G.K. Chesterton’s “Lepanto”

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard, / Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred, / Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attained stall, / The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall, / The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung, / That once went singing southward when all the world was young. 

It isn’t often that in this day and age we hear such powerful, kingly words invoked—a call to honor, a summoning of duty. Perhaps we are too focused on societal commonality, civilizational defeatism, or personal self-doubt to think much of words such as these words of heroism. Maybe the modern age is too skeptical of heroes to relate to heroism; if you think of the heroes we are presented with in our times, they are usually reluctant to answer the call of duty. Fearful of defeat, few heroes confront their quest with jubilant optimism, and many lack confidence in the righteousness of their cause. A standout example of this dichotomy between the old hero and the new hero is in The Lord of the Rings, where the film adaptation by Peter Jackson takes Aragorn—who in the original books by J.R.R. Tolkien is a confident warrior eager to claim his destiny and confront the forces of evil—-and turns him into a fearful character who at first is despondent when it comes to his destiny to claim the Throne of Gondor—concerned that maybe he will repeat the mistake of his ancestor and fail to destroy the One Ring. While Aragorn does overcome this denial of his inborn duty (and this personal conquest is moving in its own right) it does convey the truth that in order to appeal to a modern audience Peter Jackson had to rewrite Aragorn. Perhaps we cannot relate to a self-confident protagonist because we ourselves are full of doubts, and moral and personal skepticism. This is what makes G.K. Chesterton’s poem “Lepanto” so distinct; it is an overt approval of heroism, a praise of standing up with principled assuredness, a testimony to the triumph of assertive duty over despair.

The historical context of the poem is critical to understanding that the heroism of old we read about in epics such as The Iliad or The Song of Roland is not unattainable, but rather, while idealistic (in the proper usage of the word) is actually attested to in real events such as the Battle of Lepanto—which is the subject of the poem. The Battle of Lepanto occurred in 1571, when the Ottoman Empire, at that time at the zenith of its power under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, had been rapidly expanding into the Balkans for over a century after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. The Sultan gathered one of the most powerful naval forces in history, and certainly the largest single accumulation of ships since antiquity, and prepared for an invasion of Europe, especially the remaining Mediterranean islands not held by the Turks. Christendom at this time was burdened with self-doubt. The Protestant Revolution was spreading rapidly throughout Europe, and the Turkish threat seemed unstoppable. The despair in Christendom and the reluctance to continue further resistance against the expansionist Ottomans was tangible, and Chesterton’s poem begins with a chastisement of impassive leaders of several nations in Europe, 

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, / And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross. / The cold queen of England is looking in the glass; / The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass, / From the evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun, / And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

However, the story does not end here. It does not end in defeat. God will always raise someone up to answer his call, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because He cares for you” (1 Pet. 5:6-7). The man god raised up to save Christendom was Don John of Austria, an unlikely hero- the young, illegitimate son of Emperor Charles V. 

Don John laughing in the brave beard curled, / spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world, / Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.

Don John raised up the banner of the Virgin Mary, ordered his army to pray the Rosary, and led his outnumbered navy to decisive victory- saving Christendom, freeing thousands of captive slaves, and fulfilling his duty. The moral of the story is not that we should pursue ambition for its own sake, or to seek glory, but that in humbling ourselves before God we prepare ourselves to answer His call. The idea of “Noblesse Oblige”—-that should we find ourselves in a position to do Good and the Lord’s will, we have an obligation to do so. Chesterton’s poem stands to remind us that we all must answer the summon to God’s plan, and that self-despair is a lousy excuse not to!