In those days, if anyone asked for bread, the reply was, make me a couplet and the poorest beggar, if he begged in rhyme, would often be rewarded with a piece of gold.” He who could make the best verses, and she who had the most tuneful voice, might be sure of favor and preferment. They made stanzas upon every occasion, and set them all to music. They thought only of love, music, and poetry. “Ah, senor,” said he, “when the Moors held Granada, they were a gayer people than they are nowadays.
He told me that he came up the hill occasionally in the summer, to pass a part of the day in the Alhambra, which reminded him of the old palaces in Barbary, being built and adorned in similar style, though with more magnificence.Īs we walked about the palace, he pointed out several of the Arabic inscriptions, as possessing much poetic beauty. As he spoke Spanish fluently, I was enabled to hold conversation with him, and found him shrewd and intelligent. He proved, however, to be a mere ordinary mortal a native of Tetuan in Barbary, who had a shop in the Zacatin of Granada, where he sold rhubarb, trinkets, and perfumes.
For a moment one of the fictions of the place seemed realized: an enchanted Moor had broken the spell of centuries, and become visible. Tales of the Alhambra: The lost Islamic world of Southern Spain-and its modern echoesĮntering the Court of the Lions a few evenings since, I was almost startled at beholding a turbaned Moor quietly seated near the fountain. The book was instrumental in reintroducing the Alhambra to Western audiences. He wrote, “How unworthy is my scribbling of the place.” A commemorative plaque in Spanish at the Alhambra reads, “Washington Irving wrote his Tales of Alhambra in these rooms in 1829”. Throughout his trip, he filled his notebooks and journals with descriptions and observations though he did not believe his writing would ever do it justice. Aided by a 35-year old guide named Mateo Ximenes, Irving was inspired by his experience to write Tales of the Alhambra. At first sight, he described it as “a most picturesque and beautiful city, situated in one of the loveliest landscapes that I have ever seen.” He immediately asked the then-governor of the historic Alhambra Palace as well as the archbishop of Granada for access to the palace, which was granted because of Irving’s celebrity status. In 1828, Washington Irving traveled from Madrid, where he had been staying, to Granada, Spain. Irving lived at the Alhambra Palace while writing some of the material for his book.
This is a collection of essays, verbal sketches, and stories by Washington Irving.
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