Roderick, the last of the Goths : $b A tragic poemSouthey, Robert
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Roderick, the last of the Goths : $b A tragic poem
Southey, Robert
Roderick, King of the Visigoths, -711? -- Poetry
His huntsmen afterwards
arrived, following the track of the horse, and knowing the marvel which
had occurred, they prostrated themselves before the Image of Our Lady,
adding with their astonishment to the devotion of Dom Fuas, who, hearing
that the stag had not been seen, and that the dogs had found no track
of him in any part, though one had been represented before him to draw
him on, understood that it was an illusion of the Devil, seeking by that
means to make him perish miserably. All these considerations enhanced the
greatness of the miracle, and the obligations of Dom Fuas, who, tarrying
there some days, made workmen come from Leyria and Porto de Mos, to make
another hermitage, in which the Lady should be more venerated; and as
they were demolishing the first, they found placed between the stones of
the altar a little box of ivory, and within it relicks of St. Bras, St.
Bartholomew, and other saints, with a parchment, wherein a relation was
given of how, and at what time those relicks and the image were brought
there, according as has been aforesaid. A vaulted chapel was soon made,
after a good form for times so ancient, over the very place where the
Lady had been; and to the end that it might be seen from all sides, they
left it open with four arches, which in process of time were closed, to
prevent the damage which the rains and storms did within the chapel, and
in this manner it remains in our days. The Lady remained in her place,
being soon known and visited by the faithful, who flocked there upon the
fame of her appearance: the valiant and holy king D. Affonso Henriquez,
being one of the first whom Dom Fuas advised of what had happened, and
he, accompanied with the great persons of his court, and with his son, D.
Sancho, came to visit the Image of the Lady, and see with his own eyes
the marks of so rare a miracle as that which had taken place; and with
his consent, D. Fuas made a donation to the Lady of a certain quantity
of land round about, which was at that time a wild thicket, and for the
greater part is so still, being well nigh all wild sands incapable of
giving fruit, and would produce nothing more than heath and some wild
pine-trees. And because it establishes the truth of all that I have said,
and relates in its own manner the history of the Image of the Lady, I
will place it here in the form in which I saw it in the Record Room
at Alcobaça, preserving throughout the Latin and the barbarism of its
composition; which is as follows:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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