I don't know too much about the geopolitical/historical legacy of Lepanto, other than the Ottomans got reamed and probably began their decline after their apex under Suleiman the Magnificent.
But I know that the Turks used primarily archers on their galleys, while the Catholic forces used mainly gunners. Archers are hard to train, since they take years of practice and exercise. Often, parents/family would teacher their children archery. Some of the best archers were in the Turkish fleet at Lepanto and several thousands of them died, significant damaging the archery heritage for the Turks. The Euros had already begun abandoning archery due to guns being easier for peasant conscripts to train with.
The definitive demonstration of guns > archers, was a huge set back for archery skills in general. Modern day sports archery are probably more accurate in a controlled setting, but a lot of techniques were lost. We aren't even sure how some archery techniques looked or were performed based on the descriptions.
You are correct but only for the Ottoman navy. The western part of its army had already made the change over to guns about 30 years ago. The eastern part of its army made the change over later and payed for it in blood in a number of small exchanges during the Ottoman–Safavid War (1578–1590).
It symbolically marked the end of uncontested Ottoman dominance of the Mediterranean, but strategically it meant little as the Ottomans rebuilt their navy quickly after
>1500s >New World discovered >Gold >Colonization >Finding new naval trade routes to bypass Constantinople >Catholic Church >Popes have been nothing but degens >Papal authority greatly diminished >Protestant Reformation >Church of England Shenanigans >Valois-Hapsburg Rivalry >Italian Wars >Turks are busy killing each other in palace intrigues anyways to do anything
Sorry bud, your crusadaboo fantasies ain't happenin'
The cost of everything to make a war galley started to go up about 15 years before that battle. The end price tag of a galley was about three times what it had been for everyone in the Mediterranean by the point of the Battle of Lepanto.
They did rebuilt their navy inside 10 months and made it even larger. They also crashed their economy doing and ended up going bankrupt a few years after the fact. The Spain crown and few other Christian state that were part of the war also ended up bankrupt. Thing is that the Christians and stronger banks, a active plan for dealing with a post war bankruptcy, and did not frick their commodity markets of Iron, lumber, sail cloth, and slaves. The Spanish Crown had dealt with the matter fully by 1575. The Ottoman Empire ended up just letting their navy rot in harder do to a lack of funds. They would not go back to having a operational navy till about 1595.
The cost of everything to make a war galley started to go up about 15 years before that battle. The end price tag of a galley was about three times what it had been for everyone in the Mediterranean by the point of the Battle of Lepanto.
They did rebuilt their navy inside 10 months and made it even larger. They also crashed their economy doing and ended up going bankrupt a few years after the fact. The Spain crown and few other Christian state that were part of the war also ended up bankrupt. Thing is that the Christians and stronger banks, a active plan for dealing with a post war bankruptcy, and did not frick their commodity markets of Iron, lumber, sail cloth, and slaves. The Spanish Crown had dealt with the matter fully by 1575. The Ottoman Empire ended up just letting their navy rot in harder do to a lack of funds. They would not go back to having a operational navy till about 1595.
the loss of experienced crews and commanders also was a major setback
Lepanto is like Joel Silver and Jerry Bruckheimer were giving mountains of free coke to write the ultimate period action flick.
>We’re going to have a young sexy prince, but he’s not a legitimate prince, because he’s a bastard and he has to BREAK THROUGH THE GLASS CEILINGS By skill alone, and he’s going to be the leader chosen by the Pope himself (He’s the Chosen One). >we’re going to have a cute chick pretend to be a boy to follow her dad in battle and SHE’S GOING TO SAVE HIS LIFE!! >we’re going to have the Turks be so ridiculously evil, like mustache twirling, Persians in 300 levels of decadent evilness oozing from their very pores, where they SKIN ALIVE the knights of Malta (who don’t surrender, but are captured). >we’re going to have this COOL, GRIZZLED, OLD MAN SNIPER with a crossbow that will kill more dudes than Legolas in the Return of the King >We’re going to have the Christian fleet form a GIANT CROSS, and they’re going to charge into the Islamic fleet formed in a GIANT CRESCENT >AND THE PRINCE IS GOING TO BE AT THE TIP OF THE CROSS LEADING THE WAY! >the Turks are going to have a GIANT GOLD BANNER given to them by their Prophet >but that Prince? yeah, he’s going to LEAD THE CHARGE against the Turkish capital ship and FIGHT their commander one on one, and he’s going to WIN and he’s going to TEAR DOWN THE GIANT FLAG. >and we’re going to have a CHRISTIAN SLAVE UPRISING on the Turkish ships, where they join their friends and TURN THE TIDE >YEAH there’s going to KNIGHTS ON HORSEBACK RIDING OVER WRECKED SHIPS >and MOTHERFRICKING CANNONS! >and the Christians are going to be OUTNUMBERED FIVE TO ONE >and they’re going to WIN, and WIN BIGLY.
