how the opportunity of capturing the whole Turkish fleetin harbour was lost; for all the marines and janizzaries that belonged toit made sure that they were about to be attacked inside the very harbour,and had their kits and pasamaques, or shoes, ready to flee at once onshore without waiting to be assailed, in so great fear did they stand ofour fleet. But Heaven ordered it otherwise, not for any fault or neglectof the general who commanded on our side, but for the sins ofChristendom, and because it was God's will and pleasure that we shouldalways have instruments of punishment to chastise us. As it was, ElUchali took refuge at Modon, which is an island near Navarino, andlanding forces fortified the mouth of the harbour and waited quietlyuntil Don John retired. On this expedition was taken the galley calledthe Prize, whose captain was a son of the famous corsair Barbarossa. Itwas taken by the chief Neapolitan galley called the She-wolf, commandedby that thunderbolt of war, that father of his men, that successful andunconquered captain Don Alvaro de Bazan, Marquis of Santa Cruz; and Icannot help telling you what took place at the capture of the Prize.The son of Barbarossa was so cruel, and treated his slaves so badly,that, when those who were at the oars saw that the She-wolf galley wasbearing down upon them and gaining upon them, they all at once droppedtheir oars and seized their captain who stood on the stage at the end ofthe gangway shouting to them to row lustily; and passing him on frombench to bench, from the poop to the prow, they so bit him that before hehad got much past the mast his soul had already got to hell; so great, asI said, was the cruelty with which he treated them, and the hatred withwhich they hated him.We returned to Constantinople, and the following year, seventy-three, itbecame known that Don John had seized Tunis and taken the kingdom fromthe Turks, and placed Muley Hamet in possession, putting an end to thehopes which Muley Hamida, the cruelest and bravest Moor in the world,entertained of returning to reign there. The Grand Turk took the lossgreatly to heart, and with the cunning which all his race possess, hemade peace with the Venetians (who were much more eager for it than hewas), and the following year, seventy-four, he attacked the Goletta andthe fort which Don John had left half built near Tunis. While all theseevents were occurring, I was labouring at the oar without any hope offreedom; at least I had no hope of obtaining it by ransom, for I wasfirmly resolved not to write to my father telling him of my misfortunes.At length the Goletta fell, and the fort fell, before which places therewere seventy-five thousand regular Turkish soldiers, and more than fourhundred thousand Moors and Arabs from all parts of Africa, and in thetrain of all this great host such munitions and engines of war, and somany pioneers that with their hands they might have covered the Golettaand the fort with handfuls of earth. The first to fall was the Goletta,until then reckoned impregnable, and it fell, not by any fault of itsdefenders, who did all that they could and should have done, but becauseexperiment proved how easily entrenchments could be made in the desertsand there; for water used to be found at two palms depth, while theTurks found none at two yards; and so by means of a quantity of sandbagsthey raised their works so high that they commanded the walls of thefort, sweeping them as if from a cavalier, so that no one was able tomake a stand or maintain the defence.It was a common opinion that our men should not have shut themselves upin the Goletta, but should have waited in the open at the landing-place;but those who say so talk at random and with little knowledge of suchmatters; for if in the Goletta and in the fort there were barely seventhousand soldiers, how could such a small number, however resolute, sallyout and hold their own against numbers like those of the enemy? And howis it possible to help losing a stronghold that is not relieved, aboveall when surrounded by a host of determined enemies in their own country?But many thought, and I thought so too, that it was special favour andmercy which Heaven showed to Spain in permitting the destruction of thatsource and hiding place of mischief, that devourer, sponge, and moth ofcountless money, fruitlessly wasted there to no other purpose savepreserving the memory of its capture by the invincible Charles V; as ifto make that eternal, as it is and will be, these stones were needed tosupport it. The fort also fell; but the Turks had to win it inch by inch,for the soldiers who defended it fought so gallantly and stoutly that thenumber of the enemy killed in twenty-two general assaults exceededtwenty-five thousand. Of three hundred that remained alive not one wastaken unwounded, a clear and manifest proof of their gallantry andresolution, and how sturdily they had defended themselves and held theirpost. A small fort or tower which was in the middle of the lagoon underthe command of Don Juan Zanoguera, a Valencian gentleman and a famoussoldier, capitulated upon terms. They took prisoner Don PedroPuertocarrero, commandant of the Goletta, who had done all in his powerto defend his fortress, and took the loss of it so much to heart that hedied of grief on the way to Constantinople, where they were carrying hima prisoner. They also took the commandant of the fort, Gabrio Cerbellonby name, a Milanese gentleman, a great engineer and a very brave soldier.In these two fortresses perished many persons of note, among whom wasPagano Doria, knight of the Order of St. John, a man of generousdisposition, as was shown by his extreme liberality to his brother, thefamous John Andrea Doria; and what made his death the more sad was thathe was slain by some Arabs to whom, seeing that the fort was now lost, heentrusted himself, and who offered to conduct him in the disguise of aMoor to Tabarca, a small fort or station on the coast held by the Genoeseemployed in the coral fishery. These Arabs cut off his head and carriedit to the commander of the Turkish fleet, who proved on them the truth ofour Castilian proverb, that "though the treason may please, the traitoris hated;" for they say he ordered those who brought him the present tobe hanged for not having brought him alive.Among the Christians who were taken in the fort was one named Don Pedrode Aguilar, a native of some place, I know not what, in Andalusia, whohad been ensign in the fort, a soldier of great repute and rareintelligence, who had in particular a special gift for what they callpoetry. I say so because his fate brought him to my galley and to mybench, and made him a slave to the same master; and before we left theport this gentleman composed two sonnets by way of epitaphs, one on theGoletta and the other on the fort; indeed, I may as well repeat them, forI have them by heart, and I think they will be liked rather thandisliked.The instant the captive mentioned the name of Don Pedro de Aguilar, DonFernando looked at his companions and they all three smiled; and when hecame to speak of the sonnets one of them said, "Before your worshipproceeds any further I entreat you to tell me what became of that DonPedro de Aguilar you have spoken of.""All I know is," replied the captive, "that after having been inConstantinople two years, he escaped in the disguise of an Arnaut, incompany with a Greek spy; but whether he regained his liberty or not Icannot tell, though I fancy he did, because a year afterwards I saw theGreek at Constantinople, though I was unable to ask him what the resultof the journey was.""Well then, you are right," returned the gentleman, "for that Don Pedrois my brother, and he is now in our village in good health, rich,married, and with three children.""Thanks be to God for all the mercies he has shown him," said thecaptive; "for to my mind there is no happiness on earth to compare withrecovering lost liberty.""And what is more," said the gentleman, "I know the sonnets my brothermade.""Then let your worship repeat them," said the captive, "for you willrecite them better than I can.""With all my heart," said the gentleman; "that on the Goletta runs thus."