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Learn PySpark
Build Python-based Machine
Learning and Deep Learning Models
—
Pramod Singh
www.allitebooks.com
Learn PySpark
Build Python-based Machine
Learning and Deep Learning
Models
Pramod Singh
www.allitebooks.com
Learn PySpark: Build Python-based Machine Learning and Deep
Learning Models
Pramod Singh
Bangalore, Karnataka, India
www.allitebooks.com
I dedicate this book to my wife, Neha, my son, Ziaan, and
my parents. Without you, this book wouldn’t have
been possible. You complete my world and are the
source of my strength.
www.allitebooks.com
Table of Contents
About the Author���������������������������������������������������������������������������������xi
About the Technical Reviewer�����������������������������������������������������������xiii
Acknowledgments������������������������������������������������������������������������������xv
Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������xvii
www.allitebooks.com
Table of Contents
vi
Table of Contents
Chapter 4: Airflow������������������������������������������������������������������������������67
Workflows�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������67
Graph Overview���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������69
Undirected Graphs�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������69
Directed Graphs���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������70
DAG Overview�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������71
Operators�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������73
Installing Airflow�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������74
Airflow Using Docker�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������74
Creating Your First DAG���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������76
Step 1: Importing the Required Libraries�������������������������������������������������������78
Step 2: Defining the Default Arguments��������������������������������������������������������78
Step 3: Creating a DAG����������������������������������������������������������������������������������79
Step 4: Declaring Tasks���������������������������������������������������������������������������������79
Step 5: Mentioning Dependencies�����������������������������������������������������������������80
Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������84
vii
Table of Contents
Normalizer�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������98
Standard Scaling�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������100
Min-Max Scaling�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������101
MaxAbsScaler����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������103
Binning��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������104
Building a Classification Model�������������������������������������������������������������������������107
Step 1: Load the Dataset�����������������������������������������������������������������������������107
Step 2: Explore the Dataframe���������������������������������������������������������������������108
Step 3: Data Transformation������������������������������������������������������������������������110
Step 4: Splitting into Train and Test Data�����������������������������������������������������112
Step 5: Model Training���������������������������������������������������������������������������������112
Step 6: Hyperparameter Tuning�������������������������������������������������������������������113
Step 7: Best Model��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������115
Conclusion��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������115
viii
Table of Contents
Index�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������205
ix
About the Author
Pramod Singh has more than 11 years of
hands-on experience in data engineering
and sciences and is currently a manager
(data science) at Publicis Sapient in India,
where he drives strategic initiatives that
deal with machine learning and artificial
intelligence (AI). Pramod has worked with
multiple clients, in areas such as retail,
telecom, and automobile and consumer
goods, and is the author of Machine Learning with PySpark. He also speaks
at major forums, such as Strata Data, and at AI conferences.
Pramod received a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics
engineering from Mumbai University and an MBA (operations and
finance) from Symbiosis International University, in addition to data
analytics certification from IIM–Calcutta.
Pramod lives in Bangalore with his wife and three-year-old son. In his
spare time, he enjoys playing guitar, coding, reading, and watching soccer.
xi
About the Technical Reviewer
Manoj Patil has worked in the software
industry for 19 years. He received an
engineering degree from COEP, Pune (India),
and has been enjoying his exciting IT journey
ever since.
As a principal architect at TatvaSoft, Manoj
has taken many initiatives in the organization,
ranging from training and mentoring teams,
leading data science and ML practice, to
successfully designing client solutions from
different functional domains.
He began his career as a Java programmer but is fortunate to have
worked on multiple frameworks with multiple languages and can claim
to be a full stack developer. In the last five years, Manoj has worked
extensively in the field of BI, big data, and machine learning, using such
technologies as Hitachi Vantara (Pentaho), the Hadoop ecosystem,
TensorFlow, Python-based libraries, and more.
