THE SIXTH DAY

“To see the road that stretches before us through the far seeing eyes of God—this is not an insult to human nature, it is an ennoblement of it.”

____Walter Farrell, A Companion to the Summa[i]
[i] Walter Farrell, A Companion to the Summa, Vol. I, p. 13 (Sheed & Ward: New York, 1941).

Depart Estella


By the Fuente de Vino





Ayegui

By Monte Jurra
(1045 m.)

On the Way: Estella to Irache
According to Picaud’s Pilgrim’s Guide, Estella is the last place of sweet water and fine fish until Logroño, an easy two days’ walk away. Whether true or not, I sorrowed to leave the charms of Estella and face the burdens of the road. On account of my feet and the lateness of my entry to the town, I had seen little of the beauties of Estella. But that is the way of the pilgrim.
Heading west along the calle San Nicolás, which follows the river Ega, the pilgrim’s route departed Estella through the puerta de Castilla. Once I left the town, I travelled by the carretera to Logroño. I left the carretera to walk through a field and by much commercial property. It smelled of sewage. Later, I reached a road, walked uphill, and came upon the town of Ayegui. There appeared to be the remains of a castle on my right. The whitewashed homes of Ayegui were all suffused with an orangish hue, for the sun was rising behind me and it was hazy. I looked around and was treated to the mountains of Monjardín, bordered richly with an saffron aureole of the young Appolinian light.
I travelled downhill and through the commercial vineyards of the Bodegas Irache as I approached the monastery. At the Bodegas Irache there is a veritable fountain of wine, the fuente de Vino. The wine is offered to the pilgrims for free (under certain conditions). Bacchus’s charm did not supplant Santiago’s that morning, however, for the fountain was dry, and I was able to coax from the fuente only one or two drops, which I mixed with water and drank. I had come too early, I suppose, and one of Bacchus’s servants at Irache had failed to fill the vat. But the charm of some Dionysian imp must have been in the drops and must have distracted me, for I forgot my bastón or staff at the Bodegas, and I was far past the monastery when I was reminded I had left it behind. I lost a good three quarters of an hour that day going back to reclaim it.
I I I





“A beber sin abusar te invíta-mos con agrado . Para poderlo llevar el vino ha de ser com-prado.”




To the Mon-
astery
of Irache
On the Way: The Monasterio de Irache
Not too far from the fountain of wine was the monastery of Irache. This monastery, called Santa María la Real de Irache, lies at the foot of Monte Jurra. It is acclaimed to be one of the oldest monasteries in Navarre, perhaps even dating in foundation as far back as the Visigothic era and surviving Moorish rule (if we are to believe the Benedictine chronicler Yepes, who lived here).
The earliest mention of it in historical documents is 958, however, which is considerably after the Visigothic time. Nevertheless, the extant church attached to this monastery is a much more recent Benedictine foundation of 12th century vintage, and the cloister of even more recent construct. During the height of its power, the influence wielded by the monastery was so great that its abbots represented its interests in the Cortes or Congress of Navarre. In the 13th century, the monastery began its slow decline. It was later to become a hospital for pilgrims, and beginning in 1522, or 1605 (the guides are inconsistent) it was the one-time seat of what was to become the University of Navarre. The structure was abandoned in the 19th century, but was restored as recently as 1942. The Benedictines who built the place, however, are gone, and the restored structure is now occupied now by the Escolapian Fathers, or Piarists, an order of educating priests founded by St. Joseph Calasanctius, or as he would have preferred it, St. Joseph of the Mother of God. The complex was closed and very silent when I admired it in the early morning. There was nothing to do but go on.
I I I


About the Way: St. Veremundus of Irache
Past the monastery of Irache I went, uphill on a farm road, a rock wall to my left and harvested grain fields to my right. The sun was still rising; it was cool. I walked into a grove of chopos. The chalky cliffs of the foothills of the Montes de Cantabria to my right were all awash with orange light. I was suddenly seized with the thought:
Veremundus: Peregrinus!
Peregrinus: Who are you? You are not Bacchus, for you are not pink and fat. You are old and wizened, your white hair is tonsured, and you wear the black habit of a Benedictine monk.
Veremundus: I am Veremund.
Peregrinus: The nephew of the abbot Munius, a disciple of Benedict, lover of the poor and hungry, abbot of Irache, saint and thaumaturge?
Veremundus: The same.
Peregrinus: Why do you visit me?

