[lit-ideas] The Crusades
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 15 May 2014 09:51:42 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 5/15/2014 8:59:03 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
O’Callaghan tells us French knights were promised land in Spain if they
would drive the Muslims from it – not land the Spanish were engaged in
fighting for but other land, land the Muslims held and was not being
immediately
contested by the Spanish. I read a couple of books 10 or 15 years ago on
the Crusades and recall the comment that one of the Popes encouraged the
Franks to go off and free Jerusalem in order to get them out of Europe where
they kept stirring things up. O’Callaghan doesn’t give us quite that
picture of them during Urban’s time.
It would then, perhaps, be good to revise, 'nation by nation', as it were,
how different places 'conceived' of the 'idea', however, false -- all
ultimately springing from the 'decrees' or 'promises' by Popes Alexander I and
Urban II (mentioned elsewhere by L. Helm). This below about the "Italian" --
or rather "Lombard" version -- (first sung by Tasso), which will
eventually turn out to be the main topic of an opera by Verdi years later!
Oh Signore, dal tetto natìo,
ci chiamasti con santa promessa;
noi siam corsi all'invito di un pio (1)
giubilando per, l'aspro sentier.
Ma la fronte avvilita e dimessa
hanno i servi già baldi e valenti
deh! non far che ludibrio alle genti
siano Cristo, i tuoi figli guerrieri
Oh fresche aure. volanti sui vaghi
ruscelletti dei prati lombardi !
Fonti eterne ! Purissimi laghi!
Oh vigneti indorati di sole
Dono infausto, crudele è la mente
che vi pinge sì veri agli sguardi
ed al labbro più dura e cocente
fa la sabbia di un arido suol!
Fa la sabbia - fa la sabbia di un arido suol!
D'un arido suol - d'un arido suol!
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/8171/8171-h/8171-h.htm
"It seems to have been the fate of Grossi as a poet to achieve fashion, and
not fame; and his great poem in fifteen cantos, called "I Lombardi alla
Prima Crociata", which made so great a noise in its day, was eclipsed in
reputation by his subsequent novel of "Marco Visconti". Since the
"Gerusalemma"
of Tasso, it is said that no poem has made so great a sensation in Italy
as "I Lombardi", in which the theme treated by the elder poet is celebrated
according to the aesthetics of the Romantic School."
Cheers,
Speranza
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operas_set_in_the_Crusades
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