Jerusalem, Object of Desire

The Christian army is marching toward the object of desire, Jerusalem. They arrive there when the sun is high in the sky, and the splendid sight appears in front of their eyes:

A soldier kneels in front of the splendid sight of Jerusalem. By Sebastien Leclerc (1637-1714). © The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2014

behold! afar Jerusalem gleams, discreet;

behold! Jerusalem is glimpsed, is seen;

behold! from all one great salute rings out:

‘Jerusalem!’ a thousand voices shout.

(Canto Three, st.3)

The effect the sight of the holy city has on the Crusaders is more complex than mere satisfaction at having arrived at the threshold of the final stage in their plan:

The immense delight that this first glimpse imparts

now sweetens every breast, but soon gives way

to deep contrition, and in all their hearts

stirs awe mingled with reverence, till they

scarce dare to lift their eyes by fits and starts

toward that city where Christ chose to live,

where He died and was buried, and where He

rose from the dead in glorious majesty.’ (st.5)

Their delight is mingled with awe and wonder: after all, this is not just any coveted city, but the place which lies at the heart of their faith. They react to it in a way rather difficult for a modern person to understand, at least in the context of religious experience:

Half-stifled words, unspoken vows, and heaves

of broken sobs and sudden tear-choked sighs

from a people that at once exults and grieves

all through the air make a deep murmur rise….

Barefooted each man treads the hard wayside

(the chiefs by their example more the rest),

silk trim or golden each man casts aside,

plucks from his head his plume or glorious crest,

while from his heart he tears the cloak of pride,

eyes hot with tears, devotion in his breast.

As though his way were barred unless he weeps,

each man his self-accusing counsel keeps. (st. 6 & 8)

One of the hardest thing for a writer of historical fiction, particularly when it is set in such distant times, is to empathise with and hence portray convincingly the very different mentality of the people back then. The passion and devotion with which the Crusaders threw themselves into their enterprise and the flame which moved them from within are incomprehensible and alien for most of us. In Justin Cartwright’s fascinating novel, Lion Heart (Bloomsbury, 2013) the protagonist Richard Cathar [1] wonders:

 What is it that inspired such devotion? What was it that caused Richard the Lionheart to take the cross and sail for Acre? Why was Robert the Bruce so passionate that his heart should be taken to the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem after his death? His last testament read: I will that as soone as I am trespassed out of this worlde that ye take my harte out of my body and embawme it and present my harte to the Holy Sepulchre where Our Lord laye, seying my body can not come there. In fact his heart – embalmed – only got as far as Moorish Granada, where Sir James Douglas, the Black Douglas, bearing the heart, was killed. The heart was returned to Scotland.

Richard Cathar then goes on to make a glib statement about religion, which doesn’t even begin to justify such a passion (read the novel if you want to find out more). Greed, imperialism, and a love of adventure might account for the Crusades, but what could explain the last wish and testament of a man who had nothing more to gain on that score?

Cartwright’s novel, like many recent historical novels, is written on two temporal planes, the present, with all its packed action in the Middle East – the very place of the Crusades – and the twelfth century. Perhaps this is the most honest way to write a historical novel about the Crusades today, when author and audience are so far removed from their world that one foot must be firmly kept in ours. Torquato Tasso, on the other hand, still belonged to that era and ambience in which the sight of a holy  relic, image, or city brought hardened soldiers to ecstatic joy and tearful contrition, and so he could be eloquent and persuasive about it.

[1] I know, I know …

From Fact to Fiction

Historical fiction is generally based on historical facts, and the author will certainly have delved into sources, usually chronicles, history books, or studies about the time and the events of her or his temporal setting. I’ve mentioned before that Torquato Tasso’s source on the First Crusade was William of Tyre. This is an episode in Book One of William’s chronicle:

There was a certain infidel living in the city [Jerusalem], a treacherous and wicked man, who persecuted our people with insatiable hatred. This man was determined to devise some scheme that would bring about their destruction. One day, he stealthily threw the carcass of a dog into the temple court, a place which the custodian – and indeed the whole city as well – were most careful to keep scrupulously clean. Worshippers who came to the temple to pray the next morning found the mouldering body of the unclean animal. Almost frantic, they at once roused the whole city with their cries. The populace quickly ran to the temple, and all agreed that without question the Christians were responsible for the act. Need more be said? Death was decreed for all Christians, since it was judged that by death alone could they atone for such an act of sacrilege. The faithful, in full assurance of their innocence, prepared to suffer death for Christ’s sake. As their executioners, with swords unscathed, were about to carry out their orders, however, a young man, filled with the spirit, came forward and offered himself as the sacrifice. (William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, transl. and annotated by Emily Atwater Babcock and A.C. Krey, New York: Columbia University Press, 1943, vol. 1, p. 68)

William Hunter owned an Italian translation of William of Tyre’s chronicle. Interestingly, the translator Giuseppe Horologgi dedicates his translation to the then Duke of Lorraine, descendant of Godfrey. These pages contain the episode which inspired Canto Two in Tasso’s epic. Sp Coll Hunterian l.6.17, Special Collections, University of Glasgow Library.

