Caesura

“ It still remains to notice the caesura, an element of metrical poetry quite as important as time and accent. By caesura we mean, not precisely what the grammarians define it, namely, the division of a foot between two words, because, among other objections to this definition, it requires the previous settlement of the question, what the feet of the verse really are ; but what we call caesura is a pause in a verse, dividing the verse into parts, just as the stronger pause at tJie end of the verse, divides a poem or strophe into verses. ”

“ There are, as appears from this specimen, a great many licences in these verses; the caesura, mostly in the fourth foot, is masculine in lines 1, 5, 6, feminine in 2; so that the second half of the line has an iambic-anapaestic rhythm. Besides this most of the lines have secondary caesuras in different places of the verse; iambic-anapaestic verses (like 3, 4, 6) are decidedly in the minority. ”

“ At the caesura, and also at the end of the line, a feminine syllable [i.e. a weak or light additional syllable] is admissible, which does not count, even if it is not elided. It is thus possible to have no less than four different forms of ten-syllabled epic lines, all equally correct ”

“ But this is not the only variety; for the mark denoting the [xc] caesura is actually inserted in the Ellesmere MS. with much care, and is seldom misplaced. This shews that some lines are divided much more unequally; so that, in fact, the former portion of the line may contain one accent only, or it may contain four; in addition to the above instances in which it contains two or three. I give examples from the Cant. Tales, Group A:—
12. ”

“ We must overtake the hidalgo doctor!"
"There are no horses in Minas de la Sierra," returned Quesada. "There are only mules and borricos which the serranos use to sleigh their cords of pine down to the lower torrents, and to carry their panniers of white manzanilla into the towns."
"Anything!" urged the American. Felicidad in his arms was showing signs of recovering consciousness. "Mules, borricos, anything upon which we can ride!"
"Muy bueno," assented Quesada readily. "It is very good, and I will go along with you. They say Jacinto Quesada is dead; I can ride the roads with impunity. ”

“ THE GOVERNMENT OF CAESAR.—Caesar made the Senate an advisory body. He increased the number of senators, bringing in provincials as well as Roman citizens. He gave full citizenship to all the Transpadane Gauls, and to numerous communities in Transalpine Gaul, in Spain, and elsewhere. He established a wide-spread colonization, thus planting his veterans in different places abroad, and lessening the number of proletarians in Italy. He rebuilt Carthage and Corinth. He re-organized the army, and the civil administration in the provinces. ”

“ High above, upon the top of a glassy and steep risco or overhanging rock, a man had moored himself with a short rope of horsehide. He was Jacinto Quesada. But he did not look the bandolero of the plains. Garbed as he was in alpagartas or rope sandals, the better to grip the precipitous ascents, and in sheepskin zamarra and long shawl as protection against the cold, he looked the true mountaineer.
With the vigilant application of an eagle eying its meat circling all unaware beneath its lofty eyrie, Quesada had been watching the men climb laboriously up the sheer of the pass. ”

“ He dismounted hastily, tied his horse behind a sumach bush and, behind a tall boulder, hid himself.
Twilight deepened quickly into full dark night. It was gruesome waiting there beneath the pale white figure of the Saviour, with its crown of black horsehair and red-painted wounds. Save for the wind sweeping through the pass with little shrill noises, nothing stirred or sounded in the long defile.
After a little, Quesada conquered his vague apprehensions sufficiently to sup upon the cold sausages, dry bread, and bota of wine which he had had the forethought to sling to the cantle of his saddle. ”

“ You do not know how like a shadow this man Jacinto Quesada is—how like a fox that skulks and dodges and keeps always his distance from the habitations and bivouacs of men such as we! Jacinto Quesada come to our camp and break bread with us? Ah, senores, senores, that would be too much honor!"
The nine men exchanged glances of disappointment and dismay. They had been altogether off in their guess. Jacinto Quesada had not stopped in passing to hobnob with the Gypsies. He had not passed that way at all. The cabalgadores felt themselves like beagles who mill around and bark in vain braggadocio. ”

