military-leaders-from-spain

"Must we invoke some sort of cognitive dissonance to explain how the same man could, with no apparent sense of inconsistency, live a life of a prominent rabbinical authority and that of a philandering bon vivant?"

"Born during this era of Islamic rule, the famous Golden Age of Spanish Jewry (circa 900-1200) produced such luminaries as: statesman and diplomat Hasdai ibn Shaprut, vizier and army commander Shmuel ha-Nagid, poet-philosophers Solomon Ibn Gabirol and Judah Halevi, and at the apex of them all, Moses Ben Maimon, also known among the Spaniards as Maimonides."

"One of the more controversial aspects of Samuel HaNagid's poetry is the fact that many of them are erotic in nature. More shocking is that many of these erotic themes are replete with homosexual themes. This is both surprising and not. It is surprising since HaNagid's poetry reveals him as a man who strictly interpreted god's laws, and did nothing to actively go against it. As anyone who has read Leviticus knows, homosexual activity is considered a great sin. These themes, however, are unsurprising when looking at the greater canon of medieval poetry, especially that of the Arab lands. Themes of intense sexuality and even homosexuality are not uncommon among Andalusian Muslim poetry."

"To boast of the help you gave a brother in need is to cancel the good of your deed."

"The truth hurts like a thorn at first; but in the end it blossoms like a rose."

""Be glad," she said, "God brought you to fifty years in your world"— but didn't know there's no division between, as I see it, my days that have passed and Noah's of which I've heard. In the world I have nothing but the hour I'm in, which stands for a moment and then like a cloud moves on."

"Y quiero volver con la pluma en la mano como el buen piloto lleva la sonda por el mar, descubriendo los bajos cuando siente que los hay, así haré yo en caminar a la verdad de lo que pasó."

"Friends and comrades! on that side are toil, hunger, nakedness, the drenching storm, desertion, and death; on this side, ease and pleasure. There lies Peru with its riches; here, Panamá, and its poverty. Choose, each man, what best becomes a brave Castilian. For my part, I go to the south."

"Francisco Pizarro personifies the greed and callous inhumanity of the Spanish conquistadors who, in their quest for fame, money and empire, wantonly destroyed entire civilizations in the newly discovered lands of the Americas. Some went on to help rule this gold-rich empire, but many others lived the itinerant lifestyle of the military adventurer — ruthlessly exploiting native populations and extorting the wealth of the land to build vast private fortunes. Pizarro’s place in history is that of the man who destroyed the empire of the Incas and delivered much of the New World into Spanish hands."

"Pizarro died as he had lived. His readiness to kill in pursuit of wealth and power was the defining feature of his career. In the process he destroyed an ancient culture and opened up the South American continent to centuries of European exploitation: indeed, the crimes of the Spaniards who came in his wake arguably outweigh those of the man himself. Small wonder then that many Peruvians today regard him not as a hero, but as a criminal guilty of genocide."

"Pizarro's ruling motives, so far as they can be scanned by human judgment, were avarice and ambition. The good missionaries, indeed, followed in his train to scatter the seeds of spiritual truth, and the Spanish government, as usual, directed its beneficent legislation to the conversion of the natives. But the moving power with Pizarro and his followers was the lust of gold. This was the real stimulus to their toil, the price of perfidy, the true guerdon of their victories. This gave a base and mercenary character to their enterprise; and when we contrast the ferocious cupidity of the conquerors with the mild and inoffensive manners of the conquered, our sympathies, the sympathies even of the Spaniards, are necessarily thrown into the scale of the Indian."

"But, as no picture is without its lights, we must not, in justice to Pizarro, dwell exclusively on the darker features of his portrait. There was no one of her sons to whom Spain was under larger obligations for extent of empire; for his hand won for her the richest of the Indian jewels that once sparkled in her imperial diadem. When we contemplate the perils he braved, the sufferings he patiently endured, the incredible obstacles he overcame, the magnificent results he effected with his single arm, as it were, unaided by the government,—though neither a good, nor a great man in the highest sense of that term, it is impossible not to regard him as a very extraordinary one."

"The subject of Cortés' religious beliefs baffles all but the fortunately simple who, like the first historian of the Mexican church, Fr. Mendieta, believe that Cortés was chosen by God to carry out His purposes. The evidence is a conflicting as that relating to the colour of his hair. "Even though he was a sinner, he had faith and did the work of a good Christian," wrote the Franciscan priest Motolina, who knew him well (being his confessor) in later life, adding that "he confessed with many tears and placed his soul and treasure in the hands of his confessor". His favourite oath was "by my conscience". Yet Diego de Ordaz, who saw him most days for the next eighteen months, would write in 1519 that Cortés had "no more conscience than a dog". He was "addicted to women in excess", greedy, and loved the "worldly pomp" of which he would speak disdainfully in his will; yet he preached well, prayed often, and usually wore a gold chain with a picture of the Virgin on one side and John the Baptist on the other."