Veremundus: Peregrinorum maxime susceptioni cura sollicite exhibeatur, quia in ipsis magis Christus suscipitur. So my rule enjoins me to love the pilgrim like the poor with great care and with great solicitude, for in receiving the pilgrim Christ is received.
Peregrinus: That is noble, but if you are Veremundus and not a demon, why do you not carry the emblem of your office as Abbot of Irache? Where’s your crozier?
Veremundus: Peregrinus, I do not carry the staff of my office because you do not carry yours.
With his job done, the saint (or was it just the fog playing tricks with an oak in the light of the dawn?) vanished. I retraced my steps to the monastery of Irache, walked down to the bodega, checked the fountain for wine (it was still empty), took my staff, and turned back and headed to the direction of Los Arcos and past the town of Igúzquiza. I thanked St. Veremund with a nod of the head as I passed the monastery for the third time that morning. I did not thank the oak tree.
I I I






Between Azqueta and Igúzquiza

To Villa-
mayor de Monjardín






By Urbiola

Over the río Cardiel


By the Rise of Las Cruces
(624 m.)

Through the Cogoticos de la Racicilla
On the Way: Irache to Los Arcos
Somewhere between the towns of Igúzquiza and Azqueta on a red dirt road the Belgian pilgrim Eric caught up with me. The trail crossed a dirt road, a paved road of one lane, and then turned chalky white. All the while the land continued thick, with low silver-leafed and gray-trunked oak trees or rich in fields of wheat, with heavy heads drooping groundwards, wanting harvest. At Azqueta, Eric and I had a snack and drank water at the fountain at the square.
From Azqueta, Eric and I walked uphill to Montemayor del Rio. There we saw a castle high above the town. It is the castle of San Esteban. This castle of Roman foundation is the stuff of fable and the stuff of history. The Pseudo-Turpin fabulously claimed Charlemagne wrested this castle from the Saracen. Other Chronicles accurately claim the castle was taken from the Moors by Sancho Garcés I in the early 10th century. There is a church to be found in this town, dedicated to St. Andrew, largely Romanesque, but with a very high baroque restored tower. There is a capital of the church that has a scene from the legend of Roland and the giant Farragut. From Montemayor we walked downhill, on a farm sendero, colored dark red like the darkest of bricks. The farmers were up early, working in the vineyards in the cool of the morning. Kori, the Dutch pilgrim we had had dinner with in Estella, passed us, as did a group of young American pilgrims from New York and Boston.
Eric’s pace was much too fast for me, and I suffered cramps in my legs. I begged leave to leave his side, to rest, and have late breakfast. He continued with a sense of urgency, as he had to get to Compostela by July 22.
By some rocks on the roadside I breakfasted on chorizo de Pamplona, queso Serrano, and bread. I washed it down with wine from Navarre, very watered down. After breakfast, I climbed up the hills interminably, walked beside the hills, and trudged around the hills of the Cogoticos de la Raicilla. Finally, I crossed the río Cardiel and walked into the town of Los Arcos.



































Picaud’s Arcus



Into Los Arcos
The town of Los Arcos, known as Urancia in times when Rome governed and the historian Ptolemy wrote history, is scene to one of the miracles of St. James, the twenty-second as found in the Codex Calixtinus. At this place, many years ago, a pilgrim carrying chains to Compostela told a merchant a story of his having been enslaved, sweetly released, and not so sweetly re-enslaved 13 times. But the story ends well, for the man was finally free, and his adventure admitted him into the halls of Jacobean history.
I I I

Vincu-latum solvit virum dulciter tredecies



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Santa María de los Arcos


















Depart Los Arcos

On the Way: Los Arcos
The town of Los Arcos, where the oft-enslaved and oft-released pilgrim once walked, was also once the residence of Charles II el Malo of Navarre (1349-1387). This Charles spent most of his reign in intrigue and battle in France, only to lose whatever gain he achieved, and spent some of his reign in intrigue and battle in Spain to achieve very little. The King deserved his epithet—el Malo which means the bad one—for he did little for his people, which is the measure of a King, or any leader, for that matter.
Back from the main road I came upon the large church of Los Arcos. A portico of unmitigated Plateresque covered the north portal. The bell tower was Baroque with a lantern of Gothic inspiration (tracery, buttresses and cylindrical turrets). It was closed, so I rested on the walls beside the church, and hoped my feet would recover.
Sitting on the low walls of the church, I recalled that it was somewhere in what she called the pretty town of Los Arcos more than eighty years ago, the writer Georgianna Goddard King’s friend Jehane looked out the bus window and saw a priest with a pink nose, dressed black in his soutane, and called Enrique. A townsgirl kissed the padre on the cheeks in a spontaneous gesture of affection. The subjects of this story of impulsive and arbitrary affection and the eyes of any witness are likely all dead. I hoped for the people of Los Arcos that this priest was like the priest of George Bernanos and not the priest of Miguel de Unamuno. I wondered if the priest survived the Guerra Civil. These were thoughts whose answers I suppose we shall never know, since the insides of a man and the working of God’s grace are unknown to us, and besides there was no one I met in Los Arcos who remembered such a priest.
From the church I hobbled to the refugio at Los Arcos. I met Eric and Kori at the refugio. Eric was preparing to go on. He invited me to go with him, but my feet hurt too much to consider it. They had not yet recovered.
I rested my feet at Los Arcos. I rested them over an hour and then decided to go on to Torres del Río, where Eric had planned to go. I discovered in talking to the various pilgrims and hospitallers that the walk was tough after Torres del Río. If that was so, I thought it prudent to tackle it first thing in the morning and not after walking five or so miles from Los Arcos to Torres.
I I I

