Robert Southwell

Robert Southwell was a highly accomplished poet. There is very strong evidence that he knew Shakespeare and that the latter was significantly influenced by his work.

He was also a Catholic priest who suffered martyrdom at Tyburn in 1595 aged only 33 years.

For more information and a presentation of his poems with notes, please see Mary's English Dowry and explore my new tab 'St Robert Southwell'.

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 7. End

Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath
(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)
And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,
Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain,
And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

Don Quijote and Sancho Panza

Miguel de Cervantes: 1547 – April 23 1616;  perhaps most famous as the author of Don Quijote. 
By1570, Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a regiment of the Spanish Navy Marines. In September 1571, Cervantes sailed on board the Marquesa, part of the galley fleet of the
Holy League defeated the Ottoman fleet in the Battle of Lepanto. Though taken down with fever, he disobeyed an order to stay below and took part in the fighting. He received three gunshot wounds, one of which crippled his left hand.

From 1572 to 1575, he continued his soldier's life. In 1575, he was captured by Ottoman pirates. 
After five years as a slave in Algiers, and four unsuccessful escape attempts,
he was ransomed by his parents and the Trinitarians.



 Gustave Doré [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

a lean and foolish knight: Don Quijote. This world famous work was first published in 1605 and 1615.

For further reading, see Lepanto by Dale Ahlquist;

Dale Ahlquist, has gathered together insightful commentaries and explanatory notes. Here is the story behind the modern conflict between Christianity and Islam, between Protestant and Catholic Europe, and the origin of the Feast of the Holy Rosary. A fascinating blend of literature, history, religion and romance.

and

Philip II, by William Thomas Walsh (first published 1938).

Superb and insightful panorama of the 16th century. Covers the birth of Protestantism and the secret efforts to undermine Catholic unity, the Huguenot wars in France, the Sack of Rome, Great Siege, Battle of Lepanto, Spanish Armada, Council of Trent, etc.; and, Henry VIII, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth I, St. Pius V, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Ignatius of Loyola,

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 6

King Philip’s in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John’s hunting, and his hounds have bayed—
Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid
Gun upon gun, ha! ha!
Gun upon gun, hurrah!
Don John of Austria
Has loosed the cannonade.

Titian [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

King Philip: Philip II (1527–1598), King of Spain (1556–98), King of Portugal, King of Naples and Sicily, and through marriage King of England and Ireland (during his marriage to Queen Mary I from 1554–58). He was also lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands. The son of Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, his empire included territories on every continent then known to Europeans, including  the Philippines.

Left: .Titian's painting (1573 - 1575) commemorates the defeat of the Turkish armada at Lepanto on October 7, and the birth of the infante Fernando, heir to the throne, on December 5th. Philip gives thanks to the Lord for these blessings. Towards the top, an angel offers a palm leaf and a ribbon with the inscription MAIORA TIBI (Greater triumphs await you) to the newborn child in his father’s arms. The Battle of Lepanto appears in the background, and a bound Turk is depicted alongside the spoils of victory to the left.

crystal phial/death is in the phial: possibly a reference to the theory that Don John of Austria's death in 1578 at a surprisingly early age was the result of poisoning. It is argued that Philip was jealous of the fame of his young half-brother.
Don John of Austria/Has loosed the cannonade: Don John had given orders that no guns were to be fired in the approach to the Turkish fleet. He finally gave an order to a fire a long range shot from his flagship the Real in the direction of Ali Pasha's flagship, almost like a challenge to a duel.

The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,
(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)
The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year,
The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea
The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;
They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,
They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark;
And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,
And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,
Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines
Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung
The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on
Before the high Kings’ horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell
Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell,
And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—
(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)
Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,
Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate’s sloop,
Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds,
Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,
Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea
White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania!
Domino Gloria!
Don John of Austria
Has set his people free!

Pius V 1566. Walters Art Gallery CC0 1.0 Universal

The Pope:  Pope Saint Pius V (1504 – 1572), was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1566 to 1572. His pontificate was dedicated to applying the reforms of the Council of Trent, called in response to the devastating heresy spreading in Northern Europe. The Catechism of the Council was completed and he consolidated the Roman Breviary and Missal.

His six year pontificate saw him faced with war from within the Church from the Protestant
heretics war from outside, the Turkish armies who were advancing by land ans sea from the East.
He encouraged the newly formed Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola. He excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I, and supported Catholics who were oppressed and intimidated by Protestant princes, especially in Germany.


