Zamora

“ Now, in spite of his friendship for Urraca, the Cid continued the siege of Zamora with great vigor and zeal, for loyalty to his king compelled hostility to the princess, and the memory of her bitter scorn rankled in his heart. ”

“ Zamora belongs to the days when towns, like men, always wore armour. To-day{87} she is broken and war-worn and old; but if her sword is rusted and her shield broken, she may well boast it was in the service of Spain.
As we jolt over the old bridge, above the weirs of the Duero, and climb the steep street that leads into the town, we need no consultation of the records to tell us that we are here in the old Castile of the knightly days, that we shall find few memories of artists and poets, few of statesmen and great rulers, but many of hard fighters and holy priests. ”

“ Oviedo—that little city between the mountains and the sea, so far off the beaten track—was the cradle of the monarchy, the residence and burial-place of its patriot kings. For all men of Spanish blood it is holy ground. In Zamora we have the typical city of the heroic age of Spain, the era of half-fabulous heroes, whose personalities are made known to us only by folklore and ballads.
Segovia and Avila are towns of the Reconquest, wardens, one might say, against the redoubtable Moor. ”

“ Do you desire that the Infanta should yield to those demands of her brother, or are you prepared to fight, as brave men, in the defence of her inheritance?"
"We will die fighting within the walls of Zamora!" was the universal shout which answered Arias.
"Zamora for Doña Urraca! Zamora for Doña Urraca!" the multitude continued to cry; and then the old man turned to the Infanta and said to her—
"Now you hear, my lady, the opinion of your vassals." ”

“ One man of them lived long enough to reach me and give the jewel into my hands, before he died slavering and gibbering of what he had seen in that accursed crypt. The thieves of Zamora are the most faithful of men to their trust. Even with my conjurements, none but they could have stolen the Heart from where it has lain in demon-guarded darkness since the fall of Acheron, three thousand years ago.'
Xaltotun lifted his lion-like head and stared far off into space, as if plumbing the lost centuries. ”

“ If the people of Zamora were capable of committing the treacherous act of which you accuse them, De Lara, Arias Gonzalo and his sons would serve Moors rather than fight for Doña Urraca. Remember that we cautioned Don Sancho that Bellido was going to the royal camp for some treacherous purpose, and that caution frees us from any blame. But if you persist in your challenge, I accept it; for if I myself am too old to fight against you, I have sons, honourable and valiant, who will take my place. ”

“ It is the city of Salamanca. It lies in treeless mountains. Northward Zamora bristles warlike, westward Portugal turns an unfriendly back: and all about, Castile. Sierra de Gata, Peña de Francia, Sierra de Béjar, Sierra de Gredos ... from such wild quarries has come the mellow stone to build a scholar city: the city of the Wisdom and the Love of God within the crude dichotomy of Spain.
Salamanca is its University. Here in the first splendor of the Reconquista, Christian kings foregathered wise men of Israel and Islam and joined to them the aspirant scholars in Christ. ”

“ Then said Donya Urraca, Vellido, I do not bid thee commit any evil thing, if such thou hast in thy thought; but I say unto you, that there is not a man in the world to whom if he should relieve Zamora, and make the king my brother raise the siege, I would not grant whatsoever he might require. ”

“ And the mountain provinces of Galicia and the Asturias, of idyllic hill and dale, yet with seaports fast awakening to commercial life, look with little sympathy on the sluggish province of León that borders them.
Industrial advancement is on its gradual way in Spain, but there is not a hint of its movement in this oldest of the separate kingdoms. Zamora, Astorga, León, Salamanca, the romantic cities of the earlier days of chivalry, lie asleep; the whistle of the railways has failed to rouse them. ”

“ The manufactures of Zamora are unimportant. Three lines of railway, from Astorga on the N., Salamanca on the S., and Medina del Campo on the E., traverse the province and meet at the city of Zamora; there is a lack of good roads, and it is largely for this reason that the mines and extensive forests are neglected. The only towns with more than 5000 inhabitants are Zamora (pop., 1900, 16,287) and Toro (8379) , which are described in separate articles. The people of the province are very poor, badly educated, and lacking in enterprise. ”