He is passionate about learning new technologies, trends, and
reviewing books. When he’s not working, he’s either exercising or reading/
listening to infinitheism literature.
xiii
Acknowledgments
This is my second book on Spark, and along the way, I have come to
realize my love for handling big data and performing machine learning as
well. Going forward, I intend to write many more books, but first, let me
thank a few people who have helped me along this journey. First, I must
thank the most important person in my life, my beloved wife, Neha, who
selflessly supported me throughout and sacrificed so much to ensure that I
completed this book.
I must thank Celestin Suresh John, who believed in me and extended
the opportunity to write this book. Aditee Mirashi is one of the best editors
in India. This is my second book with her, and it was even more exciting
to work with her this time. As usual, she was extremely supportive and
always there to accommodate my requests. I especially would like to thank
Jim Markham, who dedicated his time to reading every single chapter and
offered so many useful suggestions. Thanks, Jim, I really appreciate your
input. I also want to thank Manoj Patil, who had the patience to review
every line of code and check the appropriateness of each example. Thank
you for your feedback and encouragement. It really made a difference to
me and the book.
I also want to thank the many mentors who have constantly forced
me to pursue my dreams. Thank you Sebastian Keupers, Dr. Vijay
Agneeswaran, Sreenivas Venkatraman, Shoaib Ahmed, and Abhishek
Kumar, for your time. Finally, I am infinitely grateful to my son, Ziaan,
and my parents, for their endless love and support, irrespective of
circumstances. You all make my world beautiful.
xv
Introduction
The idea of writing this book had already been seeded while I was working
on my first book, and there was a strong reason for that. The earlier book
was more focused on machine learning using big data and essentially did
not deep-dive sufficiently into supporting aspects, but this book goes a
little deeper into the internals of Spark’s machine learning library, as well
as analyzing of streaming data. It is a good reference point for someone
who wants to learn more about how to automate different workflows and
build pipelines to handle real-time data.
This book is divided into three main sections. The first provides an
introduction to Spark and data analysis on big data; the middle section
discusses using Airflow for executing different jobs, in addition to data
analysis on streaming data, using the structured streaming features of
Spark. The final section covers translation of a business problem into
machine learning and solving it, using Spark’s machine learning library,
with a deep dive into deep learning as well.
This book might also be useful to data analysts and data engineers, as
it covers the steps of big data processing using PySpark. Readers who want
to make a transition to the data science and machine learning fields will
also find this book a good starting point and can gradually tackle more
complicated areas later. The case studies and examples given in the book
make it really easy to follow and understand the related fundamental
concepts. Moreover, there are very few books available on PySpark, and
this book certainly adds value to readers’ knowledge. The strength of this
book lies in its simplicity and on its application of machine learning to
meaningful datasets.
xvii
Introduction
I have tried my best to put all my experience and knowledge into this
book, and I feel it is particularly relevant to what businesses are seeking
in order to solve real challenges. I hope that it will provide you with some
useful takeaways.
xviii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction to Spark
As this book is about Spark, it makes perfect sense to start the first chapter
by looking into some of Spark’s history and its different components.
This introductory chapter is divided into three sections. In the first, I go
over the evolution of data and how it got as far as it has, in terms of size.
I’ll touch on three key aspects of data. In the second section, I delve into
the internals of Spark and go over the details of its different components,
including its architecture and modus operandi. The third and final section
of this chapter focuses on how to use Spark in a cloud environment.
H
istory
The birth of the Spark project occurred at the Algorithms, Machine, and
People (AMP) Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. The project
was initiated to address the potential issues in the Hadoop MapReduce
framework. Although Hadoop MapReduce was a groundbreaking
framework to handle big data processing, in reality, it still had a lot
of limitations in terms of speed. Spark was new and capable of doing
in-memory computations, which made it almost 100 times faster than
any other big data processing framework. Since then, there has been a
continuous increase in adoption of Spark across the globe for big data
applications. But before jumping into the specifics of Spark, let’s consider a
few aspects of data itself.
Data can be viewed from three different angles: the way it is collected,
stored, and processed, as shown in Figure 1-1.
