In the Plaza del Pradillo in Viso del Marqués, a statue of Don Álvaro de Bazánstands . On one side of the pillar on which it rests, a tile reproduces two quatrains by Lope de Vega dedicated to Don Álvaro. They read as follows:
El fiero turco en Lepanto,
en la Tercera el francés
y en todo el mundo el inglés
tuvieron de verme espanto.
Rey servido y patria honrada
dirán mejor quién he sido
por la cruz de mi apellido
y con la cruz de mi espada.
The connection between Lepanto and Don Álvaro and Cervantes is well known. The author of Don Quixote praises the Marquis of Santa Cruz, who played such a prominent role in the battle that averted the Turkish threat that loomed so urgently over Christendom.
Cervantes, el Manco de Lepanto
He says of him that he is “a lightning bolt of war, father of soldiers, fortunate and never defeated captain.” Cervantes, the One-Armed Man of Lepanto, will proudly bear his one-armedness, not because it was born in some tavern squabble “but on the highest occasion that past centuries have seen, the present has seen, or future centuries expect to see.”
However, Lope de Vega’s relationship with our Marquis is less well known. To explain it, we must look at the reference in the first quatrain to Las Terceras, the name by which the Portuguese islands of the Azores were known.
King Sebastian of Portugal had died at Alcazarquivir in 1578, and his successor, Cardinal Henry, died two years later. The crown was then contested by Antonio, prior of the wealthy Abbey of Crato, and our King Philip II. Antonio of Crato had himself proclaimed king. Philip II did not accept this decision and invaded Portugal by land. The Portuguese Cortes in Tomar proclaimed Philip II king. However, the Azores declared their support for the prior of Crato.
He managed to escape, taking the Crown Jewels with him, and with the proceeds from their sale, plus funding and support—ships and men—from France and England, he assembled a fleet to reclaim the throne.
The fleet of Crato will be defeated at Terceira by Álvaro de Bazán. And there, under his command, at only 19 years old, a soldier of the sea and volunteer for the Spanish army, will be the young poet from Madrid, Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio, who, like Jorge Manrique, Garcilaso, or Cervantes before him, and, later, Calderón de la Barca and so many others, wanted to prove his courage and increase his honor by serving as a soldier.
The following words are put in the mouth of one of the characters in the play The Chastened Gallant:
El Marqués de Santa Cruz
con cinco galeones parte,
treinta naos, doce galeras
y doce armados patajes,
dos galeazas, quince cebras,
siete barcas chatas grandes,
con catorce carabelas
y con nueve mil infantes
de bizarros españoles,
italianos y alemanes;
cuatro mil hombres de mar
en faenas y balances,
y cincuenta aventureros,
señores particulares.
The character then narrates the development of the operations and ends by celebrating
“nuestro ejército triunfante,
y quedando victoriosa
la gloria de los Bazanes”.
This would not be the great playwright’s only military adventure, for five years later he enlisted, again as a volunteer, in what was mockingly called the “Invincible Armada.” There he would lose his younger brother, Juan, and it is likely that these verses refer to him (and not to Lope himself):
Ceñí en servicio de mi Rey la espada
antes que el labio me ciñese el bozo
que para la católica jornada
no se excusaba generoso mozo.
And it seems that’s the case, because at 25 years old it’s unlikely that Lope was still beardless.
When Lope later learned of the defeat and death of the British privateer Drake, he celebrated it in his epic poem “La Dragontea,” whose cover depicted an eagle (the eagle of the Habsburgs) devouring a dragon (a reference to Drake’s name), with the motto “Tandem aquila vincit” (Finally the eagle triumphed). Lope de Vega displays his masterful command of the traditional maritime vocabulary in these two royal octaves:
Arde el bauprés, mesana, árbol, trinquetes,
como si fueran débiles tomizas,
coronas, aparejos, chafaldetes,
velas, escotas, brazas, trozas, trizas,
Brandales, racamentas, gallardetes,
brioles, aflechates son cenizas,
amantillos, bolinas y cajetas,
estay, obencaduras y jaretas.
Ya del cabo del balde no se trata,
porque desde la gavia hasta la quilla
el añudado leño se desata,
y el fuego hasta las bombas aportilla.
Crece la luz, la llama se dilata,
la aguja, la bitácora y la silla
deja el piloto, viendo las estrellas
del Norte en la menor de las centellas.
And the sea also comes to the poet’s imagination when he expresses his apprehensions in that famous poem that begins like this:
¡Pobre barquilla mía,
entre peñascos rota,
sin velas desvelada
y entre las olas sola!
Let us return, in conclusion, to the opening verses, to the second quatrain, which so concisely expresses the good reasons that the Spaniards of the Golden Age had for being brave: service to the King, the honor of the homeland, personal honor, and the defense of the Cross that bound them all together.
These are practically the same reasons why, in the mouth of Don Quixote, a man can and should risk his life.
THE CHURCH SONNET
We have seen romances (so suitable for “relations,” according to the New Art of Writing Plays), quatrains (with their agile octosyllables, characteristic of our popular literary tradition and also highly valued by learned authors), and octaves (stanzas typical of the learned epic poems of the period).
The sonnet, imported from Italy, could not be omitted. This is the one that appears, as a literary funerary monument dedicated to the Marquis, on the façade of the church in our town:
Aunque de roble y de laurel no enrames,
España, este sagrado mauseolo,
sino de lienzos que combate Eolo,
velas, bastardos, gavias y velames.
Aunque César marítimo le llames,
y en vez de Dafnes, la que adora Apolo,
sus nobles sienes ciña coral solo.
A pesar de la envidia y odio infames,
de ningún capitán de tierra debes
honrarte más que del Bazán famoso,
Crucígero Neptuno, Marte Hispano.
Llora que le perdiste en años breves,
pues era con su brazo belicoso
Argos de nuestra fe, Jasón cristiano.
The poet imagines, then, the mausoleum of the “famous Bazán” adorned with the sails of his ships billowing in the wind, and the mariner’s funerary statue encircled not with laurels but with coral. He addresses Spain, asking that it honor him more than any land warrior, for he carried the Cross of our faith across the seas, and that it mourn his early death.
The sonnet contains numerous and varied mythological references, so characteristic of the Renaissance and Baroque periods:
*The sails that propel the ships are the canvases that Aeolus, god of the wind, battles.
*Daphnes (written in plural) is taken here to represent laurels. As it is well known, the nymph Daphne, whom Apollo loved, pursued by the god, begged her father, the river Peneus, for protection and was transformed into a laurel tree to prevent Apollo from raping her.
*Don Álvaro identifies with Neptune, transforming the sea god into a Christian hero, bearer not of the trident but of the Cross (Cruciferous Neptune).
*The Roman god of war, Mars Hispano, is Hispanicized in Don Álvaro.
*Finally, Don Álvaro is Argos of our faith, the Christian Jason. Two Greek heroes, who symbolize the adventurous spirit of seafarers in their quest for the mythical treasure of the Golden Fleece, are once again Christianized in the Marquis of Santa Cruz. The warlike adventures of the “Maritime Caesar” thus acquire a transcendent meaning.