There follows an exchange between the unnamed young man and the Christian community: he explains that it is better for a man to die than a whole people, and the Christians promise to offer his family the honour of “carrying the olive which signifies our Lord Jesus Christ” in solemn procession of Palm Sunday. William of Tyre concludes this episode thus:

“The young man then gave himself up to the chief men of Jerusalem and declared that he was the criminal. In this way he established the innocence of the other Christians, for, when the judges heard his story, they absolved the rest and put him to the sword. Thus he laid down his life for the brethren and, with pious resignation, met death, that most blessed sleep, confident that he had acquired grace in the sight of the Lord. (ibid., p.69)

This narrative is clearly the basis of the story in Canto Two. It is equally obvious that Torquato Tasso, inspired by this historical episode, took many liberties with it. He embellishes the truth, as he declared he would do in his introduction. He elaborates on causality and agents: the sacrilege is devised, planned and perpetrated by evil sorcerer Ismen (the ‘certain infidel’, ‘treacherous and wicked man’ of William of Tyre’s historical narrative) and wicked king Aladdin (another fictional creation) in order to exterminate the Christians of Jerusalem. He changes the object of sacrilege from a foul, rotting dog-carcass to an elevated, holy statue of the Virgin, thus providing another connection with classical epic[2]. He changes the martyr figure from a young man to the much more pathetic and attractive one of a young, beautiful virgin – but he keeps the young man character as a lover, inserting the element of romance into a typical narrative motif of Christian sacrifice. He changes the execution plan from a beheading to a burning (perhaps because his sixteenth century audience would be more familiar with it?) And he provides a happy ending to the episode, with the intervention of the fictional character of Clorinda, thus introducing one of the main characters of his epic into the story.

A historical fiction writer of today moves along those lines, more or less, in dealing with facts and transforming them into fiction. Nothing is lost, everything is put to good use for the narrative purposes, and history is transformed into something much more intriguing and satisfying.

 

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[1] William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, Volume One, translated and annotated by Emily Atwater Babcock and A.C. Krey (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), pp. 68-9.

[2] The statue of a holy figure is a motif borrowed from classical epic: in the siege of Troy, Odysseus and Diomedes enter the city by stealth to recover the powerful wooden statue of Pallas Athene, which would guarantee protection to its owners. See Torquato Tasso, The Liberation of Jerusalem (Gerusalemme Liberata), translated by Max Wickert, with an Introduction and Notes by Mark Davie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 407.

 

Fair and Brave Maidens, Part Two

Previously on The Liberation of Jerusalem: The armies of Christendom have been gathered at Tortosa (Tarsus in ancient Syria) to conquer and liberate the Holy Land from the Muslims. God appoints Godfrey of Bouillon as their leader; under his guidance they shall conquer Jerusalem. King Aladdin of Jerusalem has hatched a plot to kill all Christians in the city by blaming them for stealing a statue of the Virgin Mary and placing in in his mosque. The beautiful and pious virgin Sophronia confesses (falsely) to the sacrilegious act, so she is led to the execution place when…

Olindo, the man desperately in love with Sophronia, hurtles himself through the crowd and shouts: “Not she, my  lord, stole it, but I.” He begs to take Sophronia’s place in the fire and die instead of her. King Aladdin, “incensed with rage and shame,” (for he knows very well they are both innocent, as he committed the sacrilege himself following the advice of evil sorcerer Ismen) orders that they both die.  The crowd, “heathens” and “faithful” alike, are shedding tears for the hapless youths about to be consumed by fire.

Sophronia and Olindo are about to be executed, when warrior-maiden Clorinda intervenes. By Sebastien Leclerc (1637-17140© The Hunterian, University of Glasgow 2014

But this is not the end:

While peril thus engulfs, them, see! A knight

(for such he seemed) appears, noble in guise,

towering in shape, so armed and strangely dight [=clothed, equipped]

that clearly from a distant land he hies.

Atop his crest, a tigress burnished bright

attracts the eyes of all, famous device,

device known as Clorinda’s badge of war.

This is no knight, but the fair and brave warrior-maiden Clorinda or Persia, who “all womanly / observances and skill she has desprized / since her unripest years.” Think of Clorinda as a combination of brave and honourable Brienne of Tarth, proud and fierce Arya Stark, and beautiful, wise, and clement Danaerys Targaryen. Clorinda is one of the very few women in this epic, and she is the best of them all. In Canto One, it has been mentioned that one of the Christian leaders, Tancred, is madly in love with her.

Clorinda is moved by the plight of the two young innocents; by just one good look at them she knows they can’t be guilty. It was surely the work of supernatural forces, she says. (She has also heard the stories about necromancer Ismen’s role in the affair). She offers her services to King Aladdin in exchange for their lives. The king is glad to oblige: Clorinda’s fame is great, and he makes her the commander of his whole garrison.

Now that your sword is joined to mine, I stand

consoled for troubles and afraid of none.

If a vast army joined me now, my hope

of victory would have no surer scope. (Canto Two, st.47)

Need we say more? Sophronia and Olindo are freed, and now finally Sophronia relents and accepts to marry Olindo, after all. A happy ending for this episode, but the troubles and tribulation of the population have only just begun.