D
ata Collection
A huge shift in the manner in which data is collected has occurred over
the last few years. From buying an apple at a grocery store to deleting an
app on your mobile phone, every data point is now captured in the back
end and collected through various built-in applications. Different Internet
of things (IoT) devices capture a wide range of visual and sensory signals
every millisecond. It has become relatively convenient for businesses
to collect that data from various sources and use it later for improved
decision making.
2
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
D
ata Storage
In previous years, no one ever imagined that data would reside at some
remote location, or that the cost to store data would be as cheap as it is.
Businesses have embraced cloud storage and started to see its benefits
over on-premise approaches. However, some businesses still opt for on-
premise storage, for various reasons. It’s known that data storage began
by making use of magnetic tapes. Then the breakthrough introduction
of floppy discs made it possible to move data from one place to another.
However, the size of the data was still a huge limitation. Flash drives and
hard discs made it even easier to store and transfer large amounts of data
at a reduced cost. (See Figure 1-2.) The latest trend in the advancement of
storage devices has resulted in flash drives capable of storing data up to
2TBs, at a throwaway price.
This trend clearly indicates that the cost to store data has been
reduced significantly over the years and continues to decline. As a result,
businesses don’t shy away from storing huge amounts of data, irrespective
of its kind. From logs to financial and operational transactions to simple
employee feedback, everything gets stored.
D
ata Processing
The final aspect of data is using stored data and processing it for some
analysis or to run an application. We have witnessed how efficient
computers have become in the last 20 years. What used to take five
minutes to execute probably takes less than a second using today’s
3
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
S
park Architecture
There are five core components that make Spark so powerful and easy
to use. The core architecture of Spark consists of the following layers, as
shown in Figure 1-3:
• Storage
• Resource management
• Engine
• Ecosystem
• APIs
4
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
Storage
Before using Spark, data must be made available in order to process it. This
data can reside in any kind of database. Spark offers multiple options to
use different categories of data sources, to be able to process it on a large
scale. Spark allows you to use traditional relational databases as well as
NoSQL, such as Cassandra and MongoDB.
Resource Management
The next layer consists of a resource manager. As Spark works on a set of
machines (it also can work on a single machine with multiple cores), it
is known as a Spark cluster. Typically, there is a resource manager in any
cluster that efficiently handles the workload between these resources.
5
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
The two most widely used resource managers are YARN and Mesos. The
resource manager has two main components internally:
1. Cluster manager
2. Worker
The main role of the cluster manager is to manage the worker nodes
and assign them tasks, based on the availability and capacity of the worker
node. On the other hand, a worker node is only responsible for executing
the task it’s given by the cluster manager, as shown in Figure 1-4.
6
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
The tasks that are given to the worker nodes are generally the
individual pieces of the overall Spark application. The Spark application
contains two parts:
1. Task
2. Spark driver
The task is the data processing logic that has been written in either
PySpark or Spark R code. It can be as simple as taking a total frequency
count of words to a very complex set of instructions on an unstructured
dataset. The second component is Spark driver, the main controller of a
Spark application, which consistently interacts with a cluster manager to
find out which worker nodes can be used to execute the request. The role
of the Spark driver is to request the cluster manager to initiate the Spark
executor for every worker node.
7
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
Spark SQL
SQL being used by most of the ETL operators across the globe makes it a
logical choice to be part of Spark offerings. It allows Spark users to perform
structured data processing by running SQL queries. In actuality, Spark SQL
leverages the catalyst optimizer to perform the optimizations during the
execution of SQL queries.
Another advantage of using Spark SQL is that it can easily deal
with multiple database files and storage systems such as SQL, NoSQL,
Parquet, etc.
MLlib
Training machine learning models on big datasets was starting to become
a huge challenge, until Spark’s MLlib (Machine Learning library) came into
existence. MLlib gives you the ability to train machine learning models on
huge datasets, using Spark clusters. It allows you to build in supervised,
unsupervised, and recommender systems; NLP-based models; and deep
learning, as well as within the Spark ML library.
