Poem
- In his 1915 epic poem, Lepanto, the Catholic G. K. Chesterton commemorated the response of Philip and his brother Don John of Austria to the Ottoman Turks, which climaxed in the Christian victory at the Battle of Lepanto (1571). Chesterton's poem was conceived as "a call to Christians to take action action against the modern forces of unbelief". It contrasts King Philip, occupied with alchemy in his chamber at home in Spain, with Don John's activities at sea:
King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck
(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)
The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,
And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,
He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,
And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey
Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,
And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work,
But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Read more about this topic: Cultural Depictions Of Philip II Of Spain
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