He worked without ceasing  to unite the Christian rulers against the Turks. Before the decisive battle of Lepanto, the Pope asked for all the sailors and soldiers to pray the Rosary, confess their sins and receive Holy Communion. Meanwhile, he called on all the faithful of the Church to recite the Rosary and ordered a 40 hour devotion in Rome. The Christian fleet, vastly outnumbered by the Turks, inflicted a miraculous defeat on the Turkish navy, demolishing the entire fleet. In memory of the triumph, he declared the day the Feast of Our Lady of Victories, later renamed the Feast  of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary, because of her intercession in answering the mass recitation of the Rosary and obtaining the victory. 

Pope Pius V died seven months later on May 1, 1572, of a painful disease, uttering 'O Lord, increase my sufferings and my patience!' He was buried in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, was beatified by Clement X in 1672 and canonized by Clement XI in 1712.

The hidden room in man’s house where God sits all the year: the tabernacle in Catholic churches where Jesus Christ, under the appearance of the sacred host of unleavened bread, is reaaly and truly present in His body, blood, soul and divinity.


He sees as in a mirror: his biographers recount that during a meeting in Rome, Pius rose and went over to an open window and, looking eastwards, saw a vision of the triumph of the Christian fleet. The news of the victory took nearly two weeks to reach Rome.

Star and crescent moon

The crescent of his cruel ships:  the order of battle for the Turkish ships was normally a crescent. The crescent and star are ancient symbols in the Middle East, linked to the worship of demonic Sin/Nanna. They were officially incorporated by the Ottomans as a state symbol.





Cross and Castle: the coat of arms of Aragon and Castile on the Spanish ships.

Christian captives sick and sunless: The Turkish infidels used captured Christians as slaves to row their galleys. Over 12,000 such slaves were freed during the defeat of the Turks at Lepanto.

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 5

St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north
(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)
Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift
And the sea folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;
The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;
The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes
And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,
And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,
And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,
And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,
But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse
Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,
Trumpet that sayeth ha!
      Domino gloria!
Don John of Austria
Is shouting to the ships.

Mont St Michel   CC BY-SA 4.0

St. Michael’s on his mountain in the sea-roads of the north: Saint Michael's Mount is an island monastery in Normandy, located about one kilometer (0.6 miles) off the country's northwestern coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches. The first monastic establishment dates from the 8th century. The archangel Michael appeared in 708 to the bishop of Avranches and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet.




St Michael's Mount is also small tidal island in Mount's Bay, Cornwall, England.The earliest buildings, on the summit, date to the 12th century. Historically, St Michael's Mount was a Cornish counterpart of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France. It was given to the Benedictine religious order of Mont Saint-Michel by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century.

Saint Michael is traditionally invoke by Christians to defend them in the day of battle, to be their safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the Devil, whom he is to cast down into Hell together with all wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls.

Christian killeth Christian/Christian dreadeth Christ/Christian hateth Mary
The sixteenth century saw a series of attacks upon the Church that Christ founded: the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. In addition to the attacks by the infidel Muslims from without, there were attacks by apostates and heretics from within. The latter are in 'official' history usually grouped under the misleading term 'Reformation'. The fruits of these internal attacks were a series of bloody wars and a distortion of true doctrine that had been handed down and believed through all Christendom for over 1500 years.

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 4

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
Sudden and still—hurrah!
Bolt from Iberia!
Don John of Austria
Is gone by Alcalar.

Giaours: an offensive term in the Ottoman Empire for non-Muslims or more particularly Christians.

seal of Solomon: In Jewish and Arab tradition, Solomon is said to have possessed a seal ring by means of which he controlled the demons. The legend of a magic ring by means of which the possessor could command demons was current in the first century, as is shown by Josephus' statement  that one Eleazar exorcised demons in the presence of Vespasian by means of a ring, using incantations composed by Solomon. The Arabs gave the name of 'Solomon's seal' to the six-pointed star engraved on the bottom of their drinking-cups. In Western legends, however, it is the pentacle that represents the seal. This figure was supposed to have the power of commanding demons.

Kismet: from Arabic qisma, 'fate, destiny'

Philip II and Richard I given keys to Acra

Richard: One of the leaders of the Third Crusade (1189–1192), an attempt by European Christian leaders to protect Christian pilgrims' access to the the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin, in 1187. This Crusade was largely successful in capturing the important cities of Acre and Jaffa, and reversing Saladin's conquests.





Courtesy BN de Paris via Wikimedia Commons

Raymond:Raymond IV, sometimes called Raymond of Saint-Gilles or Raymond I of Tripoli, one of the leaders of the First Crusade (1096–99).
Godfrey: One of the leaders of the First Crusade. Godfrey became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He refused the title of King, preferring the title of Advocate (protector or defender) of the Holy Sepulchre.
Iberia: the Iberian peninsula; originally a reference to the people who lived near the river Ebro.
Alcalar: in the Algarve region of southern Portugal.
 

