Chapter 21 The Story of the Warrior and the Prisoner

On page 278 of "Poetry" (Barrie Press, 1942), Croce simplifies a text written in Latin by the historian "Deacon" Pablo, describing the Tufte's fate, and references to his epitaph; these words moved me especially, and I later understood why.Drotuffet was a Lombard warrior who deserted his comrades during the siege of Ravenna and died defending the city he had attacked.The Ravenna buried him in a temple, erected a stele, and expressed their gratitude in the epitaph ("Though he deserted his kin, we still love him") and their vengeance for the ferocious savage. Impression of the contrast between the appearance and the honest and kind heart:

Huggy back, bearded fists, Scary in appearance, but kind in heart! Such is the story of the fate of the barbarian Drotuffet who died in defense of Rome, or of the fragments of his life which Pablo the Deacon was able to trace.I don't even know when the story happened: when the Lombards swept across the Italian plains in the mid-sixth century, or before the surrender of Ravenna in the eighth century.We might as well set the time in the middle of the sixth century (since this article is not a historical account after all). Let us imagine the eternal image of Drottuft, not Drottuft as an individual, for as such he is undoubtedly unique and unfathomable, but imagine the tradition according to him and many like him And the universal model that is molded, the tradition is the product of forgetting and remembering.The war brought him from the banks of the Danube and the Elbe to Italy through wild woods and swamps, probably not knowing that he was going south or fighting the Romans.Perhaps he was a member of the Ali sect who held that the glory of the Son mirrored the glory of the Father, but it would be more appropriate to think of him as a follower of Hertha, Mother Earth.Hertha's masked idols are offered on carts and pulled from hut to hut by cows, war gods, or thunder gods. The idols are crude wooden carvings, wrapped in hand-woven cloth, and adorned with many coins and bracelets. .He comes from the forest where wild boar and buffalo cannot enter; he is white-skinned, brave and simple, loyal to his leader and tribe, but not to the universe.The war took him to Ravenna, where he saw things he had never seen, or did not see enough.He saw daylight, Italian cypress and marble.He sees a whole that is diverse but not chaotic; sees a city, a whole of statues, temples, gardens, houses, steps, vases, capitals, orderly and open spaces.But none of those buildings impressed him with splendor (I understand that); To extraordinary wisdom.Perhaps he could have felt that way only by looking at an arch inscribed with incomprehensible eternal Roman letters.Suddenly, he was dazzled and revived by the revelation of the city.He knew he'd be like a dog in the city, or a child, that wouldn't understand it at all, but he also knew it was more important than the gods and beliefs he worshiped, and all the swamps of Germain.Drotuffet deserted his comrades and fought for Ravenna.He died, and on the tombstone was inscribed words he could not understand:

Although he abandoned his loved ones, we still love and respect him, His hometown of Ravenna will always remember him. He was not a traitor (a traitor would not have earned such a pious epitaph); he had been apocalyptic and converted to Orthodoxy.Generations passed, and the Lombards who accused him of changing his lineage acted like him and became Lombards in Italy, and the descendants of someone in his family—the Aldigier—perhaps reproduced the Dante of the Algieri ... Drotuffet's actions have given rise to many conjectures; mine is the simplest; at least symbolic, if not factual. The samurai stories I read in Croce's books thrilled me, and I felt that I had found some of my ideas again, only in a different form.I quickly thought of those Mongolian horsemen who would reduce China to endless pastures, only to grow old in the cities they longed to destroy; but this was not the memory I was looking for.Then I found it; it was a story I had heard from my deceased British grandmother.

In 1872, my grandfather Borges was a commander on the border northwest of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe.The headquarters was at Junin; to the west was a frontier belt consisting of small forts separated by four or five leagues; further away was the interior of what was then called the Pampa grasslands.My grandmother once remarked with wonder and self-deprecation that, being an Englishwoman, she should end up at this end of the world; those present said she was not the only Englishwoman, and that a few months later a slowly Indian women across the square pointed out to her.The woman wore two red cloaks, and was barefoot; her fair hair was parted in the middle.A soldier came up to her and said there was another English woman who wanted to talk to her.The woman agreed; walked into the headquarters without fear but without doubt.Her bronzed face was streaked with hideous streaks of paint, and her eyes were a grayish blue, as the English call it.Her body was as light as a deer, her hands were thin and powerful.She was from the desert in the interior, and everything here—doors, walls, furniture—seemed small to her.

Suddenly the two women felt as close as sisters, far from their beloved island nation, to this incredible place.My grandmother asked some questions; the other answered with difficulty, searching for words as she spoke, repeating them over and over again, as if amazed at something they had eaten in olden days.She hadn't spoken her mother tongue for fifteen years, and it was difficult to recover for a while.She said she was from Yorkshire, her parents emigrated to Buenos Aires, both of them died in a raid by the natives, she was taken away by the Indians, and now she is the wife of a chief, and has borne him two children , the chief was brave.She spoke vulgar English mixed with Arauco or Pampa dialect, and from her words one could vaguely see a very difficult life: tents made of horse leather, dried horse dung burned, food eaten Smoked meat and raw animal offal.Silent marches at dawn; raids on stables by naked riders, screams, battles, raids on manors, polygamy, smog, witchcraft.An Englishwoman should be reduced to such barbaric surroundings.Out of pity and surprise, my grandmother advised her not to go back, and swore to protect her and redeem her child.The other party said she was very happy and returned to the desert that night.Not long after that, Francisco Borges died in the revolution of 1874; then, perhaps, my grandmother saw the horror of her own fate in another woman also held hostage and changed by this unforgiving continent reflection of...

The blond-haired Indian woman used to go to the general store in Junin or Lavalle forts every year to buy odds and ends, tobacco and alcohol; since talking to my grandmother, she never comes again.However, they still took a photo.My grandmother went hunting; in a hut near the lowlands a man was butchering sheep.As if in a dream, the Indian woman rode by.She got off her horse and lay down on the ground to drink the still hot sheep blood.I don't know if she did it because there was no other way, or if it was a show of vindictiveness on purpose. What happened to the female prisoner and what happened to Drottuft are thirteen hundred years apart in time and an ocean in space.Both are dead today.The image of the barbarian who devoted himself to the defense of Ravenna and the image of the European woman who chose the desert to die in a foreign land seemed incompatible.Both, however, were driven by a secret passion, a passion deeper than reason, and both resigned themselves to a passion which they could not account for.The two stories I tell may just be one story.To God, the front and back of this coin are exactly the same.

Dedicated to Ulrike von Kühlmann