On the Way: Los Arcos to Torres del Rio
I left Los Arcos alone, in the early afternoon. In Spain, in the summer, it can be folly to walk at that time, for the air is dry, the weather hot, it is often windless, and the sun beats on the pilgrim mercilessly between noon and six or seven in the evening.
Walled in by the hills, I walked through farm, after farm, after farm. I passed a cemetery. By its entrance, carved into the stone, is one of the truest things that can be said about a cemetery and its quiet dead:













To Sansol

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San Zoilo





Head towards Torres del
Río past the río Linares

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El Sepulcro de Torres
The dead were like I am; I will be like they are. Death is the common fate of all men. We ought to spend some time figuring it out; instead we spend our time ignoring it. I wondered at the marvel of how it was that the mute dead could speak so loudly through the quiet of a carved stone.
Alone, I trudged in the heat, with my hat on my head and a bandana in my pocket that I frequently used to wipe the sweat off my face. I sang songs to pass the time, and I decided to sing old hymns to the Blessed Virgin. It is hard for an American to sing hymns to the Virgin from memory, as the hymns are practically banished, and they fade from memory if not frequently recalled. But I sang aloud without difficulty the Salve Regina, the Regina Coeli, and O Sanctissima. I sang to the Virgin in the hot fields of Navarre, and I do believe she liked it. And how it helped me pass the time. I also sang what I could remember of Iesus Dulcis Memoria. Here my memory failed me, and I resorted to whistling a great part of it. He who sings prays twice, said St. Augustine; he who whistles only whistles. Perhaps he who whistles once prays a half.
After a time I saw three towns ahead of me: one to my left, one to my right, and the closest one straight ahead. The middle one, still miles away, must be Torres del Río, I thought. It was about a half mile away, but my feet gave out and I rested on the side of the carretera, by an arroyo named after St. Peter, under the shade of an oak tree, its bark covered with splotches of golden lichen. Flies unfortunately spotted me, and interrupted my pleasant interlude. But I was ready for them, and just as I had bested the Lord of the Flies and his minion Irreligio, so I bested the flies. My help against the flies was of the order of nature and not of grace: I used the repellant in my pack and it served me very well.
I I I

I got up, headed to the town on the top of the hill, and sang songs of praise for Torres extempore. But my praise and breath were ill-spent, since the town before was not Torres, but Sansol, as I learned from a couple of children I happened upon on the streets of this town. I remembered the town, and remembered that its name was derived from San Zoilo, St. Zoyl, to whom the church in town is dedicated. Whether the church was named first, and then the town, or the town named first and then the church, I did not know. I do not know how I shall ever know, and I did not ask the children. The village sits upon a hill, crowning it in honor of the boy martyr-saint, who died in Cordoba in 304 A.D. during the persecution of the emperor Diocletian. He was an inspiration to the Christian faithful of old, and the hymnodist Prudentius wrote a hymn in honor of the patrician boy martyr. The martyr’s relics can be found at Carrión, where they were translated from Córdoba in 1083. It was three days after his feast day of June 27 under the old liturgical calendar; whether he is celebrated in the new, and when, I do not know, but I reckon the good folks at Sansol know.
From Sansol I was able to see on the next hill the town of Torres del Río, a medieval village—well preserved—immediately above the Linares River, all lined about with trees. The Camino left off from the carretera and headed downhill on a dirt path and into Torres del Rio, following which it rejoined the road.
I I I
















































Corduba Acisclom dabit et Zollum tresque coronas

At Torres del Rio is a marvelous church, cousin-german to the one at Eunate, but built by a different order of monastic knights. The church at Torres del Rio was built by the Knights of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre. It is octagonal, with a dome and lantern and apse, and it is architecturally eclectic. The tympanum bears a patriarchal cross, and the corbels, under the roof, are fluted in scallops. The cornice of shallow hollow in which lie decorative carvings of balls is typical for Spanish Romanesque. Though predominantly Romanesque, it bears clear traces of Byzantine and Mudéjar. The cross-ribbed vault framing its architecturally famous central lantern is typically Moorish. The ribs spring from alternate columns and paired corbels decorated with billet moldings. One of the capitals has a carving of a Dromedary camel. The cusping in the eight vault windows is pure Mudéjar. On the base of one of the vaults is found decoratively assembled the letters of the name IACOBUS.

At the pilgrim refugio in Torres I met Randi and Eric, who was surprised to see me. I learned how to treat my blisters from Eric, and I attended to the blisters on the small toe of my left foot, and the more recent blister on the small toe of my right foot. After a meal of salad, pasta, and wine at a local restaurant, I went to bed at the pilgrim’s refuge in this most lovely of all the small towns in Spain.

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