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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a150913 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #54259 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54259) diff --git a/old/54259-0.txt b/old/54259-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 3b303bf..0000000 --- a/old/54259-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,9672 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Chapters on Spanish Literature, by James -Fitzmaurice-Kelly - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Chapters on Spanish Literature - - -Author: James Fitzmaurice-Kelly - - - -Release Date: February 28, 2017 [eBook #54259] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAPTERS ON SPANISH LITERATURE*** - - -E-text prepared by Josep Cols Canals, Turgut Dincer, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images -generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/chaptersonspanis00fitziala - - - - - -CHAPTERS ON SPANISH LITERATURE - -by - -JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY - -Fellow of the British Academy -Corresponding Member of the Spanish Academy -Medallist of the Hispanic Society of America, etc. - - - - - - -London Archibald Constable and Company Ltd. -1908 - - - TO - - MY FELLOW-MEMBERS - - OF - - THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA - - THESE LECTURES - - ARE CORDIALLY DEDICATED - - - - -PREFACE - - -Last summer the Trustees of the Hispanic Society of America did me the -honour to invite me to give a course of lectures on Spanish literature -in the United States, and almost at the same time an invitation to -lecture on the same subject reached me from the Provost of University -College, London. The chapters contained in the present volume are the -result. The lectures on the Cid, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderón, and -Modern Spanish Novelists were delivered during the autumn and winter -of 1907 at the University of Columbia; some of these were repeated at -Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Pennsylvania, and Yale Universities; -some at Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, and Smith’s College (Northampton, -Massachusetts); and the whole series was given this spring at -University College, London. - -Owing to the limited amount of time available for each lecture, it -became necessary to omit a few paragraphs here and there in delivery. -These are now restored. With the exception of the chapter on the -Archpriest of Hita (part of which has been recast), all the lectures -are printed substantially as they were written. Occasional references -have been added in the form of notes. - -In addresses of this kind some repetition of ‘you’ and ‘I’ is almost -unavoidable. It has, however, been thought better to retain the -conversational character of the lectures, and it is hoped that the use -of the objectionable first personal pronoun does not degenerate into -abuse. - -Lastly, it is a duty and pleasure to thank my friendly audiences in -America and England for the indulgence with which they listened to -these discourses. - - JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY. - - KNEIPPBADEN: _vid_ NORRKÖPING, - _May 1, 1908_. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAP. PAGE - - PREFACE vii - - I. THE CID 1 - - II. THE ARCHPRIEST OF HITA 25 - - III. THE LITERARY COURT OF JUAN II. 55 - - IV. THE _ROMANCERO_ 77 - - V. THE LIFE OF CERVANTES 120 - - VI. THE WORKS OF CERVANTES 142 - - VII. LOPE DE VEGA 163 - - VIII. CALDERÓN 184 - - IX. THE DRAMATIC SCHOOL OF CALDERÓN 184 - - X. MODERN SPANISH NOVELISTS 231 - - INDEX 252 - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE CID - - -Just as a portrait discloses the artist’s opinion of his sitter, so the -choice of a hero is an involuntary piece of self-revelation. As man -fashions his idols in his own image, we are in a fair way to understand -him, if we know what he admires: and, as it is with individual units, -so is it with races. National heroes symbolise the ambitions, the -foibles, the general temper and radical qualities of those who have set -them up as exemplars. But there are two sides to every character, and -Spain has two national heroes known all the world over: the practical -Cid and the idealistic Don Quixote, one of them an historical figure, -and the other the child of a great man’s fancy. Perhaps to the majority -of mankind the offspring of Cervantes’s poetic imagination is more -vividly present than the authentic warrior who headed many a desperate -charge. It is the singular privilege of genius to substitute its own -intense conceptions for the unromantic facts, and to create out of -nothing beings that seem more vital than men of flesh and blood. Don -Quixote has become a part of the visible universe, while most of us -behold the Cid, not as he really was, but as Corneille portrayed him -more than five centuries after his death. It may not be amiss to bring -him back to earth by recalling the ascertainable incidents in his -adventurous career. - -So marked are the differences between the Cid of history and the Cid of -legend that, early in the nineteenth century his very existence was -called in question by the sceptical Jesuit Masdeu, an historian who -delighted in paradox. Masdeu’s doubts were reiterated by Samuel Dunham -in his _History of Spain and Portugal_, and by Dunham’s translator, -Antonio María de Alcalá Galiano, a writer of repute in his own day. -Alcalá Galiano’s incredulity caused him some personal inconvenience, -for—as his kinsman, the celebrated novelist Juan Valera, records—he -was threatened with an action at law by a Spanish gentleman who piqued -himself on his descent from the Cid, and was not disposed to see his -alleged ancestor put aside as a fabulous creature like the Phœnix. -These negations, more or less sophistical, are the follies of the -learned, and they have their match in the assertions of another school -that sought to reconcile divergent views by assuming the existence of -two Cids, each with a wife called Jimena, and each with a war-horse -called Babieca. This generous process of duplicating everybody and -everything has not found favour. Cervantes expresses his view through -the canon in _Don Quixote_:—‘That there was a Cid, as well as a -Bernardo del Carpio, is beyond doubt; but that they did the deeds which -they are said to have done, I take to be very doubtful.’ Few of us -would care to be so affirmative as the canon with respect to Bernardo -del Carpio, but he is perfectly right as regards the Cid. - -It is certain that the Cid existed in the flesh. He was the son of -Diego Lainez, a soldier who fought in the Navarrese campaign. Pérez de -Guzmán, in the _Loores de los claros varones de España_, says that the -Cid was born at Río de Ovierna:— - - Este varón tan notable - en Río de Ovierna[1] nasció. - -But the usual version is that the Cid was born at Bivar near Burgos, -about the year 1040, and thence took his territorial designation. -To contemporaries he was first of all known simply as Rodrigo (or -Ruy) Díaz de Bivar—Roderick, son of James, of Bivar; and later, from -his prowess in single combat, as the _Campeador_ (the Champion or -Challenger). What was probably his earliest feat of this kind, the -overthrow of a Navarrese knight, is recorded in a copy of rudely rhymed -Latin verses, apparently the most ancient of the poems which were to -commemorate the Cid’s exploits:— - - Eia! laetando, populi catervae, - Campi-doctoris hoc carmen audite! - Magis qui eius freti estis ope, - Cuncti venite! - - Nobiliori de genere ortus, - Quod in Castella non est illo maius: - Hispalis novit et Iberum litus - Quis Rodericus. - - Hoc fuit primum singulare bellum, - Cum adolescens devicit Navarrum: - Hinc Campi-doctor dictus est maiorum - Ore virorum. - -The epithet gained at this early period clung to him through life: it -is applied to him even by his enemies. It is curious to find that the -Arab chroniclers constantly speak of him as Al-kambeyator, but never -as the Cid—a word which is usually said to derive from the Arabic -_Sidi_ (= My Lord). This circumstance makes it doubtful whether he was -widely known as the Cid during his own lifetime. There is, indeed, a -pleasing legend to the effect that the King of Castile, on hearing Ruy -Díaz de Bivar addressed as _Sidi_ by Arab prisoners of war, decreed -that the successful soldier should henceforth be known by that name. -But there is no evidence to support this story, and it is rather too -picturesque to be plausible. It seems more likely that Ruy Díaz de -Bivar was first addressed as _Sidi_ by Arabs who served under him or by -the Arab population of Valencia which he conquered towards the end of -his career, that the phrase was taken up by his Christian troops, and -that it was not generally current among Spaniards till after his death. -That he soon afterwards became widely known as ‘the Cid’ or ‘my Cid’ -is apparent from a line in the rhymed Latin chronicle of the siege of -Almería, written some fifty years later:— - - Ipse Rodericus, mio Cid semper vocatus. - -But we need not discuss these minutiæ further. Let us record the fact -that Ruy Díaz de Bivar is known as the Cid Campeador, and pass on to -his historical achievements. At the age of twenty-five he was appointed -_alférez_ (standard-bearer) to Sancho II. of Castile, a predatory -monarch who drove his brother Alfonso from León and his brother García -from Galicia, and annexed their kingdoms. Both campaigns gave the -Cid opportunities of distinction, and he became the most conspicuous -personage in Castile after the murder of Sancho II. by Bellido Dolfos -at Zamora in 1072:— - - ¡Rey don Sancho, rey don Sancho, no digas que no te aviso - que de dentro de Zamora un alevoso ha salido! - llámase Vellido Dolfos, hijo de Dolfos Vellido, - cuatro traiciones ha hecho, y con esta serán cinco. - Si gran traidor fue el padre, mayor traidor es el hijo.— - Gritos dan en el real: ¡A don Sancho han mal herido: - muerto le ha Vellido Dolfos, gran traición ha cometido! - -The Castilians were in a difficult position: the assassination of -Sancho II. left them without a candidate for the vacant thrones -of Castile and León. The Cid was not eligible; for, though of good -family, he was not of royal—nor even of illustrious—descent. The sole -legitimate claimant was the dethroned Alfonso, and there was nothing -for it but to offer him both crowns. It is alleged that the exasperated -Castilians found a salve for their wounded pride by inflicting a signal -humiliation on the Leonese prince whom they invited to rule over them. -According to tradition, Alfonso was compelled to swear that he had no -complicity in Sancho’s death, and this oath was publicly administered -to him by the Cid and eleven other Castilian representatives in the -church of Santa Gadea at Burgos. This story reaches us in ancient -_romances_, and Hartzenbusch has given it a further lease of life by -dramatising it in _La Jura en Santa Gadea_. There may be some basis for -it, and any one may believe it who can. There is, however, no positive -proof that any such incident took place, and the tale reads rather -like a later invention, fabricated to account for the bad blood made -subsequently between the king and his formidable subject. Picturesque -stories concerning historical personages are always ‘suspect,’ and are -generally untrue. As there was no pretender in the field, why should -Alfonso submit to insulting conditions? Is it not simpler to suppose -that he regarded the Cid with natural suspicion as the man mainly -responsible for his expulsion from León, and that the Leonese nobles -were careful to keep this resentful memory alive? Now, as in the time -of Fernán González:— - - Castellanos y leoneses tienen malas intenciones. - -Is it not intrinsically probable that the Cid, like a true Castilian, -smarted under the Leonese supremacy; that his allegiance was from -the outset reluctant and half-hearted; and that he scarcely troubled -to conceal his ultimate design of carving out for himself a -semi-independent principality with the help of his famous sword Colada? -However this may be, king and subject were, for the moment, mutually -indispensable. Neither could afford an absolute breach at this stage; -both were deep dissemblers; and on July 19, 1074, Alfonso VI. gave -his cousin Jimena in marriage to the Cid. The wedding contract has -been preserved—a prosaic document providing for the due disposition of -property on the death of one of the contracting parties. - -After this diplomatic marriage the Cid vanishes for some time into the -dense obscurity of domestic bliss, emerging again into the light of -history as defeating the Emir of Granada, and then as being charged -with malversation. The details are by no means clear. What is clear -is that the Cid was exiled about 1081, that he entered the service of -Al-muktadir, Emir of Saragossa, and that he continued in the pay of -the Emir’s successors—his son Al-mutamen, and his grandson Al-mustain. -Henceforward we have a relatively full account of the Cid’s exploits. -He defeated the combined forces of the King of Aragón, the Count of -Barcelona and their Mohammedan allies at Almenara near Lérida; he -routed the King of Aragón once more, this second battle being fought on -the banks of the Ebro; he played fast-and-loose with Alfonso VI., was -reconciled to his former master, quarrelled, and was again banished. -His possessions were confiscated. But confiscation is a game at which -subjects can play as well as kings, and the Cid was in a position to -recoup his losses. By this time he had gathered round him a motley host -of raiders, men of diverse creeds eager for any enterprise that offered -chances of plunder. Fortune was now about to furnish him with a great -opportunity. On the surrender of Toledo to Alfonso VI. in 1085 it was -agreed that Yahya Al-kadir, the defeated Emir, should receive Valencia -by way of compensation; and he was imposed on the restive inhabitants -by a force under the Cid’s nephew, Alvar Fáñez Minaya. In ordinary -circumstances the intruder might have held his own; but the incursion -of the African Almoravides, the Jansenists of Mohammedanism, abruptly -changed the political aspect. It soon became clear that the gains of -the Reconquest were in jeopardy, and that Alfonso VI. must concentrate -his army for a momentous struggle. - -He might fairly plead that he had kept his bargain by installing the -ex-Emir of Toledo at Valencia, and that his own kingdom was now at -stake. He had no sooner recalled Alvar Fáñez and his troops than the -Valencians revolted, and Al-kadir besought Al-mustain to come over and -help him. The inducements offered were considerable. But Al-mustain -was a mere figurehead at Saragossa; effective aid could come only from -his lieutenant, the Cid: the two feigned acceptance of Al-kadir’s -proposals, but secretly agreed to oust him and to divide the spoil. -The relief expedition was commanded by the Cid in Al-mustain’s name. -It was a post after his own heart. Valencia was then, as it is now, -‘the orchard of Spain,’ and the Cid was in no hurry to reach the -capital. He ravaged the outlying districts of the fertile province, -levied forced contributions, or induced the inhabitants to pay -blackmail to escape his forays. He advanced cautiously, fortifying -his position, and scattering delusive promises as he went along. He -assured Alfonso VI. that he was working in the interest of Castile, -and he assured Al-mustain that he was working in the interest of -Saragossa; he encouraged Al-kadir to put down the Valencian rebels, and -he encouraged the rebels to throw off Al-kadir’s authority. A master -of dissimulation, resolved to make Valencia his own, he successfully -deceived all parties till the murder of Al-kadir by Ibn-Jehaf, and the -threatened advance of the Almoravides, forced him to drop the mask. -Failing to carry the city of Valencia by storm, the Cid reduced it by -starvation, and in June 1094 the Valencians surrendered on generous -conditions. These conditions were flagrantly violated. Ibn-Jehaf was -tortured till he revealed where his treasure was hidden; he was finally -burned alive, his chief supporters shared his fate, and the Mohammedan -population was given its choice between banishment and something like -slavery. - -In all but name the Cid was now a king, and he was careful to -strengthen his hold on his prize. By taking a census of Christians, -and by forbidding them to leave the city, he kept his most trustworthy -troops together; and he promoted military efficiency as well as -religion by founding a bishopric to which he nominated Jerónimo, the -French prelate mentioned in the _Poema del Cid_, and as valiant a -fighter as Archbishop Turpin in the _Chanson de Roland_:— - - Tels curunez ne cantat unkes messe, - Ki de sus cors feïst tantes proeces. - -The Cid came out of his trenches to rout the Almoravides at Quarte -and in the valley of Alcoy; he extended his conquests to Murviedro, -and formed an independent alliance with the King of Aragón. And, -if the report of Ibn-Bassam, the Arab chronicler, be true, he had -more vaulting ambitions: in a gust of exaltation, the Cid—so we are -told—was heard to say that, as the first Roderick had lost Spain, a -second Roderick might be destined to win it back. Ibn-Bassam writes -in good faith, but he is a rhetorician, and moreover, in this case, -he gives the story at second-hand. It is difficult to believe that -a clear-headed, practical man like the Cid, who had recently found -it hard enough to seize a single province, can have talked in this -wild way about winning back all Spain. If he did, his judgment was -greatly at fault: the Reconquest was not completed till four centuries -later, and little more was done towards furthering it during the Cid’s -last days. His lieutenant, Alvar Fáñez, was beaten at Cuenca: the -Almoravides, flushed with victory, again defeated the Cid’s picked -troops at Alcira. The Cid was not present on the field, but the -mortification was too much for him: he died—‘of grief and fury,’ so the -Arab historians state—in July 1099. Supported by Alvar Fáñez and Bishop -Jerónimo, Jimena held out for another two years: then she retreated -northwards, after setting fire to the city. Valencia—the real ‘Valencia -del Cid’—ceased to exist. The Christians marched out by the light of -the flaming walls; the Cid’s embalmed body was mounted for the last -time on Babieca (a horse as famous as Roland’s Veillantif), and was -taken to San Pedro de Cardeña. There you may still see what was his -tomb, with this inscription on it:— - - Belliger, invictus, famosus marte triumphis, - Clauditur hoc tumulo magnus Didaci Rodericus. - -But his body, after many vicissitudes, now rests in the unimposing town -hall of Burgos. - -This is the Cid Campeador as he appears in Ibn-Bassam’s _Dhakira_, -written ten years after the Cid’s death, and in the anonymous _Gesta -Ruderici Campidocti_ which dates from between 1140 and 1170. The -authors write from opposite points of view, and are not critical, but -they are trustworthy in essentials, and a statement made by both may -usually be taken as a fact, or as a close approximation to fact. The -Cid, as you perceive, is far from being irreproachable. He has all the -qualities, and therefore all the defects, of a mediæval soldier of -fortune: he was brave, mercenary, perfidious and cruel. How, then, are -we to account for his position as a national hero? In the first place, -we must avoid the error of judging him by modern standards, and in the -second place, we must bear in mind that almost all we learn of his -later years—the best known period of his life—comes to us from enemies -whose prejudices may have led them unconsciously to darken the shadows -in the portrait. It is a shock to discover that the man who symbolises -the spirit of Spanish patriotism was a border chief in the pay of the -highest bidder; it is a greater shock to find that the man who figures -as the type of knightly orthodoxy fought for the Mohammedans against -the Christians. We must part with our simple-minded illusions, and -admit that Pius V. was right in turning a deaf ear when Philip II. -suggested (so it is said) the canonisation of the Cid. All heroes are -apt to lose their glamour when dragged from the twilight of tradition -and poetry into the fierce blaze of fact and history. The Cid is no -exception. Renan sums up against him with gay severity. ‘Tout ce qu’il -fut, il le dut aux ennemis de sa patrie, même le nom sous lequel il -est resté dans l’histoire. Le représentant idéal de l’honneur espagnol -était un _condottiere_, combattant tantôt pour le Christ, tantôt pour -Mahomet. Le représentant idéal de l’amour n’a peut-être jamais aimé. -Encore une idole qui tombe sous les coups de l’impitoyable critique!’ - -Yet, if it were worth while, a case might be made for the Cid without -recourse to sophistry. It is enough to say that he acted as all other -leaders acted in his age and for long afterwards. He was anything but -a saint: if he had been a saint, he would never have become the idol -of a nation. It has been thought that he had some consciousness of a -providential mission, but this is perhaps a hasty generalisation based -upon Ibn-Bassam’s story of his having said that a second Roderick -might reconquer Spain. This theory ascribes to him more elevation of -character and more political foresight than we can suppose him to have -possessed. The supremacy of Castile was not an accepted political -ideal till it was on the point of establishment, and this takes us -forward, nearly a century and a half, to the reign of St. Ferdinand. -The Cid was no idealist: he lived wholly in the present. The land -of visions was never thrown open to him; he had no touch of Jeanne -d’Arc’s mystical temperament; his aims were immediate, concrete, -personal. His popularity was due, first of all, to his conspicuous and -inspiring valour; due to the fact that the last and most celebrated -of his expeditions, though undertaken primarily for his own profit, -incidentally helped the cause of national unity by wresting a -province from the Mohammedans; due to the instinctive feeling that he -represented more or less faithfully the interests of Castile as against -those of León—a feeling which found frank expression five centuries -later in the _Romancero general_:— - - Soy Rodrigo de Vivar, - castellano á las derechas. - -And, no doubt, the man bore a stamp of self-confident greatness which -awed his foes and fired the imagination of his countrymen. As posterity -is apt to condone the crimes by which it gains, it is not surprising -that later generations should minimise the Cid’s misdeeds, and should -end by transforming his story almost out of recognition. But these -capricious and often grotesque travesties are relatively modern. - -They are not found to any excess in the work of the earliest poets who -sang the Cid’s feats-of-arms. They do not occur in the Latin poem, -already quoted, which speaks enthusiastically of his exploits as being -numerous enough to tax the resources of Homer’s genius:— - - Tanti victoris nam si retexere, - Coeperim cuncta, non haec libri mille - Capere possent, Homero canente, - Summo labore. - -This cannot have been written much later than 1120, about a score of -years after the Cid’s death. The theme, like many another theme of the -same kind, was too alluring to be left to monks who wrote in a learned -language for a small circle, and it was soon treated in the speech -of the people by _juglares_—not necessarily laymen—who recited their -compositions in palaces, castles, monasteries, public squares, markets, -or any other place where an audience could be got together. In this -way a body of epical poems came into existence. You may say that this -is late, and so it is if you are thinking of _Beowulf_ and _Waldhere_ -which, in their actual shapes, certainly existed before the reign of -Alfred, and have even been assigned to the sixth century. But we must -make a radical distinction. _Beowulf_ and _Waldhere_ are, we may say, -sagas in verse, and have no immediate relation to England, so far as -subject goes: the French and Spanish epics are conspicuously national -in theme and sentiment. We know that Spain possessed many epics which -have not survived: epics on Roderick, on Bernardo del Carpio, on Fernán -González, on Garci-Fernández, on Sancho García, perhaps on Alvar Fáñez -Minaya, the Cid’s lieutenant. Only three of these ancient _cantares de -gesta_ have been saved, and among them is the epic known as the _Poema -del Cid_, Possibly it was not the first vernacular poem on the subject, -though it was composed about the middle of the twelfth century, some -fifty years after the Cid’s time; but, as we shall see presently, there -is a long interval between the date of composition and the date of -transcription. As to the author of the _Poema_ nothing is known. On -the ground that some two hundred lines relate to events occurring at -the monastery of Cardeña near Burgos, it has been conjectured that the -author was a monk attached to this monastery. It has also been thought, -owing to his warlike spirit, that he was a layman, and that he came -from the Valle de Arbujuelo: this is inferred from his minute knowledge -of the country between Molina and San Esteban de Gormaz, and from the -relative vagueness of such knowledge as the itinerary extends to Burgos -and Saragossa. These, however, are but surmises. It is further surmised -that the substance of the _Poema del Cid_ may be derived from earlier -epic poems. That may be: but, as it stands, it has a unity of its own. - -The _Gesta Ruderici Campidocti_ survives in a unique manuscript which -was stolen during the last century from the Monastery of St. Isidore at -León, was bought in Lisbon by Gotthold Heyne two years before he died -on the Berlin barricades of 1848, and is now, after many wanderings, -in the Academy of History at Madrid. The _Poema del Cid_ also reaches -us in a unique manuscript, the work of a certain Per Abbat who in -1307 wrote out the text from a pre-existing copy; this manuscript is -not known to have passed through any such adventures as the _Gesta_, -but it has evidently had some narrow escapes from destruction: the -beginning of the _Poema del Cid_ is missing, a page is wanting after -verse 2337, and another page is wanting after verse 3307. Had Per Abbat -not taken the trouble to write out the _Poema_, or had his manuscript -disappeared before October 1596 (when it was transcribed by Juan -Ruiz de Ulibarri), the epic on the Cid would be as unknown to us as -the epics on Roderick, Bernardo del Carpio, and the rest. Per Abbat -seems to have followed an unfaithful copy in an uncritical fashion, -but the defects in the existing text cannot all be laid at his door. -There are passages in the _Poema del Cid_ which are almost universally -regarded as interpolations, and for these Per Abbat is not likely to be -responsible. It is more probable that he continued in the bad way of -his predecessors, who apparently took it upon themselves to abridge the -poem. This desire for greater brevity is answerable for transpositions -and corruptions which are the despair of editors and translators; but, -mutilated as it is, the _Poema del Cid_ is a primitive masterpiece, the -merits of which have been increasingly recognised since the text was -first published by Tomás Antonio Sánchez in 1779. - -The interest in the literary monuments of the Middle Ages was not then -what it is now. We are talking of a period more than half a century -before any French _chanson de geste_ was printed, and the taste for -mediævalism had still to be created. The Spanish poet, Quintana, who -died only fifty years ago, and was a lad when the _Poema del Cid_ -was published, could see nothing to admire in it; and yet Quintana’s -taste in literature was far more catholic than that of most of his -contemporaries. Still the _Poema_ slowly made its way in the world of -letters. One illustration will suffice to show that it was closely -studied within a few years of its appearance in print. John Hookham -Frere, the British Minister at Madrid, read the _Poema del Cid_ on -the recommendation of the Marqués de la Romana, who had praised it as -‘the most animated and highly poetical as well as the most ancient and -curious poem in the language.’ In verse 2348 of the _Poema_:— - - Aun vea el hora que vos merezca dos tanto— - -the curt reply of Pero Bermuez to the Infantes of Carrión—Frere -proposed to read _merezcades_ for _merezca dos_, and his conjectural -emendation was approved by Romana to whom alone he mentioned it. -Some years later Romana was destined to hear it again in striking -circumstances. He was then serving with the French in Denmark, and it -became necessary for Frere to communicate with him confidentially. It -was indispensable that Frere’s messenger should be fully accredited; -it was of the utmost importance that, in case of arrest, he should not -be found in possession of any paper which might suggest his mission. -The emended verse of the _Poema del Cid_, easily remembered, formed -his sole credentials. Romana at once knew that the agent must come -from Frere, who—apart from his fragmentary translation of the _Poema_, -now superseded by Ormsby’s version—thus began in a small amateurish -way the work of critical reconstitution which has been continued -by Damas-Hinard and Bello, by Cornu and Restori, by Vollmöller and -Lidforss, by Sr. D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal and Mr. Archer Milton -Huntington. - -Thanks to these and other scholars whose labours cannot be adequately -acknowledged by any formal compliment, the text of the _Poema del Cid_ -has been purged of many corruptions, and made vastly more intelligible. -But there are still problems to be solved in connection with it. What, -for instance, is the relation of the Spanish epic to the French? -The ‘patriotic bias’ should have no place in historical or literary -judgments, but this is a counsel of perfection. Scholars are extremely -human, and experience shows that the ‘patriotic bias’ often intrudes -itself unseasonably in their work. In writing of the French _chansons -de geste_, Gaston Paris says:—‘L’Espagne s’en inspirait dès le milieu -du XII^e siècle pour chanter le Cid, et composait, même sur les -sujets carolingiens des _cantares de gesta_ dont quelques débris se -retrouvent dans les _romances_ du XV^e siècle.’ Rightly interpreted, -this is a fair statement of the case. But earlier French scholars -inclined to exaggerate the amount of Spain’s indebtedness to France -in this respect, and—by a not unnatural reaction—there is a tendency -among the younger generation of Spanish scholars to minimise it. We are -not called upon to take part in this contention of wits: we are not -concerned here to-day with ingenious special pleas, but with facts. - -It is a fact that the earliest extant French _chanson de geste_ was -in existence a century before the earliest extant Spanish _cantar de -gesta_: it is also a fact that the French version of Roland’s story was -widely diffused in Spain at an early date. It was there recorded in the -forged chronicle ascribed to Archbishop Turpin, and it filtered down to -the masses who heard it from French pilgrims on the road to the shrine -of St. James at Santiago de Compostela. Among these pilgrims were -French _trouvères_, and through them the Spaniards became acquainted -with the _Chanson de Roland_. It was natural that suggestion should -operate in Spain as it operated in Germany, where Konrad produced -his _Rolandslied_ about the year 1130. There is at least a strong -presumption that the author of the _Poema del Cid_ had heard the -_Chanson de Roland_. Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo, whose patriotism and fine -literary sense make him a witness above suspicion, admits that there -is a marked resemblance between the battle-scenes in the two poems, -and further allows that there are cases of verbal coincidence which -cannot be accidental. We may therefore agree with Gaston Paris that the -author of the _Poema del Cid_ found his inspiration in the _Chanson de -Roland_: that is to say, the _Chanson_ probably suggested to him the -idea of composing a similar work on a Spanish theme, and gave him a -few secondary details. We cannot say less, nor more: except that in -subject and sentiment the _Poema_ is intensely local. - -As regards its substance, the _Poema_ is intermediate between history -and fable. There is no respect for chronology; one personage is -mistaken for a namesake; the Cid’s daughters, whose real names were -Cristina and María, are called Elvira and Sol, and are provided with -husbands to whom they were never married in fact, but who may have been -maliciously introduced (as Dozy surmised) to exhibit the Leonese in -an odious light. It is the office of an epic poet to exalt his hero, -and to belittle that hero’s enemies; you might as reasonably look for -perfect execution in the _Poema del Cid_ as for judicial impartiality. -Apart from freaks which may be due to bad copying, we accept the fact -that the metre is capricious, fluctuating between lines of fourteen and -sixteen syllables: we must also accept the fact that history fares no -better than metre, and often fares worse. Yet the spirit of the poet is -not consciously unhistorical; he conveys the impression of believing in -the truth of his own story. There is an accent of deep sincerity from -the outset, in what—owing to mutilation—is now the beginning of the -_Poema_, a passage recording the exile of the Cid:— - - With tearful eyes he turned to gaze upon the wreck behind: - His rifled coffers, bursten gates, all open to the wind: - No mantle left, nor robe of fur: stript bare his castle hall: - Nor hawk nor falcon in the mew, the perches empty all. - Then forth in sorrow went my Cid, and a deep sigh sighed he; - Yet with a measured voice, and calm, my Cid spake loftily— - ‘I thank thee, God our Father, thou that dwellest upon high, - I suffer cruel wrong to-day, but of mine enemy.’ - As they came riding from Bivar the crow was on the right, - By Burgos gate, upon the left, the crow was there in sight. - My Cid he shrugged his shoulders, and he lifted up his head: - ‘Good tidings, Alvar Fáñez! we are banished men!’ he said. - With sixty lances in his train my Cid rode up the town, - The burghers and their dames from all the windows looking down; - And there were tears in every eye, and on each lip one word: - ‘A worthy vassal—would to God he served a worthy Lord!’ - Fain would they shelter him, but none dared yield to his desire. - Great was the fear through Burgos town of King Alfonso’s ire. - Sealed with his royal seal hath come his letter to forbid - All men to offer harbourage or succour to my Cid. - And he that dared to disobey, well did he know the cost— - His goods, his eyes, stood forfeited, his soul and body lost. - A hard and grievous word was that to men of Christian race; - And since they might not greet my Cid, they hid them from his face. - He rode to his own mansion gates; shut firm and fast they were, - Such the King’s rigour, save by force, he might not enter there. - -We cannot tell how the poem began in its complete state. Some scholars -think that what is missing was merely a short unimportant prelude; -others believe that the _Poema del Cid_, as we have it, is but -the ending of a vast epic. It must have been vast indeed, for the -fragment that survives amounts to 3735 lines; the _Chanson de Roland_ -consists of 4001 lines, and it seems improbable that the _Poema_ was -much longer. At any rate, it is difficult to imagine a more spirited -opening than that which chance has given us. The Cid is introduced -at a critical moment, misjudged, calumniated, a loyal subject driven -from his own Castilian home by an ungrateful Leonese king. There is -something spacious in the atmosphere, there is a stately simplicity -even in the deliberate repetition of conventional epithet—‘the -Castilian,’ ‘he who was born in a good hour,’ ‘the good one of Bivar,’ -‘my Cid,’ and rarely—very rarely—‘the Cid.’ The poet lauds his hero, -as he should, but does not degrade him by fulsome eulogy; he is in -touch with realities. He seems to feel that the Cid is great enough -to afford to have the truth told about him; with engaging simplicity -the _Poema_ relates how the crafty chief imposed on the two Jews, -Raquel and Vidas, by depositing with them two chests purporting to be -full of gold (but really containing sand), and how he fraudulently -borrowed six hundred marks on this worthless security. In the _Crónica -general_, a passage founded on a re-cast of the _Poema_ represents the -Cid as refunding the money, and in the _Romancero general_ of 1602 -an anonymous ballad-writer excused the trickery on the plea that the -chests contained the gold of the Cid’s truth:— - - No habeis fiado - vuestro dinero por prendas, - mas solo del Cid honrado, - que dentro de aquestos cofres - os dejó depositado - el oro de su verdad, - que es tesoro no preciado. - -But there is neither casuistry nor other-worldliness in the primitive -poet. He clearly looks upon the incident as a normal business -transaction, describes the Cid as postponing payment when the Jews put -in their claim, and sees no inconsistency between this passage and an -earlier one which vouches for the Cid’s fine sense of honour. We read -that the Count of Barcelona, on his release, - - spurred his steed; but, as he rode, a backward glance he bent - Still fearing to the last my Cid his promise would repent: - A thing, the world itself to win, my Cid would not have done; - No perfidy was ever found in him, the Perfect One. - -No doubt the _Poema del Cid_ is very unequal. Too often it degenerates -into tracts of arid prose divided into lines of irregular length -with a final monotonous assonance: there are too many deserts dotted -with matter-of-fact details, names of insignificant places, and the -like. But the poet recovers himself, glows with local patriotism -when recording a gallant feat, and humanises his story with traits of -gentler sympathy—as when describing the parting of the Cid from Jimena -and his daughters at the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña. And the -Spanish _juglar_ has the faculty of rapid, dramatic presentation. His -secondary personages are made visible with a few swift strokes—the -learned Bishop Jerónimo who, attracted by the Cid’s fame as a fighter, -comes from afar (‘de parte de orient’), and would almost as soon miss -a Mass as a battle with the Moors; the grim Alvar Fáñez, the Cid’s -right arm, his ‘diestro braço’ as Roland was Charlemagne’s ‘destre -braz’; the Cid’s nephew, Félez Muñoz, always at the post of danger; the -stolid, inscrutable Pero Bermuez, the standard-bearer whose habitual -muteness is transformed into eloquent invective when the hour comes -for denouncing the poltroonery of the Infantes of Carrión; and even -these fictitious rascals have an air of plausibility and life. In the -_Poema del Cid_ we meet for the first time with that forcible realistic -touch, that alert vision, that intense impression of the thing seen and -accurately observed which give to Spanish literature its peculiar stamp -of authenticity. And the poem ends on an exultant note with a pæan over -the defeat of the imaginary Infantes of Carrión, the really historical -betrothal of the Cid’s daughters, and the triumphant passing of the -Cid, reconciled to the King:— - - And he that in a good hour was born, behold how he hath sped! - His daughters now to higher rank and greater honour wed: - Sought by Navarre and Aragon for queens his daughters twain! - And monarchs of his blood to-day upon the throne of Spain. - And so his honour in the land grows greater day by day. - Upon the feast of Pentecost from life he passed away. - For him and all of us the grace of Christ let us implore. - And here ye have the story of my Cid Campeador. - -The _Poema_ is the oldest and most important existing epic on the Cid, -but there is ample proof that his deeds were sung in other _cantares -de gesta_ of early date—earlier than the compilation of Alfonso the -Learned’s _Crónica general_, which was finished in 1268. Recent -investigations place this beyond doubt. It was long supposed that the -chapters on the Cid in the _Crónica general_ were largely derived -from the _Poema_, but Sr. D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal’s researches into -the history of the text of the _Crónica general_ have shown that this -view is untenable. The printed text of the _Crónica general_, issued -by Florián de Ocampo at Zamora in 1541, is not what it was thought to -be—namely, the original compiled by order of Alfonso the Learned: it -lies at three removes from that original, and this fact throws new -light on the history of epic poetry in Spain. Briefly stated, the -results of the recent researches are these: the First _Crónica general_ -was utilised in another chronicle compiled in 1344; this Second -_Crónica general_ was condensed in an abridgment which has disappeared; -this last abridgment of the Second _Crónica general_ is now represented -by three derivatives—the Third _Crónica general_ issued by Ocampo, -the _Crónica de Castilla_, and the _Crónica de Veinte Reyes_. And it -is further established that pre-existing _cantares de gesta_ on the -Cid were utilised in the chronicles as follows: the _Poema del Cid_ -(from verse 1094 onwards) was used only in the _Crónica de Veinte -Reyes_, while what concerns the Cid in the first _Crónica general_ -comes principally—not (as was believed) from the _Poema del Cid_ as we -know it, but—from another epic, no longer in existence, which began -and continued in very much the same way as the _Poema_ for about 1250 -lines, where the resemblance ended. The chapters on the Cid in the -Second _Crónica general_ derive mainly from another vanished _cantar de -gesta_ which coincided to some extent with a surviving epic on the Cid -known as the _Crónica rimada_, or (less generally) as the _Cantar de -Rodrigo_. - -This _Crónica rimada_, apparently written by a _juglar_ in the diocese -of Palencia, was thought by Dozy to be older than the _Poema del Cid_, -and Dozy has been made to feel his error. But let us not reproach him, -as though we were infallible. Dozy undeniably overestimated the age of -the _Crónica rimada_ as a whole; still the critical instinct of this -great scholar led him to conclude that it was a composite work, that -its component parts were not all of the same period, and (a conclusion -afterwards confirmed by Milá y Fontanals) that the passage relating to -King Fernando (v. 758 ff.)