Structured Streaming
The Spark Streaming library provides the functionality to read and process
real-time streaming data. The incoming data can be batch data or near
real-time data from different sources. Structured Streaming is capable of
8
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
ingesting real-time data from such sources as Flume, Kafka, Twitter, etc.
There is a dedicated chapter on this component later in this book (see
Chapter 3).
Graph X
This is a library that sits on top of the Spark core and allows users to
process specific types of data (graph dataframes), which consists of nodes
and edges. A typical graph is used to model the relationship between the
different objects involved. The nodes represent the object, and the edge
between the nodes represents the relationship between them. Graph
dataframes are mainly used in network analysis, and Graph X makes it
possible to have distributed processing of such graph dataframes.
9
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
• Local setup
• Dockers
• Databricks
L ocal Setup
It is relatively easy to install and use Spark on a local system, but it fails
the core purpose of Spark itself, if it’s not used on a cluster. Spark’s core
offering is distributed data processing, which will always be limited to a
local system’s capacity, in the case that it’s run on a local system, whereas
one can benefit more by using Spark on a group of machines instead.
However, it is always good practice to have Spark locally, as well as to test
code on sample data. So, follow these steps to do so:
10
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
Dockers
Another way of using Spark locally is through the containerization
technique of dockers. This allows users to wrap all the dependencies and
Spark files into a single image, which can be run on any system. We can
kill the container after the task is finished and rerun it, if required. To use
dockers for running Spark, we must install Docker on the system first
and then simply run the following command: [In]: docker run -it -p
8888:8888 jupyter/pyspark-notebook".
Cloud Environments
As discussed earlier in this chapter, for various reasons, local sets are not
of much help when it comes to big data, and that’s where cloud-based
environments make it possible to ingest and process huge datasets in a
short period. The real power of Spark can be seen easily while dealing with
large datasets (in excess of 100TB). Most of the cloud-based infra-providers
allow you to install Spark, which sometimes comes preconfigured as well.
One can easily spin up the clusters with required specifications, according
to need. One of the cloud-based environments is Databricks.
Databricks
Databricks is a company founded by the creators of Spark, in order to
provide the enterprise version of Spark to businesses, in addition to
full-fledged support. To increase Spark’s adoption among the community
and other users, Databricks also provides a free community edition of
Spark, with a 6GB cluster (single node). You can increase the size of the
11
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
12
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
13
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
14
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
15
Chapter 1 Introduction to Spark
Overall, since 2010, when Spark became an open source platform, its
users have risen in number consistently, and the community continues to
grow every day. It’s no surprise that the number of contributors to Spark
has outpaced that of Hadoop. Some of the reasons for Spark’s popularity
were noted in a survey, the results of which are shown in Figure 1-12.
C
onclusion
This chapter provided a brief history of Spark, its core components, and
the process of accessing it in a cloud environment. In upcoming chapters,
I will delve deeper into the various aspects of Spark and how to build
different applications with it.
16
CHAPTER 2
Data Processing
This chapter covers different steps to preprocess and handle data in
PySpark. Preprocessing techniques can certainly vary from case to case,
and many different methods can be used to massage the data into desired
form. The idea of this chapter is to expose some of the common techniques
for dealing with big data in Spark. In this chapter, we are going to go over
different steps involved in preprocessing data, such as handling missing
values, merging datasets, applying functions, aggregations, and sorting.
One major part of data preprocessing is the transformation of numerical
columns into categorical ones and vice versa, which we are going to look at
over the next few chapters and are based on machine learning. The dataset
that we are going to make use of in this chapter is inspired by a primary
research dataset and contains a few attributes from the original dataset,
with additional columns containing fabricated data points.
Creating Dataframes
In the following example, we are creating a new dataframe with five
columns of certain datatypes (string and integer). As you can see, when
we call show on the new dataframe, it is created with three rows and five
columns containing the values passed by us.
