Laus Spaniae
On the commemoration of Saint Isidore of Seville, Confesor and Doctor of the Church
If we have to name a Father that Providence has given through our homeland to the whole Church that is Saint Isidore, bishop of Hispalis (Seville), who lived between the years 560 (circa) to 636. Not from gothic birth but from a Hispano-roman family from Cartagena, he was the younger brother of a saintly family (Saint Leander, Saint Fulgentius and Saint Florentina, were his brothers and sister).
Being aware that is only a comparison, and maybe and imperfect one, he is for the west what is Saint John Damascene for the East…and both for the undivided Church.
Saint Isidore, National Library (Madrid)
On his honor we publish today his Laus Spaniae (Praise for Hispania1), which he wrote as a prologue to his Historia Gothorum (or Historia de regibus Gothorum, Wandalorum et Suevorum), the most important of his historical writings. In Isidore´s mind, Hispania is properly a Christian nation due to the political unity given by the visigoths and their conversion to the true Christian faith from Arianism. And, as like a prophecy, he points to the task that Providence has assigned to this nation on Christendom.
Laus Spaniae
Of all the lands, from the west to the Indies, you are the most beautiful, O sacred and ever happy mother of princes and nations, Hispania. Rightfully you are now the queen of all provinces, from whom not only the west but also the east borrows its light. You are the glory and ornament of the world, the most illustrious portion of the earth, in which the glorious fertility of the Gothic race rejoices greatly and flourishes abundantly. Nature, most kind, has deservedly enriched you with an abundance of all living beings. You, abundant in olives, overflowing with grapes, joyful with harvests; you are clothed with crops, shaded with olives, and covered with vines. You are flowery on the fields, leafy on the mountains, and fishy on the shores. You, situated in the most pleasant part of the world, are neither scorched by the heat of the summer sun nor are you consumed by the icy rigors, but are girt about by the temperate zone of the sky, you are nourished by favorable zephyrs.. For all that is fertile in the fields, all that is precious in the mines, all that is beautiful and useful in the animals, you produce. You do not have to be relegated to those rivers made famous by the illustrious fame of their impressive herds. Alpheus will yield to you for horses, Clitumnus for herds, although Alpheus may train his flying chariots through the Pisan spaces with sacred Olympic palms, and Clitumnus once sacrificed huge bulls to Capitoline victims. You do not seek the more fertile forest of Etruria for fodder, nor do you marvel at the palm-filled groves of Molorchus, nor will you envy the speed of your horses at Elea for their chariots. You are fertile with overflowing rivers, you are a fountain of gold-flowing torrents; you are the fountain of horses, for you the fleeces dyed with native shells burn with the red Tyrian waters, for you the shining stone between the dark depths of the deep mountains is lit by the neighboring sun. Therefore, rich in gold and gems, and purple and drivers alike, and fertile with the dowries of empires, you are as opulent as you are blessed in giving birth to princes. Rightly, therefore, golden Rome has long desired you as the head of nations, and although the same Romulan virtue first betrothed you to herself as a victor, yet again the most flourishing nation of the Goths, after many victories in the world, has competed to seize you and love you, and still enjoys the happiness of the empire, secure among the royal robes and the ample wealth.
Sancte Isidore, ora pro nobis!
I prefer to translate Spania for Hispanic because in the mind of Saint Isidore and in the reality of the Kingdom of the Visigoths Hispania comprehended what today we know as Spain, Portugal, Andorra and some parts of the south of France (the Septimania)