The History of the Siege of Lisbon

The idea, which came to him as he watched the roof-tops descending like steps as far as the river, is to follow the lay-out of the Moorish fortifications according to the scant and rather dubious information provided by the historian, as he himself had the good grace to acknowledge. But here, right before Raimundo Silva's eyes is a fragment, if not of the indestructible rampart itself, at least of a wall occupying the same space where the other stood, and descending all the way down the steps beneath a row of broad windows surmounted by tall gables. Raimundo Silva, therefore, is on the outer side of the city, he belongs to the besieging army, and it would only take one of those windows to open for a Moorish girl to appear and start singing, This is proud Lisbon, Impregnable, Here the Christian will meet his perdition, and on finishing her song, she taps disdainfully on the window, but unless the proof-reader's eyes are deceiving him, the muslin curtain has been drawn back ever so discreetly, and this simple gesture was enough to mitigate any threat in those words, if we take them literally, for it might well be that Lisbon, contrary to all appearances, was not a city but a woman, and the perdition simply amorous, assuming that the restrictive adverb has some meaning here, and that this is not the only blissful perdition. The dog drew near once more, now Raimundo Silva looks at it nervously, who knows it might have rabies, for he once read, he no longer remembers where, that one of the signs of the dreaded disease is a drooping tail, and this one looks rather limp, probably because it has been ill-treated, for the animal's ribs are sticking out, another sign, but this one decisive, is that unsightly saliva trickling down the fauces and fangs, but this mongrel, is only drooling because of the smell of food being cooked here on the Escadinhas de'São Crispim. The dog, let us rest assured, does not have rabies, perhaps if we were living in the time of the Moors, but nowadays, in a city like this, modern, hygienic, organised, even the sight of a stray dog comes as a surprise, it has probably escaped the net because of its preference for this remote, uphill route, which calls for nimble feet and the vigour of youth, blessings which do not necessarily coincide in dog-catchers.

Raimundo Silva goes on consulting the pages, mentally following the itinerary, and a stealthy glance at the dog suddenly reminds him of the historian's description of the horrors of famine endured by the beleaguered for months on end, neither dog nor cat survived, even the rats disappeared, but if this was so, then surely the man was right who said that a dog barked that serene dawn when the muezzin climbed the minaret to summon the faithful to morning prayers, and the man was mistaken who argued that because the dog was unclean, the Moors could not bear to have the animal in their sight, now let us concede that they banned dogs from their houses and deprived them of caresses and feeding-bowls, but never from vast Islam, for truly, if we are capable of living in harmony with our own impurities, why should we so vehemently reject the impurities of others, in this case, of the canine species, therefore, much more innocent than those of humans, who so thoroughly abuse the term dog, an insult hurled right and left at enemies, by Christians abusing Moslems, by Moslems abusing Christians, and by both parties abusing the Jews. Not to mention those whom we know best, those Portuguese noblemen coming yonder, so preoccupied and besotted with their hounds and mastiffs that they are given to sleeping with them, with as much or even greater pleasure than with their concubines, and yet, as you will see, the worst name they can call their most implacable enemy is Dog, there would appear to be no greater insult, except for Son of a Bitch. And all this has come about through the arbitrary criteria of men, they are the ones who create words, the animals, poor things, are unaware of these semantic subtleties as they listen to the quarrelling, Dog, says the Moor, You're the dog, retorts the Christian, and next minute they are fighting with lance, sword and dagger, while the hounds and mastiffs say to each other, We are the dogs, nor does it bother them in the least.