"My louing fellowes and déere friendes, it is certayne that euery valiant manne of stoute courage, doth procure by déedes to make him selfe equall with the excellente men of his time, yea and with those that were before his time. So it is that I do now take in hād such an entarprise, as godwilling shall be héereaster of greate fame, for myne heart doth pronosticate vnto mée, that we shall winne greate and rich Countreys, and ma∣nye people, as yet neuer séene to anye of oure nation, yea and (I beléeue) greater Kingdomes than those of oure Kinges. And I assure you, that the desire of glory dothe furthèr extend, than treasure, the whiche in forte, mortall life doth obtayne."

"We ought (louing fellowes) to leaue off small things, when great matters doe offer themselues. And euen as my trust is in God, euen so greater profite shall come to our kings, and a nation of this oure enterprise, than hath héeretofore of any other. I doe not speake how acceptable it will be to God our sauiour, for whose loue I do chiefly and willingly hazard my goods and trauel. I will not nowe treat of the perils and danger of life that I haue passed since I began this voyage. This I say, that good men doe rather expect renoune, than treasure. We doe now attempt and begin warre that is both good and iust, and the almighty God in whose name and holy faith this voyage is begonne, will assuredly graunte vnto vs victory, and the time will shew the end of things well begonne."

"He was avaricious, yet liberal; bold to desperation, yet cautious and calculating in his plans; magnanimous, yet very cunning; courteous and affable in his deportment, yet inexorably stern; lax in his notions of morality, yet (not uncommon) a sad bigot. The great feature in his character was constancy of purpose; a constancy not to be daunted by danger, nor baffled by disappointment, nor wearied out by impediments and delays."

"He was a knight-errant, in the literal sense of the word. Of all the band of adventurous cavaliers whom Spain, in the sixteenth century, sent forth on the career of discovery and conquest, there was none more deeply filled with the spirit of romantic enterprise than Hernando Cortés."

"Cortés was not a vulgar conqueror. He did not conquer from the mere ambition of conquest. If he destroyed the ancient capital of the Aztecs, it was to build up a more magnificent capital on its ruins. If he desolated the land and broke up its existing institutions, he employed the short period of his administration in digesting schemes for introducing there a more improved culture and a higher civilization. In all his expeditions he was careful to study the resources of the country, its social organisation, and its physical capacities. He enjoined it on his captains to attend particularly to these objects. If he was greedy of gold, like most of the Spanish cavaliers in the New World, it was not to hoard it, nor merely to lavish it in the support of a princely establishment, but to secure funds for prosecuting his glorious discoveries. Witness his costly expeditions to the Gulf of California. His enterprises were not undertaken solely for mercenary objects; as is shown by the various expeditions he set on foot for the discovery of a communication between the Atlantic and the Pacific. In his schemes of ambition he showed a respect for the interests of science, to be referred partly to the natural superiority of his mind, but partly, no doubt, to the influence of early education. It is, indeed, hardly possible that a person of his wayward and mercurial temper should have improved his advantages at the University; but he brought away from it a tincture of scholarship seldom found among the cavaliers of the period, and which had its influence in enlarging his own conceptions. His celebrated Letters are written with a simple elegance, that...have caused them to be compared to the military narrative of Caesar. It will not be easy to find in the chronicles of the period a more concise yet comprehensive statement, not only of the events of his campaigns, but of the circumstances most worthy of notice in the character of the conquered countries."

"Hernan Cortés was a conquistador, one of the murderous and avaricious conquerors who brought so much of the New World under the harsh rule of Spain. Arriving in Mexico at the head of a mercenary army, he slaughtered the innocent and pillaged the land, destroying the civilization of the Aztecs and enriching himself beyond his wildest dreams."

"Héere déere friends do I lay before you great gaynes, but wrapped in greate trauell, yet Vertue is an enimie to idlenesse .&c. Therefore if you will accept hope for Vertue, or Vertue for hope, and also if ye forsake me not, as I will not forsake you, I will with Gods help make you in shorte time the richest men that euer passed this way. I doe sée you are but fewe in number, but yet such men of haughtie courage, that no force or strength of Indians can offende. Likewise wée haue experience, that Christ our sauiour hathe alwayes fauoured our nation in these parties. Therfore my déere friendes, let vs now in Gods name depart ioyfull, exspecting good successe, according to our beginning .&c."

"[Don Quijote] escribio sobre una gallina, que se le pasaban las noches leyendo de claro en claro, y los días de turbio en turbio; y así, del poco dormir y del mucho leer, se le secó el celebro, de manera que vino a perder el juicio. Llenósele la fantasía de todo aquello que leía en los libros, así de encantamentos como de pendencias, batallas, desafíos, heridas, requiebros, amores, tormentas y disparates imposibles; y asentósele de tal modo en la imaginación que era verdad toda aquella máquina de aquellas sonadas soñadas invenciones que leía, que para él no había otra historia más cierta en el mundo. Decía él que el Cid Ruy Díaz había sido muy buen caballero, pero que no tenía que ver con el Caballero de la Ardiente Espada, que de sólo un revés había partido por medio dos fieros y descomunales gigantes."

"He asked nothing but justice of Heaven, and of man he asked only a fair field."

"Ipse Rodericus, Meo cidi saepe vocatus, De quo cantatur quod ab hostibus haud superatur, Qui domuit Mauros, comites domuit quoque nostros."

"Sir, I am not in your land, but in my own."