The History of the Siege of Lisbon

The king listened in silence, and silent he remained, his hands grasping the hilt of his sword, held to the right, the tip of the blade resting firmly on the ground as if he had already taken possession of this territory. And it was Dom João Peculiar who, crimson With holy indignation, uttered the phrase that ought to have shamed the provocateur, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God, a phrase understood by all, even by those weak in matters of doctrine, because rather than simply show his contempt for the Portuguese, Guillaume Vitulo, in other circumstances and with different words, had, in fact, done nothing more than repeat Satan's wicked ploy when he said to Jesus, If you be the Son of God, cast yourself down, for the angels will protect you and you will come to no harm, whereupon Jesus replied, You shall not tempt the Lord your God. These words ought to have shamed Guillaume but he felt no remorse, and even appeared to be sneering with contempt. Then Dom Afonso Henriques asked, Is this the crusaders' final decision, It is, replied the other, Then be gone, and may God accompany you to the Holy Land, where, unless I am mistaken, you will no longer have any excuse for evading battle as on this occasion. It was now Guillaume Vitulo's turn to raise his hand to the sword that gave him his name, and this might have had the most dire consequences if his companions had not intervened, not so much physically as with the words spoken by one of them, this was Gilbert, the only member of the delegation who could outshine the interpreters when it came to expressing himself in Latin, as fluent as any learned high-ranking prelate, and these were his words, Your Majesty, Guillaume Vitulo is telling the truth when he says that the crusaders refuse to stay here, but he has failed to mention the material considerations which have prompted their refusal, after all, it's up to them, however some have decided to remain and these are the men you see here who have come with the delegation, Gilles de Rolim, Ligel, Lichertes, the La Corni brothers, Jordão, Alardo, Heinrich, and myself, the most insignificant and lowly of all and at your service. Dom Afonso Henriques was so pleased that his wrath soon passed, and, there and then, ignoring any niceties of protocol, he went up to Gilbert and embraced him, showing his disdain in passing for the insolent Guillaume who is truly well-named, and said aloud, This being your decision, I promise that you will be the first Bishop of Lisbon once the city becomes Christian, and as for you others who have chosen to stay with me, I can assure you that you will have no cause to complain of my magnanimity, whereupon he turned away and entered his tent. Here the waters parted, that is to say, Guillaume remained isolated, even the friar accompanying him moved three cautious paces away, looking suspiciously for any signs of a cloven hoof or goat's horns on this rash fanatic who had been put in his place.

Combining what was effectively written with what for the moment only exists in his imagination, Raimundo Silva arrived at this crucial climax, and he has made considerable progress, if we recall that besides his more than once confessed lack of preparation for anything other than the meticulous task of proof-reading, he is a man who writes slowly, forever conscious of agreements, sparing in the use of adjectives, painstaking in matters of etymology, punctilious in observing the rules of punctuation, which goes to show that everything that has been read here in his name, in the final analysis, is nothing more than a free version and adaptation of a text which probably has little in common with this one and that as far as we can foresee, will be kept back until the very last line, and out of reach of the lovers of naive history. Besides, we only have to see that the version at our disposal already consists of twelve extremely compact pages, and it is obvious that Raimundo Silva who has none of the characteristics of the writer, neither the vices nor the virtues, could not possibly within thirty-six hours have written so much with so many variations, as for the literary merits of what he wrote, there is nothing to be said, because this is history, consequently science, and because of the lack of what might strictly be called authoritative sources. These precautions are worth repeating so that we may bear in mind the importance of not confusing appearances with reality, but we do not know how or why we should doubt, when we thought we were certain of some reality which looks and sounds convincing, that it might simply be another version among many, or, worse still, be the only version and proclaimed as such.