Kitobni o'qish: «The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 2 of 2», sahifa 18
XIX
In mid-August, when hens, fed full with grain, remain deaf to the call of the cock trumpeting his loves, Ulenspiegel said to his sailors and soldiers:
“The duke of blood, being at Utrecht, dares there to issue a blessed edict, promising among other gracious gifts, hunger, death, ruin to the inhabitants of the Low Countries who might be unwilling to submit. Everything that still remains whole, saith he, shall be exterminate, and His Majesty the king will people the country with strangers. Bite, duke, bite! The file breaketh the viper’s tooth; we are files. Long live the Beggar!
“Alba, blood maketh thee drunk! Deemest thou that we would fear thy threats or believe in thy clemency? Thy famous regiments whose praises thou didst sing throughout the whole world, thy Invincibles, thy Tels Quels, thy Immortals, remained seven months bombarding Haarlem, a feeble city defended by mere citizens; like mortal common men they danced in air the dance of the bursting mines. Mere citizens besmeared them with tar; in the end they were glorious victors, slaughtering the disarmed. Hearest thou, murderer, the hour of God that striketh now?
“Haarlem hath lost her splendid defenders, her stones sweat blood. She hath lost and expended in her siege twelve hundred and eighty thousand florins. The bishop is reinstated there; with light hand and joyful countenance he blesses the churches; Don Frederick is present at these consecrations; the bishop washes for him those hands that in God’s eyes are red and he communicates in two kinds, which is not permitted to the poor common herd. And the bells ring out and the chime flings into the air its calm, harmonious notes; it is like the singing of angels over a cemetery. An eye for an eye! A tooth for a tooth! Long live the Beggar!”
XX
The Beggars were then at Flushing, where Nele caught fever. Forced to leave the ship, she was lodged at the house of one Peeters, of the Reformed faith, at Turven-Key.
Ulenspiegel, deeply grieving, was yet rejoiced, thinking that in this bed where she would doubtless be healed the Spanish bullets could not reach her.
And with Lamme he was always beside her, tending her well and loving her better. And there they used to talk together.
“Friend and true comrade,” said Ulenspiegel one day, “dost thou not know the news?”
“Nay, my son,” said Lamme.
“Seest thou the flyboat that but late came to join our fleet, and knowest thou who it is upon it that twangs the viol every day?”
“Through the late colds,” said Lamme, “I am as one deaf in both ears. Why dost thou laugh, my son?”
But Ulenspiegel, continuing:
“Once,” he said, “I heard her sing a Flemish lied and found her voice was sweet.”
“Alas,” said Lamme, “she, too, sang and played upon the viol.”
“Dost thou know the other news?” went on Ulenspiegel.
“I know naught of it, my son,” said Lamme.
Ulenspiegel made answer:
“We have our orders to drop down the Scheldt with our ships as far as Antwerp, to find there the enemy ships to take or burn. As for the men, no quarter. What thinkest thou of this, big paunch?”
“Alas!” said Lamme, “shall we never hear aught else in this distressful land save burnings, hangings, drownings, and other ways of exterminating poor men? When then will blessed peace come, that we can in quiet roast partridges, fricassee chickens, and make the puddings sing in the pan among the eggs? I like the black ones best; the white are too rich.”
“This sweet time will come,” replied Ulenspiegel, “when in the orchards of Flanders we see on apple, plum, pear trees and cherry trees, a Spaniard hanged on every bough.”
“Ah!” said Lamme, “if only I could find my wife again, my so dear, so sweet, beloved soft darling faithful wife! For know it well, my son, cuckold I was not nor shall ever be; she was too sober and calm in her ways for that; she eschewed the company of other men; if she loved fair and fine array, it was but for woman’s need. I was her cook, her kitchenman, her scullion, I am glad to say it, why am I it not once more? but I was her master as well and her husband.”
“Let us end this talk,” said Ulenspiegel. “Hearest thou the admiral calling: ‘Up anchors!’ and captains after him calling the same? We must needs weigh soon.”
“Why dost thou go so quickly?” said Nele to Ulenspiegel.
“We are going to the ships,” said he.
“Without me?” she said.
“Aye,” said Ulenspiegel.
“Dost thou not think,” said she, “how lying here I shall be distressed for thee?”
“Dearest,” said Ulenspiegel, “my skin is made of iron.”
