United States or Heard Island and McDonald Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I have another book, too, which I shall call 'Metamorphoses, or the Spanish Ovid, one of rare and original invention, for imitating Ovid in burlesque style, I show in it who the Giralda of Seville and the Angel of the Magdalena were, what the sewer of Vecinguerra at Cordova was, what the bulls of Guisando, the Sierra Morena, the Leganitos and Lavapies fountains at Madrid, not forgetting those of the Piojo, of the Cano Dorado, and of the Priora; and all with their allegories, metaphors, and changes, so that they are amusing, interesting, and instructive, all at once.
If the case must be reversed and we must allow that the Madison Square tower was studied from the Giralda, we must still recognize that it is no servile copy, but in its frank imitation has a grace and beauty which achieves originality.
The Guadalquivir was alive with its shipping. Its palaces of semi-Moorish origin were occupied by a wealthy and luxurious nobility. The vast cathedral had been finished a century before. The tower "La Giralda," three hundred and forty feet in height, is to this day one of the greatest marvels in Christendom, and with its Saracenic ornament and its "lace work in stone" is beyond all compare.
During all the remainder of that long day they rode on through the burning heat, across the rich, cultivated plain, towards the great city of Seville, whereof the Giralda, which once had been the minaret of a Moorish mosque, towered hundreds of feet into the air before them.
Each ramp of the Girálda, if I remember rightly, has its window, but in the Hassan many are without light, though at least every alternate one has a window, some of these being placed at the corner to serve for two, while here they are always in the centre. The Girálda proper contains seven of these storeys, with thirty-five ramps.
The people fell to their knees, and a man's voice burst forth Ave Maria, gratia plena; waves of passionate sound floated over the worshippers, upwards, towards heaven. And from the Giralda, the Moorish tower, the Christian bells rang joyfully.
The poor place was beautifully neat, and from his window he made us free of a sight of Seville, signally the cathedral and the Giralda, such as could not be bought for money in New York. Then we set out on our return, leaving unvisited to the left the church of San Isidore de Campo, with its tombs of Guzman the Good and that Better Lady Dona Urraca Osorio, whom Peter the Cruel had burned.
The frequent passing of men as well as women and children through our Plaza San Fernando and the prevalence of men asleep on the benches; the immense majority of boys everywhere; the moralized abattoir outside the walls where the humanity dormant at the bull-feast wakes to hide every detail of slaughter for the market; a large family of cats basking at their ease in a sunny doorway; trains of milch goats with wicker muzzles, led by a milch cow from door to door through the streets; the sudden solemn beauty of the high altar in the cathedral, seen by chance on a brilliant day; the bright, inspiriting air of Seville; a glorious glimpse of the Giralda coming home from a drive; the figure of a girl outlined in a lofty window; a middle-aged Finnish pair trying to give themselves in murmured talk to the colored stucco of the Hall of the Ambassadors in what seems their wedding journey; two artists working near with sketches tilted against the wall; a large American lady who arrives one forenoon in traveling dress and goes out after luncheon in a mantilla with a fan and high comb; another American lady who appears after dinner in the costume of a Spanish dancing-girl; the fact that there is no Spanish butter and that the only good butter comes from France and the passable butter from Denmark; the soft long veils of pink cloud that trail themselves in the sky across our Plaza, and then dissolve in the silvery radiance of the gibbous moon; the yellowish-red electric Brush lights swinging from palm to palm as in the decoration of some vast ballroom; a second drive through Triana, and a failure to reach the church we set out for; the droves of brown pigs and flocks of brown sheep; the goatherds unloading olive boughs in the fields for the goats to browse; a dirty, kind, peaceful village, with an English factory in it, and a mansion of galvanized iron with an automobile before it; a pink villa on a hillside and a family group on the shoulder of a high-walled garden; a girl looking down from the wall, and a young man resting his hand on the masonry and looking up at her; the good faces of the people, men and women; boys wrestling and frolicking in the village streets; the wide dust-heap of a road, full of sudden holes; the heat of the sun in the first November week after touches of cold; the tram-cars that wander from one side of the city street to the other, and then barely miss scraping the house walls; in our drive home from our failure for that church, men with trains of oxen plowing and showing against the round red rayless sun; a stretch of the river with the crimson-hulled steamers, and a distant sail-boat seen across the fields; the gray moon that burnishes itself and rides bright and high for our return; people in balconies, and the air full of golden dust shot with bluish electric lights; here is a handful of suggestions from my note-book which each and every one would expand into a chapter or a small volume under the intensive culture which the reader may well have come to dread.
Of Moorish Sevílle, apart from the Girálda and the Palace El Kasar, corrupted into Alcazar the only remains of importance are the Torre del Oro Borj ed-Daheb built in 1220 at the riverside, close to where the Moors had their bridge of boats, and the towers of the churches of SS. Marcos and Marina.
"We come in sight of Seville, the high tower of the Giralda, cutting against the blue of the sky, first won my attention; then a portion of the old city came in view, backed by one of the finest cathedrals in the world. "It was just before holy week; the steamboat brought many passengers from Cadiz, who had come to witness the ceremonies in this the second city of Spain.
Word Of The Day