The History of the Siege of Lisbon Read Free Page B

the same time, if you'll pardon the neologism, heteronomises himself, he is capable of pursuing the path suggested by an image, a simile, or metaphor, often the simple sound of a word repeated in a low voice leads him, by association, to organise polyphonic verbal edifices capable of transforming his tiny study into a space multiplied by itself, although it is difficult to explain in plain language what that means. Here it struck him that the historian had provided little information by mentioning the muezzin and the minaret, simply to introduce, if such rash judgments are permissible, a little local colour and historical atmosphere into the enemy camp, a semantic blunder we might as well correct at once, since this is the camp of the assailants, not of the besieged, for the latter, in the meantime, are installed with reasonable comfort in the city which except for the odd interval, has been theirs, since the year seven hundred and fourteen, as counted on the beads of the Christians, for those on the rosary of the Moors are different, as everyone knows. This correction was made by the proof-reader himself, who has a more than adequate knowledge about calendars, and who knows that the Hegira began, according to the rules given in that indispensable reference book,
The Art of Verifying Dates,
on the sixteenth of July in the year six hundred and twenty-two after Christ, AD in abbreviated form, without forgetting, meanwhile, that since the Moslem year is governed by the moon and is, therefore, shorter than that of Christianity which is oriented by the sun, we must always discount three years for each century gone by. This meticulous fellow would make an excellent proof-reader, if he were to consider trimming the wings of a discourse given to inventions that are sometimes irresponsible, a case of someone who has sinned because it came so naturally, incurring obvious errors and dubious assertions, we suspect at least three, which if proved, would show conclusively that the historian had no reason whatsoever for flippantly suggesting that he should devote himself to history, As for philosophy, God help us.
    The first dubious point, according to the inverse order of the narrative, is that fanciful idea that there existed on the parapets of the verandahs of minarets, marks in the stone which, probably in the form of arrows, pointed in the direction of Mecca. However advanced at that time the geographical and surveying skills of the Arabs and other Moors, it is most unlikely that they knew how to determine with the accuracy insinuated, the position of a Kaaba on the surface of the planet, where there is certainly no lack of stones, some more sacred than others. All these things, whether they be reverences, genuflections or upward and downward glances, are performed by way of approximation, upon sensing, if we may be allowed this expression, that what really matters is that God and Allah can read into hearts and do not take offence when, out of ignorance, we turn away, and when we speak of ignorance it can be as much ours as theirs, for they are not always to be found where they promised to be. The proof-reader belongs to that age when a man was taught to trust and firmly believe in road-signs, therefore, do not be surprised that he should have fallen into this anachronistic temptation, perhaps driven by sudden compassion, bearing in mind the muezzin's blindness. It is well known that, no matter the quality of the cloth, knots are inevitable, some even claim that the better the cloth the more knots there are likely to be, and that where there is one knot there are bound to be two, and there we have the second error, and this time much more serious, because it would lead the unsuspecting reader, had it been written, but fortunately it never was, to accept the description of the muezzin's actions after waking up, as being correct and in accordance with the Moslem way of life. This is wrong, we insist, inasmuch as the muezzin, the term