CERVANTES--I shall believe your dim eyes. Tell me, mariner, what your dim eyes see. COLUMBUS--[_With a laugh._] Then keep your sharp eyes westward. CERVANTES--[_He turns again, complying, to the west._] It is easy to look away from Spain, when one has loved Spain. COLUMBUS--You shall not be alone, in loving Spain. CERVANTES--Prophetic Spain. COLUMBUS--Spain which, creating life, has never lived. CERVANTES--Her fields are shrunken and her eyes are hot. COLUMBUS--God has begotten on her, and He has passed her by. CERVANTES--She is a mother. COLUMBUS--A mother of beginnings. CERVANTES--Always the Seed in her--never the life itself? COLUMBUS--It was ever so. When Rome lived, Spain did not live in Rome: she bore her Stoics and her Saints for Holy Rome. When Holy Rome was hale, Spain was not holy. She bore, with her Jews and Arabs, the death of Christ. When Holy Rome was dead and Modern Europe flourished, Spain was not modern and Spain was not Europe. She bore America. CERVANTES--Europe has used my mother! Even you, landless mariner, have used her. COLUMBUS--God has used her. CERVANTES--Why then are her fields hungry? COLUMBUS--All worlds have come in, unto her: of all worlds, she has begotten worlds. And she has lain untouched. CERVANTES--My tragic mother. COLUMBUS--[_Suddenly remembering and exalted._] But the White Towers have toppled. Ready, Spain! You must stir again. You must give again. Europe has rotted at last into the Grave they called America. Your work is not quite done. You, most broken mother of all Europe, you have preserved a Seed. ... [CERVANTES _has turned from the west, and facing inland, kneels_. COLUMBUS _does not heed him_.] COLUMBUS--Your spirit, Spain. They above all will need it, in the north: they whose speech is English and who have led in the building of the Towers which are the Grave of Europe. For it is written that these shall also lead in the birth of the true New World--the true America which I discovered. Let them see you, Spain; let them take from you, O mother. For their spirit is weak and childish. They are cowards, not masters, before life. But you, Spain, dared to be what you believed: you knew the wisdom of what small men call “madness.” You dared to make of life itself the Body of your Vision, the Word of your Prayer. You did not flinch, proud Spain, from being laughed at--from being wrong--from being right! Give to the New World now your spirit, that it may surpass you. [_There is a silence, Columbus still facing west, while his comrade kneels toward Spain._] CERVANTES--[_Still kneeling and praying._] I understand, my mother, why we have always loved Our Lady. What this man says is true. Unpossessed, you have borne a Word. And the Word, even as Christ unto His mother, has turned and has denied you. COLUMBUS--[_Lifting_ CERVANTES _up_.] Look again. You are sure? The White Towers--? CERVANTES--[_Rises and looks again westward, standing beside_ COLUMBUS.] The City of Towers is gone.