The Nomadic Alternative – Page 220

West, the peoples of Europe were already conditioned for the luminous

cities of Aztec America. The printing press had everywhere diffused
a class of romantic Late Gothic novels, all of which were versions
of the beautiful hero-damsel in distress-fight the monster-reward
of the treasure theme. Amadis of Gaul and Sergas de Espandian were
the most successful titles. They were the literary expression of
that last outburst of knight Errantry, the mock heroics of the Order
of the Golden Fleece. Emperor and clerk read them insatiably, and
though St. Theresa piously renounced them as a youthful aberration,
the peevish militancy of her later life suggests that she continued
to see herself as the active hero rather than the passive heroine.

Here, written before the discovery of America, is a description
of the hero, Sergas de Espandian, helping himself to his treasure:
"... and he alone raised the outermost glass door; the inner one
coloured sky-blue, was guarded by a lock of pure diamond stone. The
hinges were of very precious rubies, all inlaid with enormous precious
stones and a huge mother of pearl ..." And when Cortez and his
hidalgos arrived at Montezuma's capital, their eyes ranged over the
green quetzal plumes, sun-discs of gold, mosaics of turquoise,
emeralds, red coral and pearl shell, mirror-black surfaces of obsid-
ian and pyramids of fine masonry; and, like Chuang Tzu and the butter-
fly, could not decide if they were dreaming Amadis of Gaul or Amadis
of Gaul were dreaming them. "... we were amazed", wrote Diaz, "and
we said it was like the enchanted things related in the book of
Amadis because of the great towers, temples and buildings rising
from the water. And some of the soldiers even asked whether the
things we saw were not a dream ..."

A simple desire for loot cannot explain the enthusiasm which
greets colonial adventures in their initial stages, nor the persis-
tence with which they maintain them long after the riches have
evaporated. Rather the colonial outpouring is a national Road of
Trials - a flight from the grief of settlement. The apparent
stability of British civil institutions does not depend on the
depressing effect of the climate or some character for obeying laws