“ Quesada thumped down his tilted chair and walked on weakly rickety legs to where, near the cork-oak tree in the center of the uneven street, a number of the villagers were brewing a puchero in a great iron pot.
"Come, mis paisanos!" he said in a voice surprisingly commanding for one so enervated from disease. "Ladle out to me a bowl of the stew."
"We have no orders to refuse you, Don Jacinto," answered one of the men obsequiously. "We only mind that Morales and the Americano should get none."
The bandolero snorted, but held his peace. He took the steaming earthen bowl proffered him ”

“ Why not steal some Indian cayuses and get even? There was a stage line running through the reservation them days, and I knew the stock tender at the stage ranch, fifteen miles from Fort Custer, at the Fort Custer battle-ground. So waiting till dark I went there, and getting something to eat and leaving the two hosses, I started back to Crazy Head's camp. It was a bright, moonlight night and I found the Injuns' cayuses grazing in the same place. Looking around cautiously I discovered two fine-looking, coal black cayuses grazing by themselves about two hundred yards from the main bunch. ”

“ With it were growing trees of the beautiful Cascarilla magnifolia, an allied genus with deliciously fragrant flowers.
The cascarilleros of Bolivia lead a hard and dangerous life. They only value the C. Calisaya, the other species being for them carhua-carhua, a name given to all the inferior kinds. Those who carry the bark on their shoulders from the interior of the forests receive fifteen dollars for every quintal, and they also have to carry all their provisions and covering for the night. If by any accident they are lost, or their provisions are destroyed, they die of hunger. ”

“ Crackling over the fallen leaves in the gorges, clattering along the stony hogbacks and ridges, he came, in the waning afternoon, to the boulder-strewn pocket of the Christ of the Pass. And suddenly from below, louder than the ring of his horse's hoofs, there echoed up to him a sharp sound like the report of a pistol.
Come of long outlawry, Quesada was circumspectly cautious. The report might have exploded near at hand; the chances were that, with the odd carrying knack of sounds high on mountains, it had echoed, clear and distinct, from far away. But he would take no chances. ”

“ It is not as though we seek a bandolero riding alone, friend Miguel. A bandolero riding alone is a very fox to catch!"
"Ah, that Jacinto Quesada!" ejaculated the other with boyish enthusiasm. "Is not he the crafty lizard, the sly tricky one? He has given us more work to do than any twenty other lawbreakers in Spain. If Morales and his fools-errant—as you call them, Pascual—conceal their movements but half so well as does he, we will be chasing will-o'-the-wisps for the next hundred years! But, by the way, Pascual, could you describe Jacinto Quesada to me?" ”

“ Leave me alone. They tell me I cannot burn the dead. They are rebellious. I'll show them!"
Quesada gripped himself that he might bear on. There was a rushing and pounding of blood in his ears. The voices seemed fainting low and dim with distance, as if the speakers were drifting away from him.
"Senor Carson," feebly he heard Morales say, "this is your affair, but I am stanchly behind you. When you took up this task of cleansing the scourge from the barrio, I said that Manuel Morales and all his cuadrilla would be yours to command. It is so; they are yours; they must obey you! I go away ”

“ The industries of Cáceres include the manufacture of cork and leather goods, pottery and cloth. There is also a large trade in grain, oil, live-stock and phosphates from the neighbouring mines. The name of Cáceres is probably an adaptation of Los Alcázares, from the Moorish Alcázar, a tower or castle; but it is frequently connected with the neighbouring Castra Caecilia and Castra Servilia, two Roman camps on the Mérida-Salamanca road. The town is of Roman origin and probably stands on the site of Norba Caesarina. ”

“ Cæsar now hurried back to Italy, and thence proceeded to Africa, which the friends of the old republic had made their last chief rallying-place. At the great battle of Thapsus (46 B.C.) they were crushed. Fifty thousand lay dead upon the field. Cato, who had been the very life and soul of the army, refusing to out-live the republic, took his own life.
Cæsar's Triumph.—Cæsar was now virtually lord of the Roman world. Although he refrained from assuming the title of king, no Eastern monarch was ever possessed of more absolute power, or surrounded by more abject flatterers and sycophants. ”

