THE CABALLERO OF THE YELLOW DOUBLET
To Íñigo Balboa, in his later years
’Pon my oath, no difference can I find
’Twixt the young Basque known for his diligence
And the hidalgo once a Flanders soldier:
That lad gave good account of his existence.
Hearing tales about your dashing swordsman,
The orb, envisioning that experience,
The flashing blade, the valiant adventure,
With military tears bemoans his absence.
His valor was your fortune and your glory,
And wonder at the days you lived with him
Will be the one reaction to your story.
Because of you, thwarting oblivion,
His memory will not be lost through time:
Diego de Alatriste, Capitán!
DEFENSE OF THE GARRISON AT TERHEYDEN:
AN EXCERPT FROM ACT III OF THE FAMOUS PLAY
THE SIEGE OF BREDA
by Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca
D. FADRIQUE BAZÁN:
Oh, if only Henry would march
This way, engage the Spanish
In this place, a happy day
It would be for our intentions!
D. VINCENTE PIMENTEL:
We are not so fortunate, señor,
As to be granted such a blessing.
ALONSO LADRÓN, CAPTAIN:
I would venture that he will join
With those fat flinflones, the German guard,
With whom he is comfortably allied.
We are told that when they hear our
“Santiago! Close in for Spain!”
Even though they know the name
And know he is our patron saint
And one apostle of the twelve,
They believe we call the devil,
And that without discrimination
We summon devils as well as saints,
And that all come to our aid.
D. FRANCISCO DE MEDINA:
If Henry leads his troops along
The Antwerp road, the Italians
Will be waiting to engage him.
The bugle sounds “To Arms”
D. FADRIQUE:
It seems that they are readying
For battle.
ALONSO:
God’s bones!
It will be these same Italians
Who glory in the occasion
While we Spanish will be watching
Without a fight!
D. FADRIQUE:
Say not so!
Allow Colonel de la Daga
To choose for you a number
Of the loyal men of Spain
That in the furor of the battle
They may show what swordplay is!
DON GONZALO FERNÁNDEZ DE CÓRDOBA:
They would disobey?
DON FADRIQUE:
Not at all!
This is a place and time in which
The man who does not draw his blade
Will cease to call himself a man,
And less, a Spaniard.
D. GONZALO:
Obedience
Is in war what most confines
And makes a prison for a soldier:
More praise and more renown are won
By one who docilely endures
Than by fervor in the fray.
D. FADRIQUE:
But were the greater glory not
Obedience, what prisons would
There be that could contain us?
ALONSO:
Withal, these Flemish caballeros
Should not draw my ire, for
If the tercios be broken,
I shall have to fight today.
Though I be hanged tomorrow.
Drum rolls
D. VICENTE:
Either way is an offense!
Drum rolls
D. FADRIQUE:
How fine the voices of the drums
And trumpets sound accompanying
The stirring cadence of the cannon!
D. FRANCISCO DE MEDINA:
By heaven, the enemy has fought through
The Walloons’ last defense!
Drum rolls
D. FADRIQUE:
And now draw nigh the Italian lines!
ALONSO:
Oh, those accursed flinflones.
When our friends combat that foe
Their squads will not prevail.
D. GONZALO:
Look, there, see de la Daga…
ALONSO:
Aside
(Slanderously, Jiñalasoga)
D. GONZALO:
See how proudly he succumbs
Along with his brave Spaniards,
Resisting to the very end.
Drum rolls
DON FADRIQUE:
I am so schooled and practiced in
The matter of obedience
That when I hear that first command,
My blade lies quiet in its sheath!
They say the man who stands in place
Rather than fight, is the one who
Better fulfills his obligations!
D. VICENTE:
The garrison now lies in ruins.
Do you not hear the voices?
By God, I now believe that
He will enter the town tonight!
ALONSO:
How mean you?
D. FADRIQUE:
The town?
Obedience will forgive me,
He must not enter.
D. VICENTE:
Let us attack,
Whether the general be discontented
Or resigned.
D. GONZALO:
Oh, caballeros,
Lose everything, but do not counter
Your instructions.
D. FADRIQUE:
We do not fail
Our obligations, but there are times
That force a different effort, when
An order broken is not broken.