“Thou art mocking,” said she. “I see nothing on thee but thy doublet, which is cloth, not iron; beneath it is thy body, made of bone and flesh, like my own. If they wound thee, who will heal thee? Art thou to die all alone in the midst of the fighters? I shall go with thee.”
“Alas!” said he, “if the lances, balls, swords, axes, maces, sparing me, fall on thy dear body, what shall I do – I, good for naught without thee in this vile world?”
But Nele said:
“I would fain follow thee; there will be no peril; I will hide in the wooden forts where the arquebusiers are.”
“If thou dost go, I stay, and they will hold thy friend Ulenspiegel traitor and coward; but listen to my lay:
“My hair is steel, as casque set there;
An armour forged by Nature’s hand
My skin the first is buff well tanned,
And steel the second skin I wear.
“In vain to catch me in his snare
Death, grinning monster, takes his stand;
My skin the first is buff well tanned,
And steel the second skin I wear.
“My standards ‘Live’ as motto bear,
Live ever in a sunshine land:
My skin the first is buff well tanned,
And steel the second skin I wear.”
And he went off singing, not without having kissed the shaking mouth and the lovely eyes of Nele sunk in fever, smiling and weeping all together.
The Beggars are at Antwerp; they take the ships of Alba even in the very harbour. Entering the city, in broad day, they set free certain prisoners, and make others prisoner to bring ransom. By force they make the citizens rise, and some they constrain to follow them, on pain of death, without uttering a word.
Ulenspiegel said to Lamme:
“The admiral’s son is detained at the Écoutête’s: we must deliver him.”
Going into the house of the Écoutête, they see the son they sought in the company of a big monk with a noble belly, who was preaching wrathfully to him, fain to make him return to the bosom of our Mother Holy Church. But the lad would by no means consent thereto. He departed with Ulenspiegel. Meanwhile Lamme, seizing the monk by the cowl, made him walk before him in the streets of Antwerp, saying:
“Thou art worth a hundred florins ransom: pack up and march on. Why dost thou hang back? Hast thou lead in thy sandals? March, bag of lard, victual press, soup belly!”
“I march, Master Beggar, I march; but saving the respect due to your arquebuse, you are as big in the belly as myself, a paunchy, vasty fellow.”
Then Lamme, pushing him on:
“Dost thou dare indeed, foul monk,” said he, “to liken thy cloistral, useless, lazy grease to my Fleming fat honourably sustained and fed by toils, fatigues, and battles? Run, or I shall make thee go like a dog, and that with the spur at the end of my boot-sole.”
But the monk could not run, and he was all out of breath, and Lamme the same. And so they came to the ship.
XXI
Having taken Rammekens, Gertruydenberg, Alckmaer, the Beggars came back to Flushing.
Nele, now hale and cured, was waiting for Ulenspiegel at the harbour.
“Thyl,” said she, “my love, Thyl, art thou not wounded?”
Ulenspiegel sang:
“My standards ‘Live’ as motto bear,
Live ever in a sunshine land;
My skin the first is buff well tanned
My second skin is forged of steel.”
“Alas!” said Lamme, dragging a leg, “the bullets, grenades, chain shot rain around him; he feels but the wind of them. Thou art without doubt a spirit, Ulenspiegel, and thou, too, Nele, for I behold thee ever brisk and young.”
“Why dost thou drag thy leg?” asked Nele of Lamme.
“I am no spirit and never will be,” said he. “And so I took an axe stroke in the thigh – how round and white my wife’s was! – see, I am bleeding. Alas! why have I her not here to tend me!”
But Nele, angry, replied:
“What need hast thou of a wife forsworn?”
“Say naught ill of her,” replied Lamme.
“Here,” said Nele, “here is balsam; I was keeping it for Ulenspiegel; put it upon the wound.”
Lamme, having dressed his wound, was joyous, for the balsam put an end to the keen anguish; and they went up again to the ship all three.
Seeing the monk who was walking to and fro there with his hands bound:
“Who is that one?” she said. “I have seen him already and I think I know him.”
“He is worth a hundred florins ransom,” replied Lamme.
XXII
That day aboard the fleet there was a feast. In spite of the sharp December wind, despite the rain, despite the snow, all the Beggars of the fleet were on the decks of the ships. The silver crescents gleamed lurid upon the bonnets of Zealand.
And Ulenspiegel sang:
“Leyden is delivered: the bloody duke leaves the Low Countries:
Ring out, ye bells reëchoing: Chimes, fling your songs into the air: Clink, ye glasses and bottles, clink.