“ He was, moreover, no doubt beginning to reflect that from the Morini could be made the shortest journey into that wild Ultima Thule of an island in which lived the Britanni. Cæsar takes advantage of the few weeks, and attacks these uncomfortable people. When they retreat into the woods, he cuts the woods down. He does cut down an immense quantity of wood, but the enemy only recede into thicker and bigger woods. Bad weather comes on, and the soldiers can no longer endure life in their skin tents. ”

“ There was, in the cold stillness, the sharp click of an old-fashioned pistol being cocked!
Harshly the sound cracked against the ears of Jacinto Quesada. His running body lurched forward in a desperate spurt. He stumbled against the startled nag. He held up in his arms to the doctor the blanketed form of Gabriel. And hoarsely he cried out:
"God forbid, Don Jaime! Wait—for the love of Our Lady of Pity, wait! You are a physician, and we are sick here. We are sick with the dread cholera, sick unto death. Your first duty is to us. You must help us. ”

“ Cæsarea is a city of Roman origin, since its Arabic name, Kysaréah, is evidently a corruption of its Latin one; whereas Jaffa, Sidon, and most of the others [235] along the coast, are corruptions of the Arabic or of languages anterior to the Arabic. The great mass of ruins, which was to be seen here at the beginning of the last century, exists no longer. The celebrated pasha, El Gezzàr, carried off whatever was removeable to beautify his favourite fortress of Acre. Many of the granite and marble columns that adorn the edifices which he built were taken from this place. ”

“ Quesada led his horse back around the bend and out of sounding distance. He picketed him behind a feathery smoke-plant up the side of the gorge. Then he stole forward toward the camp.
He caught now, as he drew near, the clatter of tin as of men preparing breakfast, the tempting aroma of coffee, and the hot sizzle of frying meat. Creeping through the underwood on hands and knees, silent as a cat of the wilds, he came to where he could peer through an entangle of white buckthorn and genista, and out into a trampled space about an alder tree. ”

“ Quesada, in the act of dismounting, paused also and listened. The sound came again, a singular bird note, not much the ordinary hoot of an owl, but more a growl and something of a gruff scream.
Pepe Flammenca strode quickly to Quesada's side.
"The men you sent up the canyon after the Guardias Civiles have returned, I see," he said. "Call them in! You are overwary of me and my people, Don Jacinto. Such caution is commendable in most circumstances, but not when you deal with the Zincali. Trust us, Quesada; we will not betray you! Have we not for hundreds of years been outlaws hunted like wolves? ”

“ One day we heard a loud scratching at the front-door; and, when we opened it, in walked Cæsar and Dr. Wiseman. Cæsar took the Doctor by the ear, and led him up to each of the family, just as if he were introducing him, and then led him into the garden, and treated him to a bone.
Although Cæsar did many naughty things, we all loved him; for he was quite affectionate as well as intelligent: but our neighbors complained of him because he chased their chickens, bit their pigs, and scared their horses. A farmer who came to our house one day with a load of potatoes took a great fancy to him. ”

“ We have not comprised the provisions of grain for the animals themselves: yet it is difficult to believe that the Helvetii, so provident for their own wants, had neglected to provide for those of their beasts, and that they had reckoned exclusively for their food on the forage they might find on the road.
[176] De Bello Gallico, I. 11.
[177] It is an error to translate Arar, quod per fines Æduorum et Sequanorum in Rhodamam influit, by the words, “the Saône, which forms the common boundary line of the Ædui and the Sequani.” Cæsar always understands by fines, territory, and not boundary line. ”

“ But yesterday, the word of Cæsar might Have stood against the world! now lies he there And none so poor to do him reverence. O masters! if I were disposed to stir Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong, Who, you all know, are honorable men: I will not do them wrong; I rather choose To wrong the dead, to wrong myself, and you, Than I will wrong such honorable men. But here 's a parchment, with the seal of Cæsar,— I found it in his closet,—'tis his will. ”