D. VICENTE:
But, look, there, attend the action,
What one man daringly attempts.
Muted, the wind stops blowing,
The sun is halted in its path.
Do you not see the Italian
Sergeant-Major, standing against
Henry’s boldly advancing army?
With his cries he animates
His gallant men, and together
They forestall the squads
Of the enemy. We must give
This triumph an eternal name:
Carlos Roma, you are most worthy,
Deserving that your king should
Honor you with New World lands,
With appointments, and with glory.
And now with sword and buckler, soldiers
Are erupting onto the field.
And following their example, the Italians
Spring into action. Let them
Enjoy the glory and it be we
Who witness. For here our envy may be
Seen as noble, as too our praise.
Spain, which in far greater number
Has been victorious in her battles,
Has no reason to omit
The name of Italy from this triumph,
For it is they who are the victors.
D. FRANCISCO DE MEDINA
There is another victory
Before us, another triumph,
Which is the rescue of our banner
From capture and from offense.
This has been done by those few
Brave and valiant Spaniards, they
Who here escorted Colonel
De la Daga, and who restrained
So fiercely the English troops with their
Amazing, brash, and bold assault.
D. GONZALO:
Who was he, then, who led them,
Fierce Mars and noble Hector?
ALONSO:
Diego Alatriste y Tenorio,<
br />
The “Captain” is an honorary
Title, fittingly won amid
The clamor and the roar of cannon.
D. GONZALO:
On such an august day as this
May Alatriste in renown
Yield only to brave Carlos Roma.
Who, along with his men,
The king will generously reward
For being victors in Terheyden.
D. FADRIQUE:
In defeat and disarray.
The Flemish are retreating, fleet
As the wind; and now all honor
Falls to the victors, may their
Noble brows be crowned with laurel,
And on a thousand plaques of bronze
Eternally their feat shall live,
Reaching the limits of the orb.
It must be noted that the verses in italics have been taken from the original manuscript, as they were not included in Primera parte de comedias de don Pedro Calderón de la Barca, collected by don José, Calderón’s brother, and printed in Madrid in the year 1636. Why the poet later chose to delete those lines has not been determined.
*On Calle de Toledo near La Puerta Cerrada, Madrid
1Papeles del alférez Balboa (Lieutenant Balboa’s Papers). Manuscript of 478 pages, Madrid, undated. Sold by the Claymore auction house in London, November 25, 1952. Currently located in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid.
2 The disappearance a posteriori of the two most documented references to Captain Diego Alatriste y Tenorio known to this date is extraordinary. While the testament of Íñigo Balboa and the study of the painting The Surrender of Breda by Velázquez prove that the captain’s image was, for unknown reasons, erased from the canvas on a date later than winter of 1634, we have a first version of a play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca titled The Siege of Breda, and in it, too, there are signs of later manipulation. This first complete version, contemporaneous to the date of the first performance of the play in Madrid—which was written around 1626—and coinciding along general lines with the manuscript copy of the original made by Diego López de Mora in 1632, contains some forty lines that were suppressed in the definitive version. In them explicit reference is made to the death of Colonel don Pedro de la Daga and to the defense of the Terheyden redoubt carried out by Diego Alatriste, whose name is quoted two times in the text. The original fragment, discovered by Professor Klaus Oldenbarnevelt of the Instituto de Estudios Hispánicos at the University of Utrecht, is housed in the archive and library of the Duques del Nuevo Extremo in Seville, and we reproduce it in the appendix at the end of this volume with the kind permission of doña Macarena Bruner de Lebrija, Duquesa del Nuevo Extremo. What is odd is that those forty lines disappear in the canonical version of the work published in 1636 in Madrid by José Calderón, brother of the author, in Primera parte de Comedias de don Pedro Calderón de la Barca. The reason for Alatriste’s disappearance in the play about the siege of Breda, as well as in the Velázquez painting, has to this date not been explained. Unless it was in response to an express order attributable perhaps to King Philip IV or, more likely, the Conde Duque de Olivares, whose disfavor Diego Alatriste may have incurred, again for reasons unknown to us, between 1634 and 1636.
Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Sun Over Breda
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