— - - El buen rey don Fernando par fue de emperador— - -is the oldest fragment embodied in the text. In these respects Dozy’s -views are admitted to be correct. The _Crónica rimada_, which in its -present form is assigned to about the end of the fourteenth century, -is an amalgam of diverse and inappropriate materials, and scarcely -deserves to be regarded as an original poem at all. If it is probable -that the author of the _Poema del Cid_ had heard the _Chanson de -Roland_, it is still more probable that the author of the _Crónica -rimada_ had heard _Garin le Lohérain_. Not only does he incorporate -part of a lost _cantar de gesta_ on King Fernando; he borrows from -other lost Spanish epics, from the existing _Poema del Cid_, from -degraded oral traditions, and perhaps from foreign sources not yet -identified. The patchwork is a poor thing pieced together by an -imitator who has lost the secret of the primitive epic, and insincerely -commemorates exploits which he must have known to be fabulous—such -as the Cid’s expedition to France, and his triumph under the walls -of Paris. But, though greatly inferior to the _Poema_, the _Crónica -rimada_ is interesting in substance and manner. It includes primitive -versions of legends which, in more refined and elaborate forms, were -destined to become famous throughout Europe: the quarrel between the -Cid’s father and Count Gómez de Gormaz (not in consequence of a blow, -or anything connected with an extravagantly artificial code of honour, -but over a matter of sheep-stealing); the death of the Count at the -hands of the Cid, not yet thirteen years of age; and the marriage of -the Count’s daughter Jimena to her father’s slayer, who is represented -as a reluctant bridegroom:— - - Ally despossavan a doña Ximena Gomes con Rodrigo el Castellano. - Rodrigo respondió muy sannudo contra el rey Castellano: - Señor, vos me despossastes mas a mi pessar que de grado. - -The Cid in the _Poema_ is a loyal subject, faithful to his alien King -under extreme provocation. In the _Crónica rimada_ he is transformed -into a haughty, turbulent feudal baron, more like the Cid of the -later Spanish ballads or _romances_; and it is worth noting that the -irregular versification of the _Crónica rimada_, in which lines of -sixteen syllables predominate, approximates roughly to the metre of the -_romances_, to which I shall return in a later lecture. For the moment -it is enough to say that by 1612 there were enough ballads on the Cid -to form a _romancero_, and that in the most complete modern collection -they amount to 205. Southey and Ormsby, both ardent admirers of the -_Poema_, thought that the _romances_ on the Cid impressed ‘more by -their number than their light,’ and no doubt these ballads vary greatly -in merit. But a few are really admirable—such as the _romance_ adapted -with masterly skill by Lope de Vega in _Las Almenas de Toro_. - -The mention of this great dramatist reminds one that the Cid underwent -another transformation in the theatre. Guillén de Castro introduced -him in _Las Mocedades del Cid_ as the central figure in a dramatic -conflict between love and filial duty; Corneille took over the -situation, and created a masterpiece which completely overshadowed -Castro’s play. The names of other dramatists who treated the same theme -are very properly forgotten: another great dramatisation of the Cid’s -story is about as likely as another great dramatisation of the story of -Romeo and Juliet. But the poetic possibilities of the Cid legend are -inexhaustible. Nearly fifty years ago Victor Hugo, then in the noontide -of his incomparable genius, reincarnated the primitive Cid in the first -series of _La Légende des siècles_. Who can forget the impression left -by the first reading of _Quand le Cid fut entré dans le Généralife_, by -the sixteen poems which form the _Romancero du Cid_, by the interview -between the Cid and the sheik Jabias in _Bivar_, and by that wonder -of symbolism _Le Cid exilé_? It is as unhistorical as you please, but -marvellous for its grandiose vision and haunting music:— - - Et, dans leur antichambre, on entend quelquefois - Les pages, d’une voix féminine et hautaine, - Dire:—Ah oui-da, le Cid! c’était un capitaine - D’alors. Vit-il encor, ce Campéador-là? - -The question was soon answered. Within three years a fiercer—perhaps -a more melodramatic—aspect of the Cid was revealed by Leconte de -Lisle in three pieces which contributed to the sombre splendour of -the _Poèmes barbares_, and now appear among the _Poèmes tragiques_; -and thirty years later, in our own day, José Maria de Heredia, the -Benvenuto of French verse, included a figure of the Cid among his -glittering _Trophées_. These three are masters of their craft, and one -of them is the greatest poet of his time; but their puissant art has -not superseded the virile creation of the nameless, candid, patriotic -singer who wrote the _Poema del Cid_ some eight hundred years ago. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE ARCHPRIEST OF HITA - - -Many of the earliest poems extant in Castilian are anonymous, -impersonal compositions, more or less imitative. The _Misterio de -los Reyes Magos_, for instance, is suggested by a Latin Office -used at Orleans; the _Libro de Apolonio_, the _Vida de Santa María -Egipciacqua_, the _Libro dels tres Reyes dorient_, and the _Libro -de Alixandre_ are from French sources. French influence is likewise -visible in the work of Gonzalo de Berceo, the earliest Spanish poet -whose name we know for certain; writing in the first half of the -thirteenth century, Berceo draws largely on the _Miracles de Nostre -Dame_, a collection of edifying legends versified by Gautier de Coinci, -Prior of the monastery at Vic-sur-Aisne. As Gautier died in 1236, -the speed with which his version of these pious stories passed from -France to Spain goes to show that literary communication had already -been established between the two countries. At one time or another -during the Middle Ages all Western Europe followed the French lead -in literature. From about 1130, when Konrad wrote his _Rolandslied_, -French influence prevailed in Germany for a century, affecting poets so -considerable as Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried -von Strassburg. French influence was dominant in Italy from before the -reign of Frederick II., the patron of the Provençal poets and the chief -of the Sicilian school of poetry, till the coming of Dante; French -versions of tales of Troy, Alexander, Cæsar and Charlemagne were -translated; so also were French versions of the Arthurian legend, as we -gather from the celebrated passage in the fifth canto of the _Inferno_:— - - La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante: - Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse: - Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante. - -You all know that French influence was most noticeable in England -from Layamon’s time to Chaucer’s, and that Chaucer himself, besides -translating part of the _Roman de la Rose_, borrowed hints from -Guillaume de Machault and Oton de Granson—two minor poets whose -works, by the way, were treasured by the Marqués de Santillana, of -whom I shall have something to say in the next lecture. Wherever -we turn at this period, sooner or later we shall find that French -literature has left its mark. Scandinavian scholars inform us that the -_Strengleikar_ includes translations of Marie de France’s _lais_; and -_Floire et Blanchefleur_ was also done into Icelandic at the beginning -of the fourteenth century when the Archpriest of Hita—who refers -appreciatively to this French romance—was still young. Jean Bodel’s -well-worn couplet is a trite statement of fact:— - - Ne sont que trois matières à nul homme attendant, - De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome le grant. - -This rapid summary is enough to prove that Spain, in copying French -originals, was doing no more than other countries. The work of her -early singers has the interest which attaches to every new literary -experiment, but the great mass of it necessarily lacks originality and -force. It was not until the fourteenth century was fairly advanced that -Spain produced two authors of unmistakable individual genius. One of -these was the Infante Don Juan Manuel, the earliest prose-writer of -real distinction in Castilian, and the other was Juan Ruiz, Archpriest -of Hita, near Guadalajara. We know scarcely anything certain about Ruiz -except his name and status which he gives incidentally when invoking -the divine assistance in writing his work:— - - E por que de todo bien es comienço e rays - la virgen santa marja por ende yo Joan Rroys - açipreste de fita della primero fis - cantar de los sus goços siete que ansi dis. - -In one of the manuscripts[2] which contain his poems, his messenger -Trotaconventos seems to state his birthplace:— - - Fija, mucho vos saluda uno que es de Alcalá. - -It has been inferred from this that the Archpriest was a native of -Alcalá de Henares, and therefore a fellow-townsman of Cervantes. It -is possible that he may have been, but the Gayoso manuscript gives a -variant on the reading in the Salamanca manuscript:— - - Fija, mucho vos saluda uno que mora en Alcalá. - -The truth is that we do not know where and when Juan Ruiz was born, nor -where and when he died. It is thought that he was born towards the end -of the thirteenth century, and Sr. Puyol y Alonso in his interesting -monograph suggests 1283 as a likely date: but these are conjectures. - -Many persons, however, find it difficult to resign themselves to -humble agnosticism, and, by drawing on imagination for fact, endeavour -to construct what we may call hypothetical biographies. Ruiz is an -unpromising subject, yet he has not escaped altogether. A writer of -comparatively modern date—Francisco de Torres, author of an unpublished -_Historia de Guadalajara_—alleges that the Archpriest was living at -Guadalajara in 1410. It is difficult to reconcile this statement with -the assertion made by Alfonso Paratinén who seems to have been the -copyist of the Salamanca manuscript. At the end of his copy Paratinén -writes: ‘This is the Archpriest of Hita’s book which he composed, being -imprisoned by order of the Cardinal Don Gil, Archbishop of Toledo.’ -This refers to Don Gil de Albornoz, an able, pushing prelate who was -Archbishop of Toledo from 1337 till his death in 1367. It is known -that Don Gil de Albornoz was exiled from Spain by Peter the Cruel in -1350, and that on January 7, 1351, one Pedro Fernández had succeeded -Juan Ruiz as Archpriest of Hita. Now, according to stanza 1634 in the -Salamanca manuscript, Ruiz finished his work in 1381 of the Spanish -Era:— - - Era de mjll e tresjentos e ochenta e vn años - fue conpuesto el rromançe, por muchos males e daños - que fasen muchos e muchas aotras con sus engaños - e por mostrar alos synplex fablas e versos estraños. - -The year 1381 of the Spanish Era corresponds to 1343 in our reckoning, -and we may accept the statement in the text that Juan Ruiz wrote his -poem at this date. We may further take it that the poem was written in -jail. We might refuse to believe this on the sole authority of Alfonso -Paratinén whose copy was not made till the end of the fourteenth -(or the beginning of the fifteenth) century; but the copyist is -corroborated by the author who, in each of his first three stanzas, -begs God to free him from the prison in which he lies:— - - libra Amj dios desta presion do yago. - -It is reasonable to assume that Juan Ruiz was well past middle age -when he wrote his book; hence it is almost incredible that, as Torres -states, he survived his imprisonment by nearly sixty years. There is -nothing, except the absence of proof, against the current theory that -the Archpriest died in prison—possibly at Toledo—shortly before January -7, 1351, when Pedro Fernández took his place at Hita; but there is -nothing, except the same absence of proof, against a counter-theory -that he was released before this date, that he followed Don Gil -Albornoz into exile, and that he died at Avignon. All such theories -are, I repeat, in the nature of hypothetical biography. We have no -data, and are left to ramble in the field of conjecture. - -Some idea of the Archpriest’s personality may, however, be gathered -from his work. We are not told how long he was in jail, nor what his -offence was. He himself declares in his _Cántica, de loores de Santa -María_ that his punishment was unjust:— - - Santa virgen escogida ... - del mundo salud e vida ... - de aqueste dolor que siento - en presion syn meresçer, - tu me deña estorcer - con el tu deffendjmjento. - -His testimony in his own favour is not conclusive. Possibly, as Sr. -Puyol y Alonso suggests, Juan Ruiz may have offended some of the -upper clergy by ridiculing them in much the same way as he satirises -the Dean and Chapter in his _Cántica de los clérigos de Talavera_ -where influential dignitaries are most disrespectfully mentioned by -name, or perhaps made recognisable under transparent pseudonyms. -The Archpriest is more likely to have been imprisoned for some such -indiscretion than for loose living. Clerical morality was at a low -point in Spain during the fourteenth century, and, though Juan Ruiz was -a disreputable cleric, he was no worse than many of his brethren. But -he was certainly no better than most of them. His first editor, Tomás -Antonio Sánchez, acting against the remonstrances of Jove-Llanos and -the Spanish Academy of History, contrived to lend Juan Ruiz a false -air of respectability by omitting from the text some objectionable -passages and by bowdlerising others. Sánchez did not foresee that his -good intentions would be frustrated by José Amador de los Ríos, who -thoughtfully collected the scandalous stanzas which had been omitted, -and printed them by themselves in the _Ilustraciones_ to the fourth -volume of his _Historia de la literatura española_. If Sánchez had -made Juan Ruiz seem better than he was, Ríos made him seem worse. Yet -Ríos had succeeded somehow in persuading himself that Juan Ruiz was an -excellent man who voluntarily became ‘a holocaust of the moral idea -which he championed.’ Few who read the Archpriest’s poem are likely -to share this view. It would be an exaggeration to say that he was -an unbeliever, for, though he indulges in irreverent parodies of the -liturgy, his verses to the Blessed Virgin are unmistakably sincere; he -was a criminous clerk like many of his contemporaries who had taken -orders as the easiest means of gaining a livelihood; but, unlike -these jovial goliards, the sensual Archpriest had the temperament -of a poet as well as the tastes of a satyr. It is as a poet that he -interests us, as the author of a work the merits of which can scarcely -be overestimated as regards its ironical, picaresque presentation of -scenes of clerical and lay life. The Archpriest was no literary fop, -but he was dimly aware that he had left behind him a work that would -keep his memory alive:— - - ffis vos pequeno libro de testo, mas la glosa, - non creo que es chica antes es byen grand prosa, - que sobre cada fabla se entyende otra cosa, - syn la que se alega en la rason fermosa. - De la santidat mucha es byen grand lycionario, - mas de juego e de burla chico breujario, - per ende fago punto e çierro mj almario, - sea vos chica fabla solas e letuario. - -The very name of his book, which has but recently become available in a -satisfactory form, has long been doubtful. About a century after it was -written, Alfonso Martínez de Toledo, the Archpriest of Talavera, called -it a _Tratado_; a few years later than the Archpriest of Talavera, -Santillana referred to it curtly as the _Libro del Arcipreste de Hita_; -Sánchez entitled it _Poesías_ when he issued it in 1790, and Florencio -Janer republished it in 1864 as the _Libro de Cantares_. But, as Wolf -pointed out in 1831,[3] Ruiz himself speaks of it as the _Libro de buen -amor_. However, we do not act with any indecent haste in these matters, -and it was not till just seventy years later that Wolf’s hint was taken -by M. Ducamin. We can at last read the _Libro de buen amor_ more or -less as Ruiz wrote it; or, rather, we can read the greater part of it, -for fragments are missing, some passages having been removed from the -manuscripts, perhaps by over-modest readers. Yet much remains to do. A -diplomatic edition is valuable, but it is only an instalment of what -we need. If any one amongst you is in search of a tough piece of work, -he can do no better for himself and us than by preparing a critical -edition of the _Libro de buen amor_ with a commentary and—above all—a -vocabulary. - -The Archpriest of Hita was an original genius, but his originality -consists in his personal attitude towards life and in his handling -of old material. No literary genius, however great, can break -completely with the past, and the Archpriest underwent the influence -of his predecessors at home. It is the fashion nowadays to say that -he was not learned, and no doubt he poses at times as a simpering -provincial ignoramus, especially as regards ecclesiastical doctrine and -discipline:— - - Escolar so mucho rrudo, njn maestro njn doctor, - aprendi e se poco para ser demostrador. - -But the Archpriest does not wish to be taken at his word, and, to -prevent any possible misunderstanding, in almost the next breath he -slyly advises his befooled reader to consult the _Espéculo_ as well as - - los libros de ostiense, que son grand parlatorio, - el jnocençio quarto, vn sotil consistorio, - el rrosario de guido, nouela e diratorio. - -He dabbles in astrology, notes (with something like a wink) that a -man’s fate is ruled by the planet under which he is born, and cites -Ptolemy and Plato to support a theory which is so comfortable an -excuse for his own pleasant vices. We shall see that he knew much of -what was best worth knowing in French literature, and that he knew -something of colloquial Arabic appears from the Moorish girl’s replies -to Trotaconventos. Probably enough his allusions to Plato and Aristotle -imply nothing more solid in the way of learning than Chaucer’s allusion -to Pythagoras in _The Book of the Duchesse_. Still he seems to have -known Latin, French, Arabic, and perhaps Italian, besides his native -language, and we cannot lay stress on his ignorance without appearing -to reflect disagreeably on the clergy of to-day. The Archpriest was -not, of course, a mediæval scholiast, much less an exact scholar in the -modern sense; but, for a man whose lot was cast in an insignificant -village, his reading and general culture were far above the average. A -brief examination of the _Libro de buen amor_ will make this clear: it -will also show that the Archpriest had qualities more enviable than all -the learning in the world. - -He opens with forty lines invoking the blessing of God upon his work, -and then he descends suddenly into prose, quoting copiously from -Scripture, insisting on the purity of his motives, and asserting that -his object is to warn men and women against foolish or unhallowed love. -Having lulled the suspicions of uneasy readers with this unctuous -preamble, he parenthetically observes: ‘Still, as it is human nature -to sin, in case any should choose to indulge in foolish love (which -I do not advise), various methods of the same will be found set out -here.’ After thus disclosing his real intention, he announces his -desire to show by example how every detail of poetry should be executed -artistically—_segund que esta çiencia requiere_—and returns to verse. -He again commends his work to God, celebrates the joys of Our Lady, and -then proceeds to write a sort of picaresque novel in the metre known as -the _mester de clerecía_—a quatrain of monorhymed alexandrines. - -The Archpriest begins by quoting Dionysius Cato[4] to the effect -that, though man may have his trials, he should cultivate a spirit -of gaiety. And, as no man in his wits can laugh without cause, Juan -Ruiz undertakes to provide entertainment, but hopes that he may not -be misunderstood as was the Greek when he argued with the Roman. -This allusion gives the writer his opportunity, and he relates a -story which recalls the episode of Panurge’s argument with Thaumaste, -‘ung grand clerc d’Angleterre.’ Briefly, the tale is this. When the -Romans besought the Greeks to grant them laws, they were required to -prove themselves worthy of the privilege, and, as the difference of -language made verbal discussion impossible, it was agreed that the -debate should be carried on by signs (Thaumaste, you may remember, -preferred signs because ‘les matières sont tant ardues, que les -parolles humaines ne seroyent suffisantes à les expliquer à mon -plaisir’). The Greek champion was a master of all learning, while -the Romans were represented by an illiterate ragamuffin dressed in -a doctor’s gown. The sage held up one finger, the lout held up his -thumb and two fingers; the sage stretched out his open hand, the lout -shook his fist violently. This closed the argument, for the wise Greek -hastily admitted that the Roman claim was justified. On being asked to -interpret the gestures which had perplexed the multitude, the Greek -replied: ‘I said that there was one God, the Roman answered that there -were three Persons in one God, and made the corresponding sign; I said -that everything was governed by God’s will, the Roman answered that the -whole world was in God’s power, and he spoke truly; seeing that they -understood and believed in the Trinity, I agreed that they were worthy -to receive laws.’ The Roman’s interpretation differed materially: ‘He -held up one finger, meaning that he would poke my eye out; as this -infuriated me, I answered by threatening to gouge both his eyes out -with my two fingers, and smash his teeth with my thumb; he held out -his open palm, meaning that he would deal me such a cuff as would make -my ears tingle; I answered back that I would give him such a punch as -he would never forget as long as he lived.’ The humour is distinctly -primitive, but Juan Ruiz bubbles over with contagious merriment as -he rhymes the tale, and goes on to warn the reader against judging -anything—more especially the _Libro de buen amor_—by appearances:— - - la bulrra que oyeres non la tengas en vil, - la manera del libro entiendela sotil; - que saber bien e mal, desjr encobierto e donegujl, - tu non fallaras vno de trobadores mjll. - -Then, in his digressive way, the Archpriest avers that man, like -the beasts that perish, needs food and a companion of the opposite -sex, adding mischievously that this opinion, which would be highly -censurable if he uttered it, becomes respectable when held by Aristotle. - - Como dise Aristotiles, cosa es verdadera, - el mundo por dos cosas trabaja: por la primera - por aver mantenençia; la otra cosa era - por aver juntamjento con fenbra plasentera. - - Sylo dixiese de mjo, seria de culpar; - diselo grand filosofo, non so yo de rebtar; - delo que dise el sabio non deuemos dubdar, - que por obra se prueva el sabio e su fablar. - -Next the Archpriest, confessing himself to be a man of sin like the -rest of us, relates how he was once in love with a Lady of Quality (too -wary to be trapped by gifts) who rebuffed his messenger by saying that -men were deceivers ever, and by quoting from ‘Ysopete’ an adaptation -of the fable concerning the mountain in labour. The form ‘Ysopete’ -suggests that the Archpriest used some French version of Æsop or -Phaedrus, though not that of Marie de France, in whose translation (as -edited by Warnke) this particular fable does not appear. - -Undaunted by this check, the Archpriest does not lose his equanimity, -reflects how greatly Solomon was in the right in saying that all is -vanity, and determines to speak no ill of the coy dame, since women -are, after all, the most delightful of creatures:— - - mucho seria villano e torpe pajes - sy dela muger noble dixiese cosa rrefes, - ca en muger loçana, fermosa e cortes, - todo bien del mundo e todo plaser es. - -A less squeamish beauty—_otra non santa_—attracted the fickle -Archpriest, who wrote for her a _troba cazurra_, and employed Ferrand -García as go-between. García courted the facile fair on his own -account, and left Juan Ruiz to swear (as he does roundly) at a second -fiasco. However, the Archpriest philosophically remarks that man cannot -escape his fate, and illustrates this by telling how a Moorish king -named Alcarás called in five astrologists to cast his son’s horoscope: -all five predicted different catastrophes, and all five proved to be -right. Comically enough, Juan Ruiz remembers at this point that he is -a priest, disclaims all sympathy with fatalistic doctrine, and smugly -adds that he believes in predestination only so far as it is compatible -with the Catholic faith. But he forgets his orthodoxy as conveniently -as he remembered it, rejoices that he was born under the sign of Venus -(a beautifying planet which not only keeps young men young, but takes -years off the old), and, since even the hardest pear ripens at last, he -hopes for better luck. Yet he is disappointed in his attempt to beguile -another Lady of Quality who proves to be (so to say) a _bonâ fide_ -holder for value, and the recital of this third misadventure ends with -the fable of the thief and the dog. - -At this point his neighbour Don Amor or Love comes to visit the -chagrined Archpriest, and is angrily reproached for promising much and -doing little beyond enfeebling man’s mental and physical powers—a -point exemplified by a Spanish variant of that most indecorous -_fableau_, the _Valet aux douze femmes_. After listening to fable upon -fable, introduced to prove that he is in alliance with the Seven Deadly -Sins, Love gently explains to the Archpriest that he is wrong to flare -into a heat, that he has attempted to fly too high, that fine ladies -are not for him, that he should study the Art of Love as expounded by -Pamphilus and Ovid, that beauty is more than rank, and that he should -enlist the services of an ingratiating old woman. Love quotes the -tale of the two idlers who wished to marry, supplements this with the -obscene story of Don Pitas Payas, and recommends the Archpriest to put -money in his purse when he goes a-wooing. Part of this passage may be -quoted in Gibson’s rendering:— - - O money meikle doth, and in luve hath meikle fame, - It maketh the rogue a worthy wight, a carle of honest name, - It giveth a glib tongue to the dumb, snell feet unto the lame, - And he who lacketh both his hands will clutch it all the same. - - A man may be a gawkie loon, and eke a hirnless brute, - But money makes him gentleman, and learnit clerk to boot; - For as his money bags do swell, so waxeth his repute, - But he whose purse has naught intill’t, must wear a beggar’s suit. - - With money in thy fist thou need’st never lack a friend,0 - The Pope will give his benison, and a happy life thou’lt spend, - Thou may’st buy a seat in paradise, and life withouten end, - Where money trickleth plenteouslie there blessings do descend. - - I saw within the Court of Rome, of sanctitie the post, - That money was in great regard, and heaps of friends could boast, - That a’ were warstlin’ to be first to honour it the most, - And curchit laigh, and kneelit down, as if before the Host. - - It maketh Priors, Bishops, and Abbots to arise, - Archbishops, Doctors, Patriarchs, and Potentates likewise, - It giveth Clerics without lair the dignities they prize, - It turneth falsitie to truth, and changeth truth to lies.... - - O Money is a Provost and Judge of sterling weight, - A Councillor the shrewdest, and a subtle Advocate; - A Constable and Bailiff of importance very great, - Of all officers that be, ’tis the mightiest in the state. - - In brief I say to thee, at Money do not frown, - It is the world’s strong lever to turn it upside down, - It maketh the clown a master, the master a glarish clown, - Of all things in the present age it hath the most renown. - -Finally Love sets to moralising, and departs after warning his client -against over-indulgence in either white wine or red, holding up as -an awful example the hermit who, after years of ascetic practices, -got drunk for the first time in his life, and committed atrocious -crimes which brought him to the gallows. The Archpriest ponders over -Love’s seductive precepts, finds that his conduct hitherto has been in -accordance with them, determines to persevere in the same crooked but -pleasant path, and looks forward to the future with glad confidence. He -straightway consults Love’s wife—Venus—concerning a new passion which -(as he says) he has conceived for Doña Endrina, a handsome young widow -of Calatayud. Whatever may be the case with the Archpriest’s other -love affairs, this episode in the _Libro de buen amor_ is imaginative, -being an extremely brilliant hispaniolisation of a dreary Latin play -entitled _De Amore_, ascribed to a misty personage known as Pamphilus -Maurilianus—apparently a monk who lived during the twelfth century. -The old crone of the Latin play reappears in the _Libro de buen amor_ -as Urraca (better recognised by her nickname of Trotaconventos), -Galatea becomes Doña Endrina, and Pamphilus becomes Don Melón de la -Uerta. There are passages in which Don Melón de la Uerta seems, at -first sight, to be a pseudonym of the Archpriest’s; but the source -of the story is beyond all doubt, for Juan Ruiz supplies a virtuous -ending, and carefully explains that for the licentious character of the -narrative Pamphilus and Ovid are responsible:— - - doña endrina e don melon en vno casados son, - alegran se las conpañas en las bodas con rrason; - sy vjllanja ha dicho aya de vos perdon, - quelo felo de estoria dis panfilo e nason. - -In order that there may be no misconception on this point, the -Archpriest returns to it later, averring that no such experience ever -befell him personally, and that he gives the story to set women on -their guard against lying procuresses and bland lechers:— - - Entyende byen mj estoria dela fija del endrino, - dixela per te dar ensienpro, non por que amj vjno; - guardate de falsa vieja, de rriso de mal vesjno, - sola con ome non te fyes, njn te llegues al espjno. - -He resumes with an account of an enterprise which narrowly escaped -miscarriage owing to a quarrel with Trotaconventos, to whom he had -applied an uncomplimentary epithet in jest; but, seeing his blunder, he -pacified his tetchy ally, and carried out his plan. Cast down by the -sudden death of his mistress, he consoled himself by writing _cantares -cazurros_ which delighted all the ladies who read them (a privilege -denied to us, for these compositions are not included in the existing -manuscripts of the _Libro de buen amor_). Having recovered from his -dejection, in the month of March the Archpriest went holiday-making in -the mountains, where he met with a new type of women whose coming-on -dispositions and robust charms he celebrates satirically. These -_cantigas de serrana_,—slashing parodies on the Galician _cantos de -ledino_,—perhaps the boldest and most interesting of his metrical -experiments, are followed by copies of devout verses on Santa María -del Vado and on the Passion of Christ. - -The next transition is equally abrupt. While dining at Burgos with Don -Jueves Lardero (the last Thursday before Lent), the Archpriest receives -a letter from Doña Quaresma (Lent) exhorting her officials—more -especially archpriests and clerics—to arm for the combat against Don -Carnal who symbolises the meat-eating tendencies prevalent during -the rest of the year. Then follows an allegorical description of the -encounter between Doña Quaresma and Don Carnal who, after a series of -disasters, recovers his supremacy, and returns in triumph accompanied -by Don Amor (Love). On Easter Sunday Don Amor’s popularity is at its -height, and secular priests, laymen, monks, nuns, ladies and gentlemen, -sally forth in procession to meet him:— - - Dia era muy ssanto dela pascua mayor, - el sol era salydo muy claro e de noble color; - los omes e las aves e toda noble flor, - todos van rresçebir cantando al amor.... - - Las carreras van llenas de grandes proçesiones, - muchos omes ordenados que otorgan perdones, - los legos segrales con muchos clerisones, - enla proçesion yua el abad de borbones. - - ordenes de çisten conlas de sant benjto, - la orden de crus njego con su abat bendjto, - quantas ordenes son nonlas puse en escripto: - ‘¡ venite, exultemus!’ cantan en alto grito.... - - los dela trinjdat conlos frayles del carmen - e los de santa eulalya, por que non se ensanen, - todos manda que digan que canten e que llamen: - ‘¡ benedictus qui venjt!’ Responden todos: ‘amen.’ - -Rejecting the invitations of irreverent monks, priests, knights and -nuns, Love lodges with the Archpriest, and sets up his tent close -by till next morning, when he leaves for Alcalá. The Archpriest -becomes enamoured of a rich young widow, and—later—of a lady whom he -saw praying in church on St. Mark’s Day; but his suit is rejected by -both, and his baffled agent Trotaconventos recommends him to pay his -addresses to a nun. The beldame takes the business in hand, and finds a -listener in Doña Garoza who, after much verbal fencing and interchange -of fables, asks for a description of her suitor. Thanks to her natural -curiosity, we see Juan Ruiz as he presented himself to Trotaconventos’s -(that is to say, his own) sharp, unflattering sight, and the portrait -is even more precise and realistic than Cervantes’s likeness of -himself. Juan Ruiz was tall, long in the trunk, broad-shouldered -but spare, with a good-sized head set on a thick neck, dark-haired, -sallow-complexioned, wide-mouthed with rather coarse ruddy lips, -long-nosed, with black eyebrows far apart overhanging small eyes, with -a protruding chest, hairy arms, big-boned wrists, and a neat pair of -legs ending in small feet: though given to strutting like a peacock -with deliberate gait, he was a man of sound sense, deep-voiced, and a -skilled musician:— - - Es ligero, valiente, byen mançebo de djas, - sabe los instrumentos e todas juglerias, - doñeador alegre para las çapatas mjas, - tal ome como este, non es en todas crias. - -Doña Garoza allows the Archpriest to visit her, makes him acquainted -with the charm of Platonic love—_lynpio amor_—prays for his spiritual -welfare, and might have persuaded him to renounce all carnal -affections, had she not died within two months of meeting him. -Forgetting her virtuous teaching, the Archpriest tries to set afoot -an intrigue with a Moorish girl, to whom he sends Trotaconventos with -poems; but his luck is out. The Moorish girl is deaf to his entreaties, -and Trotaconventos is taken from him by death. Saddened by this loss, -and by the thought that many a door which her ingratiating arts had -forced open for him will now be closed, he utters a long lament over -the transitoriness of mortal life, moralises at large, denounces the -inexorable cruelty of death, and at last resigns himself with the -reflection that the old wanton, who so nobly did such dirty work, is -honourably placed in heaven between two martyrs:— - - !ay! mj trota conventos, mj leal verdadera! - muchos te sigujan biua, muerta yazes señera; - ¿ado te me han leuado? non cosa çertera; - nunca torna con nueuas quien anda esta carrera. - Cyerto, en parayso estas tu assentada, - con dos martyres deues estar aconpañada, - sienpre en este mundo fuste per dos maridada; - ¿quien te me rrebato, vieja par mj sienpre lasrada? - -The Archpriest adds an impudent epitaph on Trotaconventos, who is -represented as saying that, though her mode of life was censurable, -she made many a happy marriage; as begging all who visit her grave -to say a _Pater Noster_ for her; and as wishing them in return the -conjoint joys of both heavenly and earthly love. After this sally of -blasphemous irony comes advice as to the arms which Christians should -use against the devil, the world, and the flesh—a tedious exhortation -from which the author breaks away to declare that he has always wished -everything (including sermons) to be short, and with this he digresses -into a panegyric on little women. But another March has come round, -and, as usual, in the spring the Archpriest’s fancy lightly turns to -thoughts of love. In default of the gifted Trotaconventos, he employs -Don Furón, a liar, drunkard, thief, mischief-maker, gambler, bully, -glutton, wrangler, blasphemer, fortune-teller, debauchee, trickster, -fool and idler: apart from the defects inherent to these fourteen -characters, Don Furón is as good a _fa tutto_ as one can hope to -have. But he fails in the only embassy on which he is sent, and, -with a good-humoured laugh at his own folly, the Archpriest narrates -his last misadventure as a lover. With an elaborate exposition of -the saintly sentiments which actuated the author (for whom every -reader is entreated to say a _Pater Noster_ and an _Ave Maria_), the -_Libro de buen amor_ ends. What seems to be a supplement contains -seven poems addressed to the Virgin (a begging-song for poor students -being interpolated between the second and third poem). The Salamanca -manuscript closes with an amusingly impertinent composition in which a -certain archpriest unnamed—possibly Juan Ruiz himself—is described as -being sent by Don Gil Albornoz, the Archbishop of Toledo, with a brief -from the Pope inculcating celibacy on the Dean and Chapter of Talavera. -What follows has all the air of being a personal experience. The brief -is no sooner read in church than the Dean is on his legs, threatening -to resign rather than submit; the Treasurer wishes that he could lay -hands on the meddling Archbishop, and both the Precentor Sancho and the -Canon Don Gonzalo join in an indignant protest against the attempt to -curtail clerical privileges. The Gayoso manuscript, which omits this -_Cántica de los clérigos de Talavera_, includes two songs for blind -men, and these are printed by M. Ducamin as a sort of last postscript -to the _Libro de buen amor_. - -Having analysed the contents of the work, we are now in a better -position to form a judgment on the conclusion implied by an incidental -question in M. Alfred Jeanroy’s admirable book, _Les Origines de la -poésie lyrique en France au moyen âge_:—‘Mais qui ne sait que l’œuvre -de Hita est une macédoine d’imitations françaises, qui témoignent du -reste de la plus grande originalité d’esprit?’ The proposition may be -too broadly put, but it is fundamentally true. The Archpriest borrows -in all directions. The sources of between twenty and thirty of his -fables have been pointed out by Wolf, and may be followed up a little -higher in the works of M. Hervieux and Mr. Jacobs. Orientalists no -doubt could tell us, if they chose, the origin of the story of King -Alcarás and his doomed son:— - - Era vn Rey de moros, Alcarás nonbre avia; - nasçiole vn fijo bello, mas de aquel non tenja, - enbjo por sus sabios, dellos saber querria - el signo e la planeta del fijo quel nasçia. - -Once at least the Archpriest hits on a subject which also attracted -his contemporary the Infante Don Juan Manuel: the _Libro de buen amor_ -and the _Conde Lucanor_ both relate the story of the thief who sold -his soul to the devil. But the differences between the two men are -more marked than the resemblances. The Archpriest has nothing of the -Infante’s imposing gravity and cold disdain; his temperament is more -exuberant, the note of his humour is more incorrigibly picaresque, -and he seeks his subjects further afield. The tale of the pantomimic -dispute between the learned Greek and the illiterate Roman is thought -by Wolf to derive probably from some mediæval Latin source, and Sr. -Puyol y Alonso particularises with the ingenious suggestion that the -Archpriest took it from a commentary by Accursius on Pomponius’s -text of the Digest (_De origine juris_, Tit. ii.). Perhaps: but this -is just the sort of story that circulated orally in the Middle Ages -from one country to another as smoking-room jests float across the -Atlantic now, and Ruiz is quite as likely to have picked it up from a -tramping tinker, or a tumbler at a booth, as from the famous juridical -_glossator_ of the previous century. - -We cannot tell who his friends were nor where he went; but the -_Libro de buen amor_ shows that he had acquaintances in all -classes—especially in the least starched of them—and it would not -surprise me to learn that he had wandered as far as Italy or France. -Life was brighter, more full of opportunities, for a clerical picaroon -in the fourteenth century than it is to-day. Now he would be suspended -as a scandal: then the world was all before him where to choose. -Of Italian I am not so sure: certainly the Archpriest knew French -literature better than we should expect. Observe that the Treasurer of -the Talavera Chapter mentions Blanchefleur, Floire and Tristan, and (of -course) finds their trials less pathetic than his own and the worthy -Teresa’s. - - E del mal de vos otros amj mucho me pesa, - otrosi de lo mjo e del mal de teresa, - pero dexare atalauera e yr me aoropesa - ante quela partyr de toda la mj mesa. - Ca nunca fue tan leal blanca flor a flores - njn es agora tristan con todos sus amores; - que fase muchas veses rrematar los ardores, - e sy de mi la parto nunca me dexaran dolores. - -How did the Archpriest come to hear the tale of Tristan, not yet widely -diffused in Spain? Was it through _Le Chèvrefeuille_, one of Marie de -France’s lais? His previous reference to ‘Ysopete’ might almost tempt -some to think so:— - - esta fabla conpuesta, de ysopete sacada. - -However this may be, there is no doubt as to where the Archpriest found -his _exemplo_ of the youth who wished to marry three wives, and thought -better of it: this, as already stated, is a variant on the _fableau_ -known as _Le Valet aux douze femmes_. Sr. Puyol y Alonso hints at a -Spanish origin for the story of the two sluggards who, when they went -a-courting, tried to make a merit of their sloth; but Wolf notes the -recurrence of something very similar in other literatures, and it most -likely reached Ruiz from France in some collection of supposititious -Æsopic fables. The _Exemplo de lo que conteció á don Payas, pintor de -Bretaña_—an indecent anecdote which follows immediately on the tale of -the rival sluggards—betrays its provenance in its diction. Note the -Gallicisms in such lines as:— - - Yo volo yr afrandes, portare muyta dona ... - Yo volo faser en vos vna bona fygura ... - Ella dis: monseñer, faset vuestra mesura ... - dis la muger: monseñer, vos mesmo la catat ... - en dos anos petid corder non se faser carner.... - -Can we doubt that these are free translations from a French original -not yet identified? It is significant that, as the story of the Greek -and the _ribaldo_ reappears long afterwards in Rabelais, so the story -of Don Payas reappears in Béroalde de Verville’s _Le Moyen de parvenir_ -and in La Fontaine’s salacious fable _Le Bât_:— - - Un peintre étoit, qui, jaloux de sa femme - Allant aux champs, lui peignit un baudet - Sur le nombril, en guise de cachet. - -Again, compare the Archpriest’s stanzas (already quoted) on the power -of money with our English _Song in praise of Sir Penny_:— - - Go bet, Peny, go bet [go], - For thee makyn bothe frynd and fo. - - Peny is a hardy knyght, - Peny is mekyl of myght, - Peny of wrong, he makyt ryght - In every cuntré qwer he goo. - [Go bet, etc.] - -Ritson quotes a companion poem from ‘a MS. of the 13th or 14th century, -in the library of Berne’:— - - Denier fait cortois de vilain, - Denier fait de malade sain, - Denier sorprent le monde a plain, - Tot est en son commandement. - -And no doubt he is right in supposing that these variants (together -with the Archpriest’s version) come from _Dom Argent_, a story—not, as -Ritson thought, a _fableau_—given in extract by Le Grand d’Aussy in -the third volume of the _Fabliaux, Contes, Fables et Romans du XII^e -et du XIII^e siècle_ published in 1829. Once more, take the story of -the abstemious hermit who once got drunk, went from bad to worse, -and finally fell into the hangman’s hands. As Wolf points out, this -episode was introduced earlier in the _Libro de Apolonio_; but the -Archpriest develops it more fully, amalgamating the tale of _L’Eremite -qui s’enyvra_ with _L’Ermyte que le diable conchia du coc et de la -geline_. Lastly, the combat between Don Carnal and Doña Quaresma is -most brilliantly adapted from the _Bataille de Karesme et de Charnage_:— - - Seignor, ge ne vos quier celer, - Uns fablel vueil renoveler - Qui lonc tens a esté perdus: - Onques mais Rois, ne Quens, ne Dus - N’oïrent de millor estoire, - Par ce l’ai-ge mis en mémoire. - -But the Archpriest’s genial reconstruction outdoes the original at -every point. And this is even more emphatically true of _Pamphilus -de Amore_, which also no doubt, like the _fableaux_ and _contes_, -drifted into Spain from France. At moments Juan Ruiz is content to be -an admirable translator. Read, for instance, what Pamphilus says to -Galatea in the First Act (sc. iv.) of the Latin play— - - Alterius villa mea neptis mille salutes - Per me mandavit officiumque tibi: - Hec te cognoscit dictis et nomine tantum, - Et te, si locus est, ipsa videre cupit— - -and compare it with Don Melón’s address to Doña Endrina in the _Libro -de buen amor_:— - - Señora, la mj sobrina, que en toledo seya, - se vos encomjenda mucho, mjll saludes vos enbya; - sy ovies lugar e tienpo, por quanto de vos oya, - desea vos mucho ver e conosçer vos querria. - -And you will find from thirty to forty points of resemblance duly noted -in Sr. Puyol y Alonso’s valuable study. But what does it matter if a -more microscopic scrutiny reveals a hundred parallelisms? Ruiz proceeds -as Shakespeare proceeded after him. He picks up waste scraps of base -metal from a dunghill, and by his wonder-working touch transforms -them into gold. He breathes life into the ghostly abstractions of -the pseudonymous Auvergnat, creates a man and a woman in the stress -of irresistible passion, and evokes a dramatic atmosphere. You read -_Pamphilus de Amore_: you find it dull when it is not licentious, and -you most often find it both dull and licentious at the same time. Not a -solitary character, not a single happy line, not one memorable phrase -remains with you to redeem its tedious pruriency. The Archpriest’s two -lovers are unforgettable: they are not saints—far from it!—but they are -human in their weakness, and in their downfall they are the sympathetic -victims of disaster. And the vitality of the other personage in this -concentrated narrative of illicit love is proved by its persistence -in literature. A feminine Tartufe, with a dangerous subtlety and -perverse enjoyment of immorality for its own sake, Trotaconventos is -the ancestress of Celestina, of Regnier’s Macette, and of the hideous -old nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_. Turn to the end of the _Libro de -buen amor_, and observe the predatory figure of Don Furón: he, too, -is unforgettable as the model of the ravenous fine gentleman who -condescended to share Lazarillo’s plate of trotters. What matter if -the Archpriest lays hands on a _fableau_, or a _conte_, or a wearisome -piece of lubricity ‘veiled in the obscurity of a learned language’? -What matter if he pilfers from the _Libro de Alixandre_, or steals an -idea from the _Roman de la Rose_? He makes his finds his own by right -of conquest, like Catullus or Virgil before him, like Shakespeare and -Molière after him. - -The sedentary historian, like a housemaid, dearly loves a red coat, and -tells us far more than we care to know of arms and the men, drums and -trumpets, and the frippery of war. Juan Ruiz gives us something better: -a tableau of society in Spain during the picturesque, tumultuous reigns -of Alfonso XI. and Peter the Cruel. While other writers sought their -material in monastic libraries, he was content with joyous observation -in inns, and booths, and shady places. He mingled with the general -crowd, having his preferences, but few exclusions. He does not, indeed, -seem to have loved Jews—_pueblo de perdiçion_—but his heart went out -with a bound to their wives and daughters. For Jewish and Moorish -dancing-girls he wrote countless songs—not preserved, unfortunately—to -be accompanied by Moorish music. So, also, he composed ditties to be -sung by blind men, by roystering students, by vagrant picaroons, and -other birds of night. He records these artistic exploits with an air of -frank self-satisfaction:— - - Despues fise muchas cantigas de dança e troteras, - para judias e moras e para entenderas, - para en jnstrumentos de comunales maneras: - el cantar que non sabes, oylo acantaderas. - Cantares fis algunos de los que disen los siegos - e para escolares que andan nochernjegos - e para muchos otros por puertas andariegos, - caçurros e de bulrras, non cabrian en dyes priegos. - -Few men have anything to fear from their enemies, but most are in -danger of being made ridiculous by their admirers. Puymaigre was no -blind eulogist, and yet in an unwary moment he suggests a dangerous -comparison when he quotes the passage describing the emotion of Doña -Endrina’s lover on first meeting her:— - - Pero tal lugar non era para fablar en amores: - amj luego me venjeron muchos mjedos e tenblores, - los mis pies e las mjs manos non eran de si senores, - perdi seso, perdi fuerça, mudaron se mjs colores. - -And he ventures to place these lines beside the evocation in the _Vita -Nuova_:— - - Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare - La donna mia quand’ ella altrui saluta, - Ch’ ogni lingua divien tremando muta, - E gli occhi non l’ardiscon di guardare. - -The suggested parallel does little credit to Puymaigre’s undoubted -critical instinct. It is, moreover, damaging to the Archpriest who, in -this particular passage, is simply translating from the First Act of -_Pamphilus de Amore_ (sc. iii.):— - - Quantus adesset ei nunc locus inde loqui! - Sed dubito. Tanti michi nunc venere dolores! - Nec mea vox mecum, nec mea verba manent. - Nec michi sunt vires, trepidantque manusque pedesque. - -Comparisons are odious, but, if they must be made, let us compare like -to like. No breath of Dante’s hushed rapture plays round the libidinous -Archpriest. The Spaniard never stirs in his reader a flicker of mystic -ardour; he is of the world, of the flesh, and sometimes of the devil; -his realism is irrepressible, his view of human nature is cynical, and -his interpretation is pregnant with a constant irony. But he enjoys -life, such as it is, while he can. He gives us to understand that -people and things are what they are because they cannot be otherwise, -and he makes the most of both by describing in a spirit of bacchantic -pessimism the ludicrous spectacle of the world. Learning is most -excellent, but the Archpriest finds as much wisdom in a _proverbio -chico_ as in the patter of the schools; a _cantar de gesta_ has its -place in the scheme of literature, for it lends itself to parody; -soldiers slash their way to glory, but, though they fascinate the -ordinary timorous literary man, the Archpriest sees through them, and -humorously exhibits them as sharpers more punctual on pay-day than in -the hour of battle. His whole book, and especially his catalogue—_De -las propriedades que las dueñas chicas han_—bespeak an incurable -susceptibility to feminine charm; but he leaves you under no delusion -as to the seductiveness of the women on the hillsides:— - - Las orejas mayores que de añal burrico, - el su pescueço negro, ancho, velloso, chico, - las narises muy gordas, luengas, de çarapico, - beueria en pocos djas cavdal de buhon rico. - -He thinks nothing beneath his notice, takes you with him into -convent-kitchens and lets you listen to Trotaconventos while she -rattles off the untranslatable names of the dainties which mitigate the -nuns’ austerities:— - - Comjnada, alixandria, conel buen diagargante, - el diaçitron abatys, con el fino gengibrante, - mjel rrosado, diaçimjnjo, diantioso va delante, - e la rroseta nouela que deujera desjr ante. - adraguea e alfenjque conel estomatricon, - e la garriofilota con dia margariton, - tria sandalix muy fyno con diasanturion, - que es, para doñear, preciado e noble don. - -And, in the same precise way, he satisfies your intelligent curiosity -as to musical instruments:— - - araujgo non quiere la viuela de arco, - çiufonja, gujtarra non son de aqueste marco, - çitola, odreçillo non amar caguyl hallaço, - mas aman la tauerna e sotar con vellaco. - albogues e mandurria caramjllo e çanpolla - non se pagan de araujgo quanto dellos boloña.... - -The medley is sometimes incoherent, but even when most diffuse it never -fails to entertain. To us the vivid rendering of small, characteristic -particulars is a source of delight. The Archpriest threw it off as a -matter of course; but he piqued himself on the boldness of his metrical -innovations, and he had good reason to be proud. Most of his verses -are written in the quatrain of the _mester de clerecía_, or _quaderna -vía_—an adaptation of the French alexandrine or ‘fourteener’—but he -imparts to the measure a new flexibility, and he attempts rhythmical -experiments, moved by a desire to transplant to Castile the metrical -devices which had already penetrated into Portugal and Galicia from -Northern France and Provence. But the Archpriest has higher claims to -distinction than any based on executive skill. He lends a distinct -personal touch to all his subjects. He has an intense impression of -the visible world, an imposing faculty of evocation, and what he saw -we are privileged to see in his puissant and realistic transcription. -Some modern Spaniards, with a show of indignation which seems quaint -in countrymen of Cervantes and Quevedo, reject the notion that humour -is a characteristic quality of the Spanish genius. We must bear these -sputterings of storm with such equanimity as we can, and hope for finer -weather. The fact remains: Juan Ruiz is the earliest of the great -Spanish humourists; he is also the most eminent Spanish poet of the -Middle Ages, and, all things considered, the most brilliant literary -figure in Spanish history till the coming of Garcilaso de la Vega. - -Those of you who have read _Carlos VI. en la Rápita_—one of the latest -volumes in the series of _Episodios Nacionales_—will call to mind -another Juan Ruiz, likewise an Archpriest, known to his parishioners as -‘Don Juanondón,’ and you may remember that this Archpriest of Ulldecona -quotes his namesake, the Archpriest of Hita:— - - Tu, Señora, da me agora - la tu graçia toda ora, - que te sirua toda vja. - -As the _Libro de buen amor_ had been in print for some seventy years -before the Pretender made the laughable fiasco described by Pérez -Galdós, it is quite possible that Don Juanondón had read the first -of the _Goços de Santa Maria_ in the supplement. But it is not very -likely: for, though the Archpriest’s poems are mentioned in an English -book published nine years before they appeared in Spain,[5] they -never were, and perhaps never will be, popular in the ordinary sense. -Juan Ruiz was far in advance of his age. He lived and died obscure. -No contemporary mentions him by name, and the only thing that can be -construed into a rather early allusion is found in a poem by Ferrant -Manuel de Lando in the _Cancionero de Baena_ (No. 362):— - - Señor Juan Alfonso, pintor de taurique - qual fue Pitas Payas, el de la fablilla. - -But this, at the best, is indirect. Santillana merely refers to the -Archpriest incidentally. Argote de Molina, in the next century, does -indeed quote one of the Archpriest’s _serranillas_ (st. 1023-27); -but he is misinformed as to the author, and ascribes the verses to -a certain ‘Domingo Abad de los Romances’ whose name occurs in the -_Repartimiento de Sevilla_. Still there is evidence to prove that -Juan Ruiz found a few readers fit to appreciate him. A fragment of -his work exists in Portuguese; the great Chancellor, Pero López de -Ayala, imitates him in the poem generally known as the _Rimado de -Palacio_; Alfonso Martínez de Toledo, Archpriest of Talavera and a -kindred spirit in some respects, speaks of him by name, and lays him -under contribution in the _Reprobación del amor mundano_. The famous -pander who lends her name to the _Celestina_ is closely related to -Trotaconventos, and Calixto and Melibea in that great masterpiece are -developed from Don Melón de la Uerta and Doña Endrina de Calatayud. -The Archpriest’s influence on his successors is therefore undeniable. -But, leaving this aside, and judging him solely by his immediate, -positive achievement, he is not altogether unworthy to be placed near -Chaucer,—the poet to whom he has been so often compared. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE LITERARY COURT OF JUAN II. - - -The reign of Juan II. is one of the longest and most troubled in the -history of Castile. In his second year he succeeded his father, Enrique -_el Doliente_, at the end of 1406, and for almost half a century he -was the sport of fortune. Enrique III.’s frail body was tenanted by a -masterful spirit: his son was a puppet in the hands of favourites or of -factions. Juan II.’s uncle Fernando de Antequera (so called from his -brilliant campaign against the Moors in 1410, celebrated in the popular -_romances_) acted as regent of Castile till he was called to the throne -of Aragón in 1412, when the regency was assumed by the Queen-Mother, -Catherine of Lancaster. The generosity of contemporaries and the -gallantry of elderly historians lead them to judge Queen-Mothers with -indulgence; but Catherine is admitted to have been a grotesque and -incapable figurehead, controlled by Fernán Alonso de Robles, a clever -upstart. Declared of age in 1419, Juan II. soon fell under the dominion -of Álvaro de Luna, a young Aragonese who had come to court in 1408, and -had therefore known the king from childhood. Raised to the high post of -Constable of Castile, Álvaro de Luna resolved to crush the seditious -nobles, and to make his master a sovereign in fact as well as in name. -But the king was a weakling who could be bullied out of any resolution. -Factious revolts were met with alternate savagery and weakness. -Opportunities were thrown away. The victory over the Moors at La -Higuera in 1431, and the rout of the rebel nobles at Olmedo in 1445, -failed to strengthen the royal authority. At a critical moment, when he -seemed in a fair way to triumph, Álvaro de Luna made an irremediable -mistake. In 1447 he promoted the marriage of Juan II. with Isabel of -Portugal: she was ‘the knife with which he cut his own throat.’ At -her suggestion the unstable Juan took a step which has earned for him -a prominent place among the traitor-kings who have deserted their -ministers in a moment of danger. Álvaro de Luna had fought a hard fight -for thirty years. In 1453 he was suddenly thrown over, condemned, and -beheaded amid the indecent mockery of his enemies:— - - Ca si lo ajeno tomé, - lo mío me tomarán; - si maté, non tardaran - de matarme, bien lo sé. - -So even the courtly Marqués de Santillana holds up his foe to derision, -unconscious that his own death was not far off. In 1454 Juan II. died, -and during the scandalous reign of Enrique IV. it might well seem that -the great Constable had lived in vain. But his policy was destined to -be carried out by ‘the Catholic Kings,’ Ferdinand and Isabel. - -Contrary to reasonable expectation, the court of Juan II. remained a -centre of culture during all the storm of civil war. Educated by the -converted Rabbi Sh’lomoh Hallevi—better known to orthodox Spaniards as -Pablo de Santa María, Chancellor of Castile,—Juan II. had something -more than a tincture of artistic taste. So stern a judge as Pérez -de Guzmán, who had no reason to treat him tenderly, describes him -as a wit, an excellent musician, an assiduous reader, an amateur of -literature, a lover and sound critic of poetry. Juan II. had in fact -all the qualities which are useless to a king, and none of those which -are indispensable. He himself wrote minor poetry, a luxury in which no -monarch less eminently successful than Frederic the Great can afford to -indulge. From his youth he was surrounded by such representatives of -the old school of poetry as Alfonso Álvarez de Villasandino. Castile -might go to ruin, but there was always time to hear the compositions -of this persistent mendicant, or those of Juan Alfonso de Baena, with -the replies and rebutters of versifiers like Ferrant Manuel de Lando -and Juan de Guzmán. It was no good training for either a poet or a -king. In the few poems by Juan II. which have come down to us there -is an occasional touch of laborious accomplishment: there is no depth -of feeling, no momentary sincerity. Poetry had become the handmaid -of luxury. Poetical tournaments and knightly jousts were both forms -of court-pageantry. Nature was out of fashion; life was infected by -artificiality, and literature by bookish conceits. ‘Mesure est precioux -tesmoing de san et de courtoisie,’ according to the author of the -thirteenth-century _Doctrinal_, and _mesura_ and _cortesía_ predominate -in the courtly verse of Juan II.’s reign. The Galician _trovadores_ -brought into Castile the bad tradition which they had borrowed from -Provence, and the emphatic genius of Castile accentuated rather than -refined the verbal audacities of conventional gallantry. Macias o -_Namorado_, the typical Galician _trovador_ who died about 1390, had -dared to introduce the words of Christ Crucified as the tag of an -amatory lyric:— - - Pois me faleceu ventura - en o tempo de prazer, - non espero aver folgura - mas per sempre entristecer. - Turmentado e con tristura - chamarei ora por mi. - _Deus meus, eli, eli,_ - _eli lama sabac thani._ - -And shortly after the death of Macias another literary force came -into play. As Professor Henry R. Lang observes in a note to his -invaluable _Cancioneiro gallego-castelhano_, ‘the Italian Renaissance -had taught the poet to combine myth and miracle and to pay homage to -the fair lady in the language of religion as well as in that of feudal -life.’ The conventions of chivalry were combined with the expressions -of sacrilegious passion. So eminent a man as Álvaro de Luna set a -lamentable example of impious preciosity. In one of his extant poems he -belauds his mistress, declares that the Saviour’s choice would light on -her if He were subject to mortal passions, and defiantly announces his -readiness to contend with God in the lists—to break a lance with the -Almighty—for so incomparable a prize:— - - Aun se m’antoxa, Senyor, - si esta tema tomáras - que justar e quebrar varas - fiçieras per el su amor. - Si fueras mantenedor, - contigo me las pegara, - e non te alçara la vara, - per ser mi competidor. - -This is not an isolated instance of profanity in high places, for -Álvaro de Luna’s repugnant performance was equalled in the _Letanía de -Amor_ by the grave chronicler Diego de Valera, and was approached in -innumerable copies of verse by many professed believers. The abundance -of versifiers during the reign of Juan II. is embarrassing. In the -_Ilustraciones_ to the sixth volume of his _Historia de la literatura -española_, José Amador de los Ríos gives two lists of poets who -flourished at this period, and (allowing for the accidental inclusion -of three names in both lists) he arrives at a total of two hundred and -fifteen. Even so, it seems that the catalogue is incomplete; but we -should thank Ríos for his good taste, forbearance, or negligence in -not making it exhaustive. It is extremely doubtful whether two hundred -and fifteen poets of superlative distinction can be found in all the -literatures of Europe put together; it is certain that no such number -of distinguished poets has ever existed at one time in any one country, -and many of the entries in Ríos’s lists are the names of mediocrities, -not to say poetasters. We may exclude them from our breathless review -this afternoon, just as we must pass hurriedly over the names of -minor prose-writers. There is merit in Álvaro de Luna’s _Libro de -las virtuosas e claras mugeres_ in which the Constable replies to -Boccaccio’s _Corbaccio_ and takes up the cudgels for women; there is -uncommon merit in a venomous and amusing treatise, branding the entire -sex, by Juan II.’s chaplain, Alfonso Martínez de Toledo—a work which -he wished to be called (after himself) the _Arcipreste de Talavera_, -but to which a mischievous posterity has attached the title of _El -Corbacho_ or the _Reprobación del amor mundano_. There is merit also -in the allegorical _Visión delectable_ of Alfonso de la Torre, and in -the animated (though perhaps too imaginative) narrative of adventures -given by Gutierre Díez de Games in the _Crónica del Conde de Buelna, -Don Pero Niño_. And no account of the writers of Juan II.’s reign would -be complete without some mention of the celebrated Bishop of Ávila, -Alfonso de Madrigal, best known as _El Tostado_. But _El Tostado_ wrote -mostly in Latin, and, apart from this, his incredible productivity -weighs upon him. - - Es muy cierto que escrivió - para cada día tres pliegos - de los días que vivió: - su doctrina assi alumbró - que haze ver á los ciegos. - -We must be satisfied to quote this epitaph written on _El Tostado_ -by Suero del Águila, and hurry on as we may, blinder than the blind. -When all is said, the importance of _El Tostado_ and the rest is purely -relative. We need only concern ourselves with the more significant -figures of the time, and this select company will occupy the time at -our disposal. - -One of the most striking personalities of Juan II.’s reign was Enrique -de Villena, wrongly known as the Marqués de Villena. Born in 1384, -he owes much of his posthumous renown to his reputation as a wizard, -and to the burning of part of his library by the king’s confessor, -the Dominican Fray Lope Barrientos, afterwards successively Bishop of -Segovia (1438), Ávila (1442), and Cuenca (1445). Barrientos has been -roughly handled ever since Juan de Mena, without naming him, first -applied the branding-iron in _El Laberinto de Fortuna_:— - - O ynclito sabio, auctor muy çiente, - otra é avn otra vegada yo lloro - porque Castilla perdió tal tesoro, - non conoçido delante la gente. - - Perdió los tus libros sin ser conoçidos, - e como en esequias te fueron ya luego - vnos metidos al auido fuego, - otros sin orden non bien repartidos. - -Barrientos, however, seems to have been made a scapegoat in this -matter. He asserts that he acted on the express order of Juan II., -and, in any case, we may feel tolerably sure that he burned as few -books as possible, for he kept what was saved for himself. However -this may be, owing to his supposed dealings with the devil and the -alleged destruction of his library after his death, Villena’s name -meets us at almost every turn in Spanish literature: in Quevedo’s _La -Visita de los chistes_, in Ruiz de Alarcón’s _La Cueva de Salamanca_, -in Rojas Zorrilla’s _Lo que quería ver el Marqués de Villena_, and -in Hartzenbusch’s _La Redoma encantada_. These presentations of the -imaginary necromancer are interesting in their way, but we have in -_Generaciones y Semblanzas_ a portrait of the real Villena done by the -hand of a master. There we see him—‘short and podgy, with pink and -white cheeks, a huge eater, and greatly addicted to lady-killing; some -said derisively that he knew a vast deal of the heavens above, and -little of the earth beneath; alien and remote from practical affairs, -and in the management of his household and estate so incapable and -helpless that it was a wonder manifold.’ Yet Pérez de Guzmán is too -keen-eyed to miss Villena’s intellectual gifts. From him we learn that, -at an age when other lads are dragged reluctantly to school, Villena -set himself to study without a master, and in direct opposition to the -wishes of his grandfather and family, showing ‘such subtle and lofty -talent that he speedily mastered whatever science or art to which he -applied himself, so that it really seemed innate in him by nature.’ -Here we have the man set before us—vaguely recalling the figure of -Gibbon, but a Gibbon who has left behind him nothing to represent his -rare abilities. - -It must be confessed that Villena owes more of his celebrity to his -legend than to his literary work. Perhaps the nearest parallel to him -in our own history is Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Both were fired by -the enthusiasm of the Renaissance; both were patrons of literature; -both were popularly supposed to practise the black art—Villena in -person, and Gloucester through the intermediary of his wife, Eleanor -Cobham. But, while Duke Humphrey was content to give copies of Dante, -Petrarch, and Boccaccio to the University of Oxford, Villena took an -active part in spreading the light that came from Italy. He was not -the first Spaniard in the field. Francisco Imperial, in his _Dezir de -las siete virtudes_, had already hailed Dante as his guide and master, -and had borrowed phrases from the _Divina Commedia_. Thus when Dante -writes— - - O somma luz, che tanto ti levi - dai concetti mortali, alla mia mente - ripresta un poco di quel che parevi— - -Imperial transfers these lines from the _Paradiso_ to his own page in -this form:— - - O suma luz, que tanto te alçaste - del concepto mortal, á mi memoria - represta un poco lo que me mostraste. - -This is rather close translation; but students, more interested in -matter than in form, asked for a complete rendering. Villena was -already at work on the _Æneid_; at the suggestion of Santillana, he -further undertook to translate the _Divina Commedia_ into Castilian -prose. His diligence was equal to his intrepidity. Begun on September -28, 1427, his translation of Virgil was finished on October 10, 1428, -and before this date he had finished his translation of Dante. These -prose versions are Villena’s most useful contributions to literature. -With the exception of the _Arte cisoria_—a prose pæan on eating -which would have attracted Brillat-Savarin, and which confirms Pérez -de Guzmán’s report concerning the author’s gormandising habits—his -extant original writings are of small value. Pérez de Guzmán, Mena, -and Santillana speak of him with respect as a poet, and, as Argote de -Molina mentions his ‘coplas y canciones de muy gracioso donayre,’ it is -evident that Villena’s verses were read with pleasure as late as 1575 -when the _Conde Lucanor_ was first printed. But they have not reached -us, and perhaps the world is not much the poorer for the loss. Still, -we cannot feel at all sure of this. Villena showed some promise in -_Los Trabajos de Hércules_, and ended by becoming one of the clumsiest -prose writers in the world; yet Mena exists to remind us that a man who -writes detestable prose may have in him the breath of a true poet. - -Judged by the vulgar test of success, Villena’s career was a failure, -and a failure which involved him in dishonour. He did not obtain -the marquessate of Villena, and, though inaccurate writers and the -general public may insist on calling him the Marqués de Villena, the -fact remains that he was nothing of the kind. He had set his heart on -becoming Constable of Castile, and this ambition was also baulked. He -winked at the adultery of his wife with Enrique III. and connived at -her obtaining a decree of nullity on the ground that he was impotent—a -statement ludicrously and notoriously untrue of one whom Pérez de -Guzmán describes as ‘muy inclinado al amor de las mugeres.’ Enrique _el -Doliente_ rewarded the complaisant husband by conferring on him the -countship of Cangas de Tineo and the Grand Mastership of the Order of -Calatrava; but he was unable to take possession of his countship, was -chased from the Mastership by the Knights of the Order, and remained -empty-handed and scorned as a pretentious scholar who had not even -known how to secure the wages of sin. Meekly bowing under the burden -of his shame, Villena retired to his estate of Iniesta or Torralba—two -petty morsels of what had once been a rich patrimony—and there passed -most of his last years working at his translations or miscellaneous -treatises, and dabbling in alchemy. He had once hoped to reach some -of the highest positions in the state; in his obscurity, his heart -leapt up when he beheld a turkey or a partridge on his table, and he -speaks of these toothsome birds with a glow of epicurean eloquence. -But his ill luck pursued him even in his pleasures. His gluttony and -sedentary habits brought on repeated attacks of gout, and he died -prematurely at Madrid on December 15, 1434. As a man of letters he is -remarkable rather for his industry than for his performance. But there -is a certain picturesqueness about this enigmatic and rather futile -personage which invests him with a singular interest. It is not often -that a great noble who stands so near the throne cultivates learning -with steadfast zeal. In collecting manuscripts and texts Villena set -an example which was followed by Santillana, and by Luis de Guzmán, a -later and more fortunate Master of the Order of Calatrava. We cannot -doubt that, in his own undisciplined way, Villena loved literature and -things of the mind, and that by personal effort and by patronage he -helped a good cause which has never had too many friends. - -A man of stronger fibre, nobler character, and far greater achievement -was Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, the nephew of the great Chancellor Pero -López de Ayala, and the uncle of Santillana. From a worldly point -of view, he, too, may be said to have wrecked his career; but the -charge of obsequiousness is the last that can be brought against him. -He was not of the stuff of which courtiers are made; his haughty -temper brought him into collision with Álvaro de Luna, whom he -detested; some of his relatives were in arms against Juan II., and -this circumstance, together with his uncompromising spirit, threw -suspicion on his personal loyalty to the throne. Such a man could not -fail to make enemies, and amongst those who intrigued against him we -may probably count that inventive busybody Pedro del Corral, whose -_Crónica Sarrazyna_ he afterwards described bluntly as a ‘mentira ó -trufa paladina.’ After a violent scene with Álvaro de Luna, Pérez -de Guzmán was arrested together with many of his sympathisers. On -his release, though not much past middle life, he closed the gates -of preferment on himself by withdrawing to his estate of Batres, and -thenceforth, like Villena, he sought in literature some consolation for -his disappointment. He had a most noble passion for fame, and he won it -with his pen, when fate compelled him to sheathe his sword. - -Any one who takes up the poem entitled _Loores de los claros varones -de España_ and lights upon the unhappy passage in which Virgil is -condemned for tricking out his wishy-washy stuff with verbose ornament— - - la poca é pobre sustancia - con verbosidad ornando— - -is likely to be prejudiced against Pérez de Guzmán, and is certain -to think poorly of his judgment as a literary critic. It is not as a -literary critic that Pérez de Guzmán excels, nor is he a poet of any -striking distinction; but as a painter of historical portraits he has -rarely been surpassed. In the first place, he can see; in the second, -he writes with a pen, and not with a stick. He is an excellent judge of -character and motive, and he is no respecter of persons—a greater thing -to say than you might think, for as a rule it is not till long after -kings and statesmen are in their graves that the whole truth about -them is set down. And it is the truthfulness of the record which makes -Pérez de Guzmán’s _Generaciones y Semblanzas_ at once so impressive -and entertaining. There is no touch of sentimentalism in his nature; -rank and sex form no claim to his indulgence; he is naturally prone -to crush the mighty and to spare the weak. If a queen is unseemly in -her habits, he notes the fact laconically; if a Constable of Castile -foolishly consults soothsayers, this weakness is recorded side by -side with his good qualities; if an Archbishop of Toledo favours his -relatives in little matters of ecclesiastical preferment, this amiable -family feeling is set off against other characteristics more congruous -to his position; if an _Adelantado Mayor_ has a bright bald head and -pulls the long bow when he drops into anecdotage, these peculiarities -are not forgotten when he comes up for sentence. There is no rhetoric, -no waste: the person concerned is brought forward at the right moment, -described in a few trenchant words, and discharged with a stain on -his character. The _Generaciones y Semblanzas_ is not the work of an -‘impersonal’ historian who is most often a sophist arguing, for the -sake of argument, that black is not so unlike white as the plain man -imagines. Pérez de Guzmán goes with his party, has his prejudices, his -likes and dislikes, and he makes no attempt to dissemble them; but he -is never deliberately unfair. The worst you can say of him is that he -is a hanging judge. He may be: but the phrase in which he sums up is -always memorable for picturesque vigour. - -He is believed to have died in 1460 at about the age of eighty-four, -and in any case he outlived his nephew Íñigo López de Mendoza, who is -always spoken of as the Marqués de Santillana, a title conferred on -him after the battle of Olmedo in 1445. In 1414, being then a boy of -eighteen, Santillana first comes into sight at the _jochs florals_ over -which Villena presided when Fernando de Antequera was crowned King of -Aragón; and thenceforward, till his death in 1458, Santillana is a -prominent figure on the stage of history. His father was Diego Hurtado -de Mendoza, Lord High Admiral of Castile; his mother was Leonor de la -Vega, superior to most men of her time, or of any time, in ability, -courage and determination. On both sides, he inherited position, -wealth, and literary traditions, and he utilised to the utmost his -advantages. He was no absent-minded dreamer: even in practical matters -his success was striking. During his long minority, his mother’s crafty -bravery had protected much of his estate from predatory relatives. -Santillana increased it, timing his political variations with a perfect -opportuneness. Beginning public life as a supporter of the Infantes -of Aragón, he deserted to Juan II. in 1429, and, when the property of -the Infantes was confiscated some five years later, he shared in the -spoil. Alienated by Álvaro de Luna’s methods, he veered round again in -1441, and took the field against Juan II.; once more he was reconciled, -and his services at Olmedo were rewarded by a marquessate and further -grants of land. Apparently his nearest approach to a political -conviction was a hatred of Álvaro de Luna in whose ruin he was actively -concerned; but Santillana was always on the safe side, and, before -declaring openly against Luna, he provided against failure by marrying -his eldest son to the Constable’s niece. - -Baldly told, and without the extenuating pleas which partisanship -can furnish, the story of those profitable manoeuvres leaves an -unfavourable impression, which is deepened by Santillana’s vindictive -exultation over Álvaro de Luna in the _Doctrinal de privados_. But -we cannot expect generosity from a politician who has felt for years -that his head was not safe upon his shoulders. Yet Santillana’s -personality was engaging; he illustrated the old Spanish proverb which -he himself records: ‘Lance never blunted pen, nor pen lance.’ He -made comparatively few enemies while he lived, and all the world has -combined to praise him since his death in 1458. The slippery intriguer -is forgotten; the figure of the knight who appeared in the lists with -_Ave Maria_ on his shield has grown dim. But as a poet, as a patron of -literature, as the friend of Mena, as a type of the lettered noble -during the early Renaissance in Spain, Santillana is remembered as he -deserves to be. - -He had a taste for the dignity as well as for the pomps of life. If he -entertained the King and arranged tourneys, he was careful to surround -himself with men of letters. His chaplain, Pedro Díaz de Toledo, -translated the _Phaedo_; his secretary, Diego de Burgos, was a poet who -imitated Santillana, and commemorated him in the _Triunfo del Marqués_. -But Santillana was not a scholar, and made no pretension to be one. He -knew no Greek, and he says that he never learned Latin. This is not -mock-modesty, for his statement is corroborated by his contemporary, -Juan de Lucena. He tried to make good his deficiencies, airs a Latin -quotation now and then, and must have spelled his way through Horace, -for he has left a pleasing version of the ode _Beatus ille_. Late in -life, he is thought to have read part of Homer in a Spanish translation -probably made (through a Latin rendering) by his son Pedro González -de Mendoza, the ‘Gran Cardenal de España,’ the Tertius Rex who ruled -almost on terms of equality with Ferdinand and Isabel. Whatever his -shortcomings, Santillana’s admiration for classic authors was complete. -He caused translations to be made of Virgil, Ovid and Seneca, and -records his view that the word ‘sublime’ should be applied solely to -‘those who wrote their works in Greek or Latin metres.’ His interest in -learning and his wide general culture are beyond dispute. His library -contained the _Roman de la Rose_, the works of Guillaume de Machault, -of Oton de Granson, and of Alain Chartier whom he singles out for -special praise as the author of _La Belle dame sans merci_ and the -_Reveil Matin_—‘por çierto cosas assaz fermosas é plaçientes de oyr.’ -He appeals to the authority of Raimon Vidal, to Jaufré de Foixá’s -continuation of Vidal, and to the rules laid down by the Consistory -of the Gay Science; and, if we may believe the lively _Coplas de la -Panadera_, he carried his liking for all things French so far as to -appear on the battlefield of Olmedo - - armado como francés. - -He had a still deeper admiration for the great Italian masters. In the -preface to his _Comedieta de Ponza_, which describes the rout of the -allied fleets of Castile and Aragón by the Genoese in 1435, Boccaccio -is one of the interlocutors. There is a patent resemblance between -Santillana’s _Triunphete de Amor_ and the _Trionfi_ of Petrarch, who is -mentioned in the first quatrain of the poem:— - - Vi lo que persona humana - tengo que jamás non vió, - nin Petrarcha qu’ escrivió - de triunphal gloria mundana. - -But Dante naturally has the foremost place in Santillana’s library. -Boccaccio’s biography of the poet stands on the shelves with the -_Divina Commedia_, the _Canzoni della vita nuova_, and the _Convivio_. -Without Dante we should not have Santillana’s _Sueño_, nor _La -Coronación de Mossén Jordi_, nor _La Comedieta de Ponza_, nor the -_Diálogo de Bias contra Fortuna_: at any rate, we should not have -them in their actual forms. Nor should we have _El Infierno de los -Enamorados_, in which Santillana invites a dangerous comparison by -adapting to the circumstances of Macías _o Namorado_ the plaint of -Francesca:— - - La mayor cuyta que aver - puede ningun amador - es membrarse del plaçer - en el tiempo del dolor. - -It is not, however, as an imitator of Dante that Santillana interests -us. He himself was perhaps most proud of his attempt to naturalise the -sonnet form in Spain; but these forty-two sonnets, _fechos al itálico -modo_ in Petrarch’s manner, are little more than curious, premature -experiments. And, as I have already suggested, the passion of hate -concentrated in the _Doctrinal de privados_ is incommunicative at a -distance of some four centuries and a half. Santillana attains real -excellence in a very different vein. His natural lyrism finds almost -magical expression in the _serranillas_ of which _La Vaquera de la -Finojosa_ is the most celebrated example, and in the airy _desires_ -which show his relation to the Portuguese-Galician school. Indeed he -has left us one song— - - Por amar non saybamente - mays como louco sirvente— - -which Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo believes to be ‘one of the last composed in -Galician by a Castilian _trovador_.’ In these popular or semi-pastoral -lays, so apparently artless and so artfully ironical, Santillana has -never been surpassed by any Spanish poet, though he is closely pressed -by the anonymous writer of the striking _serranilla morisca_ beginning— - - ¡Si ganada es Antequera! - ¡Oxalá Granada fuera! - ¡Sí me levantara un dia - por mirar bien Antequera! - vy mora con ossadía - passear por la rivera— - -and still more closely by the many-sided Lope de Vega in the famous -barcarolle in _El Vaquero de Moraña_. - -More learned, more professional and less spontaneous than Santillana, -his friend Juan de Mena was in his place as secretary to Juan II. We -know little of him except that he was born at Córdoba in 1411, that -his youth was passed in poverty, that his studies began late, that -he travelled in Italy, and that, after his introduction at court, he -was a universal favourite till his death in 1456. Universal favourites -are apt to be men of supple character, and it must have needed some -dexterity to stand equally well with Álvaro de Luna and Santillana. -Perhaps a Spaniard is entitled to be judged by the Spanish code, and -Spaniards seem to regard Mena as a man of independent spirit. But it -is unfortunate that our national standards in such matters differ -so widely: for the question of Mena’s personal character bears on -the ascription to him of certain verses which no courtier could have -written. - -With the disputable exception of Villena, Juan de Mena is the worst -prose-writer in the Spanish language, and no one can doubt the justice -of this verdict who glances at Mena’s commentary on his own poem _La -Coronación_, or at his abridged version of the _Iliad_ as he found it -in the _Ilias latina_ of Italicus. These lumbering performances are -fatal to the theory that Mena wrote the _Crónica de Don Juan II._, a -good specimen of clear and fluent prose. The ponderous humour of the -verses which he meant to be light is equally fatal to the theory that -he wrote the _Coplas de la Panadera_, a political pasquinade—not unlike -_The Rolliad_—ascribed with much more probability by Argote de Molina -to Íñigo Ortiz de Stúñiga. Till very recently, there was a bad habit of -ascribing to Mena anonymous compositions written during his life—and -even afterwards. But this is at an end, and we shall hear little more -of Mena as the author of the _Crónica de Juan II._, of the _Coplas de -la Panadera_, and of the _Celestina_. Henceforward attributions will be -based on some reasonable ground. - -Mena had an almost superstitious reverence for the classics, and -describes the _Iliad_ as ‘a holy and seraphic work.’ Unfortunately -he is embarrassed by his learning, or rather by a deliberate pedantry -which is even more offensive now than it was in his day. It takes a -poet as great as Milton to carry off a burden of erudition, and Mena -was no Milton. But he was a poet of high aims, and he produced a -genuinely impressive allegorical poem in _El Laberinto de Fortuna_, -more commonly known as _Las Trezientas_. The explanation of this -popular title is simple. The poem in its original form consisted of -nearly three hundred stanzas—297 to be precise—and another hand has -added three more, no doubt to make the poem correspond exactly to its -current title. Some of you may remember the story of Juan II.’s asking -Mena to write sixty-five more stanzas so that there might be one for -every day in the year; and the poet is said to have died leaving only -twenty-four of these additional stanzas behind him. This is quite a -respectable tradition as traditions go, for it is recorded by the -celebrated commentator Hernán Núñez, who wrote within half a century -of the poet’s death. We cannot, of course, know what Juan II. said, or -did not say, to Mena; but the twenty-four stanzas are in existence, and -the internal evidence goes to show that they were written after Mena’s -time. They deal severely with the King—the ‘prepotente señor’ of whom -Mena always speaks, as a court poet must speak, in terms of effusive -compliment. Here, however, the question of character arises, and, as I -have already noted, Spaniards and foreigners are at variance. - -Thanks to M. Foulché-Delbosc, we are all of us at last able to read _El -Laberinto de Fortuna_ in a critical edition, and to study the history -of the text reconstructed for us by the most indefatigable and exact -scholar now working in the field of Spanish literature. It has been -denied that _El Laberinto de Fortuna_ owes anything to the _Divina -Commedia_. The influence of Dante is plain in the adoption of the seven -planetary circles, in the fording of the stream, in the vision of what -was, and is, and is to be. The _Laberinto_ contains reminiscences of -the _Roman de la Rose_, and passages freely translated from Mena’s -fellow-townsman Lucan. It is derivative, and, though comparatively -short, it is often tedious. But are not most allegorical poems tedious? -Macaulay has been reproached for saying that few readers are ‘in -at the death of the Blatant Beast’: the fact being that Macaulay’s -wonderful memory failed for once. The Blatant Beast was never killed. -But how many educated men, how many professional literary critics, can -truthfully say that they have read the whole of the _Faerie Queene_? -How many of these few are prepared to have their knowledge tested? -I notice that, now as always, a significant silence follows these -innocent questions; and, merely pausing to observe that there are two -cantos on Mutability to read after the Blatant Beast breaks ‘his yron -chaine’ in the Sixth Book, I pass on. - -The _Laberinto_, with its constant over-emphasis, is not to be compared -with the _Faerie Queene_; but it has passages of stately beauty, it -breathes a passionate pride in the glory of Castile, and, while the -poet does all that metrical skill can do to lessen the monotonous throb -of the _versos de arte mayor_, he also strives to endow Spain with a -new poetic diction. Mena thought meanly of the vernacular—_el rudo y -desierto romance_—as a vehicle of expression, and he was logically -driven to innovate. He failed, partly because he latinised to excess; -yet many of his novelties—_diáfano_ and _nítido_, for example—are now -part and parcel of the language, and many more deserved a better fate -than death by ridicule. Like Herrera, who attempted a similar reform in -the next century, Mena was too far in advance of his contemporaries; -but this is not necessarily a sign of unintelligence. Mena was too -closely wedded to his classical idols to develop into a great poet; -still, at his happiest, he is a poet of real impressiveness, and -his command of exalted rhetoric and resonant music enable him to -represent—better even than Góngora, a far more splendid artist—the -characteristic tradition of the poetical school of Córdoba. - -I must find time to say a few words about Juan Rodríguez de la Cámara -(also called, after his supposed birthplace in Galicia, Rodríguez -del Padrón), whose few scattered poems are mostly love-songs, less -scandalous than might be expected from such alarming titles as _Los -Mandamientos de Amor_ and _Siete Gozos de Amor_. Nothing in these -amatory lyrics is so attractive as the legend which has formed round -their author. He is supposed to have served in the household of -Cardinal Juan de Cervantes about the year 1434, to have travelled in -Italy and in the East, to have been page to Juan II., to have become -entangled at court in some perilous amour, to have brought about a -breach by his indiscreet revelations to a talkative friend, to have -fled into solitude, and to have become a Franciscan monk. Some such -story is adumbrated in Rodríguez de la Cámara’s novel _El Siervo libre -de Amor_, and the romantic part of it—the love-episode—is confirmed by -the official chronicler of the Franciscan Order. An anonymous writer -of the sixteenth century goes on to state that Rodríguez de la Cámara -went to France, became the lover of the French queen, and was killed -near Calais in an attempt to escape to England. The imaginative nature -of this postscript discredits the writer’s assertion that Rodríguez -de la Cámara’s mistress at the Spanish court was Queen Juana, the -second wife of Juan II.’s son, Enrique IV. Rightly or wrongly, Juana of -Portugal is credited with many lovers, but Rodríguez de la Cámara was -certainly not one of them. As _El Siervo libre de Amor_ was written not -later than 1439, the adventures recounted in it must have occurred—if -they ever occurred at all—before this date; but the future Enrique -IV. was first married in 1440 (to Blanca of Navarre), and his second -marriage (to Juana of Portugal) did not take place till 1455. A simple -comparison of dates is enough to ensure Juana’s acquittal. Few people -like to see a scandalous story about historical personages destroyed in -this cold-blooded way, and it has accordingly been suggested that the -heroine was Juan II.’s second wife, the Isabel of Portugal who brought -Álvaro de Luna to the scaffold. The substitution is capricious, but it -has a plausible air. Chronology, again, comes to the rescue. Rodríguez -de la Cámara became a monk before 1445, and Isabel of Portugal did not -marry Juan II. till 1447. The identity of the lady is even harder to -establish than that of the elusive Portuguese beauty celebrated during -the next century by Bernardim de Ribeiro in _Menina e Moça_. - -There are scores of Spanish books which you may read more profitably -than Rodríguez de la Cámara’s novels. _El Siervo libre de Amor_ and the -_Estoria de los dos amadores, Ardanlier é Liessa_; and better verses -than any he ever wrote may be found in the _Cancionero_ of Juan Alfonso -de Baena, who formed this _corpus poeticum_ at some date previous to -the death of Queen María, Juan II.’s first wife, in 1445. But Rodríguez -de la Cámara has the distinction of being the first courtly poet to put -his name to a _romance_. One of the three which he signs, and which -were first brought to light by Professor Rennert, is a recast of a -famous _romance_ on Count Arnaldos. He was not the only court-poet of -his time who condescended to write in the popular vein. Two _romances_, -one of them bearing the date 1442, are given in the _Cancionero de -Stúñiga_ above the name of Carvajal who, as he resided at the court -of Alfonso V. of Aragón in Naples, is outside the limits of our -jurisdiction. But the best _romances_, the work of anonymous poets -disdained by Santillana and more learned writers, will afford matter -for another lecture. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE _ROMANCERO_ - - -The _Romancero_ has been described, in a phrase attributed to Lope -de Vega, as ‘an _Iliad_ without a Homer.’ More prosaically, it is a -collection of _romances_; and, before going further, it may be as -well to observe that the meaning of the word _romance_ has become -much restricted in course of time. Originally used to designate the -varieties of speech derived from Latin, it was applied later only to -the body of written literature in the different vernaculars of Romania, -and then, by another limitation, it was applied solely to poems written -in these languages. Lastly, the meaning of the word was still further -narrowed in Spanish, and a _romance_ has now come to mean a special -form of verse-composition—an epical-lyric poem arranged primarily in -lines of sixteen syllables with one assonance sustained throughout. -There are occasional variants from the type. Some few _romances_ have -a refrain; in some of the oldest _romances_ there is a change of -assonance: but the normal form of the genuine popular _romances_ is -what I have just described it to be. There should be no mistake on -this point, and yet a mistake may easily be made. Though the metrical -structure of these popular Spanish ballads had been demonstrated -as far back as 1815 by Grimm in his _Silva de romances viejos_, so -good a scholar as Agustín Durán—to whom we owe the largest existing -collection of _romances_—has printed them in such a shape as to give -the impression that they were written in octosyllabics of which only -the even lines (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.) are assonanced. Moreover, he expounds -this theory in his _Discurso preliminar_, and his view is supported -by the high authority of Wolf.[6] Still, it cannot be maintained. It -is undoubtedly true that the later artistic ballads of the sixteenth -and seventeenth centuries, written by professional poets like Lope de -Vega and Góngora, were composed in the form which Durán describes. -We are not concerned this afternoon, however, with these brilliant -artificial imitations, but with the authentic, primitive ballads of the -people. These old Spanish _romances_, I repeat, are written normally in -lines of sixteen syllables, every line ending in a uniform assonance. -They should be printed so as to make this clear, and indeed they are -so printed by the celebrated scholar Antonio de Nebrija who, in his -_Gramática sobre la lengua castellana_ (1492), quotes three lines from -one of the Lancelot ballads:— - - Digas tu el ermitaño que hazes la vida santa: - Aquel ciervo del pie blanco donde haze su morada. - Por aqui passo esta noche un hora antes del alva. - -There are other erroneous theories respecting the _romances_ against -which you should be warned at the outset. Sancho Panza, in his -pleasant way, informed the Duchess that these ballads were ‘too old -to lie’; but he gives no particulars as to their age, and thereby -shows his wisdom. Most English readers who are not specialists take -their information on the subject from Lockhart’s Introduction to his -_Ancient Spanish Ballads_, a volume containing free translations of -fifty-three _romances_, published in 1823. Lockhart, who drew most of -his material from Depping,[7] probably knew as much about the matter -as any one of his time in England; but, though we move slowly in our -Spanish studies, we make some progress, and Lockhart’s opinions on -certain points relating to the _romances_ are no longer tenable. He -notes, for example, that the _Cancionero general_ contains ‘several -pieces which bear the name of Don Juan Manuel,’ identifies this writer -with the author of the _Conde Lucanor_, states that these pieces ‘are -among the most modern in the collection,’ and naturally concludes that -most of the remaining pieces must have been written long before 1348, -the year of Don Juan Manuel’s death. Lockhart goes on to observe that -the Moors undoubtedly exerted ‘great and remarkable influence over -Spanish thought and feeling—and therefore over Spanish language and -poetry’; and, though he does not say so in precise terms, he leaves -the impression that this reputed Arabic influence is visible in the -Spanish _romances_. These views, widely held in Lockhart’s day, are -now abandoned by all competent scholars; but unfortunately they still -prevail among the general public. - -Milá y Fontanals, who incidentally informs us that Corneille was the -first foreigner to quote a Spanish _romance_,[8] states that these -theories as to the antiquity and Arabic origin of the _romances_ were -first advanced by another foreigner—Pierre-Daniel Huet, Bishop of -Avranches—towards the end of the seventeenth century.[9] But they made -little way till 1820, when the theory of Arabic origin was confidently -reiterated by Conde in his _Historia de la dominación de los árabes -en España_. Conde’s scholarship has been declared inadequate by later -Orientalists, and the rest of us must be content to accept the verdict -of these experts who alone have any right to an opinion on the matter. -But it cannot be disputed that Conde had the knack of presenting a -case plausibly, and of passing off a conjecture for a fact. Hence -he made many converts who perhaps exaggerated his views. It is just -possible—though unlikely—that there may be some slight relation between -an Arabic _zajal_ and such a Spanish composition as the _serranilla_ -quoted in the last lecture:— - - ¡Sí ganada es Antequera! - ¡Oxalá Granada fuera! - ¡Sí me levantara un dia - por mirar bien Antequera! - vy mora con ossadía - passear por la rivera. - Sola va, sin compannera, - en garnachas de un contray. - Yo le dixe: ‘_Alá çulay_.’— - ‘_Calema_,’ me respondiera. - -But, in the first place, a _serranilla_ is not a _romance_; and, in the -second place, a more probable counter-theory derives the _serranilla_ -form from the Portuguese-Galician lyrics which are themselves of -French origin. Beyond this very disputable relation, there is no -basis for Conde’s theory. Dozy has shown conclusively that nothing -could be more unlike than the elaborately learned conventions of -Arabic verse and the untutored methods of the Spanish _romances_, -the artless expression of spontaneous popular poetry. It may be taken -as established that there is no trace of Arabic influence in the -_romances_, and there is no sound reason for thinking that any existing -_romance_ is of remote antiquity. So far from there being many extant -specimens dating from before the time of Don Juan Manuel, there are -none. What some have believed to be the oldest known _romance_— - - Alburquerque, Alburquerque, bien mereces ser honrado[10]— - -refers to an incident which occurred in 1430, almost a century after -Don Juan Manuel’s death; and even if we take for granted that one of -the _romances fronterizos_ or border-ballads— - - Cercada tiene á Baeza ese arráez Audalla Mir[11]— - -was first written as early as 1368, we are still twenty years after -Don Juan Manuel’s time. There may be _romances_ which in their -original form were written before these two; but, if so, they are -unrecognisable. The authentic _romances_ lived only in oral tradition; -they were not thought worth writing down, and they were not printed -till late in the day. The older a _romance_ is, the more unlikely it -is to reach us unchanged. No existing _romance_, in its present form, -can be referred to any period earlier than the fifteenth century, and -_romances_ of this date are comparatively rare. - -The first to mention this class of composition is Santillana in his -well-known letter to the Constable of Portugal written shortly before -1450, and he dismisses the popular balladists with all the disdain of -a gentleman who writes at his ease. ‘Contemptible poets are those who -without any order, rule or rhythm make those songs and _romances_ in -which low folk, and of menial station, take delight.’ A cause must be -prospering before it is denounced in this fashion, and it may therefore -be assumed that many _romances_ were current when Santillana delivered -judgment. Writing in 1492 and quoting from the Lancelot ballad already -mentioned, Nebrija speaks of it as ‘aquel romance antiguo’; but ‘old’ -has a very relative meaning, and Nebrija may have thought that a ballad -composed fifty years earlier deserved to be called ‘old.’ At any rate, -the oldest _romances_ no doubt took their final form between the time -of Santillana’s youth and Nebrija’s, and the introduction of printing -into Spain has saved some of these for us. But—it must be said again -and again—they are comparatively few in number, and no Spanish ballad -is anything like as ancient as our own _Judas_ ballad which exists in a -thirteenth-century manuscript at Trinity College, Cambridge. - -Santillana slightly overstates his case when he speaks of those who -composed _romances_ as ‘contemptible poets’ catering for the rabble. -We have seen that Rodrígue de la Cámara and Carvajal both wrote -_romances_ in the fourth or fifth decade of the fifteenth century. -Santillana cannot have meant to speak contemptuously of his two -contemporaries, one a poet at the Castilian court of Juan II., and -the other a poet at the Neapolitan court of Alfonso V. of Aragón; he -evidently knew nothing of these artistic _romances_, and would have -been pained to hear that educated men countenanced such stuff. No -doubt other educated men besides Rodríguez de la Cámara and Carvajal -wrote in the popular manner; possibly the Lancelot ballad quoted by -Nebrija is the work of some court-poet: the conditions were changing, -and—though Santillana was perhaps unaware of it—the _romances_ were -rising in esteem. But Santillana is right as regards the earlier -period. The primitive writers of popular _romances_ were men of humble -station, the impoverished representatives of those who had sung the -_cantares de gesta_. These _cantares de gesta_ were worked into the -substance of histories and chronicles, and then went out of fashion. -The _juglares_ or singers came down in the world; in the twelfth and -thirteenth centuries they had been welcome at courts and castles where -they chanted long epics; by the fourteenth century they sang corrupt -abridgments of these epics to less distinguished audiences; by the -fifteenth century the epical songs were broken up. The themes were kept -alive by oral tradition in the shape of shorter lyrical narratives, -and these transformed fragments of the old epics were the primitive -_romances_ condemned by Santillana. - -The subjects of these popular ballads were historical or legendary -characters like Roderick, Bernardo del Carpio, the Counts of Castile, -Fernán González, the Infantes of Lara, the Cid and his lieutenant, and -other local heroes. Later on, the nameless poets of the people were -tempted to deal with the sinister stories which crystallised round -the name of Peter the Cruel, the long struggle against the Moors, -episodes famous in the Arthurian legends and the books of chivalry, -exploits recorded in the chronicles of foreign countries, miscellaneous -incidents borrowed from diverse sources. It was gradually recognised -that the popular instinct had discovered a most effective vehicle -of poetic expression; more educated versifiers followed the lead of -Rodríguez de la Cámara and Carvajal, but with a certain shamefaced -air. The collections of _romances_ published by Alonso de Fuentes -and Lorenzo de Sepúlveda (in 1550 and 1551 respectively) are mainly -the work of lettered courtiers who, like the ‘Cæsarean Knight’—the -_Caballero Cesáreo_ who contributed to the second edition of -Sepúlveda’s book—are conscious of their condescension, and withhold -their names, under the quaint delusion that they are ‘reserved for -greater things.’ - -But this bashfulness soon wore off. Before the end of the sixteenth -century famous writers like Lope de Vega and Góngora proved themselves -to be masters of the ballad-form, and within a comparatively short -while there came into existence the mass of _romances_ which fill the -two volumes of the _Romancero general_ published in 1600 and 1605. -The best of these are brilliant performances; but they are late, -artistic imitations. For genuine old popular _romances_ we must look -in broadsides, or in the collections issued at Antwerp and Saragossa -in the middle of the sixteenth century by Martín Nucio and Esteban de -Nájera respectively. We may also read them (with a good deal more) in -the _Primavera y Flor de romances_ edited by Wolf and Hofmann; and, -most conveniently of all, in the amplified reprint of the _Primavera_ -for which we are indebted to Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo, the most eminent -of living Spanish scholars. But the _romances_—not all of them very -ancient—in the amplified _Primavera_ fill three volumes; and, as -it would be impossible to examine them one by one, it has occurred -to me that the only practical plan is to take Lockhart as a basis, -and to comment briefly on the ballads represented in his volume of -translations—which I see some of you consulting. There may be occasion, -also, to point out some omissions. - -Lockhart begins with a translation of a _romance_ quoted in _Don -Quixote_ by Ginés de Pasamonte, after the destruction of his -puppet-show by the scandalised knight:— - - Las huestes de don Rodrigo desmayaban y huian.[12] - -The English rendering, though not very exact throughout, is adequate and -spirited enough:— - - The hosts of Don Rodrigo were scattered in dismay, - When lost was the eighth battle, nor heart nor hope had they; - He, when he saw that field was lost, and all his hope was flown, - He turned him from his flying host, and took his way alone. - -In a prefatory note to his version, Lockhart says that this ballad -‘appears to be one of the oldest among the great number relating to -the Moorish conquest of Spain.’ This is somewhat vague, but the remark -might easily lead an ingenuous reader to think that the ballad was -very ancient. This is not so. There is a thirteenth-century French -epic, entitled _Anséis de Carthage_,[13] which represents Charlemagne -as establishing in Spain a vassal king named Anséis. Anséis dishonours -Letise, daughter of Ysorés de Conimbre, and Ysorés takes vengeance by -introducing the Arabs into Spain. Clearly this is another version of -the legend concerning the dishonour of ‘La Cava,’ daughter of Count -Julian (otherwise Illán or Urbán) by Roderick. Anséis is manifestly -Roderick, Letise is ‘La Cava,’ Ysorés is Julian, and Carthage may -be meant for Cartagena. The transmission of this story to France, -and a passage in the chronicle of the Moor Rasis—which survives -only in a Spanish translation made from a Portuguese version during -the fourteenth century by a certain Maestro Muhammad (who dictated -apparently to a churchman called Gil Pérez)—would point to the -existence of ancient Spanish epics on Roderick’s overthrow. But no -vestige of these epics survives. - -The oldest extant _romances_ relating to Roderick are derived from -the _Crónica Sarrazyna_ of Pedro del Corral, ‘a lewd and presumptuous -fellow,’ who trumped up a parcel of lies, according to Pérez de -Guzmán. Corral’s book is not all lies: he compiled it from the -_Crónica general_, the chronicle of the Moor Rasis, and the _Crónica -Troyana_, and padded it out with inventions of his own. But the point -that interests us is that Corral made his compilation about the year -1443, and it follows that the _romances_ derived from it must be of -later date. They are much later: the oldest were not written till -the sixteenth century, and therefore they are not really ancient nor -popular. But some of them have a few memorable lines. For instance, in -the first ballad translated by Lockhart:— - - Last night I was the King of Spain—to-day no king am I; - Last night fair castles held my train,—to-night where shall I lie? - Last night a hundred pages did serve me on the knee,— - To-night not one I call mine own:—not one pertains to me. - -There is charm, also, in the _romance_ which begins with the line:— - - Los vientos eran contrarios, la luna estaba crecida.[14] - -And as Lockhart omits this, I may quote the opening in Gibson’s -excellent version[15]:— - - The winds were sadly moaning, the moon was on the change, - The fishes they were gasping, the skies were wild and strange, - ’Twas then that Don Rodrigo beside La Cava slept. - Within a tent of splendour, with golden hangings deckt. - - Three hundred cords of silver did hold it firm and free, - Within a hundred maidens stood passing fair to see; - The fifty they were playing with finest harmonie, - The fifty they were singing with sweetest melodie. - - A maid they called Fortuna uprose and thus she spake: - ‘If thou sleepest, Don Rodrigo, I pray thee now awake; - - Thine evil fate is on thee, thy kingdom it doth fall, - Thy people perish, and thy hosts are scattered one and all, - Thy famous towns and cities fall in a single day, - And o’er thy forts and castles another lord bears sway.’ - -The _romances_ of this series have perhaps met with rather more success -than they deserved on their intrinsic merits. The second ballad -translated by Lockhart— - - Despues que el rey don Rodrigo á España perdido habia[16]— - -is quoted by Doña Rodríguez in _Don Quixote_; and the simple chance -that these _romances_ were lodged in Cervantes’s memory has made them -familiar to everybody. Nor is this the end of their good fortune, for -the first ballad translated by Lockhart caught the attention of Victor -Hugo, who incorporated a fragment of it in _La Bataille perdue_.[17] -Among the twenty-five _romances_ on Roderick in Durán’s collection, -those by Timoneda, Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, and Gabriel Lobo Lasso de la -Vega can, of course, be no older than the middle or the latter half -of the sixteenth century. Others, though anonymous, can be shown to -belong, at the earliest, to the extreme end of the sixteenth century. - -In a note to the eighth poem in his anthology—_The Escape of Count -Fernan Gonzalez_—Lockhart mentions ‘La Cava,’ and remarks that ‘no -child in Spain was ever christened by that ominous name after the -downfall of the Gothic Kingdom.’ Sweeping statements of this kind -are generally dangerous, but in this particular case one might -safely go further, and say that no child in Spain, or anywhere else, -was ever christened ‘La Cava’ at any time. ‘Cava’ appears to be an -abbreviation or variant of the name ‘Alataba,’ and it is first given -as the name of Count Julian’s daughter by the Moor Rasis, an Arab -historian who lived two centuries after the downfall of the Gothic -kingdom, and whose chronicle, as I have already said, survives only in -a fourteenth-century Spanish translation made through the Portuguese. -We cannot feel sure that the name ‘Cava’ occurred in the original -Arabic; and, even if it did, no testimony given two hundred years after -an event can be decisive. But why does Lockhart think that ‘Cava’ -was an ominous name? Perhaps because he took it to be the Arabic -word for a wanton. This is, in fact, the explanation given in the -_Historia verdadera del rey don Rodrigo y de la pérdida de España_, -which purports to be a translation from the Arabic of Abulcacim Tarif -Abentarique. It is nothing of the kind. Abentarique is a mythical -personage, and his supposititious chronicle was fabricated at Granada -by a _morisco_ called Miguel de Luna who, by the way, was the first to -assert that ‘La Cava’s’ real name was Florinda. These circumstances -enable us to assign a modern date to certain _romances_ which are -popularly supposed to be ancient. If a _romance_ speaks of Roderick’s -alleged victim as ‘La Cava’ in a derogatory sense, we know at once that -it was written after the publication of Luna’s forgery in 1589: and -accordingly we must reject as a late invention the notorious ballad -beginning— - - De una torre de palacio se salió por un postigo.[18] - -In Lockhart’s second group of _romances_ the central figure is Bernardo -del Carpio who, says the translator, ‘belongs exclusively to Spanish -History, or rather perhaps to Spanish Romance.’ The word ‘perhaps’ -may be omitted. Bernardo del Carpio was a fabulous paladin invented -by the popular poets of Castile, who, either through the _Chanson de -Roland_, or some similar poem, had heard of Charlemagne’s victories -in the Peninsula. It is not absolutely certain that Charlemagne ever -invaded Spain; still, his expedition is recorded by Arab historians -as well as by Castilian chroniclers, and no doubt it was commonly -believed to be an historical fact. But, as time went on, the idea -that Charlemagne had carried all before him offended the patriotic -sentiment of the Castilian folk-poets, and this led them to give the -story a very different turn. What happened precisely is not clear, -but the explanation suggested by Milá y Fontanals and Sr. Menéndez -y Pelayo is ingenious and probable. Attracted perhaps by the French -name of Bernardo, the _juglares_ seem to have seized upon the far-off -figure of a certain Bernardo (son of Ramón, Count of Ribagorza), -who had headed successful raids against the Arabs. They removed the -scene of his exploits from Aragón to Castile, transformed him into -the son of the Count de Saldaña and Thiber, Charlemagne’s sister—or, -alternatively, the son of the Count Don Sancho and Jimena, sister of -Alfonso the Chaste—called him Bernardo del Carpio, and hailed him -as the champion of Castile. The childless Alfonso is represented -as inviting Charlemagne to succeed him when he dies; the mythical -Bernardo protests in the name of Alfonso’s subjects, and the offer is -withdrawn; thereupon Charlemagne invades Spain, and is defeated at -Roncesvalles—not, as in the _Chanson de Roland_, by the Arabs, but—by -Spaniards from the different provinces united under the leadership of -Bernardo del Carpio. The _Crónica general_ speaks of Bernardo’s slaying -with his own hand ‘un alto ome de Francia que avie nombre Buesso,’ -and this was developed later into a personal combat between Roland and -Bernardo del Carpio who, of course, is the victor. These imaginary -exploits were celebrated in _cantares de gesta_ of which fragments -are believed to be embedded in the _Crónica general_, and these are -represented by three _romances_. None of the forty-six ballads in the -Bernardo del Carpio series can be regarded as ancient with the possible -exception of— - - Con cartas y mensajeros el rey al Carpio envió[19]— - -quoted in the Second Part of _Don Quixote_. This _romance_, as Sr. -Menéndez y Pelayo thinks, is derived from a _cantar de gesta_ written -after the compilation of the _Crónica general_. Of the Bernardo -_romances_ printed in Duran’s collection four are by Lorenzo de -Sepúlveda, four by Gabriel Lobo Lasso de la Vega, and three by Lucas -Rodríguez. Lockhart’s four examples are all modern, and his renderings -are not specially successful; but in the original the first of the four— - - Con tres mil y mas leoneses deja la ciudad Bernardo[20]— - -is a capital imitation of a popular ballad. It makes its earliest -appearance in the 1604 edition of the _Romancero general_, and that is -enough to prove its modernity. - -Another modern ballad, which is also first found in the _Romancero -general_, is translated by Lockhart under the title of _The Maiden -Tribute_. Neither the translation nor the original— - - En consulta estaba un dia con sus grandes y consejo[21]— - -calls for comment. A similar legend is associated with the name of -Fernán González, the hero of the eighth poem in Lockhart’s book. -Fernán González, Count of Castile, was an historical personage more -remarkable as a political strategist than as a leader in the field. -However, he makes a gallant figure in the _Poema de Fernán González_, -a thirteenth-century poem written in the _quaderna vía_, which appears -to have been imitated a hundred years later by the French author of -_Hernaut de Beaulande_. But no extant _romance_ on Fernán González is -based on the _Poema_. The ballad translated by Lockhart— - - Preso está Fernán González el gran conde de Castilla[22]— - -comes from the _Estoria del noble caballero Fernán González_, a popular -arrangement of the _Crónica general_ as recast in 1344. The _romance_ -is a good enough piece of work, but it is more modern than the ballad -beginning - - Buen conde Fernán González el rey envia por vos;[23] - -and this last _romance_ is less interesting than another ballad of the -same period:— - - Castellanos y leoneses tienen grandes divisiones.[24] - -Both of these are thought to represent a lost epic which was worked -into the _Crónica general_ of 1344. - -Lockhart prints translations of two _romances_ relating to the Infantes -of Lara, one of them being modern,[25] and the other the famous - - A cazar va don Rodrigo y aun don Rodrigo de Lara.