[In]:schema=StructType().add("user_id","string").
add("country","string").add("browser", "string").
add("OS",'string').add("age", "integer")
[In]: df=spark.createDataFrame([("A203",'India',"Chrome","WIN",
33),("A201",'China',"Safari","MacOS",35),("A205",'UK',"Mozilla",
"Linux",25)],schema=schema)
[In]: df.printSchema()
[Out]:
18
Chapter 2 Data Processing
[In]: df.show()
[Out]:
Null Values
It is very common to have null values as part of the overall data. Therefore,
it becomes critical to add a step to the data processing pipeline, to handle
the null values. In Spark, we can deal with null values by either replacing
them with some specific value or dropping the rows/columns containing
null values.
First, we create a new dataframe (df_na) that contains null values in
two of its columns (the schema is the same as in the earlier dataframe).
By the first approach to deal with null values, we fill all null values in the
present dataframe with a value of 0, which offers a quick fix. We use the
fillna function to replace all the null values in the dataframe with 0.
By the second approach, we replace the null values in specific columns
(country, browser) with 'USA' and 'Safari', respectively.
[In]: df_na=spark.createDataFrame([("A203",None,"Chrome","WIN",
33),("A201",'China',None,"MacOS",35),("A205",'UK',"Mozilla",
"Linux",25)],schema=schema)
[In]: df_na.show()
[Out]:
19
Chapter 2 Data Processing
[In]: df_na.fillna('0').show()
[Out]:
In order to drop the rows with any null values, we can simply use the
na.drop functionality in PySpark. Whereas if this needs to be done for
specific columns, we can pass the set of column names as well, as shown
in the following example:
[In]: df_na.na.drop().show()
[Out]:
20
Chapter 2 Data Processing
[In]: df_na.na.drop(subset='country').show()
[Out]:
[In]: df_na.drop('user_id').show()
[Out]:
21
Chapter 2 Data Processing
[In]: df=spark.read.csv("customer_data.csv",header=True,
inferSchema=True)
[In]: df.count()
[Out]: 2000
[In]: len(df.columns)
[Out]: 7
[In]: df.printSchema()
[Out]:
[In]: df.show(3)
[Out]:
22
Chapter 2 Data Processing
[In]: df.summary().show()
[Out]:
Most of the time, we won’t use all the columns present in the
dataframe, as some might be redundant and carry very little value in terms
of providing useful information. Therefore, subsetting the dataframe
becomes critical for having proper data in place for analysis. I’ll cover this
in the next section.
Subset of a Dataframe
A subset of a dataframe can be created, based on multiple conditions in
which we either select a few rows, columns, or data with certain filters in
place. In the following examples, you will see how we can create a subset
of the original dataframe, based on certain conditions, to demonstrate the
process of filtering records.
• Select
• Filter
• Where
23
Chapter 2 Data Processing
Select
In this example, we take one of the dataframe columns, 'Avg_Salary', and
create a subset of the original dataframe, using select. We can pass any
number of columns that must be present in the subset. We then apply a
filter on the dataframe, to extract the records, based on a certain threshold
(Avg_Salary > 1000000). Once filtered, we can either take the total count
of records present in the subset or take it for further processing.
[In]: df.select(['Customer_subtype','Avg_Salary']).show()
[Out]:
24
Chapter 2 Data Processing
Filter
We can also apply more than one filter on the dataframe, by including
more conditions, as shown following. This can be done in two ways: first,
by applying consecutive filters, then by using (&, or) operands with a
where statement.
