Leonor's castle and Machado's frustration
Juan Carlos Menendez Gijón
Freelance - Fotógrafo y redactor de contenidos
The 19th century was dying, while in the immediate future the 20th century began to yawn restlessly on the horizon, when, behind the thick walls of this castle, a lightening would become the sword of Damocles that would be brought down, with all the force of its sharp steel, on the soul and heart of a poet. Gone were the glorious times when the rebellious Castilian counts proclaimed their independence and their courage, proudly hoisting their banners against the Muslim invader. Now, after years of decay, the old walls, where cobwebs, ghosts and memories once lived, also, in perfect harmony, were enabled by a small garrison of the Civil Guard. One of the subordinates, Corporal Izquierdo, was in luck: he had just opened his eyes to the world, his little daughter, whom he would baptize under the name of Leonor.
By the time the poet, who, in a matter of a few years, would come dangerously close to that same half of life in which Dante Alighieri wrote his masterpiece, 'The Divine Comedy' and met the very young Eleanor, she no longer He lived in a castle, which, according to the neighbors, suffered from being haunted, as is also the case with the rest of the Spanish castles. On the contrary, it was in the capital of Soria, where fate, capricious as always, set their unexpected trap for them: like Shakespeare defying the storm in front of the world, the poet fulfilled his dream of marrying the young pubescent girl and also, in front of the world, he suffered the pain of his loss, when he had barely reached his majority. In view of such a cruel paradox, it could be considered that, perhaps for this reason, the sunflowers that always grow and die in the noble fields located in front of the thousand-year-old castle, are the perfect example to make us understand the terrible transience that everything has, even a chimera so difficult to achieve, as is happiness.
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