“When the mastiff slinks away from blows,
His tail between his legs,
With bloodshot eye
He turns upon the cudgels.
“And his torn jaw
Shivers and pants
He has gone, the bloody duke;
Clink bottle and glass. Long live the Beggar!
“Fain would he bite himself,
The cudgels broke his teeth.
Hanging his puff-jowled head
He thinks of the days of murder and lust.
He is gone, the bloody duke:
Then beat upon the drum of glory,
Then beat upon the drum of war!
Long live the Beggar!
“He cries to the devil: ‘I will sell thee
My doggish soul for one hour of might.’
‘Thy soul it is no more to me,’
Said the devil, ‘than a herring is.’
The teeth meet no longer now.
They must avoid hard morsels.
He hath gone, the bloody duke:
Long live the Beggar!
“The little street dogs, crooklegged, one-eyed, full of mange,
That live or die on rubbish heaps.
Heave up their leg one by one
On him that killed for love of slaughter. —
Long live the Beggar.
“He loved not women, nor friends,
Nor gayness, nor sun, nor his master,
Nothing but Death, his betrothed,
Who broke his legs
As prelude to the betrothal,
For she loves not men hale and whole;
Beat upon the drum of joy,
Long live the Beggar!
“And the little street dogs, crooklegged,
Limping, one-eyed, full of mange,
Heave their leg up once again
In a hot and salty fashion.
And with them greyhounds and mastiffs,
Dogs of Hungary, of Brabant,
Of Namur and Luxembourg,
Long live the Beggar!
“And, miserably, with foaming mouth,
He goes to die beside his master,
Who fetches him a sounding kick,
For not biting enough.
“In hell he weddeth Death.
She calleth him ‘My Duke’;
He calleth her ‘My Inquisition.’
Long live the Beggar!
“Ring out ye bells reëchoing:
Chimes, fling your songs into the air;
Clink, glasses and bottles, clink:
Long live the Beggar!”
Book V
I
The monk that Lamme captured, perceiving that the Beggars did not desire to have him dead, but paying ransom, began to lift up his nose on board the ship:
“See,” quoth he, marching and wagging his head furiously, “see in what a gulf of vile, black, and foul abominations I have fallen in setting foot on this wooden tub. Were I not here, I whom the Lord anointed…”
“With dog’s grease?” asked the Beggars.
“Dogs yourselves,” replied the monk, continuing his discourse, “aye, mangy dogs, strays, defiled, starveling, that have fled out of the rich pathway of our Mother the Holy Roman Church to enter upon the parched highway of your tattered Reformed Church. Aye! if I were not here in your wooden shoe, your tub, long since would the Lord have swallowed it up in the deepest gulfs of the sea, with you, your accursed arms, your devils’ cannon, your singing captain, your blasphemous crescents, aye! down to the very deeps of the unfathomable bottom of Satan’s kingdom, where ye will not burn, nay, but where ye shall freeze, shall shiver, shall die of cold throughout all long eternity. Yea! the God of heaven will thus quench the fire of your impious hate against our sweet Mother the Holy Roman Church, against messieurs the saints, messeigneurs the bishops and the blessed edicts that were so mildly and so ripely devised. Aye! and I should see you from the peak of paradise, purple as beetroots or white as turnips so cold ye should be. ’T sy! ’t sy! ’t sy! So, so, so, so be it.”
The sailors, soldiers, and cabin boys jeered at him, and shot dried peas at him through peashooters. And he covered his face with his hands against this artillery.
II
The duke of blood having quitted the country, Messires de Medina-Coeli and De Requesens governed it with less cruelty. Then the States General ruled them in the name of the king.
Meanwhile, the folk of Zealand and of Holland, most lucky by reason of the sea and their dykes, which are natural ramparts and fortresses to them, opened free temples to the God of free men; and the murderous Papists might sing their hymns beside them; and Monseigneur the Silent of Orange refrained from founding a royal dynasty of stadtholders.
The Belgian country was ravaged by the Walloons who were dissatisfied by the peace of Ghent, which, men said, was to quench all hatreds. And these Walloons, Pater-noster knechter, wearing upon their necks big black rosaries, of which there were found two thousand at Spienne in Hainaut, stealing oxen and horses by twelve hundred, two thousand at a time, choosing out the best, carrying off women and girls by field and by marsh; eating and never paying, these Walloons used to burn within their farmsteads the armed peasants that tried to prevent the fruit of their hard toil from being carried away.