25
Chapter 2 Data Processing
Where
[In]: df.where((df['Avg_Salary'] > 500000) & (df['Number_of_
houses'] > 2)).show()
[Out]:
Aggregations
Any kind of aggregation can be broken simply into three stages, in the
following order:
• Split
• Apply
• Combine
26
Chapter 2 Data Processing
categorical columns except for one (Avg_Salary), we can iterate over each
column and apply aggregation as in the following example:
[In]: df.groupBy('Customer_subtype').count().show()
[Out]:
[In]:
for col in df.columns:
if col !='Avg_Salary':
print(f" Aggregation for {col}")
df.groupBy(col).count().orderBy('count',ascending=
False).show(truncate=False)
27
Chapter 2 Data Processing
[Out]:
28
Chapter 2 Data Processing
• Mean
• Max
• Min
• Sum
29
Chapter 2 Data Processing
[In]: df.groupBy('Customer_main_type').agg(F.mean('Avg_
Salary')).show()
[Out]:
[In]: df.groupBy('Customer_main_type').agg(F.max('Avg_
Salary')).show()
[Out]:
30
Chapter 2 Data Processing
[In]: df.groupBy('Customer_main_type').agg(F.min('Avg_
Salary')).show()
[Out]:
[In]: df.groupBy('Customer_main_type').agg(F.sum('Avg_
Salary')).show()
[Out]:
31
Chapter 2 Data Processing
[In]: df.groupBy('Customer_subtype').agg(F.avg('Avg_Salary').
alias('mean_salary')).orderBy('mean_salary',ascending=False).
show(50,False)
[Out]:
32
Chapter 2 Data Processing
[In]: df.groupBy('Customer_subtype').agg(F.max('Avg_Salary').
alias('max_salary')).orderBy('max_salary',ascending=False).
show()
[Out]:
33
Chapter 2 Data Processing
In some cases, we must also collect the list of values for particular
groups or for individual categories. For example, let’s say a customer goes
to an online store and accesses different pages on the store’s web site. If we
have to collect all the customer’s activities in a list, we can use the collect
functionality in PySpark. We can collect values in two different ways:
• Collect List
• Collect Set
34
Chapter 2 Data Processing
Collect
Collect list provides all the values in the original order of occurrence (they
can be reversed as well), and collect set provides only the unique values,
as shown in the following example. We consider grouping on Customer
subtype and collecting the Numberof houses values in a new column,
using list and set separately.
[In]: df.groupby("Customer_subtype").agg(F.collect_set("Number_
of_houses")).show()
[Out]:
[In]:
df.groupby("Customer_subtype").agg(F.collect_list("Number_of_
houses")).show()
[Out]:
35
Chapter 2 Data Processing
The need to create a new column with a constant value can be very
common. Therefore, we can do that in PySpark, using the 'lit' function.
In the following example, we create a new column with a constant value:
[In]: df=df.withColumn('constant',F.lit('finance'))
[In]: df.select('Customer_subtype','constant').show()
36
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Within three years afterwards seven others were published; and in
the eighth, to the poem of ‘The Duke and the Sculptor,’ was
appended the following note to his wife:—“Dedicated to the Señora
Matilda O’Reilly de Zorrilla. I began the publication of my poems with
our acquaintance, and I conclude them with thy name. Madrid, 10
October, 1840.”
What were the circumstances attending this acquaintance or
union, we are not informed; but it is fortunate for the world that the
intimation it might convey of its being the conclusion of his literary
works has not been fulfilled. Since then he has published ‘Songs of
the Troubadour,’ in three volumes, and other minor poems and plays
separately. A larger work he meditated on the conquest of Granada,
to be entitled ‘The Cross and the Crescent,’ has not been completed;
and another he projected with the title ‘Maria,’ intending to celebrate
the different characters under which the Holy Virgin is venerated in
Roman Catholic countries, he has published, with the greater part
supplied by a friend, all very inferior to what might have been
expected from him.