It’s too over the too. No one would believe Lepanto actually happened.
It sucks to know in this day and age we will never ever in a million years have a movie about Lepanto.
Also forgot to mention, >and just before the battle every man who was a convict serving on board the Holy League ships will be forgiven his crimes, given his freedom AND THEY WILL ALL CHOOSE TO STAY AND FIGHT!
And this silly thing, >It is said that at some point the Janissaries ran out of weapons and started throwing oranges and lemons at their Christian adversaries, leading to awkward scenes of laughter among the general misery of battle.
So there’s even comedy, too. It would be the Top Gun: Maverick of historical epics.
It sucks to know in this day and age we will never ever in a million years have a movie about Lepanto.
Also forgot to mention, >and just before the battle every man who was a convict serving on board the Holy League ships will be forgiven his crimes, given his freedom AND THEY WILL ALL CHOOSE TO STAY AND FIGHT!
And this silly thing, >It is said that at some point the Janissaries ran out of weapons and started throwing oranges and lemons at their Christian adversaries, leading to awkward scenes of laughter among the general misery of battle.
So there’s even comedy, too. It would be the Top Gun: Maverick of historical epics.
>>we’re going to have this COOL, GRIZZLED, OLD MAN SNIPER with a crossbow that will kill more dudes than Legolas in the Return of the King
That would be Sebastiano Venier, future 87th doge of Venice, who was 75 years old at the time of the battle, and personally insisted to lead his troops into battle.
He wore full plate armor and had slippers at his feet, because the galley's bridge was too wet and slippery for him to stand normally.
The roaches gave up to their dream of conquering Rome by force. They lost 50.000 men at Lepanto, 50.000 at Cyprus, 50.000 at Malta and 100.000 at Albania . All costly trained soldiers hard to replaced.
Sultan Edrogan will instead conquer Europe by sending millions of muslim Pajeets as "asylum seekers". Inshallah.
And that's a good thing. One Umnah from Istanbul to Islamabad. We will conquer all Europe. Inshallah.
>Since the immigration to the big cities in the west of Turkey, interethnic marriage has become more common. A 2013 study estimates that there are 2,708,000 marriages between Turks and Kurds/Zaza.[101]
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
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.
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.
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 peawiener 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.)
I don't know too much about the geopolitical/historical legacy of Lepanto, other than the Ottomans got reamed and probably began their decline after their apex under Suleiman the Magnificent.
But I know that the Turks used primarily archers on their galleys, while the Catholic forces used mainly gunners. Archers are hard to train, since they take years of practice and exercise. Often, parents/family would teacher their children archery. Some of the best archers were in the Turkish fleet at Lepanto and several thousands of them died, significant damaging the archery heritage for the Turks. The Euros had already begun abandoning archery due to guns being easier for peasant conscripts to train with.
The definitive demonstration of guns > archers, was a huge set back for archery skills in general. Modern day sports archery are probably more accurate in a controlled setting, but a lot of techniques were lost. We aren't even sure how some archery techniques looked or were performed based on the descriptions.
Fascinating post, anon.
You are correct but only for the Ottoman navy. The western part of its army had already made the change over to guns about 30 years ago. The eastern part of its army made the change over later and payed for it in blood in a number of small exchanges during the Ottoman–Safavid War (1578–1590).
It symbolically marked the end of uncontested Ottoman dominance of the Mediterranean, but strategically it meant little as the Ottomans rebuilt their navy quickly after
The crusaders should have exploited that advantage and re-conquered Constantinople
>1500s
>New World discovered
>Gold
>Colonization
>Finding new naval trade routes to bypass Constantinople
>Catholic Church
>Popes have been nothing but degens
>Papal authority greatly diminished
>Protestant Reformation
>Church of England Shenanigans
>Valois-Hapsburg Rivalry
>Italian Wars
>Turks are busy killing each other in palace intrigues anyways to do anything
Sorry bud, your crusadaboo fantasies ain't happenin'
The cost of everything to make a war galley started to go up about 15 years before that battle. The end price tag of a galley was about three times what it had been for everyone in the Mediterranean by the point of the Battle of Lepanto.
They did rebuilt their navy inside 10 months and made it even larger. They also crashed their economy doing and ended up going bankrupt a few years after the fact. The Spain crown and few other Christian state that were part of the war also ended up bankrupt. Thing is that the Christians and stronger banks, a active plan for dealing with a post war bankruptcy, and did not frick their commodity markets of Iron, lumber, sail cloth, and slaves. The Spanish Crown had dealt with the matter fully by 1575. The Ottoman Empire ended up just letting their navy rot in harder do to a lack of funds. They would not go back to having a operational navy till about 1595.
the loss of experienced crews and commanders also was a major setback
It was the last battle of the Crusades, and marked the end of Islam as a serious threat to Europe, it was all downhill for the Ottomans after this
Lepanto is like Joel Silver and Jerry Bruckheimer were giving mountains of free coke to write the ultimate period action flick.
