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Now to begett an active Complement that, like a matins sung By virgins, may enchant her amorous ear. The Spanish Basolas manos sounds, methinks, As harsh as a Morisco kettledrum; The French boniour is ordinary as their Disease: hees not a gent that cannot parlee. I must invent some new and polite phrases. Crac. Shall I have answeare yet, sir. Sir Geff. Pish, you disturbe me.
So unstable is the fashion, he says, that today the Spanish guise is in favor; tomorrow the French toys are most fine and delectable; then the high German apparel is the go; next the Turkish manner is best liked, the Morisco gowns, the Barbary sleeves, and the short French breeches; in a word, "except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see any so disguised as are my countrymen in England."
"On the 8th day of December, 1528, one Catalina, a woman of BAD CHARACTER, informed the inquisitors that, EIGHTEEN YEARS BEFORE she had lived in the house with a Morisco named Juan, by trade a coppersmith, and a native of Segovia; that she had observed that neither he nor his children ate pork or drank wine, and that, on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings they used to wash their feet, which custom, as well as abstinence from pork and wine, was peculiar to the Moors.
The 'Morisco' they called it; and it was much admired; and the fashion of it spread throughout Spain scaled the very Pyrenees, and invaded France. To the 'Maurisce' succumbed 'tout Paris' as quickly as in recent years it succumbed to the cake-walk. A troupe of French dancers braved the terrors of the sea, and, with their scarves and their bells, danced for the delectation of the English court.
Meanwhile several dances had been performed; a Morisco, in which all the May-day revellers took part, with the exception of the queen herself, who, notwithstanding the united entreaties of Robin Hood and her gentleman-usher, could not be prevailed upon to join it: a trenchmore, a sort of long country-dance, extending from top to bottom of the hall, and in which the whole of the rustics stood up: a galliard, confined to the more important guests, and in which both Alizon and Dorothy were included, the former dancing, of course, with Richard, and the latter with one of her cousins, young Joseph Robinson: and a jig, quite promiscuous and unexclusive, and not the less merry on that account.
The connection with Mars suggests a possible etymology for the Morris, which is usually explained, for want of something better, as a Morisco or Moorish dance. There is some resemblance between the Morris and the Salic dance. The Salic games are said to have been instituted by the Veian king Morrius, a name pointing to Mars, the divinity of the Salli.
Ricote and Sancho alone remained awake, for they had eaten more and drunk less, and Ricote drawing Sancho aside, they seated themselves at the foot of a beech, leaving the pilgrims buried in sweet sleep; and without once falling into his own Morisco tongue Ricote spoke as follows in pure Castilian: "Thou knowest well, neighbour and friend Sancho Panza, how the proclamation or edict his Majesty commanded to be issued against those of my nation filled us all with terror and dismay; me at least it did, insomuch that I think before the time granted us for quitting Spain was out, the full force of the penalty had already fallen upon me and upon my children.
Thus men were born in Europe into a condition of slavery before 1500. In that year the introduction of negroes into Hayti was authorized, provided they were born in Spain in the houses of Christian masters. Negroes who had been bred in Morisco families were not allowed to be carried thither, from a well-grounded fear that the Moorish hatred had sunk too deeply into a kindred blood.
I withdrew at once with the Morisco into the cloister of the cathedral, and begged him to turn all these pamphlets that related to Don Quixote into the Castilian tongue, without omitting or adding anything to them, offering him whatever payment he pleased.
In yonder bed he will one day suffer tortures surpassing those to which he has so often consigned the heretic and the apostate Morisco; there he will expire amid horrors that scarce ever before encompassed a death-bed; but no groan will reveal the weakness of the flesh; the soul, triumphant over nature, will bear aloft her colors to the last, and plant them on the breach through which she passes into the unknown eternity.
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