It is much to be regretted that Zorrilla has in all his works allowed
carelessnesses to prevail, which too often mar the effect of his
verses, and still more that he has often inserted some that were of
very inferior merit compared with the rest. It is not to be supposed
that an author can be equally sustained in all his productions, but it
is somewhat extraordinary in his volumes to find some poems of
such transcendent merit, and others so inferior. These, however, are
very few, and probably were hastily composed and hastily published,
to supply the demand arising for the day. He is probably the only
author in Spain who has profited by the sale of his writings to any
extent, and to do this he must have been often under the necessity
of tasking his mind severely, without regard to its spontaneous
suggestions. Thus then, when he found his inspiration failing, he has
often had recourse to memory, and repeated from himself, and even
from others, verses previously published. It is to be hoped that he
may be induced soon to give the world a revised edition of his
works, in which the oversights may be corrected, and the poems
unworthy of his fame may be omitted.
On reading over dispassionately the ‘Lines to Larra,’ by which he
was first brought so prominently into notice, it may occasion some
surprise to learn they had produced so remarkable an effect. If they
had previously been read over alone to any one of the auditors, he
probably might not have considered them so ideal, so beautiful, or
so original as they seemed at the public recital. Some phrase might
have appeared incomprehensible, some sentiment exaggerated or
not true; some expression or line, hard or weak or forced. He might
have observed a want of order or connection in the ideas, or the
whole to be vague and leaving no fixed thought in the mind; or he
might have pronounced them, as they have been since pronounced,
an imitation of Victor Hugo or Lamartine. But to the auditors
assembled, in the excited state of their feelings, there was no time
for reflection or criticism. It was a composition of the hour for that
particular scene,—for themselves, in language and feelings with
which they could sympathize. Thus the verses seized on their minds
and electrified them, so that they had no time to dwell on any
discussion or dispute of their merits, but yielded at once to the
fascination of the melodious verse they heard, and the appropriate
application of the homage they testified.
In the first volume of poems that Zorrilla published, containing his
earliest productions, are to be found all the selections made for
translation in this work. They may not be so highly finished as some
afterwards published, nor so marked by that distinctive character he
has made his own; but they show the first promises of the fruit that
was in store, to be afterwards brought to such maturity. As he had
scarcely emerged from boyhood when he began to tread the path to
fame, his first steps could scarcely fail to betray that sort of
uncertainty which attends on all who are going on an unknown road.
Thus then through the volume he appears to be seeking a ground
whereon to fix his energies and build the temple for his future fame,
without being able confidently to fix on any place in preference. His
poetry from the first, always sonorous and easy, often evidently
spontaneous and true to nature, at times is weak and deficient in
the depth of thought that at other times distinguishes it, especially in
the compositions of a philosophic cast, which require fuller age and
reflection to give them with perfectness. Subject to these remarks,
independently of the poems hereafter given in the translations, there
are others, ‘To Toledo,’ ‘The Statue of Cervantes,’ ‘The Winter Night,’
more clearly portraying the peculiar character of his poetry as
afterwards developed.
In the second volume published about six months afterwards, he
seems already to have taken his ground and to proceed with a more
decided step. The poem, ‘The Day without Sun,’ is full of poetic
vigour and richness of description, and several tales of greater
length and legendary character show the bent of his mind and the
direction it was in future to take. In the third volume it was reserved
for his genius to be fully developed. It opens with a magnificent
composition, ‘To Rome,’ in which deep philosophy and reflection are
combined with exquisite description, all so clear and distinct as fully
to captivate the mind and leave an impression of complete
satisfaction. But beyond this it contains the poem ‘To the last
Moorish King of Granada, Boabdil the Little,’ which is generally
considered his best. He was already recognized as an admirable
descriptive poet, but he now proved his power of moving the inmost
feelings to be as great as his power of imagination. It is undoubtedly
a splendid composition and highly finished, so as to be well worthy
of study for the Spanish reader, though too long for translation for
this work. The same volume contains another poem, also worthy of
mention, ‘To a Skull,’ as written with much force and effect, but in
the style of the French imitators of Byron, whom Zorrilla has too
much copied, though it must be stated without their affectation and
exaggerations.