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 4

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.

Mahound: 1) a pejorative term for Mohammad; 2) a demon; 3) a self-seeking impostor; 4) it is said that during a congregation of Meccans, Mohammad was unable to convince them to stop worshipping their current idols (totalling over 360). In the end a compromise was adopted and it was decided that all the other Gods were false except Lat, Uzza and Manat. Mohammad later claimed this idea was given to him by Satan and he retracted the  verses from the Koran. This is covered in Salman Rushdie's book 'The Satanic verses'.

Azrael: The much feared ‘spirit of death’ in both Islamic and Hebrew lore, Azrael's name means 'whom God helps.'

Ariel:  'Lion of God', a demonic spirit; Ariel is said to have worked closely with King Solomon in conducting spiritual manifestations.

Ammon: The demon Ammon, who is usually shown with the horns of a ram, was initially venerated by Libyan desert tribes. He may have been related to the Semitic Ba'al Hammon (worshipped among the Phoenicians and Carthaginians). Its worship subsequently spread all over Egypt, a part of the northern coast of Africa, and many parts of Greece. The Ammonites worshipped Moloch.

Solomon: 10th century king of Israel who fell into idolatry in the second half of his life.

[23] And king Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth in riches, and wisdom. [24] And all the earth desired to see Solomon's face, to hear his wisdom, which God had given in his heart. [3 Kings X]

[3] And he had seven hundred wives as queens, and three hundred concubines: and the women turned away his heart. [4] And when he was now old, his heart was turned away by women to follow strange gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. [5] But Solomon worshipped Astarthe the goddess of the Sidonians, and Moloch the idol of the Ammonites. ...  [7] Then Solomon built a temple for Chamos the idol of Moab, on the hill that is over against Jerusalem, and for Moloch the idol of the children of Ammon. [8] And he did in this manner for all his wives that were strangers, who burnt incense, and offered sacrifice to their gods. [9] And the Lord was angry with Solomon [3 Kings XI]

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 3

Continuing with Chesterton's Lepanto, annotated.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.

Don Juan

crownless prince/Don John of Austria: 1547-1578. 

Christian commander and hero at the Battle of Lepanto. Illegitimate (hence 'crownless') son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and his mistress, Barbara Blomberg. Reared in Spain, his half-brother was King Philip II of Spain. 

1566: invested with Order of Golden Fleece by Philip; 1568: made Captain-General of Spanish naval forces; 1571: made commander of Christian fleet at Lepanto, aged only 24. He died of typhus and was buried in the Escorial monastery.


Jooris van der Straeten [Public domain]

  tuckets: In Act II, Scene i of Shakespeare's King Lear, a tucket sounds to alert the Earl of Gloucester of the arrival of the Duke of Cornwall. The word tucket is thought to derive from the obsolete English verb tuk, meaning 'to beat a drum' or 'to sound a trumpet.'

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 2

Continuing with Chesterton's Lepanto, annotated.

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

the Adriatic: The origins of the name Adriatic are linked to the Etruscan settlement of Adria,
which probably derives its name from the Illyrian adur meaning water or sea. In classical antiquity, the sea was known as Mare Adriaticum, spanning from the Gulf of Venice to the Strait of Otranto.

The Lion of Venice. Wikimedia Commons

the Lion of the Sea: probably a reference to the Lion of Venice. The Lion of Saint Mark, representing the evangelist St Mark, pictured in the form of a winged lion holding a Bible, is the symbol of the city of Venice and formerly of the Venetian Republic. It is also found in the symbol of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria. St Maek's relics were transferred from Alexandria, the scene of his martyrdom, to Venice in 828 AD.

The cold queen of England: Elizabeth I (born 1533, reigned from1558 - 1603). Her admirers still refer to her as 'Good Queen Bess. The bastard  offspring of Henry VIII's adulterous union with Ann Boleyn, her persistence in rejecting the Church and faith of her ancestors and of the majority of her subjects, in favour of the looting operation and power-grab known as the 'reformation', produced a response in 1570, from the Chief Shepherd of that same Church, Saint Pius V:

2. Prohibiting with a strong hand the use of the true religion, which after its earlier overthrow by Henry VIII (a deserter therefrom) Mary, the lawful queen of famous memory, had with the help of this See restored, she has followed and embraced the errors of the heretics. She has removed the royal Council, composed of the nobility of England, and has filled it with obscure men, being heretics; oppressed the followers of the Catholic faith; instituted false preachers and ministers of impiety; abolished the sacrifice of the mass, prayers, fasts, choice of meats, celibacy, and Catholic ceremonies; and has ordered that books of manifestly heretical content be propounded to the whole realm and that impious rites and institutions after the rule of Calvin, entertained and observed by herself, be also observed by her subjects. She has dared to eject bishops, rectors of churches and other Catholic priests from their churches and benefices, to bestow these and other things ecclesiastical upon heretics, and to determine spiritual causes; has forbidden the prelates, clergy and people to acknowledge the Church of Rome or obey its precepts and canonical sanctions; has forced most of them to come to terms with her wicked laws, to abjure the authority and obedience of the pope of Rome, and to accept her, on oath, as their only lady in matters temporal and spiritual; has imposed penalties and punishments on those who would not agree to this and has exacted then of those who persevered in the unity of the faith and the aforesaid obedience; has thrown the Catholic prelates and parsons into prison where many, worn out by long languishing and sorrow, have miserably ended their lives. All these matter and manifest and notorious among all the nations; they are so well proven by the weighty witness of many men that there remains no place for excuse, defense or evasion.

3. We, seeing impieties and crimes multiplied one upon another the persecution of the faithful and afflictions of religion daily growing more severe under the guidance and by the activity of the said Elizabeth -and recognizing that her mind is so fixed and set that she has not only despised the pious prayers and admonitions with which Catholic princes have tried to cure and convert her but has not even permitted the nuncios sent to her in this matter by this See to cross into England, are compelled by necessity to take up against her the weapons of justice, though we cannot forbear to regret that we should be forced to turn, upon one whose ancestors have so well deserved of the Christian community. Therefore, resting upon the authority of Him whose pleasure it was to place us (though unequal to such a burden) upon this supreme justice-seat, we do out of the fullness of our apostolic power declare the foresaid Elizabeth to be a heretic and favourer of heretics, and her adherents in the matters aforesaid to have incurred the sentence of excommunication and to be cut off from the unity of the body of Christ.

4. And moreover (we declare) her to be deprived of her pretended title to the aforesaid crown and of all lordship, dignity and privilege whatsoever.

[Regnans in excelsis. Given in St Peter's, Rome, on the 25th of February 1570]

The shadow of the Valois: Charles IX (1550 – 1574), who  was King of France from 1560
until his death from tuberculosis. He ascended the throne upon the death of his brother Francis II, who had married Mary Queen of Scots in 1558 and reigned from 1559-1560. Charles was of the Royal House of Valois (1328-1589).

The Golden Horn. Click to enlarge.

the Golden Horn: a horn-shaped estuary that joins the Bosphorus Strait where the strait meets the Sea of Marmara, thus forming a peninsula, the site of ancient Byzantium and Constantinople. 'Golden' may refer to the commercial wealth of this city; or the treasures that were tossed into the waters before the arrival of the conquering, Muslim hordes in 1453; or the reflected golden light of the setting sun on the waters.

 

GK Chesterton's Lepanto, with annotations: Part 1

To commemorate the Battle of Lepanto and celebrate the role played by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the victory of the Church's sworn enemies (7th of October 1571), I aim to examine the poem 'Lepanto', written by GK Chesterton and first published in 1911. To read the whole poem without annotations, click on Lepanto.

In the following posts, you will be able to read the text of Chesterton's poem with annotations and images interspersed therein.

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

 'Soldan' = 'sultan', ruler; from Aramaic shultana 'power'; earlier English word was soldan, soudan (c. 1300), used indiscriminately of Muslim rulers and sovereigns; from Old French souldan, soudan; from Medieval Latin sultanus

Selim the Sot. Public Domain

'the Soldan of Byzantium': Selim II (b 1524, 1566-1574), son of  Suleiman the Magnificent.

His nickname was Selim the Sot (drunkard).

Because of his obsession with wine, he is said to have ordered the conquest of Cyprus in 1571 in order to seize its famous vineyards for his own use. This was one of the triggers for the Battle of Lepanto which saw the virtual annihilation of the Turkish battle fleet.

'Byzantium': an ancient Greek colony in early antiquity that later became Constantinople, and later Istanbul. 513 BC: Persian Empire; 408 BC: Athens conquers; 196 AD: Rome conquers; 330 AD:  re-founded as an imperial residence by Constantine I (his 'New Rome'/Nova Roma), becoming Constantinople after his death as a newly baptised Christian in 337 AD; 1453: captured by Ottoman Turks and renamed  Istanbul (officially changed only in 1930). This name derives from 'eis-ten-polin' (Greek: "to-the-city")