>We’re going to have a young sexy prince, but he’s not a legitimate prince, because he’s a bastard and he has to BREAK THROUGH THE GLASS CEILINGS By skill alone, and he’s going to be the leader chosen by the Pope himself (He’s the Chosen One).
>we’re going to have a cute chick pretend to be a boy to follow her dad in battle and SHE’S GOING TO SAVE HIS LIFE!!
>we’re going to have the Turks be so ridiculously evil, like mustache twirling, Persians in 300 levels of decadent evilness oozing from their very pores, where they SKIN ALIVE the knights of Malta (who don’t surrender, but are captured).
>we’re going to have this COOL, GRIZZLED, OLD MAN SNIPER with a crossbow that will kill more dudes than Legolas in the Return of the King
>We’re going to have the Christian fleet form a GIANT CROSS, and they’re going to charge into the Islamic fleet formed in a GIANT CRESCENT
>AND THE PRINCE IS GOING TO BE AT THE TIP OF THE CROSS LEADING THE WAY!
>the Turks are going to have a GIANT GOLD BANNER given to them by their Prophet
>but that Prince? yeah, he’s going to LEAD THE CHARGE against the Turkish capital ship and FIGHT their commander one on one, and he’s going to WIN and he’s going to TEAR DOWN THE GIANT FLAG.
>and we’re going to have a CHRISTIAN SLAVE UPRISING on the Turkish ships, where they join their friends and TURN THE TIDE
>YEAH there’s going to KNIGHTS ON HORSEBACK RIDING OVER WRECKED SHIPS
>and MOTHERFRICKING CANNONS!
>and the Christians are going to be OUTNUMBERED FIVE TO ONE
>and they’re going to WIN, and WIN BIGLY.
It’s too over the too. No one would believe Lepanto actually happened.
You forgot to add that Miguel de Cervantes was there and he actually lost his arm fighting in order to have an excommunication lifted.
pure fricking kino
It sucks to know in this day and age we will never ever in a million years have a movie about Lepanto.
Also forgot to mention,
>and just before the battle every man who was a convict serving on board the Holy League ships will be forgiven his crimes, given his freedom AND THEY WILL ALL CHOOSE TO STAY AND FIGHT!
And this silly thing,
>It is said that at some point the Janissaries ran out of weapons and started throwing oranges and lemons at their Christian adversaries, leading to awkward scenes of laughter among the general misery of battle.
So there’s even comedy, too. It would be the Top Gun: Maverick of historical epics.
>Joel Silver and Jerry Bruckheimer
SIGN ME THE FRICK IN.
Pirates of the Caribbean was peak kino.
These guys need to get a white card to make expensive movies like they used to.
You forgot where the main character is literally named
>Don Juan
Please tell me ONE book where I can read any of these
Kino. I would jerk off in the cinema
Is this historically accurate?
>CHRISTIAN SLAVE UPRISING on the Turkish ships,
This right here is why it will NEVER be adapted by Hollywood.
>>we’re going to have this COOL, GRIZZLED, OLD MAN SNIPER with a crossbow that will kill more dudes than Legolas in the Return of the King
That would be Sebastiano Venier, future 87th doge of Venice, who was 75 years old at the time of the battle, and personally insisted to lead his troops into battle.
He wore full plate armor and had slippers at his feet, because the galley's bridge was too wet and slippery for him to stand normally.
And Galeasses, Cervantes losing his hand in the battle, the Christian flagship being rescued last-minute after a Turkish boarding, and much more
Stopped ottoroach expansionism in the mediterranean, since then ottoroach expansionism focused on land army
The roaches gave up to their dream of conquering Rome by force. They lost 50.000 men at Lepanto, 50.000 at Cyprus, 50.000 at Malta and 100.000 at Albania . All costly trained soldiers hard to replaced.
Sultan Edrogan will instead conquer Europe by sending millions of muslim Pajeets as "asylum seekers". Inshallah.
You forgot 60.000 roaches killed at Rhodes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Rhodes_(1522)
Erdogan has only managed to let Turkey be conquered by 8 million refugees and 20 million Kurds, for now.
Regardless, this is current politics.
And that's a good thing. One Umnah from Istanbul to Islamabad. We will conquer all Europe. Inshallah.
>Since the immigration to the big cities in the west of Turkey, interethnic marriage has become more common. A 2013 study estimates that there are 2,708,000 marriages between Turks and Kurds/Zaza.[101]
White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
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.
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.
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 peawiener 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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.)