In the following volumes he continues the course now so markedly
his own as a national poet. He avowedly chooses, as becoming him
in that character, subjects taken from the traditions and legends
current in Spain, and clothing them in glowing language reproduces
them to his delighted readers as the dreams and remembrances of
their youth. He is especially partial to the tales connected with the
Moorish wars, and in so doing, with great poetic effect, always
represents the Moors in the most favourable light. Thus he
throughout makes them worthy rivals of the Christians, and thereby
renders greater the merit of the conquerors. The richness of his
diction is truly extraordinary, often so as to make us lose sight of the
paucity of ideas contained in his poems, and that those again are
too much the same repeated constantly over.
If it was a wonderful and admirable triumph for one so young to
achieve by one bound the unqualified commendations of his
countrymen, and to sustain the success then acquired by
subsequent efforts, we have still to regret that there were evils
attending that precocity to prevent his attaining apparently the
highest excellence. Perhaps there is no one we can point out as so
truly exemplifying the maxim “poeta nascitur.” He was truly born a
poet; and though he often writes showing that he had been reading
Calderon or some other of the elder writers of Spain, or even some
of the French poets, yet he always gives the colouring of his own
mind to those imitations so as to make them his own. This often
again leads him to a mannerism and repetition of himself; but
notwithstanding these faults or occasional errors of carelessness, his
compositions always remain uniformly and irresistibly captivating.
Besides his poems, Zorrilla has published upwards of twenty
dramatic pieces, some of which have been repeatedly produced on
the stage with the fullest success. They are all remarkable for the
richness of versification and high tone of poetry which distinguish his
lyrical compositions, and, like them, all tend to honour and promote
the chivalrous spirit for which the Spanish nation has ever been
renowned.
The modern poetry of Spain shows that her nationality is still as
distinct, her genius as elevated, and her sense of honour as pure, as
in any former period of her history. It shows itself in unison with the
spirit that has always animated the people in their public conduct, in
their loyalty and devotion, the same now as a thousand years since,
making every hill a fortress and every plain a battle-field, to dispute
the ground at every foot with the enemy till they were driven from
their soil. The poets of Spain have still, as ever, the most stirring
tasks before them, to commemorate the glories of their romantic
country, and they are worthy of their task.
JOSÈ ZORRILLA.
THE CHRISTIAN LADY AND THE MOOR.
Hastening to Granada’s gates,
Came o’er the Vega’s land,
Some forty Gomel horsemen,
And the Captain of the band.
“A palace in Granada,
With gardens and with flowers,
And a gilded fountain playing
More than a hundred showers.
ORIENTAL ROMANCE,—BOABDIL.
Lady of the dark head-dress,
And monkish vest of purple hue,
Gladly would Boabdil give
Granada for a kiss of you.
THE CAPTIVE.
I go, fair Nazarene, tomorrow
To queenly Cordova again;
Then thou, my song of love and sorrow
To hear, no longer mayst complain,
Sung to the compass of my chain.
THE WARNING.
Yesterday the morning’s light
Shone on thy window crystal bright,
And lightsome breezes floating there
Gave richest perfumes to the air,
Which the gay flowers had lent to them,
All scatter’d from the unequal stem.
MEDITATION.
Upon the obscure and lonely tomb,
Beneath the yellow evening’s gloom,
To offer up to Heaven I come,
For her I loved, my prayer!
Upon the marble bow’d my head,
Around my knees the moist herbs spread,
The wild flowers bend beneath my tread,
That deck the thicket there.
Thyestes, Act II. The critical reader will observe, that the
translation into English has been made from the Spanish rather than
the Latin.
En la pena aguda
Que me hace sufrir
El Amor tirano
Desde que te vi
Mil veces su alivio
Te voy à pedir,
Y luego, aldeana,
Que llego ante ti,
Si quiero atreverme
No sè que decir.
N l è t bl d
No lo sè, temblando
Si por descubrir
Con loca esperanza
Mi amor infeliz,
Tu lado por siempre
Tendrè ya que huir:
Sellàndome el miedo
La boca: y asì
Si quiero atreverme
No sè que decir.
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