“ And when they came to the army great was the joy because of the Cid's return, and great were the rejoicings which were made: but as great was the sorrow in Zamora, for they who were in the town held that the siege was broken up by his departure. Nevertheless my Cid would not bear arms against the Infanta, nor against the town of Zamora, because of the days which were past.
The king ordered proclamation to be made throughout the host that the people should make ready to attack the town. ”

“ Following the line of the city wall, we pass the church of San Lorenzo—a good example of the local style—once surrounded by thriving looms, and re-enter the town by the Plaza del Azoguejo, a picturesque space where the citizens love to forgather in the shadow of the mighty aqueduct.{86}
IV
ZAMORA Zamora on the Duero is one of the most picturesque towns in Spain, and one of the most celebrated in its annals. ”

“ The other principal buildings are the 17th-century town-hall, the palace of the provincial assembly, a hospital with curious Gothic windows, an ecclesiastical seminary, and a school of engineering. The trade is chiefly agricultural, but linen and woollen goods, pottery, hats, leather, and spirits are manufactured in small quantities.
In the early period of the Christian re-conquest Zamora, from its position on the north bank of the Duero, was a place of considerable strategic importance. ”

“ We can imagine that it was a town towards which Don Quixote would have been drawn, but he only spoke of it as famous for bagpipes. Like Burgos and Valladolid and Salamanca, it was the creation of the mediæval time, and we hear first of it in the ninth century. Alfonso I., or his son Froila, took the town from the Moors. Thereafter, for many years, it continued to change hands. The Day of Zamora, famous in Spanish song and story (July 9, 901) , when nearly seventy thousand Moors were slain or captured, assured the possession of the town to the Christians. ”

“ Both the people of Zamora and the Castilians were filled with grief by the death of Don Sancho, for if the late king was ambitious and unjust when he let himself be led away by his haughty and irascible character, he was, on the other hand, valiant and passionately fond of difficult enterprises; such qualities constituted the chief merit of men in that specially warlike age. ”

“ Reckoning on me as being fairly launched in the same boat with him, he said to me in the inn where we put up, Lovely Laura, do not take it unkindly of me to have brought you into Portugal. The corregidor of Zamora will make our own country too hot to hold us, for in his eyes we are two criminals, under the weight of whose enormities it is not for Spain to groan. But we may set his malice at defiance in this distant realm, though at the present conjuncture under the dominion of the Spanish monarchy. At least we shall stand a better chance for safety here than at home. ”

“ The city of Zamora was well supplied with fortifications, munitions, provisions, and soldiers, which were there in order that all emergencies might be provided for. The inhabitants were very brave and loyal, and were always ready to expose themselves to any dangers by which they might be threatened. They were under the command of Arias Gonzalo, a cavalier advanced in years, of great valour and prudence, and whose counsels, in matters of government and war, were much esteemed by Doña Urraca. ”

“ And Don Diego Ordoñez answered, The Castillians have lost their Lord; the traitor Vellido slew for him, being his vassal, and ye of Zamora have received Vellido and harboured him within your walls. Now therefore I say that he is a traitor who hath a traitor with him, if he knoweth and consenteth unto the treason. And for this I impeach the people of Zamora, the great as well as the little, the living and the dead, they who now are and they who are yet unborn; and I impeach the waters which they drink and the garments which they put on ”

“ A two-car train rambled through a light-wooded, half-mountainous country, stopping at every collection of huts to pick up or set down a peon or two, and drew up at length in Zamora. It was a populous, flat-roofed, ill-smelling, typical Mexican city of checkerboard pattern, on the plaza of which faced the "Hotel Morelos," formerly the "Porfirio Diaz," but with that seditious name now carefully painted over. Being barely a mile above sea-level, the town has a suggestion of the tropics and the temperature of midday is distinctly noticeable. ”

“ He took Toro from my sister, and now he desires to take Zamora from me. Don Sancho knows that his brothers and sisters are not strong enough to fight against him face to face; but where the sword of the loyal is not able to do its office, the dagger of traitors can work; if Don Garcia is a prisoner, Don Alfonso, on the other hand, is free and is in the country of the Moors. ”