And the common folk would say to one another: “Don Juan is soon to come with his Spaniards, and his Great Highness will come with his Frenchmen, not Huguenots but Papists: and the Silent, desiring to rule in peace over Holland, Zealand, Gueldre, Utrecht, Overyssel, cedes in a secret treaty the lands of Belgium, for Monsieur d’Anjou to make himself a king therein.”
Some of the commonalty were still confident. “The States,” said they, “have twenty thousand well-armed men, with plenty of cannon and good cavalry. They will repel all foreign soldiery.”
But the thoughtful ones said: “The States have twenty thousand men on paper, but not in the field; they lack cavalry and let their horses be stolen within a league of their camps by the Pater-noster knechten. They have no artillery, for while needing it at home, they decided to send one hundred cannon with powder and shot to Don Sebastian of Portugal; and no man knoweth whither has gone the two million crowns we have paid on four occasions by way of taxes and contributions; the citizens of Ghent and Brussels are arming, Ghent for the Reformation, and Brussels even as Ghent; at Brussels the women play the tambourine while their men toil at the ramparts. And Ghent the Bold is sending to Brussels the Gay powder and cannon, the which she lacketh for her defence against the Malcontents and the Spaniards.”
And man by man in the towns and the flat country, in ’t plat landt, sees that trust cannot be placed either in the lords or in many another. “And we citizens and common folk are sore at heart for that giving our money and ready to give our blood, we see that nothing goes forward for the good of the country of our sires. And the Belgian land is cowed and angered, having no trusty chiefs to give it the chance of battle and to give it victory, through great effort of arms all ready against the foes of liberty.”
And the thoughtful folk said among themselves:
“In the Peace of Ghent, the lords of Holland and of Belgium swore the abolishment of hate, mutual help between the Belgian Estates and the Estates of the Netherlands; declared the edicts null and void, the confiscations cancelled, peace between the two religions; promised to raze each and every column, trophy, inscription, and effigy set up by the Duke of Alba to our dishonour. But in the hearts of the chiefs the hatreds are still afoot; the nobles and the clergy foment division between the States of the Union; they receive money to pay soldiers, they keep it for their own gluttony; fifteen thousand law suits for the recovery of confiscated property are suspended; the Lutherans and Romans unite against the Calvinists; lawful heirs cannot succeed in driving the despoilers from out their inheritance; the duke’s statue is on the ground, but the image of the Inquisition is enshrined within their hearts.”
And the poor commonalty and the woeful burgesses waited ever for the valiant and trusty chief that would lead them to battle for freedom.
And they said among themselves: “Where are the illustrious signatories to the Compromise, all united, so they said, for the good of the country? Why did these two-faced men make such a ‘holy alliance,’ if they were to break it at once? Why meet together with so much commotion, rouse the king’s wrath, to dissolve like cowards and traitors after? Five hundred as they were, great lords and low lords banded like brothers, they saved us from the fury of Spain; but they sacrificed the welfare of the land of Belgium to their own profit, even as did d’Egmont and de Hoorn.
“Alas!” said they, “see Don Juan come now, handsome and ambitious, the enemy of Philip, but more the enemy of his country. He is coming for the Pope and for himself. Nobles and clergy are traitors.”
And they began a semblance of war. Upon the walls along the main streets and the little streets of Ghent and Brussels, nay even upon the masts of the Beggars’ ships, were then to be seen posted up the names of traitors, army chiefs, and commanders of fortresses: the names of the Count of Liederkerke, who did not defend his castle against Don Juan; of the provost of Liége, who would have sold the city to Don Juan; of Messieurs d’Aerschot, de Mansfeldt, de Berlaymont, de Rassenghien; the name, of the Council of State, of Georges de Lalaing, governor of Frisia, that of the army leader the seigneur de Rossignol, an emissary of Don Juan, the go-between for murder between Philip and Jaureguy, the clumsy assassin of the Prince of Orange; the name of the Archbishop of Cambrai, who would have given the Spaniards entry into the town; the names of the Jesuits of Antwerp, offering three casks of gold to the States – that was two million florins – not to demolish the castle and to hold it for Don Juan; of the Bishop of Liége; of Roman preachers defaming and abusing the patriots; of the Bishop of Utrecht, whom the citizens sent elsewhere to pasture on the grass of treachery; the orders of begging friars, which intrigued and plotted at Ghent in favour of Don Juan. The folk of Bois-le-Duc nailed on the pillory the name of Peter the Carmelite, who helped by their bishop and his clergy, undertook to hand over the town to Don Juan.
