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
_Who from their thirsty sands
Pray that the locusts on the peopled plain
May settle and prepare their way._—XXV. p. 249.
The Saharawans, or Arabs of the Desert, rejoice to see the clouds of
locusts proceeding towards the north, anticipating therefrom a general
mortality, which they call _elkhere_, the good or the benediction; for,
after depopulating the rich plains of Barbary, it affords to them an
opportunity of emanating from their arid recesses, in the desert, to
pitch their tents in the desolated plains, or along the banks of some
river.—_Jackson’s Morocco_, p. 106.
* * * * *
_But where was he whose hand
Had wielded it so well that glorious day?_—XXV. p. 250.
The account which the Romantic Chronicle gives of Roderick after his
disappearance, is in so singular a strain of fiction, that I have been
tempted to translate it. It strikingly exemplifies the doctrine of
penance, of which monastic history supplies many instances almost as
extraordinary as this fable.
Chap. 238.—_How the King Don Rodrigo left the battle and arrived at a
hermitage, and of that which befell him._
“Now when the King Don Rodrigo had escaped from the battle, he began to
go as fast as he could upon his horse along the banks of the Guadalete,
and night came on, and the horse began to fail by reason of the many
wounds which he had received; and as he went thus by the river side
deploring the great ruin which had come upon him, he knew not where he
was, and the horse got into a quagmire, and when he was in he could not
get out. And when the king saw this he alighted, and stript off all his
rich arms and the furniture thereof, and took off his crown from his
head, and threw them all into the quagmire, saying, Of earth was I made,
and even so are all my deeds like unto mud and mire. Therefore my pomp
and vanity shall be buried in this mud till it has all returned again to
earth, as I myself must do. And the vile end which I have deserved will
beseem me well, seeing that I have been the principal cause of this great
cruelty. And as he thus stript off all his rich apparel, he cast the
shoes from his feet, and went his way, and wandered on towards Portugal;
and he travelled so far that night and the day following, that he came
to a hermitage near the sea, where there was a good man who had dwelt
there serving God for full forty years; and now he was of great age, for
he was well nigh a hundred years old. And he entered into the hermitage,
and found a crucifix therein, being the image of our Lord Jesus Christ,
even as he was crucified, and for the remembrance of Him, he bent both
his knees to the ground, and claspt his hands, weeping and confessing
his sins before God, for he weened not that any man in the world saw or
heard him. And he said thus, O very Lord who by thy word hast made all
the world from nothing which it was, and hast created all things, those
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