“ Ay, thou mayest boast that the Princess Urraca once gave thee her heart; but the Cid whom Urraca loved drew not his sword against a woman. Begone, Don Rodrigo de Bivar; I would not look longer upon thy face! Tell thy robber king [Pg 65] that never will I yield to a false traitor the city my father gave me! Sooner will I die with these true men than give up Zamora!"
Silent and ashamed, the Cid withdrew. Fain would the knight have served the fair princess, the friend of his youth, but fealty to his king forbade. ”

“ I have ever shown favour unto you, and you have ever served me as the loyalest vassal that ever did service to his lord. Now therefore I beseech you as my friend and true vassal, that you go to Zamora to my sister Donya Urraca, and say unto her again, that I beseech her to give me the town either for a price, or in exchange, and I will give to her Medina de Rioseco, with the whole Infantazgo, from Villalpando to Valladolid, and Tiedra also, which is a good Castle; and I will swear unto her, with twelve knights of my vassals, never to break this covenant between us ”

“ Castile. But the Arab ruler was not willing to let him go, and many days passed before he was able to escape at night, climbing silently with a few followers down the walls of Toledo; then, turning the shoes on the feet of their horses, so that the track should point south instead of north, they made the best of their way to Zamora.
The nobles received the king with joy, and, kneeling to kiss his hand, vowed to be true to him. ”

“ Seen from the interior, the almost similar height of the nave and aisles, leaves, as in Zamora, a somewhat stern and depressing impression on the visitor; the light which enters is also feeble, excepting beneath the linterna, where "the difficulty of placing a circular body on a square without the aid of supports (pechinas) has been so naturally and perfectly overcome that we are obliged to doubt of its ever having existed."
Gothic elements, more so than in Zamora, mix with the Romanesque traditions in the decoration of the nave and aisles ”

“ XXVIII. When Vellido Dolfos heard this, he went to Doña Urraca and said, Lady, I came here to Zamora to do you service with thirty knights, all well accoutred, as you know; and I have served you long time, and never have I had from you guerdon for my service, though I have demanded it: but now if you will grant my demand I will relieve Zamora, and make King Don Sancho break up the siege. Then said Doña Urraca, Vellido, I shall repeat to thee the saying of the wise man, A man bargains well with the slothful and with him who is in need ”

“ The northern provinces of Spain were comparatively free from heresy and Ximenes, in his reorganization of 1509, assigned to Valladolid the enormous district comprising the sees of Burgos, Osma, Palencia, Segovia, Avila, Salamanca, Zamora, Leon, Oviedo and Astorga and the abbeys of Valladolid, Medina del Campo and Sahagun. In 1516 the enumeration is the same except the omission of Zamora and the addition of Ciudad Rodrigo and Calahorra. Roughly speaking, it may be assumed to comprise the whole of the provinces of Old Castile, Leon and Asturias. ”

“ His people dwell far to the east, in the mountains that fringe the eastern frontiers of Zamora. There are not many of them; but, if they are not exterminated, I believe they will become human beings in perhaps a hundred thousand years. ”

“ Such is modern taste in Spain. Besides its walls, Astorga is celebrated for its mantecadas, small square sponge-cakes, neatly folded in pieces of greased paper, which find their way all over this part of the country; but the farther off you find them the less do they resemble the originals, and these are very good.
ZAMORA TRAVELLING through the great plain of Leon by train is apt to become intensely monotonous, especially when, as in the case of reaching Zamora, fate decreed that I should sit baking for hours in the slowest of all, the undesirable mercantilo. ”

“ All respectable Spanish cities retain a team of giants as part of their ordinary municipal outfit, and Corpus Christi day is the great occasion for parading them. The tourist should always arrange to spend that festival in some good old-established city where the choicest breeds are preserved.
Zamora itself is quite old enough for the purpose. Its fine old Romanesque cathedral was built by no less a person than the Bishop Don{140} Hieronymo, “that good one with the shaven crown,” who so ably represented the Church militant among the companions of the Cid. ”