At Douai they did not indeed hang the rector of the university in effigy, a man no less Spaniardized; but upon the ships of the Beggars were seen on the breast of mannikins hanging by their necks the names of monks, abbots, and prelates, of eighteen hundred rich women and girls of the nunnery of Malines who with their money sustained, gilded, and beplumed the country’s butchers.
And on these mannikins, the pillories of traitors, were to be read the names of the Marquis d’Harrault, the commander of the fortress of Philippeville, wasting and squandering munitions of war and food uselessly in order to give up the place to the enemy under pretence of a lack of provisions; the name of Belver, who surrendered Lembourg, when the town might have held out another eight months; that of the President of the Council of Flanders; of the magistrate of Bruges, of the magistrate of Malines, holding their towns for Don Juan, of the members of the Exchequer Council of Guelderland, closed by reason of treachery; of those of the Council of Brabant, of the Chancellery of the Duchy; of the Privy Council and the Council of Finance; of the Grand Bailiff and the Burgomaster of Menin; and of the ill neighbours of Artois, who gave passage without let to two thousand Frenchmen bent upon pillage.
“Alas!” said the city folk among themselves, “here is the Duke of Anjou with a footing in our country: he would fain be king among us; did ye behold him entering into Mons, a little man, with fat hips, big nose, a yellow phiz, a fleering mouth? ’Tis a great prince, loving loves out of the common; he is called, that he may have in his name woman’s grace and man’s force, Monseigneur monsieur Sa Grande Altesse d’Anjou.”
Ulenspiegel was pensive. And he sang:
“Blue are the skies, the clear bright skies;
Cover the banners all in crêpe,
With crêpe the handle of the sword;
Hide every gem;
Turn the mirrors over;
I sing the song of Death,
The traitors’ song.
“They have set foot upon the belly
And on the bosom of the proud lands
Of Brabant, Flanders, Hainault,
Antwerp, Artois, Luxembourg.
Nobles and clergy are traitors;
The bait of reward allures them.
I sing the traitors’ song.
“When the foe sacks everywhere,
When the Spaniard enters Antwerp,
Abbés, prelates, and army chiefs
Go through the streets of the town,
Clad in silk, bedecked with gold,
Their faces shining with good wine,
Displaying thus their infamy.
“And through them, the Inquisition
Will wake again in high triumph,
And new Titelmans
Will arrest the deaf and dumb
For heresy.
I sing the traitors’ song.
“Signatories to the Compromise.
Coward signatories,
Be your names all accursed!
Where are ye in the hour of war?
Ye march like corbies
In the Spaniards’ train.
Beat upon the drum of woe.
“Land of Belgium, future years
Will condemn thee for that thou,
All in arms, didst let thyself be pillaged.
Future, hasten not;
See the traitors labouring:
There are twenty, a thousand,
Filling every post,
The great give them to the little.
“They have plotted and agreed
That they might fetter all defence,
With discord and sloth,
Their treacherous devices.
Cover the mirrors with crêpe
And the hilts of the swords.
’Tis the traitors’ song.
“They declare rebels
All Spaniards and malcontents;
Forbid to help them
With bread or shelter,
With lead or powder.
If any are taken to be hanged,
To be hanged,
They release them at once.
“‘Up!’ say the men of Brussels,
‘Up!’ say the men of Ghent
And the Belgian commons,
Poor men, they mean to crush you
Between the king
And the Pope who launches
The crusade against Flanders.
“They come, the hirelings,
At the smell of blood;
Bands of dogs,
Of serpents and hyænas.
They hunger, they are athirst.
Poor land of our sires,
Ripe for ruin and death.
“’Tis not Don Juan
That makes ready the task
For Farnèse, the Pope’s minion.
But those thou didst load
With gold and distinctions,
Who confessed thy women
Thy girls and thy children!
“They have flung thee to ground
And the Spaniard holds
The knife at thy throat;
They jeer at thee,
Feasting at Brussels
The coming of Orange.
“When on the canal were seen
So many fireworks
Exploding their joy,
So many triumphing boats,
Paintings, tapestries,
They were playing, O Belgium,
The old tale of Joseph
Sold by his brothers.”
