DEFENSE OF THE GARRISON AT TERHEYDEN:
AN EXCERPT FROM ACT III OF THE FAMOUS PLAY
THE SIEGE OF BREDA
by Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca
D. FADRIQUE BAZÁN:Oh, if only Henry would marchThis way, engage the SpanishIn this place, a happy dayIt would be for our intentions!
D. VINCENTE PIMENTEL:We are not so fortunate, señor,As to be granted such a blessing.
ALONSO LADRÓN, CAPTAIN:I would venture that he will joinWith those fat flinflones, the German guard,With whom he is comfortably allied.We are told that when they hear our“Santiago! Close in for Spain!”Even though they know the nameAnd know he is our patron saintAnd one apostle of the twelve,They believe we call the devil,And that without discriminationWe summon devils as well as saints,And that all come to our aid.
D. FRANCISCO DE MEDINA:If Henry leads his troops alongThe Antwerp road, the ItaliansWill be waiting to engage him.
The bugle sounds “To Arms”
D. FADRIQUE:It seems that they are readyingFor battle.
ALONSO:God’s bones!It will be these same ItaliansWho glory in the occasionWhile we Spanish will be watchingWithout a fight!
D. FADRIQUE:Say not so!Allow Colonel de la DagaTo choose for you a numberOf the loyal men of SpainThat in the furor of the battleThey may show what swordplay is!
DON GONZALO FERNÁNDEZ DE CÓRDOBA:They would disobey?
DON FADRIQUE:Not at all!This is a place and time in whichThe man who does not draw his bladeWill cease to call himself a man,And less, a Spaniard.
D. GONZALO:ObedienceIs in war what most confinesAnd makes a prison for a soldier:More praise and more renown are wonBy one who docilely enduresThan by fervor in the fray.
D. FADRIQUE:But were the greater glory notObedience, what prisons wouldThere be that could contain us?
ALONSO:Withal, these Flemish caballerosShould not draw my ire, forIf the tercios be broken,I shall have to fight today.Though I be hanged tomorrow.
Drum rolls
D. VICENTE:Either way is an offense!
Drum rolls
D. FADRIQUE:How fine the voices of the drumsAnd trumpets sound accompanyingThe stirring cadence of the cannon!
D. FRANCISCO DE MEDINA:By heaven, the enemy has fought throughThe Walloons’ last defense!
Drum rolls
D. FADRIQUE:And now draw nigh the Italian lines!
ALONSO:Oh, those accursed flinflones.When our friends combat that foeTheir squads will not prevail.
D. GONZALO:Look, there, see de la Daga…
ALONSO:Aside(Slanderously, Jiñalasoga)
D. GONZALO:See how proudly he succumbsAlong with his brave Spaniards,Resisting to the very end.
Drum rolls
DON FADRIQUE:I am so schooled and practiced inThe matter of obedienceThat when I hear that first command,My blade lies quiet in its sheath!They say the man who stands in placeRather than fight, is the one whoBetter fulfills his obligations!
D. VICENTE:The garrison now lies in ruins.Do you not hear the voices?By God, I now believe thatHe will enter the town tonight!
ALONSO:How mean you?
D. FADRIQUE:The town?Obedience will forgive me,He must not enter.
D. VICENTE:Let us attack,Whether the general be discontentedOr resigned.
D. GONZALO:Oh, caballeros,Lose everything, but do not counterYour instructions.
D. FADRIQUE:We do not failOur obligations, but there are timesThat force a different effort, whenAn order broken is not broken.
D. VICENTE:But, look, there, attend the action,What one man daringly attempts.Muted, the wind stops blowing,The sun is halted in its path.Do you not see the ItalianSergeant-Major, standing againstHenry’s boldly advancing army?With his cries he animatesHis gallant men, and togetherThey forestall the squadsOf the enemy. We must giveThis triumph an eternal name:Carlos Roma, you are most worthy,Deserving that your king shouldHonor you with New World lands,With appointments, and with glory.And now with sword and buckler, soldiersAre erupting onto the field.And following their example, the ItaliansSpring into action. Let themEnjoy the glory and it be weWho witness. For here our envy may beSeen as noble, as too our praise.Spain, which in far greater numberHas been victorious in her battles,Has no reason to omitThe name of Italy from this triumph,For it is they who are the victors.
D. FRANCISCO DE MEDINAThere is another victoryBefore us, another triumph,Which is the rescue of our bannerFrom capture and from offense.This has been done by those fewBrave and valiant Spaniards, theyWho here escorted ColonelDe la Daga, and who restrainedSo fiercely the English troops with theirAmazing, brash, and bold assault.
D. GONZALO:Who was he, then, who led them,Fierce Mars and noble Hector?
ALONSO:Diego Alatriste y Tenorio,The “Captain” is an honoraryTitle, fittingly won amidThe clamor and the roar of cannon.
D. GONZALO:On such an august day as thisMay Alatriste in renownYield only to brave Carlos Roma.Who, along with his men,The king will generously rewardFor being victors in Terheyden.
D. FADRIQUE:In defeat and disarray.The Flemish are retreating, fleetAs the wind; and now all honorFalls to the victors, may theirNoble brows be crowned with laurel,And on a thousand plaques of bronzeEternally their feat shall live,Reaching the limits of the orb.
It must be noted that the verses in italics have been taken from the original manuscript, as they were not included in Primera parte de comedias de don Pedro Calderón de la Barca, collected by don José, Calderón’s brother, and printed in Madrid in the year 1636. Why the poet later chose to delete those lines has not been determined.
*On Calle de Toledo near La Puerta Cerrada, Madrid
1Papeles del alférez Balboa (Lieutenant Balboa’s Papers). Manuscript of 478 pages, Madrid, undated. Sold by the Claymore auction house in London, November 25, 1952. Currently located in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid.
2 The disappearance a posteriori of the two most documented references to Captain Diego Alatriste y Tenorio known to this date is extraordinary. While the testament of Íñigo Balboa and the study of the painting The Surrender of Breda by Velázquez prove that the captain’s image was, for unknown reasons, erased from the canvas on a date later than winter of 1634, we have a first version of a play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca titled The Siege of Breda, and in it, too, there are signs of later manipulation. This first complete version, contemporaneous to the date of the first performance of the play in Madrid—which was written around 1626—and coinciding along general lines with the manuscript copy of the original made by Diego López de Mora in 1632, contains some forty lines that were suppressed in the definitive version. In them explicit reference is made to the death of Colonel don Pedro de la Daga and to the defense of the Terheyden redoubt carried out by Diego Alatriste, whose name is quoted two times in the text. The original fragment, discovered by Professor Klaus Oldenbarnevelt of the Instituto de Estudios Hispánicos at the University of Utrecht, is housed in the archive and library of the Duques del Nuevo Extremo in Seville, and we reproduce it in the appendix at the end of this volume with the kind permission of doña Macarena Bruner de Lebrija, Duquesa del Nuevo Extremo. What is odd is that those forty lines disappear in the canonical version of the work published in 1636 in Madrid by José Calderón, brother of the author, in Primera parte de Comedias de don Pedro Calderón de la Barca. The reason for Alatriste’s disappearance in the play about the siege of Breda, as well as in the Velázquez painting, has to this date not been explained. Unless it was in response to an express order attributable perhaps to King Philip IV or, more likely, the Conde Duque de Olivares, whose disfavor Diego Alatriste may have incurred, again for reasons unknown to us, between 1634 and 1636.