[26] - -This was quoted by Sancho Panza, and—as M. Foulché-Delbosc was the -first to point out—it has had the distinction of being splendidly -adapted by Victor Hugo in the _Orientales_ (xxx.) under the fantastic -title of _Romance Mauresque_:— - - Don Rodrigue est à la chasse - Sans épée et sans cuirasse, - Un jour d’été, vers midi, - Sous la feuillée et sur l’herbe - Il s’assied, l’homme superbe, - Don Rodrigue le hardi. - -In this instance we have to do with a genuine old _romance_ -derived—more or less indirectly—from a lost epic on the Infantes of -Lara written between 1268 and 1344, or perhaps from a lost recast of -this lost epic. And Lockhart might have chosen other ballads of even -more energetic inspiration which spring from the same source. Among -these are— - - A Calatrava la Vieja la combaten castellanos[27]— - -in which Rodrigo de Lara vows vengeance for the insult offered to his -wife by Gonzalo González, the youngest of the Infantes of Lara; and -that genuine masterpiece of barbaric but poignant pathos in which -Gonzalo Gustios kisses the severed heads of his seven murdered sons:— - - Pártese el more Alicante víspera de sant Cebrián.[28] - -And to these Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo would add a third ballad beginning -with the line:— - - Ya se salen de Castilla castellanos con gran saña.[29] - -But, if a foreigner may be allowed an opinion, this falls far short of -the others in force and fire. - -The next ballad given by Lockhart, entitled _The Wedding of the Lady -Theresa_, is a translation of - - En los reinos de León el Quinto Alfonso reinaba[30]— - -first printed by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, who may perhaps have written -it. Whatever doubt there may be as to the authorship, there is none as -to the date of this composition: it is no earlier than the sixteenth -century. There would seem to be some basis of fact for the story that -some Christian princess married some prominent Arab chief; but there -is a confusion between Almanzor and the Toledan governor Abdallah -on the one hand, and a confusion between Alfonso V. of León and his -father Bermudo II. on the other hand, not to speak of chronological -difficulties and the like. But we need not try to unravel the tangle, -for there is no authentic old _romance_ on the Infanta Teresa, though a -poem on the subject— - - Casamiento se hacia que á Dios ha desagradado[31]— - -has crept into the collection edited by Wolf and Hofmann, This is not -unimpressive as a piece of poetic narrative; yet as it is written—not -in assonances, but—in perfect rhyme, it is not a _romance_ at all, -according to the definition with which we began. - -In his choice of _romances_ on the Cid Lockhart has not been altogether -happy. He begins well with a translation of the admirable - - Cabalga Diego Laínez al buen rey besar la mano.[32] - -This is probably no older than the sixteenth century, yet, apart from -its poetic beauty, it has a special interest as deriving from a lost -_Cantar de Rodrigo_ which differed from the extant _Crónica rimada_. -But the remaining poems in Lockhart’s group are mostly poor and recent -imitations. _Ximena demands vengeance_ is translated from - - Grande rumor se levanta de gritos, armas, y voces.[33] - -But this _romance_ appears for the first time in Escobar’s collection -published as late as 1612. Then, again. _The Cid and the Five Moorish -Kings_ is translated from - - Reyes moros en Castilla entran con gran alarido.[34] - -And this is first given by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda who also prints the -original of the next ballad, _The Cid’s Courtship_— - - De Rodrigo de Vivar muy grande fama corria.[35] - -Upon this follows a translation of a ballad which, says Lockhart, -‘contains some curious traits of rough and antique manners,’ and ‘is -not included in Escobar’s collection.’ The ballad, which Lockhart -entitles _The Cid’s Wedding_, is translated from - - A su palacio de Burgos, como buen padrino honrado.[36] - -But there is nothing antique about it; it was written in Escobar’s -own time, and appeared first in the _Romancero general_. Nor is there -anything antique in the original of _The Cid and the Leper_— - - Ya se parte don Rodrigo, que de Vivar se apellida.[37] - -This is first printed by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, who is also the first to -give - - Ya se parte de Toledo ese buen Cid afamado,[38] - -which Lockhart, whose version begins at the eleventh line, calls -_Bavieca_. These are, of course, no older than the sixteenth century, -and this is also the date of - - A concilio dentro en Roma, á concilio bien llamado,[39] - -entitled _The Excommunication of the Cid_ in the English version. -There is a note of disrespect in the original which need cause no -surprise, for our Spanish friends, though incorruptibly orthodox, keep -their religion and their politics more apart than one might think, and -at this very period Charles V. had shown unmistakably that he knew -how to put a Pope in his place as regards temporal matters. But it -need scarcely be said that the Spanish contains nothing equivalent to -Lockhart’s— - - The Pope he sitteth above them all, _that they may kiss his toe_— - -a Protestant interpolation so grotesque as to be wholly out of keeping -in any Spanish poem. - -You will see, then, that most of the Cid ballads translated by Lockhart -are unrepresentative. He might have given us a version of - - Dia era de los reyes, dia era señalado[40]— - -one of three _romances_[41] which are taken from the same source as the -first in his group— - - Cabalga Diego Laínez al buen rey besar la mano. - -But the deficiency has been made good by Gibson who notes as a proof of -the ballad’s modernity—it is no older than the sixteenth century—the -inclusion of a passage from the Lara legend— - - It was the feast-day of the Kings, - A high and holy day, - Venn all the dames and damosels - The King for hansel pray. - - All save Ximena Gomez, - The Count Lozano’s child, - And she has knelt low at his feet, - And cries with dolour wild: - - ‘My mother died of sorrow, King, - In sorrow still live I; - I see the man who slew my Sire - Each day that passes by. - - A horseman on a hunting horse, - With hawk in hand rides he; - And in my dove-cot feeds his bird, - To show his spite at me.... - - I sent to tell him of my grief, - He sent to threaten me, - That he would cut my skirts away, - Most shameful for to see! - - That he would put my maids to scorn, - The wedded and to wed, - And underneath my silken gown - My little page strike dead!...’ - -Of the two hundred and five _romances_ on the Cid printed by Madame -Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, probably one hundred and eighty at least may -be considered modern, and some we know to have been written by Lorenzo -de Sepúlveda, Lucas Rodríguez, and Juan de la Cueva. But the rest -are doubtless ancient (as _romances_ go), and it is unfortunate that -Lockhart gives no specimen of the ballads on the siege of Zamora. For -example, the celebrated ballad that begins - - Riberas del Duero arriba cabalgan dos Zamoranos[42]— - -a splendid _romance_ the opening of which may be quoted from Gibson’s -rendering:— - - Along the Douro’s bank there ride - Two gallant Zamorese - On sorrel steeds; their banners green - Are fluttering in the breeze. - - Their armour is of finest steel, - And rich their burnished brands; - They bear their shields before their breasts, - Stout lances in their hands. - - They ride their steeds with pointed spurs, - And bits of silver fine; - More gallant men were never seen, - So bright their arms do shine. - -Then follow their challenge to any two knights in Sancho’s camp (except -the King himself and the Cid), its acceptance by the two Counts, the -Cid’s mocking intervention, and the encounter:— - - The Counts arrive; one clad in black, - And one in crimson bright; - The opposing ranks each other meet, - And furious is the fight. - - The youth has quick unhorsed his man, - With sturdy stroke and true; - The Sire has pierced the other’s mail, - And sent his lance right through. - - The horseless knight, pale at the sight, - Ran hurrying from the fray; - Back to Zamora ride the twain, - With glory crowned that day! - -And another _romance_ worth giving from the Zamora series is the -impressive - - Por aquel postigo viejo que nunca fuera cerrado.[43] - -Fortunately, Lockhart’s omission has been made good by - -Gibson, though of course no translation can do more than give a hint of -the original:— - - On through the ancient gateway, - That had nor lock nor bar, - I saw a crimson banner come, - With three hundred horse of war; - - I saw them bear a coffin, - And black was its array; - And placed within the coffin - A noble body lay.... - -These ballads are included in the _Romancero del Cid_, and they are -particularly interesting as being the _débris_ of a lost epic on the -siege of Zamora which has apparently been utilised in the _Crónica -general_; but perhaps a translator might excuse himself for not dealing -with them on the ground that the Cid only appears incidentally. Indeed -in - - Por aquel postigo viejo que nunca fuera cerrado, - -the Cid does not appear at all. The same excuse might be given for -omitting the well-known - - Doliente estaba, doliente, ese buen rey don Fernando,[44] - -of which Gibson, however, gives a fairly adequate rendering, so far as -the difference of language allows:— - - The King was dying, slowly dying, - The good King Ferdinand; - His feet were pointed to the East, - A taper in his hand. - - Beside his bed, and at the head, - His four sons took their place, - The three were children of the Queen, - The fourth of bastard race. - - The bastard had the better luck, - Had rank and noble gains; - Archbishop of Toledo he, - And Primate of the Spains.... - -So, again, the Cid does not appear in the often-quoted _romance_ -beginning— - - Rey don Sancho, rey don Sancho, no digas que no te aviso.[45] - -Nor does he figure in the still more celebrated ballad which records -Diego Ordóñez’ challenge to the garrison of Zamora after Sancho’s -assassination:— - - Ya cabalga Diego Ordóñez, del real se habia salido.[46] - -But we may thank Gibson for enabling English readers to form some idea -of both. His version of the Ordóñez ballad is by no means unhappy:— - - Don Diego Ordóñez rides away - From the royal camp with speed, - Armed head to foot with double mail, - And on a coal-black steed. - - He rides to challenge Zamora’s men, - His breast with fury filled; - To avenge the King Don Sancho - Whom the traitor Dolfos killed. - - He reached in haste Zamora’s gate, - And loud his trumpet blew; - And from his mouth like sparks of fire - His words in fury flew: - - ‘Zamorans, I do challenge ye, - Ye traitors born and bred; - I challenge ye all, both great and small, - The living and the dead. - - I challenge the men and women, - The unborn and the born; - I challenge the wine and waters, - The cattle and the corn. - - Within your town that traitor lives - Our King who basely slew;— - Who harbour traitors in their midst - Themselves are traitors too. - - I’m here in arms against ye all - The combat to maintain; - Or else with five and one by one, - As is the use in Spain!’... - -To Gibson’s fine instinct we are also indebted for an English rendering -of - - En las almenas de Toro, allí estaba una doncella[47]— - -a ballad of doubtful date which is superbly ‘glossed’ in _Las Almenas -de Toro_ by Lope de Vega, who uses the old _romances_ with astonishing -felicity. But the most ancient poem in the whole series of the Cid -ballads is a composition, said to be unconnected with any antecedent -epic, and possibly dating (in its primitive form) from the fourteenth -century:— - - Hélo, hélo por dó viene el moro por la calzada.[48] - -This _romance_ has been done into English by Gibson with considerable -success, as you may judge by the opening stanzas:— - - He comes, he comes, the Moorman comes - Along the sounding way; - With stirrup short, and pointed spur, - He rides his gallant bay.... - - He looks upon Valencia’s towers, - And mutters in his ire: - ‘Valencia, O Valencia, - Burn thou with evil fire! - - Although the Christian holds thee now, - Thou wert the Moor’s before; - And if my lance deceive me not, - Thou’lt be the Moor’s once more!’... - -There is still much to be said concerning the Cid _romances_ which -Southey dismissed too cavalierly; but my time is running out, and I -must pass on to the next ballads translated by Lockhart. _Garci Perez -de Vargas_ is a rendering of - - Estando sobre Sevilla el rey Fernando el tercero;[49] - -and _The Pounder_, which was referred to by Don Quixote when he -proposed to tear up an oak by the roots and use it as a weapon, is a -version of - - Jerez, aquesa nombrada, cercada era de cristianos.[50] - -Neither need detain us; both are modern, and the latter is by Lorenzo -de Sepúlveda. Much more curious are the group of ballads on Peter -the Cruel. In the Spanish drama Peter is represented as the _Rey -Justiciero_, the autocrat of democratic sympathies, dealing out -summary justice to the nobles and the wealthy, who grind the poor -man’s face. But this is merely what the sophisticated middle class -supposed to be the democratic point of view. The democracy, as we see -from the anonymous popular poets, believed Peter to be much worse than -he actually was, and the _romances_ record the deliberate calumnies -invented by the partisans of Peter’s triumphant bastard brother, Henry -of Trastamara. This is noticeable in the translation of - - Yo me estabá allá en Coimbra que yo me la hube ganado,[51] - -which Lockhart calls _The Murder of the Master_. It is true that Peter -had his brother, Don Fadrique, Master of the Order of Santiago, put to -death at Seville in 1358; it is also true that Fadrique was a tricky -and dangerous conspirator, who had already been detected and pardoned -by his brother more than once. The _romance_ passes over Fadrique’s -plots in silence, and this is common enough with political hacks; -but it goes on to imply that the crime was suggested to Peter by his -mistress. This is almost certainly false, and not a vestige of evidence -can be produced in favour of it; but no one is asked to swear to the -truth of a song, and the dramatic power of the _romance_—which is -supposed to be recited by the murdered man—is undeniable. - -A similar perversion of historical truth is found in _The Death of -Queen Blanche_, which Lockhart translates from - - Doña María de Padilla, no os mostredes triste, no.[52] - -Lockhart, indeed, says: ‘that Pedro was accessory to the violent -death of this young and innocent princess whom he had married, and -immediately after deserted for ever, there can be no doubt.’ But the -matter is by no means so free from doubt as Lockhart would have us -believe. It is true that Peter’s conduct to Blanche de Bourbon was -inhuman, but the circumstances—and even the place—of her death are -uncertain. Assuming that she was murdered, however, it is certain -that María de Padilla had no share in this crime. María appears to -have been a gentle and compassionate creature, whose only fault was -that she loved Peter too well. But justice is not greatly cultivated -by political partisans, and the vindictiveness of the _romances_ -is poetically effective. Lockhart closes the series with a version -(apparently by Walter Scott) of - - Los fieros cuerpos revueltos entre los robustos brazos,[53] - -and with a disappointing translation of a very striking ballad, in -which an undercurrent of sympathy for Peter is observable:— - - A los pies de don Enrique yace muerto el rey don Pedro.[54] - -Refrains of any kind are exceptional in the _romances_, but in this -instance a double refrain is artistically used:— - - Y los de Enrique - Cantan, repican y gritan: - ¡Viva Enrique! - Y los de Pedro - Clamorean, doblan, lloran - Su rey muerto. - -This is indeed a most brilliant performance, worthy, as Sr. Menéndez y -Pelayo says, of Góngora himself at his best; but the very brilliance of -the versification is enough to prove that the ballad cannot have been -written by a poet of the people. Still, though it is neither ancient -nor popular, we may be grateful to Lockhart for including it in his -volume. - -He was less happy in deciding to give us _The Lord of Buitrago_, a -version of a ballad beginning - - Si el caballo vos han muerto, subid, rey, en mi caballo.[55] - -This is not of any great merit, nor is it in any sense popular or -ancient: it appears to be the production of Alfonso Hurtado de Velarde, -a Guadalajara dramatist who lived towards the end of the sixteenth -century, and much of its vogue is due to the fact that it struck the -fancy of Vélez de Guevara who used the first six words as the title of -one of his plays. Lockhart was better advised in choosing _The King of -Aragon_, a translation of - - Miraba de Campo-Viejo el rey de Aragón un dia.[56] - -This is thought by Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo to be, possibly, the -production of some soldier serving at Naples under Alfonso v. of -Aragón, and in any case it is of popular inspiration. Lorenzo de -Sepúlveda’s text contains an allusion to a page—_un pajecico_—whom -Alfonso is said to have loved better than himself, and the translator -was naturally puzzled by it. It is precisely by attention to some -such detail that we are often enabled to fix the date of composition; -and so it happens in the present instance. A fuller and better text -is given by Esteban de Nájera, who reads _un tal hermano_ for the -incomprehensible _un pajecico_. This reading makes the matter clear. -The reference is to the death of Alphonso v.’s brother Pedro; this -occurred in 1438, and the _romance_ was probably written not long -afterwards. - -At this point Lockhart enters upon the series of border-ballads called -_romances fronterizos_, and he begins with a translation of - - Reduan, bien se te acuerda que me distes la palabra,[57] - -quoted by Ginés Pérez de Hita in the first part of his _Guerras civiles -de Granada_, published in 1595 under the title of _Historia de los -bandos de los Zegríes y Abencerrajes_. - -Pérez de Hita speaks of it as ancient, and Lockhart is, of course, not -to blame for translating the ballad precisely as he found it in the -text before him. Any translator would be bound to do the same to-day if -he attempted a new rendering of the poem; but he would doubtless think -it advisable to state in a note the result of the critical analysis -which had scarcely been begun when Lockhart wrote. It now seems fairly -certain that Pérez de Hita ran two _romances_ into one, and that the -verses from the fourth stanza onwards in Lockhart— - - They passed the Elvira gate, with banners all displayed— - -are part of a ballad on Boabdil’s expedition against Lucena in 1483. -This martial narrative, describing the gorgeous squadrons of El -Rey Chico as they file past the towers of the Alhambra packed with -applauding Moorish ladies, reduces to insignificance _The Flight from -Granada_, though the translation is an improvement on Lorenzo de -Sepúlveda’s creaking original:— - - En la ciudad de Granada grandes alaridos dan.[58] - -The next in order is _The Death of Don Alonso de Aguilar_, a rendering -of - - Estando el rey don Fernando en conquista de Granada.[59] - -This ballad commemorates the death of Alonso de Aguilar, elder brother -of ‘the great Captain’ Gonzalo de Córdoba, which took place in action -at Sierra Bermeja on May 18, 1501. This date is important. A serious -chronological mistake occurs in the opening line of the ballad, which -places Aguilar’s death before the surrender of Granada in 1492; and -this points to the conclusion that the _romance_ was not written till -long after the event, when the exact details had been forgotten. It -is of popular inspiration, no doubt, but it is clearly not ancient. -Still, in default of any other _romances fronterizos_, we receive it -gratefully. This section of Lockhart’s book is certainly the least -adequate.[60] The border-ballads which he gives are most of them -excellent, but unfortunately he gives us far too few of them. Some of -his omissions may be explained. He tells us in almost so many words -that he leaves out a later ballad on Aguilar’s death:— - - ¡Río Verde, río Verde, tinto vas en sangre viva![61]— - -because there was already in existence an ‘exquisite version’ by the -Bishop of Dromore[62]—whom some of you may not instantly identify with -Thomas Percy, the editor of the _Reliques_. Most probably Lockhart -omitted a ballad with an effective refrain (perhaps borrowed from some -Arabic song)— - - Paseábase el ray moro per la ciudad de Granada— - -because it had been translated, though with no very striking success, -by Byron a little while before.[63] Nor can Lockhart be blamed for -omitting the oldest of the _romances fronterizos_:— - - Cercada tiene á Baeza ese arráez Audalla Mir.[64] - -Hidden in Argote de Molina’s _Nobleza de Andalucía_,[65] this ballad -was generally overlooked till 1899 when Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo did -us the good service of reprinting it. It still awaits an English -translator who, when he takes it in hand, may perhaps have something -destructive to say respecting its alleged date (1368). Such a -translator might also give us an English version of - - Moricos, los mis moricos, los que ganáis mi soldada,[66] - -which is thought to be the next oldest of these _romances fronterizos_. -Or he might attempt to render - - Álora la bien cercada, tu que estás á par del río,[67] - -which commemorates the death of Diego de Ribera during the siege of -Álora in 1434. A passage in the _Laberinto de Fortuna_ implies that -Ribera’s death was the theme of many popular songs in the time of -Juan de Mena,[68] and possibly the extant _romance_ may be taken to -represent them. There is another fine ballad on the historic victory of -the Infante Fernando (the first regent during Juan II.’s minority) at -Antequera in 1410:— - - De Antequera partió el moro tres horas antes del dia.[69] - -This also calls for translation, for all that we possess is Gibson’s -version of Timoneda’s recast, a copy of verses disfigured by superfine -interpolations:— - - His words were mingled with the tears - That down his cheeks did roll: - ‘Alas! Narcissa of my life, - Narcissa of my soul.’ - -Nymphs called Narcissa are never met with in popular primitive -poetry; but Gibson (from whose version of Timoneda I have just quoted) -has happily translated some genuine specimens of the _romances -fronterizos_. Thus he has given us a version of the justly celebrated - - ¡Abenámar, Abenámar, moro de la morería!—[70] - -in which Juan II. questions the Moor, and declares himself, according -to an Arabic poetical convention, the suitor of Granada:— - - ‘Abenámar, Abenámar, - Moor of Moors, and man of worth, - On the day when thou wert cradled, - There were signs in heaven and earth.... - - Abenámar, Abenámar, - With thy words my heart is won! - Tell me what these castles are, - Shining grandly in the sun!’ - - ‘That, my lord, is the Alhambra, - This the Moorish mosque apart, - And the rest the Alixares - Wrought and carved with wondrous art.’... - - Up and spake the good King John, - To the Moor he thus replied: - ‘Art thou willing, O Granada, - I will woo thee for my bride, - Cordova shall be thy dowry, - And Sevilla by its side.’ - - ‘I’m no widow, good King John, - I am still a wedded wife; - And the Moor, who is my husband, - Loves me better than his life!’ - -Gibson has missed an opportunity in not translating one of the popular -ballads on the precocious Master of the Order of Calatrava, Rodrigo -Girón, who was killed at the siege of Loja in 1482:— - - ¡Ay, Dios qué buen caballero el Maestre de Calatrava![71] - -But he makes amends with a version of a sixteenth-century _romance_[72] -which he entitles _The Lady and the Lions_: the story has been -versified by Schiller, and has been still more admirably retold by -Browning in _The Glove_. And we have also from Gibson a version of a -rather puzzling _romance_ given by Pérez de Hita:— - - Cercada está Santa Fe, con mucho lienzo encerado.[73] - -The fact that full rhymes take the place of assonants is a decisive -argument against the antiquity, and also against the popular origin, -of this ballad in which, as Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo points out, a rather -insignificant Garcilaso de la Vega of the end of the fifteenth century -is confused with a namesake and relative who fell at Baza in 1455, and -is further represented as the hero of a feat of arms—the slaying of a -Moor who insultingly attached the device _Ave Maria_ to his horse’s -tail—which was really performed by an ancestor of his about a hundred -and fifty years earlier. This later Garcilaso was a favourite of -fortune, for, at the end of the sixteenth century, Gabriel Lobo Lasso -de la Vega wrote a _romance_ ascribing to him Hernando del Pulgar’s -daring exploit—his riding into Granada, fastening with his dagger a -placard inscribed _Ave Maria_ to the door of the chief mosque, and thus -proclaiming his intention of converting it into a Christian church. - -It is needless to discuss Lockhart’s group of so-called -‘Moorish ballads.’[74] If any one wishes to translate a _romance_ -of this kind, let him try to convey to us the adroitly suggested -orientalism of - - Yo me era mora Moraima, morilla de un bel catar: - cristiano vino á mi puerta, cuitada, per me engañar.[75] - -With scarcely an exception, the ‘Moorish ballads’ show no trace of -Moorish origin, and with very few exceptions, they are not popular -ballads. They are clever, artificial presentations of the picturesque -Moor as suggested in the anonymous _Historia de Abindarraez_, and -elaborated by Pérez de Hita. We do not put it too high in saying that -Pérez de Hita’s _Guerras civiles de Granada_—the earliest historical -novel—is responsible for all the impossible Moors and incredible -Moorish women of poetry and fiction. - - Unmask me now these faces, - Unmuffle me these Moorish men, and eke these dancing Graces... - To give ye merry Easter I’ll make my meaning plain, - Mayhap it never struck you, we have Christians here in Spain. - -But Góngora’s voice was as the voice of one crying in the wilderness. -The tide rose, overflowed the Pyrenees, floated Mademoiselle de -Scudéri’s _Almahide_ and Madame de Lafayette’s _Zaïde_ into fashion, -and did not ebb till long after Washington Irving followed Pérez de -Hita’s lead by ascribing his graceful, fantastic _Chronicle of the -Conquest of Granada_ to a non-existent historian whom he chose to call -Fray Antonio Agapida. The Moor of fiction is so much more attractive -than the Moor of history that he has imposed himself upon the world. -Most of us still see him, with the light of other days around him, -as we first met him in Scott’s _Talisman_, or in Chateaubriand’s -_Aventures du dernier Abencérage_. Still the fact remains that he is a -conventional lay-figure, and that a Spanish poem in which he appears -transfigured and glorified is neither ancient nor popular, but is -necessarily the work of some late Spanish writer who knows no more of -Moors than he can gather from Pérez de Hita’s gorgeously imaginative -pages. - -No serious fault can be found with Lockhart’s selection of what he -calls ‘Romantic Ballads.’ Most of them are excellent examples, though -_The Moor Calaynos_, an abbreviated rendering of - - Ya cabalga Calaynos á la sombra de una oliva,[76] - -is no longer ‘generally believed to be among the most ancient’ ballads. -It was certainly widely known, as Lockhart says, for tags from it -have become proverbs; but it mentions Prester John and the Sultan -of Babylon, and these personages are unknown to genuine old popular -poetry. According to Milá y Fontanals and Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo, the -Calaínos ballad is one of the latest in the - -Charlemagne cycle, and is derived from a Provençal version of -_Fierabras_. On the other hand, the original of _The Escape of -Gayferos_— - - Estábase la condesa en su estrado asentada[77]— - -is an authentic old popular _romance_ derived, it is believed, more -or less directly from the _Roman de Berthe_, while the much later -_Melisendra_ ballad— - - El cuerpo preso en Sansueña y en Paris cautiva el alma[78]— - -owes most of its celebrity to the fact that it is quoted by Ginés de -Pasamonte when he acts as showman of the puppets in _Don Quixote_. -Again, _The Lady Alda’s Dream_— - - En Paris está doña Alda la esposa de don Roldan[79]— - -is an ancient _romance_ of intensely pathetic beauty suggested by the -famous passage in the _Chanson de Roland_ describing Charlemagne’s -announcement of Roland’s death to his betrothed Alde, Oliver’s sister:— - - ‘Soer, chere amie, d’hume mort me demandes...’ - Alde respunt: ‘Cist moz mei est estranges. - Ne placet Deu ne ses seinz ne ses angles - Après Rollant que jo vive remaigne!’ - Pert la culur, chiet as piez Carlemagne, - Sempres est morte. Deus ait mercit de l’anme! - -Another famous ballad in the Charlemagne cycle, translated by Lockhart -under the title of _The Admiral Guarinos_— - - Mala la vistes, franceses, la caza de Roncesvalles[80]— - -is also universally known from its being quoted in _Don_ -_Quixote_. Its origin is not clear, but it seems to be related to -_Ogier le Danois_, and it has certainly lived long and travelled far -if, as Georg Adolf Erman reports, it was sung in Russian in Siberia as -recently as 1828. A more special interest attaches to the fine elfin -ballad— - - A cazar va el caballero, á cazar como solía[81]— - -which Lockhart entitles _The Lady of the Tree_. It is, as he says, -‘one of the few old Spanish ballads in which mention is made of the -Fairies,’ and the seven years’ enchantment reminded him of ‘those -Oriental fictions, the influence of which has stamped so many indelible -traces on the imaginative literature of Spain.’ The theory of Oriental -influence is not brought forward so often nowadays, and is challenged -in what was thought to be its impregnable stronghold. The melancholy -Kelt has taken the place of the slippery Oriental; but theories come -and go, and we can only hope that our grandchildren will smile as -indulgently at our Kelts as we smile at our grandfathers’ Arabs. - - Hélo, hélo por do viene el infante vengador[82] - -is the original of _The Avenging Childe_, a superb ballad which is -better represented in Gibson’s version. Compare, for instance, the -following translation with Lockhart’s:— - - ’Tis a right good spear, with a point so sharp, the toughest - plough-share might pierce, - For seven times o’er was it tempered fine, in the blood of a - dragon fierce, - And seven times o’er was it whetted keen, till it shone with - a deadly glance, - For its steel was wrought in the finest forge, in the realm - of mighty France. - Its shaft was made of the Aragon wood, as straight as the straightest - stalk, - And he polished the steel, as he galloped along, on the wings of his - hunting hawk; - ‘Don Quadros, thou traitor vile, beware! I’ll slay thee where thou dost - stand, - At the judgment seat, by the Emperor’s side, with the rod of power - in his hand.’ - -This is more faithful, and consequently more vivid; and the retention -of the Emperor, whom Lockhart (for metrical purposes) reduces to a -King, gives the English reader a useful hint that the ballad belongs to -the Charlemagne series. But its source is obscure, and its symbolism is -as perplexing as symbolism is apt to be. - -All who have read _Birds of Passage_—that is to say, everybody who -reads anything—will - - remember the black wharves and the slips, - And the sea-tides tossing free; - And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, - And the beauty and mystery of the ships - And the magic of the sea. - -These lines are recalled by _Count Arnaldos_, Lockhart’s translation -of the enchanting _romance_ which Longfellow has incorporated in _The -Seaside and the Fireside_[83]:— - - ¡Quien hubiese tal ventura sobre las aguas del mar, - como hubo el Conde Arnaldos la mañana de san Juan![84] - -Probably nine out of every ten readers would turn to the _Buch der -Lieder_ for the loveliest lyric on the witchery of song:— - - Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet - Dort oben wunderbar, - Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet, - Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar. - - Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme, - Und singt ein Lied dabei; - Das hat eine wundersame, - Gewaltige Melodei.... - - Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen - Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn! - Und das hat mit ihrem Singen - Die Lore-Ley gethan. - -They may be right, but, if the tenth reader preferred _El -Conde Arnaldos_, I should not think him wrong. Though Heine speaks of - - Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten, - -this seems to be a _façon de parler_, for the Lorelei legend was -invented by Clemens Brentano barely twenty years before Heine wrote his -famous ballad. However this may be, in producing his effect of mystic -weirdness the German artist does not eclipse the anonymous Spanish -singer who lived four centuries earlier. This is a bold thing to say; -yet nobody who reads _El Conde Arnaldos_ will think it much too bold. - -Passing by a pleasing song (not in the _romance_ form),[85] we come to -the incomplete _Julianesa_ ballad which Lockhart printed, so he tells -us, chiefly because it contained an allusion to the pretty Spanish -custom of picking flowers on St. John’s Day:— - - ¡Arriba, canes, arriba! ¡que rabia mala os mate![86] - -But, so far from being (like its immediate predecessor in Lockhart’s -book) an artistic performance, the _Julianesa_ ballad is one of the -most primitive in the Gayferos group. Its robust inspiration is in -striking contrast to the too dulcet _Song of the Galley_,[87] which -is followed by _The Wandering Knight’s Song_, a capital version of -a _romance_ famous all the world over owing to its quotation by Don -Quixote at the inn:— - - Mis arreos son las armas, mi descanso es pelear.[88] - -We need say nothing of the _Serenade_,[89] _The Captive Knight and -the Blackbird_,[90] _Valladolid_,[91] and _Dragut the Corsair_.[92] -We should gladly exchange these translations of late and mediocre -originals for versions of - - Fonte-frida, fonte-frida, fonte-frida y con amor;[93] - -or of one of the few but interesting ballads belonging to the Breton -cycle, such as the old _romance_ on Lancelot from which Antonio de -Nebrija quotes— - - Tres hijuelos habia el rey, tres hijuelos, que no mas;[94] - -or of the curious _romance_ glossed by Gil Vicente, Cristóbal de -Castillejo, and Jorge de Montemôr— - - La bella mal maridada, de las lindas que yo ví;[95] - -or of the well-known ballad which seems to have strayed out of the -series of _romances fronterizos_— - - Mi padre era de Ronda, y mi madre de Antequera.[96] - -Fortunately these have been translated by Gibson. But we must not part -from Lockhart on bad terms, for he ends with the ballad of _Count -Alarcos and the Infante Solisa_:— - - Retraída está la Infanta bien así como solía.[97] - -This _romance_, which is often ascribed to a certain Pedro de Riaño, -is certainly not older than the sixteenth century, and is rather an -artistic than a popular poem; but it is unquestionably an impressive -composition remarkable for concentrated and pathetic beauty. - -Though I have far outrun my allotted time, I have merely brushed the -fringe of the subject; still, perhaps enough has been said to stir your -interest, and to set you reading the _Romancero_ under the sagacious -guidance of Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo. That will occupy you for many a long -day. To those who have not the time to read everything, but who wish to -read the very best of the best, I cannot be wrong in recommending the -exquisite selection of _romances_ published by M. Foulché-Delbosc a few -months ago.[98] - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE LIFE OF CERVANTES - - -Some men live their romances, and some men write them. It was given to -Cervantes to do both, and, as his art was not of the impersonal order, -it is scarcely possible to read his work without a desire to know more -of the rich and imposing individuality which informs it. Posthumous -legends are apt to form round men of the heroic type who have been -neglected while alive, and posterity seems to enjoy this cheap form of -atonement. Cervantes is a case in point. But the researches of the last -few years have brought much new material to light, and have dissipated -a cloud of myths concerning him: we are not yet able to see him as he -was at every stage of his chequered career, but we are nearer him than -we ever were before. We are passing out of the fogs of fable, and are -learning that, in Cervantes’s case, facts are as strange as fiction—and -far more interesting. - -It is a foible with the biographers of great men to furnish their -heroes with a handsome equipment of ancestors, and Cervantes’s -descent has been traced back to the end of the tenth century by -these amateur genealogists. We may admire their industry, and reject -their conclusions. It is quite possible that Cervantes was of good -family, but we cannot go further back than two generations. His -grandfather, Juan de Cervantes, appears to have been a country lawyer -who died, without attaining distinction or fortune, about the middle -of the sixteenth century. Juan’s son was Rodrigo de Cervantes who -married Leonor de Cortinas: and the great novelist was the fourth -of their seven children. Rodrigo de Cervantes was a lowly precursor -of Sangrado—a simple apothecary-surgeon, of inferior professional -status, seldom settled long in one place, earning a precarious living -by cupping and blistering. His son Miguel was born at Alcalá de -Henares—possibly, as his name suggests, on St. Michael’s Day (September -29)—and he was baptized there on Sunday, October 9, 1547, in the -church of Santa María la Mayor. There was a tradition that Cervantes -matriculated at Alcalá, and his name was discovered in the university -registers by an investigator who looked for it with the eye of faith. -This is one of many pleasing, pious legends. Rodrigo de Cervantes was -not in a position to send his sons to universities. A poor, helpless, -sanguine man, he wandered in quest of patients and fortune from Alcalá -to Valladolid, from Valladolid to Madrid, from Madrid to Seville, -and it has been conjectured that Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra spent -some time in the Jesuit school at Seville. The dog Berganza, in the -_Coloquio de los Perros_, recalls his edification at ‘seeing the -loving-kindness, the discretion, the solicitude and the skill with -which those saintly fathers and masters taught these lads, so that the -tender shoots of their youth should not be twisted, nor take a wrong -bend in the path of virtue which, together with the humane letters, -they continually pointed out to them.’ But it is evident that Cervantes -can have had little formal schooling. He was educated in the university -of practical experience, and picked up his learning as he could. - -He made the most of his casual opportunities. Obviously the man who -wrote _Don Quixote_ must have read the books of chivalry, the leading -poets, the chronicles, dramatic romances like the _Celestina_, -picaresque novels like _Lazarillo de Tormes_, pastoral tales like -the _Diana_, the _cancioneros_, and countless broadsides containing -popular ballads; and he must have read them at this time, for his -maturer years were spent in campaigning, or in the discharge of petty, -exacting duties. In his early youth, too, he made acquaintance with -the theatre, witnessing the performances of the enterprising Lope de -Rueda, actor, manager and playwright, the first man in Spain to set -up a travelling booth, and bid for public support. The impression was -ineffaceable: from Cervantes’s account of his experience, given half a -century later, it may be gathered that he listened and watched with the -uncritical rapture of a clever, ardent lad, and that his ambition to -become a successful dramatist was born there and then. In the meantime, -while following his father in his futile journeys, he received a -liberal education. Jogging along the high-road, lodging in wayside -inns, strolling in market-places, he met men and women of all ranks, -from nobles to peasants, and thus began to hoard his literary capital. - -Like most young men of literary ambition, Cervantes began by -versifying, and, as he never grew old in heart, he versified as long -as he lived. A sonnet, written between 1560 and 1568, has come to -light recently, and is interesting solely as the earliest extant work -of Cervantes. By 1566 he was settled in Madrid, and two years later -he wrote a series of elegiacs on the death of the Queen, Isabel de -Valois: these were published in a volume edited by Juan López de -Hoyos, a Madrid schoolmaster, who refers to Cervantes as his ‘dear and -beloved pupil.’ As the pupil was twenty before López de Hoyos’s school -was founded, the meaning of the phrase is obscure. Perhaps Cervantes -had been a pupil under López de Hoyos elsewhere: perhaps he was an -usher in López de Hoyos’s new school: frankly, we know nothing of his -circumstances. He makes his formal entry into literature, and then -vanishes out of sight, and apparently out of Spain. What happened to -him at this time is obscure. We know on his own statement that he was -once _camarero_ to Cardinal Giulio Acquaviva; we know that Acquaviva, -not yet a Cardinal, was in Madrid during the winter of 1568, and that -he started for Rome towards the end of the year; and we know from -documentary evidence that Cervantes was in Rome at the end of the -following year. How he got there, how and when he entered Acquaviva’s -service, or when and why he left it—these, as Sir Thomas Browne would -say, are all ‘matters of probable conjecture.’ - -While Cervantes was in Rome, a league was forming by Spain, Venice -and the Holy See against the Sultan Selim: war was in sight, and -every high-spirited young Spaniard in Italy must have felt that his -place was in the ranks. It has been thought that Cervantes served as -a supernumerary before he joined Acquaviva’s household; but we do -not reach solid ground till 1571 when Cervantes is discovered as a -soldier in a company commanded by Diego de Urbina, ‘a famous captain of -Guadalajara,’ as the Captive in _Don Quixote_ called him thirty-four -years later. Urbina’s company belonged to the celebrated _tercio_ of -Miguel de Moncada, and in September 1571 it was embarked at Messina on -the _Marquesa_, one of the galleys under the command of Don John of -Austria. At dawn on Sunday, October 7, Don John’s armada lay off the -Curzolarian Islands when two sail were sighted on the horizon, and soon -afterwards the Turkish fleet followed. Cervantes was ill with fever, -but refused to listen to his comrades who begged him to stay below: -death in the service of God and the King, he said, was preferable to -remaining under cover. The _Marquesa_ was in the hottest of the fight -at Lepanto, and when the battle was won Cervantes had received three -wounds, two in the chest, and one in the left hand. Like most old -soldiers, he loved to fight his battles over again, and, to judge from -his writings, he was at least as proud of having been at Lepanto as of -creating Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. - -He was in hospital for seven months at Messina, received an increase -of pay, and returned to duty in April 1572. This throws light upon a -personal matter. Current likenesses of Cervantes, all imaginary and -most of them mere variants of the portrait contrived in the eighteenth -century by William Kent, usually represent him as having lost an -arm. This is manifestly wrong: a one-armed private would have been -discharged as not worth his pay and rations. Cervantes was appointed to -Manuel Ponce de León’s company in the _tercio_ of Lope de Figueroa—the -vehement martinet who appears in Calderón’s _Alcalde de Zalamea_—and -took part in three campaigns; he was present at the fiasco of Navarino -in 1572, at the occupation of Tunis in 1573, and at the attempted -relief of the Goletta in 1574. He had already done garrison duty in -Genoa and Sardinia, and was now stationed successively at Palermo and -Naples. It was clear that there was to be no more fighting for a while, -and, as there was no opening for Cervantes in Italy, he determined to -seek promotion in Spain. Don John of Austria recommended him for a -company in one of the regiments then being raised for Italy, and laid -stress upon his ‘merits and services,’ and a similar recommendation -was made by the Duke of Sesa, Viceroy of Sicily. These flattering -credentials and testimonials were destined to cause much embarrassment -and suffering to the bearer; but they encouraged him to make for Spain -with a confident heart. - -His optimism was to be put to the proof. On September 26, 1575, the -_Sol_, with Cervantes and his brother Rodrigo on board, was separated -from the rest of the Spanish squadron in the neighbourhood of Les -Saintes Maries near Marseilles, and was captured by Moorish pirates. -The desperate resistance of the Spaniards was unavailing; they were -overcome by superior numbers and were carried off to Algiers. What -follows would seem extravagant in a romance of adventures, but the -details are supported by irrefragable evidence. As Algiers was at this -time the centre of the slave-trade, the prisoners cannot have felt -much doubt as to what was in store for them. Cervantes’s first owner -was a certain Dali Mami, a Greek renegade, and captain of a galley. He -read the recommendatory letters from Don John of Austria and the Duke -of Sessa, and (not unnaturally) jumped at the conclusion that he had -drawn a prize: his slave might not be of great use so far as manual -labour was concerned, but any one who was personally acquainted with -two such personages as Don John and the Duke must presumably be a -man of consequence, and would assuredly be worth a heavy ransom. The -first result of this fictitious importance was that Cervantes was put -in irons, and chains; and, when these were at last removed, he was -carefully watched. - -Cervantes found means to baffle his sentries. His first attempt to -escape was made in 1576: it was an ignominious failure. He and his -fellow-prisoners set out on foot to walk to Orán, the nearest Spanish -outpost; their Moorish guide played them false, and there was nothing -for it but to go back to Algiers. In 1577 Rodrigo de Cervantes was -ransomed—he was reckoned cheaper than his brother—and he undertook to -send a vessel to carry off Miguel and his friends. Meanwhile Cervantes -enlisted the sympathies of a Spanish renegade, a gardener from Navarre -named Juan; between them they dug out a cave in a garden near the sea, -and smuggled into it one by one fourteen Christian slaves who were -secretly fed during several months with the help of another renegade -from Melilla, a scoundrel known as _El Dorador_. It is easier to say -that the scheme was a bad one than to suggest anything better: it was -within an ace of succeeding. The vessel sent by Rodrigo de Cervantes -drew near the shore on September 28, and was on the point of embarking -those hidden in the cave when a Moorish fishing-boat passed by and -scared the crew, who stood out to sea again. A second attempt at a -rescue was made, but it was too late. The plot had been revealed by _El -Dorador_ to Hassan Pasha, the Dey of Algiers, and, when some of the -crew landed to convey the fugitives on board, the garden was surrounded -by Hassan’s troops. The entire band of Christians was captured, and -Cervantes at once avowed himself the sole organiser of the conspiracy. -Brought bound before Hassan, he adhered to his statement that his -comrades were innocent, and that he took the entire responsibility -for the plot. The gardener was hanged; after some hesitation, Hassan -decided to spare Cervantes’s life, and finally bought him from Dali -Mami for five hundred crowns. - -It is difficult to account for this act of relative mercy in a man who -is described in _Don Quixote_ as the murderer of the human race, a -hæmatomaniac who delighted in murder for murder’s sake, one who hanged, -impaled, tortured and mutilated his prisoners every day. It may be -that he was genuinely struck by Cervantes’s unflinching courage; it -may be that he expected an immense ransom for a man who was plainly -the leader of the captives. What is certain is that Cervantes was now -Hassan’s slave; though imprisoned in irons, he soon showed that his -heroic spirit was unbroken. He sent a letter to Martín de Córdoba, -the governor of Orán, asking for aid to enable himself and three -other captives to escape; the messenger seemed likely to fulfil his -mission, but was arrested close to Orán, sent back, and impaled. For -writing the letter Cervantes was sentenced to two thousand blows, -but the sentence was remitted, and it would almost seem as though -Cervantes completely forgot the incident, for in _Don Quixote_ he goes -out of his way to record that _un tal Saavedra_—a certain Saavedra, -Something-or-Other Saavedra (who can be nobody but himself)—was never -struck by Hassan, and was never threatened by Hassan with a blow. This -may appear perplexing, but as the writer goes on to say that Hassan -never addressed a harsh word to this Saavedra, it is plain that the -whole passage is an idealistic arabesque; the discrepancy between the -gloss and the facts shows the danger of seeking exact biographical -data in any imaginative work, however heavily freighted with personal -reminiscences. - -Hassan remitted the sentence, and, remarking that ‘so long as he had -the maimed Spaniard in custody, his Christians, ships and the entire -city were safe,’ he redoubled his vigilance. For two years the prisoner -made no move, but plainly he was not resigned nor disheartened, for he -conceived the idea of inducing the Christian population of Algiers to -rise and capture the city. It was no mad, impossible project; a similar -rising had been successful at Tunis in 1535, and there were over twenty -thousand Christians in Algiers. Once more Cervantes was betrayed, and -once more he escaped death. A less ambitious scheme also miscarried. In -1579 he took into his confidence a Spanish renegade and two Valencian -traders, and persuaded the Valencians to provide an armed vessel to -rescue him and some sixty other Christian slaves; but before the plan -could be carried out it was revealed to Hassan by a Dominican monk, -Juan Blanco de Paz. Very little is known of Blanco de Paz, except that -he came from Montemolín near Llerena, and that he gave himself out as -being a commissary and familiar of the Inquisition. Why he should turn -informer at all, is a mystery: why he should single out Cervantes as -the special object of his hatred is no less a mystery. The Valencian -merchants got wind of his treachery, and, dreading lest they might be -implicated, begged Cervantes to make his escape on a ship which was -about to start for Spain. To accept this proposal would have been to -desert his friends and to imperil their lives: Cervantes rejected it, -assuring the alarmed Valencians that he would not reveal anything to -compromise them, even if he were tortured. He was as good as his word. -Brought into Hassan’s presence with his hands tied behind him and the -hangman’s rope round his neck, he was threatened with instant death -unless he gave up the names of his accomplices. But he was undaunted -and immovable, asserting that the plot had been planned by himself and -four others who had got away, and that no one else had any active share -in it. Perhaps there was a certain economy of truth in this statement, -but it served its immediate purpose: though Cervantes was placed under -stricter guard, Hassan spared the other sixty slaves involved. - -This was Cervantes’s last attempt to escape. His family were doing -what they could to procure his release. They were miserably poor, -and poverty often drives honest people into strange courses. To -excite pity, and so obtain a concession which would help towards -ransoming her son, Cervantes’s mother passed herself off as a widow, -though her husband was still alive, a superfluous old man, now grown -incurably deaf, and with fewer patients than ever. By means of such -dubious expedients some two hundred and fifty ducats were collected -and entrusted to Fray Juan Gil and Fray Antón de la Bella, two monks -engaged in ransoming the Christian slaves at Algiers. The sum was -insufficient. Hassan curtly told Fray Juan Gil that all his slaves -were gentlemen, that he should not part with any of them for less than -five hundred ducats, and that for Jerónimo de Palafox (apparently -an Aragonese of some position) he should ask a ransom of a thousand -ducats. Fray Juan Gil was specially anxious to release Palafox, and -made an offer of five hundred ducats; but Hassan would not abate his -terms. The Dey and the monk haggled from spring till autumn. Hassan -then went out of office, and made ready to leave for Constantinople to -give an account of his stewardship. His slaves were already embarked -on September 19, 1580, when Fray Juan Gil, seeing that there was no -hope of obtaining Palafox’s release by payment of five hundred ducats, -ransomed Cervantes for that sum. It is disconcerting to think that, -if the Trinitarian friar had been able to raise another five hundred -ducats, we might never have had _Don Quixote_. Palafox would have been -set at liberty, while Cervantes went up the Dardanelles to meet a -violent death in a last attempt at flight. - -He stepped ashore a free man after five years of slavery, but his -trials in Algiers were not ended. The enigmatic villain of the drama, -Juan Blanco de Paz, had been busy trumping up false charges to be -lodged against Cervantes in Spain. It was a base and despicable act -duly denounced by the biographers; but we have reason to be grateful -to Blanco de Paz, for Cervantes met the charges by summoning eleven -witnesses to character who testified before Fray Juan Gil. Their -evidence proves that Cervantes was recognised as a man of singular -courage, kindliness, piety and virtue; that his authority among his -fellow-prisoners had excited the malicious jealousy of Blanco de -Paz who endeavoured to corrupt some of the witnesses; and—ludicrous -detail!—that the informer had been rewarded for his infamy with a ducat -and a jar of butter. This testimony, recorded by a notary, is confirmed -by the independent evidence of Fray Juan Gil himself, and by Doctor -Antonio de Sosa, a prisoner of considerable importance who answered the -twenty-five interrogatories in writing. The enquiry makes us acquainted -with all the circumstances of Cervantes’s captivity, and shows that -he was universally regarded as an heroic leader by those best able to -judge. - -His vindication being complete, he left Algiers for Denia on October -24, and reached Madrid at some date previous to December 18. His -position was lamentable. He was in his thirty-fourth year, and had -to begin life again. Perhaps if Don John had lived, Cervantes might -have returned to the army; but Don John was dead, and his memory was -not cherished at court. Cervantes had no degree, no profession, no -trade, no craft except that of sonneteering: his life had been spent -in the service of the King, and he endeavoured to obtain some small -official post. Accordingly he made for Portugal, recently annexed by -Philip II., tried to find an opening, and was sent as King’s messenger -to Orán with instructions to call at Mostaganem with despatches -from the Alcalde. The mission was speedily executed, and Cervantes -found himself adrift. He settled in Madrid, made acquaintance with -some prominent authors of the day, and, in default of more lucrative -employment, betook himself to literature. He was always ready to -furnish a friend with a eulogistic sonnet on that friend’s immortal -masterpiece, and thus acquired a certain reputation as a facile, -fluent versifier. But sonnets are expensive luxuries, and Cervantes -wanted bread. He earned it by writing for the stage: to this period -no doubt we must assign the _Numancia_ and _Los Tratos de Argel_, -as well as many other pieces which have not survived. Cervantes was -like the players in _Hamlet_. Seneca was not too heavy, nor Plautus -too light for him: he was ready to supply ‘tragedy, comedy, history, -pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, -tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem -unlimited.’ It was a hard struggle to keep the wolf from the door, -but perhaps this was the happiest period of Cervantes’s life. He was -on friendly terms with poets like Pedro de Padilla and Juan Rufo -Gutiérrez; managers did not pay him lavishly for his plays, but at -least they were set upon the stage, and the applause of the pit was to -him the sweetest music in the world. Moreover, following the example -of his friend Luis Gálvez de Montalvo, he was engaged upon a prose -pastoral, and, with his optimistic nature, he easily persuaded himself -that this romance would make his reputation—and perhaps his fortune. -He was now nearing the fatal age of forty, and it was high time to -put away the follies of youth. Breaking off a fugitive amour with a -certain Ana Franca (more probably Francisca) de Rojas, he married a -girl of nineteen, Catalina de Palacios Salazar y Vozmediano, daughter -of a widow owning a moderate estate at Esquivias, a small town near -Toledo, then famous for its wine, as Cervantes is careful to inform us. -Doubtless his courtship was like Othello’s. - - I spake of most disastrous chances, - Of moving accidents by flood and field, - Of hair-breadth ‘scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach, - Of being taken by the insolent foe - And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence - And portance in my travels’ history. - -This to hear would Catalina seriously incline, yet there is reason -to think that the members of her family were less susceptible, and -regarded Cervantes as an undesirable suitor. He undoubtedly was, from -a mundane point of view; but the marriage took place on December 12, -1584, and next spring the First Part of _La Galatea_ (which had been -licensed in the previous February) was published. It is perhaps not -without significance that the volume was issued at Alcalá de Henares: -it would have been more natural and probably more advantageous to -publish the book at Madrid where Cervantes resided, but his name -carried no weight with the booksellers of the capital, and no doubt he -was glad enough to strike a bargain with his fellow-townsman Blas de -Robles. Robles behaved handsomely, for he paid the author, then unknown -outside a small literary circle, a fee of 1336 _reales_—say £30, equal -(we are told) to nearly £150 nowadays. Perhaps some modern novelists -have received even less for their first work. With this small capital -the newly-married couple set up house in Madrid: the bride had indeed a -small dowry including forty-five chickens, but the dowry was not made -over to her till twenty months later. The marriage does not seem to -have been unhappy, as marriages go; but, owing to Cervantes’s wandering -existence, the pair saw little of each other till the last ten or -twelve years of their married life. - -By the death of his father on June 13, 1585, Cervantes became the -head of the family, and the position was no sinecure. His sister -Luisa had entered the convent of Barefooted Carmelites at Alcalá de -Henares twenty years before this date, and his brother Rodrigo had been -promoted to a commission in the army for his signal gallantry at the -Azores. But Cervantes’s mother and his sisters, Andrea and Magdalena, -were unprovided for, and looked to him for help. He resumed writing -for the stage, and is found witnessing a legal document at the request -of Inés Osorio, wife of the theatrical manager Jerónimo Velázquez, -with whose name that of Lope de Vega is unpleasantly associated. Now, -if not earlier,—as a complimentary allusion in the _Galatea_ might -suggest—Cervantes must have met that marvellous youth who was shortly -to become the most popular dramatist of the age. Meanwhile Cervantes’s -affairs were going ill. According to his own statement he wrote from -twenty to thirty plays between 1582 and 1587; but these plays cannot -have brought him much money, for there are proofs that some of his -family sold outright to a pawnbroker certain articles which Cervantes -had left in pledge two years before. Clearly he was hard pressed. -He eked out his income by accepting other work unconnected with -literature, executed business commissions as far away as Seville, and -looked around for permanent employment. He found it as commissary to -the Invincible Armada which was then fitting out, and in the autumn -of 1587 he took up his new duties in Andalusia. This amounts to a -confession of defeat. If a man of exceptional literary genius can -thrive on literature, he does not abandon it for a less agreeable -occupation. It is a fine thing to write masterpieces, but in order to -write them you must contrive to live. Cervantes’s masterpieces lay in -the future, and in the meantime he felt the pinch of hunger. - -He appears to have obtained his appointment through the influence of -a judge in the High Court of Seville, Diego de Valdivia, a namesake -of the affable captain in _El Licenciado Vidriera_; and, after a few -months’ probation, his appointment was confirmed anew in January 1588. -He had already discovered that there were serious inconveniences -attaching to his post, for he had incurred excommunication for an -irregular seizure of wheat at Écija. It would be tedious to follow him -in his professional visits to the outlying districts of Andalusia. -Everything comes to an end at last—even the equipment of the Invincible -Armada: when the fleet sailed to meet the enemy Cervantes cheered it on -to victory with an enthusiastic ode, and in a second ode he deplored -the great catastrophe. He continued in the public service as commissary -to the galleys, collecting provisions at a salary of twelve _reales_ -a day, making Seville his centre, and lodging in the house of Tomás -Gutiérrez. Weary of the sordid life, he applied in 1590 for a post in -America, but failed to obtain it. At the end of the petition, Doctor -Núñez Morquecho wrote: ‘Let him seek some employment hereabouts.’ -Blessings on Doctor Núñez Morquecho, the conscientious official! If he -had granted the petitioner’s request, Cervantes might have been more -prosperous, but he would not have written _Don Quixote_. He was forced -to remain where he was, engulfed in arid and vexatious routine. - -Still one would imagine that he must have discharged his duties -efficiently, for he was one of four commissaries specially commended to -the King in January 1592 by the new Purveyor-General Pedro de Isunza. -Meanwhile his condition grew rather worse than better: his poverty was -extreme. The financial administration was thoroughly disorganised, -and in 1591 Cervantes had not yet received his salary for 1588. He -seems (not unnaturally) to have lost interest in his work, and to have -become responsible for the indiscreet proceedings of a subordinate at -Teba. Henceforward he was in constant trouble with the authorities. -In August 1592 his accounts were found to be irregular, and his five -sureties were compelled to pay the balance; he was imprisoned at Castro -del Río in September for alleged illegal perquisitioning at Écija, -but was released on appeal. Now and then he was tempted to return to -literature. He signed a contract at Seville early in September 1592 -undertaking to furnish the manager, Rodrigo Osorio, with six plays at -fifty ducats apiece: the conditions of the agreement were that Osorio -was to produce each play within twenty days of its being delivered to -him, and that Cervantes was to receive nothing unless the play was ‘one -of the best that had been acted in Spain.’ The imprisonment at Castro -del Río a fortnight later interfered with this project: no more is -heard of it, and Cervantes resumed his work as commissary. Two points -of personal interest are to be noted in the ensuing years: in the -autumn of 1593 Cervantes lost his mother, and in the autumn of 1594 -he visited Baza, where (as Sr. Rodríguez Marín has shown recently in -an open letter addressed to me[99]) his old enemy Blanco de Paz was -residing. As the population of Baza amounted only to 1537 persons at -the time, the two men may easily have met: the encounter would have -been worth witnessing, for Cervantes was a master of pointed expression. - -He passed on his dreary round to Málaga and Ronda, returning to his -headquarters at Seville, where, most likely, he wrote the poem in -honour of St. Hyacinth which won the first prize at Saragossa on May -7, 1595. As the prize consisted of three silver spoons, it did not -greatly relieve his financial embarrassments. These rapidly grew worse. -Cervantes had deposited public moneys with a Portuguese banker in -Seville; the banker failed and fled, and, as Cervantes was unable to -refund the amount, he was suspended. There is a blank in his history -from September 1595 to January 1597, when the money was recovered from -the bankrupt’s estate. Cervantes, however, was not restored to his -post. This is not surprising; for, though most of us regard him with an -affection as real as can be felt for any one who has been in his grave -nearly three hundred years, even our partiality stops short of calling -him a model official. He was not cast in the official mould. Cervantes, -collecting oil and wrangling over corn in Andalusia, is like Samson -grinding in the prison house at Gaza. Misfortune pursued him. The -treasury accountants called upon him to furnish sureties that he would -attend the Exchequer Court at Madrid within twenty days of receiving a -summons dated September 6, 1597. Unable to find bail, he was imprisoned -till the beginning of December, when he was released with instructions -to present himself at Madrid within thirty days. He does not appear to -have left Seville, and he neglected a similar summons in February 1599. -This may seem like contempt of court, but no doubt the real explanation -is that he had not the money to pay for the journey. - -On July 2, 1600, Rodrigo de Cervantes, then an ensign serving under -the Archduke Albert in Flanders, was killed in action; but Miguel de -Cervantes probably did not hear of this till long afterwards. He now -vanishes from sight, for there is another blank in his record from -May 1601 to February 1603. We may assume that he lived in extreme -poverty at Seville, and when next heard of—at Valladolid in 1603—his -circumstances had not greatly improved. His sister Andrea was employed -as needlewoman by the Marqués de Villafranca, and her little bill -is made out in Cervantes’s handwriting: clearly every member of the -family contributed to the household expenses, and every _maravedí_ was -welcome. Presumably Cervantes had come to Valladolid in obedience to a -peremptory _mandamus_ from the Exchequer Court. A brief enquiry must -have convinced the registrars that, with the best will in the world, -he was not in a position to make good the sum which (as they alleged) -was due to the treasury, and they left him in peace for three years -with a cloud over him. He had touched bottom. He had valiantly endured -the buffets of fortune, and was now about to enter into his reward. - -His mind to him a kingdom was, and during the years of his disgrace -in Seville he had lived, unhindered by squalid circumstance, in a -pleasaunce of reminiscence and imagination. All other doors being -closed to him, he returned to the house of literature, took pen and -paper, gave literary form to his experiences and imaginings, and, when -drawing on to sixty, produced the masterpiece which has made his name -immortal. It may well be, as he himself hints, that _Don Quixote_ was -begun in Seville jail: perhaps it was finished there. At any rate there -was little to be added to it when the author reached Valladolid in -1603—little beyond the preface and burlesque preliminary verses. By -the summer of 1604 Cervantes had found a publisher, and it had leaked -out that the book contained some caustic references to distinguished -contemporaries. This may account for Lope de Vega’s opinion, expressed -in August 1604 (six months before the work was published), that ‘no -poet is as bad as Cervantes, nor so silly as to praise _Don Quixote_.’ -This was not precisely a happy forecast. _Don Quixote_ appeared early -in 1605, was hailed with delight, and received the dubious compliment -of being pirated in Lisbon. Cervantes was the man of the moment, in the -first flush of his popularity, when chance played him an unpleasant -trick. On the night of June 27, 1605, a Navarrese gallant named Gaspar -de Ezpeleta was wounded while in the neighbourhood of the Calle del -Rastro, called for aid at the door of No. 11 where Cervantes lodged, -was helped into the house, and died there two days later. The inmates -were arrested on suspicion, examined by the magistrate, and released -on July 1. The minutes of the examination were unpublished till -recent years, and these furtive tactics gravely injured the memory of -Cervantes, for they suggested the idea that the examination revealed -something to his discredit. It reveals that Cervantes’s natural -daughter, Isabel de Saavedra (whose mother, Ana Franca de Rojas, had -died in 1599 or earlier), was now residing with her father; it proves -that Cervantes was still poor, and that calumnious gossip was current -in Valladolid; but there is not a tittle of evidence to show that any -member of the Cervantes family ever heard of Ezpeleta till he came by -his death. - -Cervantes had made for himself a great reputation, but _Don Quixote_ -did not apparently enrich him: otherwise he would not have asked his -publisher for an advance of 450 _reales_, as we know that he did at -some date previous to November 23, 1607. However, we must renounce the -pretension to understand Cervantes’s financial affairs. His daughter -Isabel, who was unmarried in 1605, reappears in 1608 as the widow of -Diego Sanz del Aguila, and as the mother of a daughter: in 1608 she -married a certain Luis de Molina, and there are complicated statements -respecting a house in the Red de San Luis from which it is impossible -to gather whether the house belonged to Isabel, to her daughter, or -to her father. We cannot wonder that Cervantes was the despair of the -Treasury officials: these officials did, indeed, make a last attempt -to extract an explanation from him on November 6 of this very year of -1608, and thenceforward left him in peace. - -He settled in Madrid to pass his serene old age. An atmosphere of -devotion began to reign in the house in the Calle de la Magdalena -where he lived with his wife and his sisters, Andrea and Magdalena. -In 1609 he was among the first to join the newly founded Confraternity -of the Slaves of the Most Blessed Sacrament; in the same year his -wife received the habit of the Tertiaries of St. Francis, as also -did Andrea who died four months later (October 9); in 1610 his wife -and his surviving sister Magdalena both became professed Tertiaries -of St. Francis. It would appear that Cervantes had been aided by -the generosity of the Conde de Lemos, and he could not hide his -deep chagrin at not being invited to join the household when Lemos -was nominated to the viceroyalty of Naples in 1610. The new viceroy -chose better than he knew. Cervantes applied himself more closely to -literature which he had neglected (so far as publication goes) for -the last five years, and, after the death of his sister Magdalena -in 1611, the results of his renewed activity were visible. In 1612, -when he became a member of the Academia Selvaje (where we hear of his -lending a wretched pair of spectacles to Lope de Vega), he finished -his _Novelas Exemplares_ which appeared next year. He published his -serio-comic poem, the _Viage del Parnaso_, in 1614; in 1615 he issued a -volume containing eight plays and eight interludes, and also published -the Second Part of _Don Quixote_. It is curious that so many things -which must have seemed misfortunes to Cervantes have proved to be -a gain to us. In 1614 an apocryphal _Don Quixote_ was published at -Tarragona by Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda of whom nothing has been -discovered, and this spurious sequel contained a preface filled with -insolent personalities. If Cervantes had received any one of the -appointments in Spanish America for which he petitioned, we should -not have had the first _Don Quixote_; if he had gone to Naples with -Lemos we should never have had the second; if it had not been for -Avellaneda’s insults, we might have had only an unfinished sequel. -Cervantes’s life was now drawing to a close, but his industry was -prodigious. Apart from fugitive verses he was engaged on _Los Trabajos -de Persiles y Sigismunda_, on a play entitled _El Engaño á los ojos_, -the long-promised continuation of the _Galatea_, and two works which -he proposed to call _Las Semanas del Jardín_ and _El famoso Bernardo_. -All are lost to us except _Persiles y Sigismunda_ which appeared -posthumously in 1617. - -We catch interesting glimpses of Cervantes in the last phase. He has -left a verbal portrait of himself as he looked when he was sixty-six, -and it is the only authentic portrait of him in existence. He was ‘of -aquiline features, with chestnut hair, smooth and unclouded brow, -bright eyes, and a nose arched, though well proportioned, silver beard, -once golden twenty years ago, long moustache, small mouth, teeth of -no consequence, since he had only six and these in ill condition and -worse placed, inasmuch as they do not correspond to one another; -stature about the average, neither tall nor short, ruddy complexion, -fair rather than dark, slightly stooped in the shoulders, and not very -active on his feet.’ Two years later Noel Brûlart de Sillery came to -Madrid on a special mission from the French Court, and his suite were -intensely curious to hear what they could of Cervantes; they learned -that he was ‘old, a soldier, a gentleman, and poor.’ At this time, his -health must have begun to fail: it was undoubtedly failing fast while -he wrote _Persiles y Sigismunda_. He was apparently dependent on the -bounty of Lemos and of Bernardo de Sandoval, the Cardinal-Archbishop -of Toledo. The hand of death was on him when he wrote to the Cardinal -on March 26, 1616, a letter expressing his gratitude for a recent -benefaction. On April 2 he was professed as a Tertiary of St. Francis, -and the profession took place at the house in the Calle de León to -which he had removed in 1611 or earlier. He was never to leave it -again alive: on April 18 he received Extreme Unction; on April 19 he -wrote the celebrated dedication of _Persiles y Sigismunda_ to Lemos; -on April 23 he died, and on April 24 he was buried in the convent of -the Trinitarian nuns in the Calle del Humilladero—the street which -now bears the name of his great rival Lope. His wife outlived him by -ten years, and his daughter by thirty-six; we hear no more of his -granddaughter after 1608. Presumably she died in infancy: if so, the -family became extinct upon the death of Isabel de Saavedra in 1652. - -Cervantes was no bloodless ascetic, no incarnation of dreary -righteousness: we do him wrong, if we present him in that crude, -intolerable light. With some defects of character and with some lapses -of conduct, he is a more interesting and more attractive personality -than if he were—what perhaps no one has ever been—a bundle of almost -impossible perfections. He was even as we are, but far nobler—braver, -more resigned to disappointment, more patient with the folly which -springs eternal in each of us. This inexhaustible sympathy, even more -than his splendid genius, is the secret of his conquering charm. He is -one of ourselves, only incomparably greater. - - His life was gentle, and the elements - So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up - And say to all the world, ‘This was a man.’ - -But it is not for us to write his epitaph. He needs no marble -sepulchre, and he has none, for the precise spot where he rests is -unknown. He has built himself a lordlier and more imperishable monument -than we could fashion for him—a monument which will endure so long as -humour, wisdom, and romance enchant mankind. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -THE WORKS OF CERVANTES - - -The best and wisest of men have their delusions—especially with respect -to themselves and their capabilities—and Cervantes was not free from -such natural infirmities. He made his first appearance in literature -with a sonnet addressed to Philip II.’s third wife, Isabel de Valois, -and as this poem is not included in any Spanish edition of his works, I -make no apology for quoting it (in an English version by Norman MacColl -which has not yet been published). - - Most Gracious Queen, within whose breast prevail - What thoughts to mortals by God’s grace do come, - Oh general refuge of Christendom, - Whose fame for piety can never fail. - Oh happy armour! with that well-meshed mail - Great Philip clothed himself, our sovereign, - Illustrious King of the broad lands of Spain, - Who fortune and the world holds in his baile. - What genius would adventure to proclaim - The good that thine example teaches us; - If thou wert summoned to the realms of day, - Who in thy mortal state put’st us to shame? - Better it is to feel and mutter ‘hush,’ - Than what is difficult to say, aloud to say. - -This is not a masterpiece in little, nor even a marvel of adroitness; -but it is highly interesting as the earliest extant effort of one who -was destined to become a master, and, moreover, it supplies us with his -favourite poetical formulæ. In his description of the Queen as the - - general refuge of Christendom, - Whose fame for piety can never fail; - -in his allusion to the - - Illustrious King of the broad lands of Spain, - Who fortune and the world holds in his baile; - -Cervantes strikes the characteristic notes of devotion, patriotism, -and loyalty to his sovereign. Though he vastly enlarged the circle of -his themes later on, he was sufficiently representative of his own -time and country to introduce these three motives into his subsequent -writings whenever a plausible occasion offered. This is particularly -notable in his fugitive verses. Sainte-Beuve says that nearly all men -are born poets, but that, as a rule, the poet in us dies young. It -was not so with Cervantes—so far as impulse was concerned. From youth -to old age he was a persistent versifier. As we have seen, he first -appeared in print with elegiacs on the death of Isabel de Valois; as a -slave in Algiers he dedicated sonnets to Bartolomeo Ruffino, and from -Algiers also he appealed for help to Mateo Vázquez in perhaps the most -spirited and sincere of his poetical compositions; he was not long free -from slavery when he supplied Juan Rufo Gutiérrez with a resounding -patriotic sonnet, and Pedro de Padilla with devotional poems. As he -began, so he continued. He has made merry at the practice of issuing -books with eulogistic prefatory poems; but he observed the custom in -his own _Galatea_, and he was indefatigable in furnishing such verses -to his friends. All subjects came alike to him. He would as soon praise -the quips and quillets of López Maldonado as lament the death of the -famous admiral Santa Cruz, and he celebrated with equal promptitude a -tragic epic on the lovers of Teruel and a technical treatise on kidney -diseases. It must, I think, be allowed that Cervantes was readily -stirred into song. - -At the end of his career, in his mock-heroic _Viage del Parnaso_, he -cast a backward glance at his varied achievement in literature, and, -with his usual good judgment, admitted wistfully that nature had denied -him the gift of poetry. As the phrase stands, and baldly interpreted, -it would seem that excessive modesty had led Cervantes to underestimate -his powers. He was certainly endowed with imagination, and with a -beautifying vision; but, though he had the poet’s dream, he had not -the faculty of verbal magic. It was not given to him to wed immortal -thoughts to immortal music, and this no doubt is what he means us to -understand by his ingenuous confession. His verdict is eminently just. -Cervantes has occasional happy passages, even a few admirable moments, -but no lofty or sustained inspiration. He recognised the fact with that -transparent candour which has endeared him to mankind, not dreaming -that uncritical admirers in future generations would seek to crown him -with the laurel to which he formally resigned all claim. Yet we read -appreciations of him as a ‘great’ poet, and we can only marvel at such -misuse of words. If Cervantes be a ‘great’ poet, what adjective is left -to describe Garcilaso, Luis de León, Lope de Vega, Góngora and Calderón? - -A sense of measure, of relative values, is the soul of criticism, and -we may be appreciative without condescending to idolatry, or even -to flattery. Cervantes was a rapid, facile versifier, and at rare -intervals his verses are touched with poetry; but, for the most part, -they are imitative, and no imitation, however brilliant, is a title to -lasting fame. Imitation in itself is no bad sign in a beginner; it is -a healthier symptom than the adoption of methods which are wilfully -eccentric; but it is a provisional device, to be used solely as a means -of attaining one’s originality. It cannot be said that Cervantes ever -acquired a personal manner in verse: if he had, there would be far less -division of opinion as to whether he is, or is not, the author of such -and such poems. He finally acquired a personal manner in prose, but -only after an arduous probation. - -There are few traces of originality in his earliest prose work, the -First Part of _La Galatea_, the pastoral which Cervantes never found -time to finish during more than thirty years. I do not think we need -suppose that we have lost a masterpiece, though no doubt it would -be profoundly interesting to see Cervantes trying to pour new wine -into old bottles. The sole interest of the _Galatea_, as we have it, -is that it is the first essay in fiction of a great creator who has -mistaken his road. There does appear to have existed, long before -the composition of the Homeric poems, a primitive pastoral which -was popular in character. So historians tell us, and no doubt they -are right. But the extant pastoral poetry of Sicily is the latest -manifestation of Greek genius, an artistic revolt against the banal -conventions of civilisation, an attempt to express a longing for a -freer life in a purer air. In other words it is an artificial product. -The Virgilian eclogues are still more remote from reality than the -idyls of Theocritus: as imitations are bound to be. Artificiality is -even more pronounced in the _Arcadia_ of Sannazaro who ‘prosified’ the -Virgilian eclogue during the late Renaissance: what else do you expect -in an imitation of an imitation? Neither in Sannazaro, nor in his -disciple Cervantes, is there a glimpse of real shepherds, nor even of -the Theocritean shepherds,— - - Such as sat listening round Apollo’s pipe, - When the great deity, for earth too ripe, - Let his divinity o’erflowing die - In music, through the vales of Thessaly. - -What we find in the _Galatea_ is the imitation by Cervantes of -Sannazaro’s prose imitation of Virgil’s imitation of Theocritus. To -us who wish for nothing better than to read Cervantes himself, his -ambition to write like somebody else seems misplaced, not to say -grotesque. But then, for most of us, Sannazaro has only a relative -importance: to Cervantes, Sannazaro was almost Virgil’s peer. - -Everything connected with the _Galatea_ is imitative—the impulse to -write it, the matter, and the manner. The _Galatea_ is no spontaneous -product of the author’s fancy; it owes its existence to Sannazaro’s -_Arcadia_, and to the early Spanish imitations of the _Arcadia_ -recorded in Professor Rennert’s exhaustive monograph. We shall not be -far wrong in thinking that it might never have struggled into print, -had not Cervantes been encouraged by the example of his friend Luis -Gálvez de Montalvo, who had made a hit with _El Pastor de Fílida_. -So, too, as regards the matter of the _Galatea_. The sixth book is a -frank adaptation of the _Arcadia_; there are further reminiscences -of Sannazaro’s pastoral in both the verse and the prose of the -_Galatea_; other allusions are worked in without much regard to their -appropriateness; León Hebreo is not too lofty, nor Alonso Pérez too -lowly, to escape Cervantes’s depredations. Lastly, the manner is no -less imitative: construction, arrangement, distribution, diction are -all according to precedent. Martínez Marina, indeed, held the odd view -that there was something new in the style of the _Galatea_, and that -Cervantes and Mariana were the first to move down the steep slope -that leads to _culteranismo_. During the hundred years that Martínez -Marina’s theory has been before the world it has made no converts, and -therefore it needs no refutation. But, though the theory is mistaken, -some of the facts advanced to support it are indubitable: the _Galatea_ -is deliberately latinised in imitation of Sannazaro who sought to -reproduce the sustained and sonorous melody of the Ciceronian period. -So intent is Cervantes upon the model that his own personality is -overwhelmed. He probably never wrote with more scrupulous care than -when at work on the _Galatea_, yet all his pains and all his elaborate -finish are so much labour lost. Briefly, the _Galatea_ is little more -than the echo of an echo, and the individual quality of Cervantes’s -voice is lost amid the reverberations of exotic music. - -The sixteenth-century prose-pastoral was a barren product, rooted in -a false convention. It was not natural, and it was not artistic: it -failed to reproduce the beauty of the old ideal, and it failed to -create a modern ideal. It satisfies no canon, and to attempt to make a -case for it is to argue for argument’s sake. Had Cervantes continued -to work this vein, he would never have found his true path, and must -have remained an imitator till the end; and it is a mere chance that -he did not return to the pastoral and complete the _Galatea_. It was -far too often in his thoughts. As his butt Feliciano de Silva would -have said, his reason saw ‘the unreason of the reason with which the -reason is afflicted’ when given up to the composition of pastorals; -and yet the pastoral romance had a fascination for him. Fortunately, -he was saved from a fatal error by the fact that, for nearly twenty -years after the publication of the _Galatea_, he was kept against -his will in touch with the realities of life: realities often grim, -squalid, fantastic, cruel and absurd, but preferable to the pointless -philanderings of imaginary swains and nymphs in a pasteboard Arcadia. -The surly taxpayers from whom Cervantes had to wring contributions, -the clergy who excommunicated and imprisoned him, the alcaldes and -jacks-in-office who made his life a burden, the cheating landlords -and strumpets whom he met in miserable inns—these people were not -the crown and flower of the human race, but they were not intangible -abstractions, nor even persistent bores; they were plain men and -women, creatures of flesh and blood, subject to all the passions of -humanity, and using vigorous, natural speech instead of euphemisms and -preciosities. It was by contact with these rugged folk that Cervantes -amassed his wealth of observation, and slowly learned his trade. This -was precisely what he needed. After his return from Algiers, and till -his marriage, circumstances had thrown him into a literary clique, -well-read and well-meaning, but with no vital knowledge of the past -and no intellectual interest in the present. The destiny which drove -Cervantes to collect provisions and taxes in the villages of the south -saved him from the Byzantinism of the capital, and placed him once more -in direct relation with nature—especially human nature. This was his -salvation as an author. And eighteen years later he produced the First -Part of _Don Quixote_. - -It would be interesting to know the exact stages of composition of _Don -Quixote_, but that is hopeless. We cannot be sure as to when Cervantes -began the book, but we may hazard a conjecture. Bernardo de la Vega’s -_Pastor de Iberia_, one of the books in Don Quixote’s library, was -published in 1591, and this goes to prove that the sixth chapter was -written after this date—probably a good deal later, for this pastoral -was a failure, and therefore not likely to come at once into the hands -of a busy, roving tax-gatherer. You all remember the incident of Sancho -Panza’s being tossed in a blanket, and there is a very similar episode -in the Third Book of _Guzmán de Alfarache_. Is there any relation -between the two? Is it a case of unconscious reminiscence, or is it -simple coincidence? It would be absurd to suppose that Cervantes -deliberately took such a trifling incident from a book published six -years before his own. Where Cervantes is imitative is in the dedication -of the First Part of _Don Quixote_, which is pieced together from -Herrera’s dedication of his edition of Garcilaso to the Marqués de -Ayamonte, and from Francisco de Medina’s prologue to the same edition. -If the tossing of Sancho Panza were suggested by _Guzmán de Alfarache_, -it would follow that the seventeenth chapter of _Don Quixote_ was -written in 1599, or later, and a remark dropped by Ginés de Pasamonte -seems to show that Cervantes had read Mateo Alemán’s book without any -excessive admiration. But the point is scarcely worth labouring. My -own impression is that _Don Quixote_ was progressing, but was not yet -finished, in 1602. - -Consider the facts a moment! So far as external evidence goes we have -no information concerning Cervantes from May 1601 to February 1603, -but I suggest that he was in Seville during 1602. We know that Lope -de Vega was constantly in Seville from 1600 to 1604, and we know -that Cervantes wrote a complimentary sonnet for the edition of the -_Dragontea_ issued by Lope in 1602. The inference is that Cervantes -and Lope were on friendly terms at this date, and it is therefore -incredible that Cervantes had written—or even contemplated writing—the -sharp attack on Lope in the forty-seventh chapter of _Don Quixote_. -During the course of 1602 differences arose to separate the two men, -and thenceforward Cervantes felt free to treat Lope as an ordinary -mortal, an author who invited trenchant criticism. This would lead -us to suppose that _Don Quixote_ was not actually finished till just -before Cervantes’s departure to Valladolid at the beginning of 1603, -and it would also explain how Lope de Vega became acquainted with the -contents of _Don Quixote_ before it was actually published. Cervantes -is pleasantly chatty and confidential in print respecting the books -upon which he is at work; he is not likely to have been more reserved -in private conversation with a friend. And it is intrinsically probable -that at this difficult period of his life Cervantes may have made many -confidences to Lope concerning his projects. - -At first sight it may seem odd that we hear nothing of Cervantes’s -mingling in the literary circles of Seville; it may seem still more -strange, if we take into consideration the fact that several of the -poets whom he had praised in the _Galatea_ were then living in Seville. -But there is nothing strange about it, if we look at men and things -from a contemporary point of view. The plain truth is that at this -time Cervantes was a nobody in the eyes of educated people at Seville. -His steps had been persistently dogged by failure. He had failed as a -dramatist, and as a writer of romance; he had been discharged from the -public service under a cloud, and his imprisonment would not recommend -him to the Philistines. Highly respectable literary persons closed -their doors to him, and in these circumstances Lope’s companionship -would be most welcome. From these small details we may fairly infer -that _Don Quixote_ was not finished till the very end of 1602, and that -the final touches were not given till Cervantes went to Valladolid in -1603, a perfectly insignificant figure in the eyes of literary men and -literary patrons. He was still nothing but a seedy elderly hack when -_Don Quixote_ was licensed in September 1604. The book stole into the -market at the beginning of 1605, with no great expectation of success -on the part of the publisher who had it printed in a commonplace, -careless fashion, and left it to take its chance on his counter at the -price of eight and a half _reales_. We all know the result. From the -outset _Don Quixote_ was immensely popular, and from that day to this -the author’s reputation has steadily increased—till now he ranks as -one of the great immortals. The history of literature shows no more -enduring triumph. - -Cervantes himself tells us that _Don Quixote_ is, ‘from beginning to -end, an attack upon the books of chivalry,’ and no doubt he means -this assertion to be taken literally. But, as I have said elsewhere, -the statement must be interpreted rationally in the light of other -facts. It is quite true that books of chivalry had been a public -pest, that grave scholars and theologians thundered against them, and -that legislation was invoked to prevent their introduction into the -blameless American colonies. The mystic Malón de Chaide, writing in -1588, declared that these extravagances were as dangerous as a knife in -a madman’s hand; but Malón de Chaide lived sequestered from the world, -and was evidently not aware that public taste had changed since he was -young. It is a significant fact that no romance of chivalry was printed -at Madrid during the reign of Philip II., and the natural conclusion -is that such publications were then popular only in country districts. -The previous twenty years of Cervantes’s life had been passed in the -provinces, and one might be tempted to imagine that he was unaware of -what was happening elsewhere. This would be an error: the fact that -he mentions his own _Rinconete y Cortadillo_ in _Don Quixote_ proves -that he knew there was a demand for picaresque stories, and that he -was prepared to satisfy it. The probability is that Cervantes, who -lived much in the past, had intended to write a short travesty of a -chivalresque novel, and that his original intention remained present -in his mind long after he had exceeded it in practice. If any one -chooses to insist that Cervantes gave the romances of chivalry their -death-blow, we are not concerned to deny it; if he had done nothing -more, it would have been an inglorious victory, for they were already -at the last extremity: but in truth, though he himself may have been -unconscious of it, in writing _Don Quixote_ Cervantes signalised the -triumph of the modern spirit over mediævalism. - -He had set out impelled by the spirit of burlesque, and perhaps had -met in his wanderings on the King’s commission some quaint belated -personage who seemed a survival from a picturesque, idealistic age, -and who invited good-natured caricature. With some such intention, -Cervantes began a tale, which, so far as he could foresee, would be no -longer than some of his _Exemplary Novels_ (of which one, at least, -was already written); but the experiment was a new one, and the author -himself was at the mercy of accidents. He saw little more than the -possibilities of his central idea: a country gentleman who had become -a monomaniac by incessant pondering over fabulous deeds, and who was -led into ridiculous situations by attempting to imitate the imaginary -exploits of his mythical heroes. Cervantes sets forth light-heartedly; -pictures his gaunt hero arguing with Master Nicolás, the village -barber, over the relative merits of Palmerín and Amadís; and finally -presents him aflame with an enthusiasm which drives him to furbish up -his great-grandfather’s armour, to go out to right every kind of wrong, -and to win everlasting renown (as well as the empire of Trebizond). -Parodies, burlesque allusions, humorous parallels crowd upon the -writer, and his pen flies trippingly along till he reaches the third -chapter. At this point Cervantes perceives the subject broadening out, -and the landlord accordingly impresses on Don Quixote the necessity of -providing himself with a squire. - -It is a momentous passage: there and then the image of Sancho Panza -first flashed into the author’s mind, but not with any definition of -outline. Cervantes does not venture to introduce Sancho Panza in person -till near the end of the seventh chapter, and he is visibly ill at ease -over his new creation. It is quite plain that, at this stage, Cervantes -knew very little about Sancho Panza, and his first remark is that the -squire was an honest man (if any poor man can be called honest), ‘but -with very little sense in his pate.’ This is not the Sancho who has -survived: honesty is not the most pre-eminent quality of the squire, -and if anybody thinks Sancho Panza a born fool he must have a high -standard of ability. In the ninth chapter Cervantes goes out of his -way to describe Sancho Panza as a long-legged man: obviously, up to -this point, he had never seen the squire at close quarters, and was as -yet not nearly so well acquainted with him as you and I are. He was -soon to know him more intimately. Perceiving his mistake, he hustled -the long-legged scarecrow out of sight, observed the real Sancho with -minute fidelity, and created the most richly humorous character in -modern literature. The only possible rival to Sancho Panza is Sir John -Falstaff; but Falstaff is emphatically English, whereas Sancho Panza is -a citizen of the world, stamped with the seal of universality. - -It can scarcely be doubted that _Don Quixote_ contains many allusions -to contemporaries and contemporary events. We can catch the point of -his jests at Lope de Vega’s fondness for a classical reference, or at a -geographical blunder made by the learned Mariana; but probably many an -allusion of the same kind escapes us in Cervantes’s pages. The same may -be said of Shakespeare, and hence both Cervantes and Shakespeare have -been much exposed to the attentions of commentators. In a celebrated -passage of _A Midsummer-Night’s Dream_ Oberon addresses Puck:— - - Thou rememberest - Since once I sat upon a promontory, - And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back - Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath - That the rude sea grew civil at her song - And certain stars shot madly from their spheres, - To hear the sea-maid’s music. - -An ordinary reader would be content to admire the lines as they stand, -but a commentator is an extraordinary reader, who feels compelled to -justify his existence by identifying the mermaid with Mary Queen of -Scots, the dolphin with her first husband the Dauphin of France, and -the certain stars with Mary’s English partisans. In precisely the same -way Don Quixote has been identified with the Duke of Lerma, Sancho -Panza with Pedro Franqueza, and the three ass-colts—promised by the -knight to the squire as some compensation for the loss of Dapple—have -been flatteringly recognised as the three Princes of Savoy, Philip, -Victor Amadeus, and Emmanuel Philibert. These identifications seem -quite as likely to be correct in the one case as in the other. We need -not discuss them. But if _A Midsummer-Night’s Dream_ and _Don Quixote_ -were really intended as a couple of political pasquinades, they must be -classed as complete failures: the idea that Cervantes and Shakespeare -were a pair of party pamphleteers is a piece of grotesque perversity. - -Apart from the matter of _Don Quixote_, the diversity of its manner -is arresting. Even those who most admire the elaborate diction of the -_Galatea_ are compelled to admit its monotony. The variety of incident -in _Don Quixote_ corresponds to a variety of style which is a new -thing in Spanish literature. Still there are examples of deliberate -imitation, not only in the travesties of the romances of chivalry, but -in such passages as Don Quixote’s famous declamation on the happier Age -of Gold:— - - Happy the age, happy the time, to which the ancients - gave the name of golden, not because in that fortunate - age the gold so coveted in this our iron one was gained - without labour, but because they that lived in it knew - not the two words ‘mine’ and ‘thine.’ In that blessed age - all things were in common; to win the daily food no toil - was needed from any man but to stretch out his hand and - pluck it from the mighty oaks that stood there generously - inviting him with their sweet ripe fruit. The crystal - streams and rippling brooks yielded their clear and - grateful waters in splendid profusion. The busy and wise - bees set up their commonwealth in the clefts of the rocks - and the hollows of the trees, offering without usance - to every hand the abundant produce of their fragrant - toil.... Fraud, deceit, or malice had not as yet tainted - truth and sincerity. Justice held her own, untroubled and - unassailed by the attempts of favour and interest, which - so greatly damage, corrupt, and encompass her about.... - -And so forth. It is a fine piece of embroidered rhetoric, which is -fairly entitled to the place it holds in most anthologies of Spanish -prose. But it is not specially characteristic of Cervantes: it is a -brilliant passage introduced to prove that the writer could, if he -chose, rival Antonio de Guevara as a virtuoso in what is thought the -grand style. Nor is Cervantes himself in the points and conceits which -abound in Marcela’s address to Ambrosio and the assembled friends of -the dead shepherd Chrysostom:— - - By that natural understanding which God has given me - I know that everything beautiful attracts love, but I - cannot see how, by reason of being loved, that which is - loved for its beauty is bound to love that which loves - it.... As there is an infinity of beautiful objects there - must be an infinity of inclinations, and true love (so I - have heard it said) is indivisible, and must be voluntary - and uncompelled.... I was born free, and that I might - live in freedom I chose the solitude of the fields; in - the trees of the mountains I find society, the clear - waters of the brooks are my mirrors, and to the trees and - waters I make known my thoughts and charms. I am a fire - afar off, a sword laid aside.... Let him who calls me - wild beast and basilisk leave me alone as a thing noxious - and evil. - -To the mind of an English reader, this passage recalls the recondite -preciosity of Juliet:— - - Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but ‘I,’ - And that bare vowel, ‘I,’ shall poison more - Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice: - I am not I, if there be such an I, - Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer ‘I.’ - -These exhibitions of verbal ingenuity are a blemish in the early -chapters of _Don Quixote_ and in _Romeo and Juliet_. At this stage of -their development both Cervantes and Shakespeare were struggling to -disengage their genius from the clutch of contemporary affectation, and -both succeeded. As _Don Quixote_ progresses the parody of the books -of chivalry becomes less insistent, the style grows more supple and -adaptable, reaches a high level of restrained eloquence in the knight’s -speeches, is forcible and familiar in expressing the squire’s artful -simplicity, is invariably appropriate in the mouths of men differing so -widely from each other as Vivaldo and the Barber, Ginés de Pasamonte -and Cardenio, Don Fernando and the left-handed landlord, the Captive -and the village priest. The dramatic fitness of the dialogue in _Don -Quixote_, its intense life and speedy movement are striking innovations -in the development of the Spanish novel, and give the book its abiding -air of modernity. Cervantes had discovered the great secret that truth -is a more essential element of artistic beauty than all the academic -elegance in the world. - -But the immediate triumph of _Don Quixote_ was not due—or, at -least, was not mainly due—to strictly artistic qualities. These -make an irresistible appeal to us, who belong to a more analytic -and sophisticated generation. To contemporary readers the charm of -_Don Quixote_ lay in its amalgamation of imaginative and realistic -elements, in its accumulated episodes, in its infinite sympathy, and -its pervasive humour. There was no question then as to whether _Don -Quixote_ was a well of symbolic doctrine. The canvas was crowded with -types familiar to every one who had eyes to see his companions on -the dusty highways of Spain. The wenches who served Don Quixote with -stockfish and black bread; the lad Andrés, flayed in the grove of oaks -by Juan Haldudo the Rich, of Quintanar; the goatherds seated round -the fire on which the pot of salted goat was simmering; the three -lively needle-makers from the Colt of Córdoba; the midnight procession -escorting the dead body from Baeza to Segovia, and chanting dirges -on the road; the dozen galley-slaves tramping on, strung together -like beads on an iron chain—all these are observed and presented with -masterly precision of detail. But the really triumphant creations of -the book are, of course, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza—the impassioned -idealist and the incarnation of gross common-sense. They were instantly -accepted as great representative figures; the adventures of the -fearless Manchegan madman and his timorous practical squire were -speedily reprinted in the capital and the provinces; and within six -months a writer in Valladolid assumed as a matter of course that his -correspondent in the Portuguese Indies must have made the acquaintance -of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. - -One of the most attractive characteristics of _Don Quixote_ is its -maturity; it may not have taken more than three or four years to -write, but it embodies the experience of a lifetime, and it breathes -an air of urbanity and leisure. Cervantes was not an exceptionally -rapid writer, and—if he thought about the matter at all—probably knew -that masterpieces are seldom produced in a hurry. His great rival Lope -de Vega easily surpassed him in brilliant facility: Cervantes’s mind -was weightier, less fleet but more precise. In the closing sentences -of _Don Quixote_ he had half promised a continuation, and no doubt -it occupied his thoughts for many years. He had set himself a most -formidable task—the task of equalling himself at his best—and he may -well have shrunk from it, for he was risking his hard-won reputation -on a doubtful hazard. He was in no haste to put his fortune to the -touch. He sank into a pregnant silence, pondered over the technique -of his great design, and, with the exception of an occasional sonnet, -published nothing for eight years. At last in 1613 he issued his -_Novelas Exemplares_, twelve short stories, the composition of which -was spread over a long space of time. One of these, _Rinconete y -Cortadillo_, is mentioned in _Don Quixote_, and must therefore date -from 1602 or earlier; a companion story, the _Coloquio de los Perros_, -is assigned to 1608; and the remaining ten are plausibly believed to -have been written between these dates. The two tales just mentioned -are the gems of the collection, but _La Gitanilla_ and _El Celoso -extremeño_ are scarcely less striking, and certainly seven out of -the dozen are models of realistic art. Cervantes was never troubled -by mock-modesty, and ingenuously asserts that he was ‘the first to -attempt novels in the Castilian tongue, for the many which wander -about in print in Spanish are all translated from foreign languages, -while these are my own, neither imitated nor stolen.’ There were -earlier collections of stories (from one of which—Eslava’s _Noches -de Invierno_—Shakespeare contrived to borrow the plot of _The -Tempest_), but they are eclipsed by the _Novelas Exemplares_. These, in -their turn, are overshadowed by _Don Quixote_, but they would suffice -to make the reputation of any novelist by their fine invention and -engaging fusion of truth with fantasy. The harshest of native critics -yielded to the spell, and the _Novelas Exemplares_ were skilfully -exploited by John Fletcher and by Middleton and Rowley in England, as -well as by Hardy in France. - -Cervantes had now so unquestionably succeeded in prose that he was -tempted to bid for fame as a poet. He mistrusted his own powers, and, -as the event proved, with reason. His _Viage del Parnaso_, published -in 1614, commemorated the most prominent versifiers of the day in a -spirit of mingled appreciation and satirical criticism. It is very -doubtful whether there have been so many great poets in the history of -the world as Cervantes descried among his Spanish contemporaries, and -his compliments are too effusive and too universal to be effective. A -noble amateur, a potential patron, is lauded as extravagantly as though -he were the equal of Lope or Góngora, and the occasional excursions -into satire are mostly pointless. There are more wit, and pungency, -and concentrated force in any two pages of _English Bards and Scotch -Reviewers_ than in all the cantos of the _Viage del Parnaso_ put -together. It cannot be merely owing to temperamental differences that -Byron succeeds where Cervantes fails. There are splenetic passages in -the _Viage_ relating to such writers as Bernardo de la Vega and the -author of _La Pícara Justina_, but they miss their mark. The simple -truth is—not that Cervantes was willing to wound and yet afraid to -strike, but—that he had no complete mastery of his instrument. - -His instinct was right; he moves uneasily in the fetters of verse, and -only becomes himself in the prose appendix to the _Viage_ which (as the -internal evidence discloses) was written side by side with the Second -Part of _Don Quixote_. His true vehicle was prose, but he was reluctant -to abide by the limitations of his genius, and while the sequel to _Don -Quixote_ was maturing, he produced a volume of plays containing eight -formal full-dress dramas and eight sparkling interludes. By sympathy -and by training Cervantes belonged to the older school of dramatists, -and his attempts to rival Lope de Vega on Lope’s own ground are mostly -embarrassed and, in some cases, curiously maladroit; yet he displays -a happy malicious humour in the less ambitious interludes, and, when -he betakes himself to prose, he captivates by the spontaneous wit -and nimble gaiety of his dialogue. These thumbnail sketches, like -the kit-cats of the _Novelas Exemplares_, may be regarded as so many -studies for the Second Part of _Don Quixote_, at which Cervantes was -still working. - -This tardy sequel, which followed the First Part at an interval of -ten years, might never have seen the light but for the publication of -Avellaneda’s apocryphal _Don Quixote_ with its blustering and malignant -preface. Cervantes’s gentle spirit survived unembittered by a heavy -burden of trials and humiliations; but the proud humility with which -(in the preface to his Second Part) he meets Avellaneda’s attack shows -how profoundly he resented it. It would have been well had he preserved -this attitude in the text. He was taken by surprise and, goaded out -of patience, flung his other work aside, and brought _Don Quixote_ -to a hurried close. Was Avellaneda’s insolent intrusion a blessing -in disguise, or was it disastrous in effect? It is true that but for -Avellaneda we might have lost the true sequel as we have lost the -Second Part of the _Galatea_, the _Semanas del Jardin_, and the rest. -It is no less true that, but for Avellaneda, the sequel might have been -even better than it actually is. Cervantes had steadily refused to be -hurried over his masterpiece, and, so long as he followed his own bent, -his work is almost flawless. But Avellaneda suddenly forced him to -quicken his step, and in the last chapters Cervantes manifestly writes -in furious haste. His art suffers in consequence. His bland amenity -deserts him; his eyes wander restlessly from Don Quixote and Sancho -Panza to Avellaneda, whom he belabours out of season. He allows himself -to be out-generalled, recasting his plan because his foe had stolen -it—as though the plan and not the execution were the main essential! -He advances, halts, and harks back, uncertain as to his object; he -introduces irrelevant personalities and at least one cynical trait -unworthy of him. Obviously he is anxious to have the book off his -hands, so as to bring confusion on Avellaneda. - -That these are blemishes it would be futile to deny; but how -insignificant they are beside the positive qualities of the Second -Part! Unlike some of his admirers, Cervantes was not above profiting -by criticism. He tells us that objection had been taken to the -intercalated stories of the First Part, and to some scenes of exuberant -fun bordering on horse-play. These faults are avoided in the sequel, -which broadens out till it assumes a truly epical grandeur. The -development of the two central characters is at once more logical and -more poetic; Don Quixote awakens less laughter, and more thought, while -Sancho Panza’s store of apophthegms and immemorial wisdom is more -inexhaustible and apposite than ever. Lastly, the new personages, from -the Duchess downwards to Doctor Pedro Recio de Agüero—the ill-omened -physician of Barataria—are marvels of realistic portraiture. The -presentation of the crazy knight and the droll squire expands into -a splendid pageant of society. And, as one reads the less elaborate -passages, one acquires the conviction that the very dust of Cervantes’s -writings is gold. The Second Part of _Don Quixote_ was the last of -his works that he saw in print. His career was over, and it closed in -splendour. His battle was fought and won, and he died, as befits a -hero, with the trumpets of victory ringing in his ears. - -His labyrinthine romance, _Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda_, -appeared in 1617. Even had this posthumous work been, as Cervantes -half hoped, ‘the best book of its kind,’ it could scarcely have added -to his glory. Though distinctly not the best book of its kind, the -great name on its title-page procured it a respectful reception, and -it was repeatedly reprinted within a short time of its publication. -But it was soon lost in the vast shadow of _Don Quixote_: no one need -feel guilty because he has not read it. The world, leaving scholars -and professional critics to estimate the writer’s indebtedness to -Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, has steadily refused to be interested -in _Persiles y Sigismunda_; and in the long run the world delivers -a just judgment. It is often led astray by gossip, by influence, by -publishers’ tricks, by authors who press their own wares on you with -all the effrontery of a cheap-jack at a fair; but the world finds -out the truth at last. An author’s genius may be manifest in most or -all of his works; but it is wont to be conspicuous in one above the -rest. Shakespeare wrote _Hamlet_: one _Hamlet_. Cervantes wrote _Don -Quixote_—two _Don Quixotes_: a feat unparalleled in the history of -literature. The one is the foremost of dramatists, and the other the -foremost of romancers: and it is to a single masterpiece that each owes -the greater part of his transcendent fame. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -LOPE DE VEGA - - -Cervantes is unquestionably the most glorious figure in the annals -of Spanish literature, but his very universality makes him less -representative of his race. A far more typical local genius is his -great rival Lope Félix de Vega Carpio who, for nearly half a century, -reigned supreme on the stage at which Cervantes often cast longing -eyes. My task would be much easier if I could feel sure that all of -you were acquainted with the best and most recent biography of Lope -which we owe to a distinguished American scholar, Professor Hugo -Albert Rennert. I should then be able to indulge in the luxury of -pure literary criticism. As it is, I must attempt to picture to you -the prodigious personality of one who has enriched us with an immense -library illustrating a new form of dramatic art. - -Lope Félix de Vega Carpio, as he signed himself, was born at Madrid -on November 25, 1562, just three hundred and forty-five years -ago to-day.[100] There is some slight reason to think that his -parents—Félix de Vega Carpio and Francisca Hernández Flores—came -from the village of Vega in the valley of Carriedo at the foot of -the Asturian hills. The historic name of Carpio does not accord well -with the modest occupation of Lope’s father who appears to have been -a basket-maker; but every respectable Spanish family is more or less -noble, and, though Lope was given to displaying a splendidly emblazoned -escutcheon in some of his works—a foible which brought down on him the -banter of Cervantes and of Góngora—he made no secret of his father’s -lowly station. Long afterwards, when Lope de Vega was in the noon of -his popularity, Cervantes described him as a _monstruo de naturaleza_—a -portent of nature—and, if we are to believe the legends that float down -to us, he must have been a disconcerting wonder as a child—dictating -verses before he could write, learning Latin when he was five. A few -years later we hear of him as an accomplished dancer and fencer, as -an adventurous little truant from the Theatine school at which he was -educated, and as a juvenile dramatist. One of his plays belonging -to this early period survives, but as a re-cast. It would have been -interesting to read the piece in its original form: its title—_El -Verdadero Amante_ (The True Lover)—suggests some precocity in a boy of -twelve. At an age when most lads are spinning tops Lope was already -imagining dramatic situations and impassioned love-scenes. - -He appears to have been page to Jerónimo Manrique de Lara, Bishop of -Ávila, who helped him to complete his studies at the University of -Alcalá de Henares. Lope never forgot a personal kindness, and in the -_Dragontea_ he acknowledges his debt to his benefactor whose intention -was clearly excellent; but it is doubtful if Lope gained much by -his stay at Alcalá except the horrid farrago of undigested learning -which disfigures so much of his non-dramatic work, and is so rightly -ridiculed by Cervantes. His undergraduate days were scarcely over when -he made the acquaintance of Elena Osorio, daughter of a theatrical -manager named Jerónimo Velázquez, whom he has celebrated as Filis in -his early _romances_. He fought under Santa Cruz at the Azores in -1582, and next year became secretary to the Marqués de las Navas. He is -one of the many poets lauded by Cervantes in the _Canto de Calíope_, -and, though Cervantes bestows his praise indiscriminatingly, it may be -inferred that Lope enjoyed a certain reputation when the _Galatea_ was -published in 1585. He was then twenty-three, and was no doubt already -a practised playwright: his acquaintance with Velázquez would probably -open the theatres to him, and enable him to get a hearing on the stage. -So far this intimacy was valuable to Lope, but it finally came near -to wrecking his career. Elena Osorio was not apparently a model of -constancy, and Lope was a passionate, jealous, headstrong youth with -a sharp pen. On December 29, 1587, he was arrested at the theatre for -libelling his fickle flame and her father, and on February 7, 1588, he -was exiled from Madrid for eight years, and from Castile for two. The -court seems to have anticipated that Lope might not think fit to obey -its order, for it provided that if he returned to Madrid before the -fixed limit of time he was to be sent to the galleys, and that if he -entered Castile he was to be executed. - -The judges evidently knew their man. He went through the form of -retreating to Valencia, but he had no intention of hiding his talent -under a bushel in the provinces. His next step was astounding in its -insolence: he returned to Madrid, and thence eloped with Isabel de -Urbina y Cortinas, daughter of a king-at-arms. The police were at once -in hot pursuit, but failed to overtake the culprit. He parted from the -lady, was married to her by proxy on May 10, 1588, and nineteen days -later was out of range on the _San Juan_, one of the vessels of the -Invincible Armada. Lope took part in the famous expedition of the ‘sad -Intelligencing Tyrant’ when, as Milton puts it, ‘the very maw of Hell -was ransacked, and made to give up her concealed destruction, ere she -could vent it in that terrible and damned blast.’ Returning from this -disastrous adventure, during which he found time to write the greater -part of _La Hermosura de Angélica_, an epic consisting of eleven -thousand lines, Lope settled at Valencia, and joined the household -of the fifth Duke of Alba. It was the custom of the time for a poor -Spanish gentleman, who would have been disgraced by the adoption of a -trade or business, to serve as secretary to some rich noble: the duties -were various, indefinite and not always dignified, but they involved -no social degradation. Lope’s versatile talents were thus utilised -in succession by the Marqués de Malpica and the Marqués de Sarriá, -afterwards Conde de Lemos (the son-in-law of Lerma, and in later years -the patron of Cervantes). - -His introduction to aristocratic society enlarged Lope’s sphere of -observation: it did nothing to improve his morals, which were not -naturally austere. During this period he was writing incessantly for -the stage, and the Spanish stage was not then a school of asceticism. -His wife died about the year 1595, and the last restraint was gone. -Lope was straightway entangled in a series of scandalous amours. He was -prosecuted for criminal conversation with Antonia Trillo de Armenta in -1596, and in 1597 began a love-affair with Micaela de Luján, the Camila -Lucinda of his sonnets, and the mother of his brilliant children, Lope -Félix del Carpio y Luján and Marcela, who inherited no small share of -her father’s improvising genius. It is impossible to palliate Lope’s -misconduct, and the persistent effort to keep it from public knowledge -has damaged him more than the attacks of all his enemies; but it is -fair to remember that he lived in the most corrupt circles of a corrupt -age, that he suffered such temptations as few men undergo, and that he -repeatedly strove to extricate himself from the mesh of circumstance. - -In 1598 he published his patriotic epic, the _Dragontea_, as well as a -pastoral novel entitled the _Arcadia_, and in this same year he married -Juana de Guardo, daughter of a wealthy but frugal man who had made a -fortune by selling pork. Shakespeare was the son of a butcher, but the -fact was not thrown in his teeth: Lope was less fortunate, and his -second marriage was the subject of a derisive sonnet by Góngora. So -far as can be judged, Lope’s marriage with Juana de Guardo was one of -affection, and the reflections cast upon him were absolutely unjust. -But the stage had him in its grip, and he could not break with his -past, try as he might. He strove without ceasing to make a reputation -in other fields of literature: a poem on St. Isidore, the patron-saint -of Madrid, the _Hermosura de Angélica_ with a mass of supplementary -sonnets, the prose romance entitled _El Peregrino en su patria_, the -epic _Jerusalén conquistada_ written in emulation of Tasso—these -diverse works were produced in rapid succession between 1599 and 1609. -Meanwhile Lope had been enrolled as a Familiar of the Holy Office, -but the vague terror attaching to this sinister post did not prevent -an attack being made on his life in 1611. He may have enlisted in the -ranks of the Inquisition from mixed motives; yet we cannot doubt that -he was passing through a pietistic phase at this time, for between 1609 -and 1611 he joined three religious confraternities. This was no blind, -no hypocritical attempt to affect a virtue which he had not. He was -even too regardless of appearances all his life long. - -The death of his son Carlos Félix was quickly followed by the death -of his wife, and his devotional mood deepened. He now made an -irreparable mistake by entering holy orders. No man was less fitted to -be a minister of religion, and his private correspondence discloses -no sign of a religious spirit, or of anything resembling a religious -vocation: on the contrary, it reveals him as frequenting loose company, -and cracking unseemly jokes at a most solemn moment. The pendulum -had already begun to swing before his ordination, and for some years -afterwards he was prominent as an unscrupulous libertine. No one -as successful as Lope could fail to make many enemies: he had now -delivered himself into their hands, and assuredly they did not spare -him. In the Preface to the Second Part of _Don Quixote_ Cervantes, -though he does not mention Lope de Vega by name, indulges in an -unmistakable allusion to him as a Familiar of the Inquisition notorious -for his ‘virtuous occupation.’ Yes! a ‘virtuous occupation’ which was -an intolerable public scandal. From 1605 onwards Lope had been on -intimate terms with the Duke of Sesa, and his correspondence with the -Duke is his condemnation. But his conscience was not dead. Among his -letters to Sesa many are stained with tears of shame and of remorse. -They reveal him in every mood. He protests against being made the -intermediary of the Duke’s vulgar gallantries; he forms resolutions to -amend, yet falls, and falls again. - -In his fifty-fifth year he conceived an insane passion for Marta -de Nevares Santoyo. On the details of this lamentable intrigue -nothing need be said here. Once more Samson was in the hands of the -Philistines. Led on by Góngora, they showed him no mercy, but he -survived their onset. His plays were acted on every stage in Spain; -the people who flocked to the theatre were spell-bound by his dramatic -creations, his dexterity, grace and wit; his name was used as a synonym -for matchless excellence; and he strengthened his position with the -more learned public by a mass of non-dramatic work. He seldom reaches -such a height as in the _Pastores de Belén_—a perfect gem of devotion -and of art—but the adaptability of his talent is amazing in prose and -verse dealing with subjects as diverse as the triumphs of faith in -Japan and the fate of Mary Queen of Scots. The short stories in the -_Filomena_ and _Circe_ represent him at his weakest, but the _Dorotea_, -a work that had lain by him for many years, is an absorbing fragment -of autobiography which exhibits Lope as a master of graceful and -colloquial diction. - -In one of his agonies of repentance he exclaimed: ‘A curse on all -unhallowed love!’ But the punishment of his own transgressions was long -delayed. Marta, indeed, died blind and mad; but Lope still had his -children, and, with all his faults, he was a fond and devoted father. -We may well imagine that none of his own innumerable triumphs thrilled -him with a more rapturous delight than the success of his son Lope -Félix at the poetic jousts in honour of St. Isidore. Strengthened by -the domestic happiness which he now enjoyed, Lope underwent a striking -change. He wrote more copiously than ever for the stage, but yielded no -longer to its temptations; his stormy passions lay behind him—part of -a past which all were eager to forget. In 1628 he became chaplain to -the congregation of St. Peter, and was a model of pious zeal. It was -an astonishing metamorphosis, and there may have been an unconscious -histrionic touch in Lope’s rendering of a virtuous _rôle_. But the -transformation was no mere pose. Lope was too frank to be a Pharisee, -and too human to be a saint; but whatever he did, he did with all his -might, and he became a hardworking priest, punctual in the discharge -of his sacred office. Towards the close he occupied an unexampled -pre-eminence. Urban VIII. conferred on him a papal order; though -not a favourite at court, he was invited by Olivares to exercise his -ingenious fantasy for the entertainment of Philip IV., who was assuming -the airs and graces of a patron of the drama. With the crowd Lope’s -popularity knew no bounds. Visitors hovered about to catch a glimpse -of him as he threaded his way through the streets: his fellow-townsmen -gloried in his glory. There is nothing in history comparable to his -position. - - Blessings and prayers, a nobler retinue - Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows, - Followed this wondrous potentate. - -No man of letters has ever received such visible proofs of his own -celebrity, and none has retained it so long. For something like half -a century Lope had contrived to fascinate his countrymen, but even he -began to grow old at last. Yet the change was not so much in him as in -the rising generation. - -The swelling tide of _culteranismo_ was invading the stage; the fatal -protection of Philip IV. was beginning to undermine the national -theatre. Lope had always opposed the new fashion of preciosity, and he -could not, or would not, supply the demand at court for a spectacular -drama. One could scarcely expect him to help in demolishing the work -of his lifetime. In his youth, and even in middle age, he looked down -upon his plays as being almost outside the pale of literature. He lived -long enough to revise his opinion, though perhaps to the last he would -have refused to admit that his plays were worth all his epics put -together. He lived long enough to revise his opinion, and a little too -long for his happiness. His latest plays did not hit the public taste: -his successor was already hailed in the person of the courtly Calderón -whom he himself had first praised. To his artistic mortifications were -added poignant domestic sorrows. He had dissuaded his son, Lope Félix, -from adopting literature as a profession: the youth joined the navy, -went on a cruise to South America, and was there - - summoned to the deep. - He, he and all his mates, to keep - An incommunicable sleep. - -The drowning of his son in 1634 was a grievous blow to Lope, but a more -cruel stroke awaited him. The flight of his favourite daughter, Antonia -Clara, from her home filled him with an unspeakable despair. He could -endure no more. With the simple, confiding faith that never left him, -he believed that his sins had brought upon him the vengeance of heaven, -and he sought to make tardy atonement by the severest penance, lashing -himself till the walls of his room were flecked with blood. But the end -was at hand. On August 23, 1635, Lope wrote his last two poems, fell -ill, and on August 27 his soul was required of him. - - The extravagant and erring spirit hies - To his confine. - -Headed by the Duke of Sesa, the vast funeral procession turned aside -so as to pass before the convent of the Barefooted Trinitarians where -Lope’s gifted daughter Marcela had taken the vows in 1621. From the -cloister window the nun watched the multitude on its way to the Church -of St. Sebastian in the Calle de Atocha; there, to the mournful music -of the _Dies irae_, Lope was interred beneath the high altar. His -eloquent lips were silent; his untiring hand and his unquiet heart were -still: his passionate pilgrimage was over. It might have been thought -that all that was mortal of him was at peace for ever, and that the -final resting-place of one so famous could not be forgotten. But, as -if to show that all is vanity, it was otherwise decreed by the mocking -fates. Early in the nineteenth century it became necessary to remove -Lope’s coffin from the vault in which it lay, and no care was taken -to ensure its subsequent identification. Hence he, whose renown once -filled the world, now sleeps unrecognised amid the humble and the -obscure. - -It has been granted us to know Lope de Vega better than we know most -of our contemporaries. He lived in the merciless light of publicity; -his slightest slip was noted by vigilant eyes and rancorous pens; and -he has himself recorded the weaknesses which any other man would have -studiously concealed. Yet, gross as were his sins, his individual charm -is irresistible. Ruiz de Alarcón taxed him with being envious, and -from the huge mass of his confidential correspondence, a few detached -phrases are picked out to support this charge. None of us is as frank -as Lope; yet it seems highly probable that, if a selection were made -from the private letters written in this city to-day and this selection -were published in the newspapers to-morrow, a certain number of -personal difficulties might follow. But let us test Ruiz de Alarcón’s -charge. Of whom should Lope be envious? Not of Ruiz de Alarcón himself, -undoubtedly a remarkable dramatist, but never popular as Lope was. Not -of Tirso de Molina, another great dramatist, but a personal friend -of Lope’s. Not of Cervantes, who had abandoned the stage long before -he succeeded so greatly in romance. Not of Góngora, of whose poetic -principles Lope disapproved, but to whom he paid sedulous court. Not of -Calderón, who was nearly forty years younger than himself, and whom he -first presented to the public. The accusation has no more solid base -than a few choleric words dropped in haste. - -The truth is that Lope is open to precisely the opposite charge -of culpable complaisance. His genius, like that of Cervantes, was -creative, not critical; his praise is fulsome, indiscriminating, and -therefore ineffective. He was a most loyal friend, and to him all his -geese are swans. His _Laurel de Apolo_ is an exercise in adulation -of no more critical value than Cervantes’s _Canto de Calíope_. -Famous writers, once in port, are inclined to ‘nurse’ their fame by -conciliating their rivals. Lope’s constant successes provided him with -so many foes that it would have been folly to increase their number by -attacking rising men. Like most other contemporaries he detested Ruiz -de Alarcón; but Ruiz de Alarcón could take very good care of himself in -a wrangle, and perhaps a man is not universally detested without some -good reason. Apart from any question of tactics, Lope was naturally -generous. There is a credible story that he dashed off the _Orfeo_ to -launch Pérez de Montalbán, who published it under his own name, and -thus started on a prosperous, feverish career. - -Lope was a sad sinner, but any attempt to represent him as an unamiable -man is ridiculous. It is certain that he received large sums of money, -and that he died poor: his purse was open to all comers. He lived -frugally, loving nothing better than a romp with his children in the -garden of his little house in the Calle de Francos. His pleasures and -tastes were simple: careless remarks that drop from him reveal him to -us. Typical Spaniard as he was, he disliked bull-fights, but he loved -angling, and was a most enthusiastic gardener. He had, as he tells us -in his pleasant way, half a dozen pictures and a few books; but the -only extravagance which he allowed himself was the occasional purchase -of flowers rare in Spain. He had a passion for the tulip—at that time -a novelty in Europe—and, by dedicating to Manoel Soeiro his _Luscinda -perseguida_ (an early play, not printed till 1621), he handsomely -expressed his thanks for a present of choice Dutch bulbs. But, even -if such positive testimony were wanting, we should confidently guess -Lope’s tastes from his poems, redolent of buds and blossoms, of gardens -and of glades, of sweet perfumes and subtle aromas. In reading him, we -think inevitably of _The Flower’s Name_: you remember the lines, but I -may be allowed to quote them:— - - This flower she stopped at, finger on lip, - Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim; - Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip, - Its soft meandering Spanish name; - What a name! was it love or praise? - Speech half-asleep, or song half-awake? - I must learn Spanish, one of these days, - Only for that slow sweet name’s sake. - -It is very probable that Browning was not deeply read in the -masterpieces of Spanish literature, and that he knew comparatively -little of Lope; but in these verses we have (as it were) Lope rendered -into English: they are Lope all over. - -No competent judge questions Lope de Vega’s right to rank as a great -poet, but scarcely any great poet—except perhaps Wordsworth—is so -unequal. The huge epics upon which he laboured so long, filing and -polishing every line, are now forgotten by all but specialists, and -(even among these elect) who can pretend that he reads the _Jerusalén -conquistada_ solely for pleasure? On the other hand, no unprejudiced -critic denies the beauty of Lope’s best sonnets and lyrics, nor the -natural grace of his prose in the _Dorotea_, and in his unguarded -correspondence. Had he written nothing else, he would be considered -a charming poet, and wonderfully versatile man of letters. But these -performances; astonishing as they are, may be regarded as the mere -diversions of exuberant genius. - -It is, of course, to his dramatic works that Lope de Vega owes his -splendid pre-eminence in the history of literature. He was much more -than a great dramatist: in a very real sense he was the founder -of the national theatre in Spain. It cannot be denied that he had -innumerable predecessors—men who employed the dramatic form with more -or less skill; and he himself joined with Cervantes in acclaiming the -metal-beater Lope de Rueda as the patriarch of the Spanish stage. -But even the joint and several authority of Cervantes and Lope do -not suffice in questions of literary history. No doubt Lope de -Rueda is a figure of historical importance, and no doubt his actual -achievement is considerable in its way. There is, however, nothing -that can be called ‘national’ in Rueda’s formal plays, which are -mostly adaptations from the Italian, and the bluff hilarity of his -clever interludes is primitive. The later practitioners in the Senecan -drama are of less significance than Miguel Sánchez and than Juan de -la Cueva, both of whom foreshadow the new developments which Lope de -Vega was to introduce. So far as the drama is concerned Miguel Sánchez -is represented to posterity by two plays only, and it is therefore -difficult to estimate the extent of his influence on the Spanish -drama. Cueva’s innovating tendency is manifest in his choice of themes -and his treatment of them: he strikes out a new line by selecting a -representative historic subject, develops it regardless of the unities, -and occasionally strikes the note of modernity by approximating to -the comedy of manners—the cloak-and-sword play. Withal, Cueva is more -remarkable as an intrepid explorer than as a finished craftsman, and he -inevitably has the uncertain touch of an early experimenter. - -Lope de Vega is on a higher plane as an executant, and is moreover a -great original inventor. In its final form the Spanish theatre is his -work, and whatever he may once have said of Lope de Rueda, he finally -claimed the honour which undoubtedly belongs to him. Anticipating -Tennyson, he pointedly remarks in the _Égloga á Claudio_ that - - Most can raise the flowers now, - For all have got the seed. - -The passage is well worth quoting. ‘Though I have departed from the -rigidity of Terence, and though I am far from questioning the credit -due to the three or four great geniuses who have guarded the infancy -of the drama, yet to me’—he proudly continues—‘to me the art of the -_comedia_ owes its beginnings. To whom, Claudio, do we owe so many -pictures of love and jealousy, so many stirring passages of eloquence, -so copious a supply of all the figures within the power of rhetoric -to invent? The mass of to-day’s productions is mere imitation of what -art created yesterday. I it was who first struck the path and made it -practicable so that all now use it easily. I it was who set the example -now followed and copied in every direction. ‘I it was who first struck -the path—I it was who first set the example.’ It is a daring thing to -say, but it can be maintained. - -One of the chief difficulties in dealing with Lope, or in persuading -others to deal with him, is his prodigious copiousness. But it is not -insuperable. For our immediate purpose we may neglect his non-dramatic -writings—in every sense a great load taken off, for they alone fill -twenty-one quarto volumes. There remain his plays, and their number is -astounding. We shall never know precisely how many plays Lope wrote, -for only a small part of what was acted has survived, and his own -statements are not altogether clear. Roughly speaking, he seems to -have written 220 plays up to the end of 1603, and from this date we -can follow him as he gallops along: the total rises to 483 in 1609, -800 in 1618, 900 in 1620, 1070 in 1625, and 1500 in 1632. Four years -afterwards Pérez de Montalbán published a volume of eulogies on the -master by various hands—something like _Jonsonus Virbius_, to which -Ford, Waller and others contributed posthumous panegyrics on Ben Jonson -in 1638; and in this _Fama Póstuma_ Pérez de Montalbán asserts that -Lope wrote 1800 plays and more than 400 _autos_ and _entremeses_. -Consider a moment what these figures mean: they mean that Lope never -wrote less than thirty-four plays a year, that he usually wrote fifty, -that the yearly average rose to sixty as he grew older, and that in -the last three years of his life it increased to over a hundred—say, -two plays a week. Devout persons are sometimes prone to exaggerate the -number of miracles performed by their favourite saint, and, if Pérez -de Montalbán’s statements were not corroborated by Lope, we might be -inclined to suspect him of some such form of pious fraud. As it is, we -have no ground for thinking that Pérez de Montalbán was guilty of any -deliberate exaggeration: most probably he set down what he heard from -Lope, as well as he remembered it. But perhaps Lope’s calculations were -wrong. If anything like 1800 of Lope’s plays survived, nobody would -have the courage to attack them. Most have perished, and we must judge -Lope by the comparatively few that have escaped destruction—431 plays -and 50 _autos_. - -This may seem very much as though we were shown a few stones from the -Coliseum, and invited on the strength of them to form an idea of Rome. -It is no doubt but too likely that among the 1369 lost plays there -may have been some real masterpieces (in literature the best does not -always survive); but it is inconceivable that only the failures have -been saved, and, as the collected pieces range from a play written -when Lope was twelve to another written shortly before his death, we -have the privilege of observing every phase of his stupendous exploit. -That is to say: we may have the privilege if we have the leisure. The -student who sits down to the paltry remnant that has reached us will, -if he reads Lope de Vega’s plays without interruption for seven hours -a day, be over six months before he reaches the end of his delightful -task. I say it in all seriousness—a delightful task—but it would be -idle to pretend that there are no tracts of barren ground. A large -proportion of Lope’s dramatic work is brilliant improvisation, and -is not of stuff that endures; but there are veins of pure ore in -his dross, and in moments of inspiration he ranks with the greatest -dramatists in the world. - -He has himself endeavoured to state his dramatic theory in the _Arte -nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo_, and the contrast with his -practice is amusing. He opens with a profession of faith in Aristotle’s -rules, of which he knew nothing beyond what he could gather from the -pedantic schoolmen of the Renaissance, but goes on to confess that he -disregards these sacred precepts because the public which pays cares -nothing for them, and must be addressed in the foolish fashion that -its folly demands. The only approach to a dramatic principle in the -_Arte nuevo_ is a matter-of-course approval of unity of action, the -necessity of which has never been doubted by any playwright who knew -his business. The rest of the unities go by the board, and the aspiring -dramatist is solemnly exhorted to invent a clever plot, to maintain -the interest steadily throughout, and to postpone the climax as long -as possible so as to humour the public which loves to be kept on -tenterhooks till the last moment. ‘Invent a clever plot and maintain -the interest steadily throughout’—it is easily said, but how to do -it? Lope proceeds to give his views as to the metres most appropriate -for certain situations and emotions: laments are best expressed in -_décimas_, the sonnet suits suspense, the _romance_ (or, still better, -the octave) is the vehicle of narrative, tercets are to be used in -weighty passages, and _redondillas_ in love-scenes. And Lope ends by -admitting that only six of the 483 plays which he had composed up to -1609 were in accordance with the rules of art. - -How familiar it sounds—this wailing over ‘the rules of art’! Just -so Ben Jonson lamented that Shakespeare ‘wanted art’—that is, he -paid no heed to the pseudo-Aristotelian precepts concerning dramatic -composition. Nor did Lope: and it is precisely by neglecting to follow -blind leaders of the blind, and by giving free play to their individual -genius that Shakespeare and Lope de Vega have become immortal. Rules -may serve for men of simple talent; but an original mind attains -independence by intelligently breaking them, and thus arrives at -inventing a new and living form of art. It is in this sense that we -call Lope the founder of the Spanish theatre. His transforming touch -is magical. Invested with the splendour of his imagination, the merest -shred of fact, as in _La Estrella de Sevilla_, is converted into a -romantic drama, living, natural, real, arresting as an experience -suffered by oneself. And, with all Lope’s rapidity of workmanship, his -finest effects are not the result of rare and happy accident: they are -deliberately and delicately calculated. We know from the testimony of -Ricardo de Turia in the _Norte de la poesía española_ that Lope was an -assiduous frequenter of the theatre; that, long after his reputation -was established, he would sit absorbed, listening to whatever play was -being given; and that he took careful note of every successful scene -or situation. He was never above learning from others; but they could -teach him little: he was the master of them all. - -It is frequently alleged against him that his copiousness was an -artistic blunder, and that he would have acted more wisely in the -interest of his fame, if he had concentrated his magnificent powers on -a smaller number of plays, and perfected them. In other words, he would -have done more, if he had done less. This may be true; Virgil wrote ten -lines a day, and they endure for ever: Lope wrote three thousand lines -a day, and most of them have perished. But we must take genius as we -find it, and be thankful to accept it on its own conditions. It is far -from clear to me that Lope chose unwisely. He had not only a reputation -to make, but a mission to fulfil. For the work that he was born to -do—the creation of a national theatre—copiousness was an essential -need. Continuous production, as Chorley puts it, is a vital requisite -to ‘the existence of the drama in its true form, as acted poetry.’ -This, however, is beyond the power of a few normal men of genius. -Schiller and Goethe combined failed to create a national theatre at -Weimar: no one but Lope could have succeeded in creating a national -theatre at Madrid. At precisely the right moment Spain happily produced -a most abnormal writer who could throw off admirable plays—many of -them imperfect, but many of them masterpieces—in such profusion as -twenty ordinary men of genius could not equal. Luzán declares that Lope -so accustomed the Spanish public to constant novelty that no piece -could be repeated after two performances. This is not quite exact. But -assuming it to be true, you may say that Lope spoilt the public, as -well as his own work. Well, that is as it may be: in our time, at all -events, the plays that run for a thousand nights are not always the -best. - -Lope was equal to the demand made by exacting audiences, and he -remained equal to it for an unexampled length of time. The most hostile -critic must grant that Lope was the greatest inventor in the history -of the drama. And he excelled in every kind. In tragedy he has given -us such works as _Las Paces de los Reyes_ and _La Fianza satisfecha_, -and he would doubtless have given more had not the public rebelled -against a too mournful presentation of life. Chorley, whom it is -impossible to avoid quoting when Lope is under discussion, points -to the significant fact that so great a tragedy as _La Estrella de -Sevilla_ is not included among Lope’s dramatic works, nor in the two -great miscellaneous collections of Spanish plays—the _Escogidas_ and -_Diferentes_, as they are called. It exists only as a _suelta_. Great -in tragedy, Lope is greater—or, at least, is more frequently great—in -contemporary comedy, in the realisation of character: _El perro del -hortelano_, _La batalla del honor_, _Los melindres de Belisa_, _Las -flores de Don Juan_ and _La Esclava de su galán_ are there to prove it. -There are obvious flaws in Lope’s pieces, but we can never feel quite -sure that the flaws which irritate us most are not interpolations. -He seems to have revised only the twelve volumes of his plays (Parts -IX.-XX.) published between 1617 and 1625 inclusive, and two posthumous -volumes; a large proportion of his work is so mishandled in the -pirated editions that, as he avers, one line from his pen is smothered -by a hundred lines from the pen of some unscrupulous actor or needy -theatrical hanger-on. - -The marvel is that such bungling has not been able to destroy the -beauty of his conception altogether. Dramatic conception, and the -faculty of distilling from no far-fetched situation all that it -contains, are Lope’s distinctive qualities. He is less successful in -maintaining a constant level of verbal charm; he can caress the ear -with an exquisite rhythmical cadence, but he hears the impresario -calling, sets spurs to Pegasus, and stumbles. The Nemesis of haste -pursues him, and, as has often been remarked, some of his last acts -are weak. _La batalla del honor_ is a case in point: a splendid play -spoiled by a weak ending. But this undeniable defect is not peculiar -to Lope de Vega: it is noticeable in _Julius Cæsar_, the last act of -which reveals Shakespeare pressed for time, and tacking his scenes -rapidly together so as to put the play punctually in rehearsal. Let us -be honest, and use the same scales and weights for every one: we shall -find the greatest works by the greatest men frequently come short of -absolute perfection at some point. Lope fails with the rest, and, if he -fails oftener, that is because he writes more. Is it surprising that he -should sometimes feel the strain upon him? He had not only to invent -plots by the score, and create character by the hundred: he had also to -satisfy a vigilant and fastidious public by the variety of his metrical -craftsmanship, and in this respect he has neither equal nor second. - -We must accept Lope as Heaven made him with his inevitable -imperfections and his incomparable endowment. He has the Spanish -desire to shine, to be conspicuous, to please, and he condescends to -please at almost any cost. Yet he has an artistic conscience of his -own, endangers his supremacy by flouting the tribe of _cultos_, and -pours equal scorn on the pageant-plays—the _comedias del vulgo_ which -were so soon to become the fashion in court-circles. Lope needed no -scene-painters to make good his deficiencies. In _Ay verdades que en -amor_, he laughs at the pieces - - en que la carpintería - suple concetos y trazas. - -And well he might, for his alert presentation would convert a barn -into a palace. In the _comedia_ which he invented—using _comedia_ in -much the same sense as Dante uses _commedia_—his scope is unlimited: -he stages all ranks of human society from kings to rustic clowns, and -is by turns tragic, serious, diverting, pathetic, or gay. He has the -unique power of creating the daintiest heroines in the world—beautiful, -appealing, tender and brave. He has the secret of communicating -emotion, of inventing dialogue, always appropriate, and he is ever -prompt to enliven it with a delicate humour, humane and debonair. -He has not merely enriched Spain: in some degree not yet precisely -known—for the history of comparative literature is in its infancy—he -has contributed to almost every theatre in Europe. - -Two or three illustrations must suffice. Rotrou, as the handbooks tell -us, has borrowed four—perhaps five—plays from Lope: we may now say five -and perhaps six, for in _Cosroès_ Lope’s _Las Mudanzas de la fortuna -y sucesos de don Beltrán de Aragón_ is combined with a Latin play by -Louis Cellot. Every one remembers that Corneille borrowed _Don Sanche -d’Aragon_ and the _Suite du Menteur_ from Lope. There are traces of -Lope in Molière: in _Les Femmes savantes_, in _L’École des maris_, -in _L’École des Femmes_, in _Le Médecin malgré lui_—and perhaps in -_Tartufe_. And, even in the present incomplete state of our knowledge, -it would be possible to draw up a long list of foreign debtors from -Boisrobert and D’Ouville to Lesage. Of Lope’s Spanish imitators this -is not the time to speak. He did not found a school, but every Spanish -dramatist of the best period marches under Lope’s flag. There are still -some who, in a spirit of chicane, would withhold from him the glory of -being the architect of the Spanish theatre. So be it: but even they -acknowledge that he found it brick, and left it marble. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -CALDERÓN - - -For some time before Lope de Vega’s death, it was evident that Calderón -would succeed him as dictator of the stage. There was no serious -competitor in sight. Tirso de Molina was becoming rusty; Vélez de -Guevara and Ruiz de Alarcón, both on the wrong side of fifty when -Lope died, had given the measure of what they could do, and Ruiz de -Alarcón’s art was too individual to be popular. No possible rival to -Calderón was to be found among the younger men. His path lay smooth -before him. He developed the national drama which Lope had created; he -accentuated its characteristics, but introduced no radical innovation. -He found the most difficult part of the work already done; he inherited -a vast intellectual estate, and it is the general opinion that the -patronage of Philip IV. helped him to exploit it profitably. This point -may stand over for the moment. Here and now, it is enough to say that -Calderón’s career, so far as we can trace it, was one of uninterrupted -success. Unfortunately, at present, we can only sketch his biography -in outline. Within a year of his death, a short life of him was -published by his admirer and editor, Juan de Vera Tassis y Villarroel; -but, as Vera Tassis was thirty or forty years younger than Calderón, -he naturally knew nothing of the dramatist’s early circumstances. He -begins badly with a blunder as to the date of Calderón’s birth, shows -himself untrustworthy in matters of fact, and indulges too freely in -flatulent panegyric. For the present we are condemned to make bricks -with only a few wisps of straw; but if, as seems likely, Dr. Pérez -Pastor is as fortunate with Calderón as he was with Cervantes, many a -blank will be filled in before long. - -Pedro Calderón de la Barca was born at Madrid on January 17, 1600. -He became an orphan at an early age. His mother, who was of Flemish -origin, died in 1610; his father, who was Secretary of the Council -of the Treasury, seems to have offended his first wife’s family by -marrying again, was excluded from administering a chaplaincy in their -gift, and died in 1615. Calderón was educated at the Jesuit college -in Madrid, and later studied theology at the University of Salamanca -with a view to holding the family living; but he gave up his idea of -entering the Church, and took to literature. It has been said that he -collaborated with Rojas Zorrilla and Belmonte in writing _El mejor -amigo el muerto_, and he is specifically named as being the author of -the Third Act. On the other hand, it is asserted that _El mejor amigo -el muerto_ was played on Christmas Eve, 1610, and, if this be so, we -must abandon the ascription, for Calderón was then a boy of ten, while -Rojas Zorrilla was only three years old. We may also hesitate to accept -the unsupported statement of Vera Tassis that Calderón wrote _El Carro -del Cielo_ at the age of thirteen. Such ‘fond legends of their infancy’ -accumulate round all great men. So far as can be gathered, Calderón -first came before the public in 1620-22 at the literary _fêtes_ held at -Madrid in honour of St. Isidore, the patron saint of the city; and on -the latter occasion Lope de Vega, who was usually florid in compliment, -welcomed the new-comer as one who ‘in his youth has gained the laurels -which time, as a rule, only grants together with grey hair.’ From the -date of these first triumphs onward, Calderón never went back. - -In 1621, four years before reaching his legal majority, he was granted -letters-patent to administer his estate. Vera Tassis asserts that -Calderón entered the army in 1625, and that he served in Milan and -Flanders. If so, his service must have been very short, for he was -at Madrid on September 11, 1625, and was still residing in that city -on April 16, 1626. We find him again at Madrid, and in a scrape, in -January 1629. His brother, Diego, had been stabbed by the actor Pedro -de Villegas, who took sanctuary in the convent of the Trinitarian -nuns; Calderón and his backers determined to seize the culprit, broke -into the cloister, handled the nuns roughly, dragged off their veils, -and used strong language to them. Such conduct is very unlike all -that we know of Calderón; but this was the current version of his -proceedings, and the rumour fluttered the dovecots of the devout. The -alleged misdeeds of Calderón and his friends were denounced by the -fashionable preacher, Hortensio Félix Paravicino, in a sermon delivered -before Philip IV. on January 11, 1629. Calderon retaliated by making a -sarcastic reference in _El Príncipe constante_ to the popular ranter’s -habit of spouting unintelligible jargon:— - - Una oración se fragua - funebre, que es un sermón de Berberia. - Panegírico es que digo al agua, - y era emponomio Horténsico me quejo. - -But ‘the king of preachers and the preacher of kings,’ though ready -enough to attack others, was not disposed to share this privilege: -and he had Philip’s ear. Calderón was arrested. As the jibe does not -appear in the text of _El Príncipe constante_, possibly the author -was released on the understanding that the offensive passage should -be omitted from any printed edition; but it is just as likely that -Calderón, who had not a shade of rancour in his nature, voluntarily -struck out the lines when the play was published after Paravicino’s -death, which occurred in 1633. - -The escapade does not appear to have damaged him in any way, and his -fame grew rapidly. The chronology of his plays is not yet determined, -but it is certain that his activity at this period was remarkable. It -seems probable that he collaborated with Pérez de Montalbán and Antonio -Coello in _El Privilegio de las mugeres_ during the visit of the Prince -of Wales (afterwards Charles I.) and Buckingham to Madrid in 1623; _El -Sitio de Bredá_ was no doubt written soon after the surrender on June -8, 1625; _La Dama duende_ is not later than 1629, _La Cena de Baltasar_ -was performed at Seville in 1632, in which year also _La Banda y la -flor_ was produced and _El Astrólogo fingido_ was printed; _Amor, -honor y poder_ with _La Devoción de la Cruz_ and _Un Castigo en tres -venganzas_ were issued in a pirated edition in 1634. Two years later -Philip IV. was so enchanted with _Los tres mayores prodigios_ (a poor -piece given at the Buen Retiro) that he resolved to admit Calderón to -the Order of Santiago. The official _pretensión_ was granted on July -3, 1636, and the robe was bestowed on April 8, 1637. In 1636 twelve -of Calderón’s plays were issued by his brother José, who published -twelve more in 1637. These two volumes raised the writer’s reputation -immensely, and well they might; for, besides _La Dama duende_ and _La -Devoción de la Cruz_ (already mentioned), the first volume contained, -amongst other plays, _La Vida es sueño_, _Casa con dos puertas_, _El -Purgatorio de San Patricio_, _Peor está que estaba_, and _El Príncipe -constante_; while the second volume, besides _El Astrólogo fingido_ -(already mentioned) contained _El Galán fantasma_, _El Médico de su -honra_, _El Hombre pobre todo es trazas_, _Á secreto agravio secreta -venganza_, and the typical show-piece _El mayor encanto amor_. - -Apart from the popular esteem which he thoroughly deserved, Calderón -was evidently a special favourite with Olivares, who never stinted -Philip in the matter of toys and amusements, and levied a sort of -blackmail (for this purpose) on those whom he nominated to high office. -Great preparations were made for a gorgeous production of _El mayor -encanto amor_ at the Buen Retiro in 1639. The Viceroy of Naples was -induced to make arrangements for a lavish display by the ingenious -stage-machinist, Cosme Lotti. A floating stage was provided lit up with -three thousand lanterns; seated in gondolas, the King and his suite -listened to the performance; and the evening closed with a banquet. -These freakish shows were frequent. In February 1640 we hear of a -stormy scene at a rehearsal, which ended in Calderón’s being wounded. -It is commonly said that he was at work on his _Certamen de amor y -celos_ when the Catalan revolt broke out in 1640, and that he finished -it off hurriedly by a _tour de force_ so as to be able to take the -field. This is a picturesque tale, but, like most other picturesque -tales, it seems to be somewhat doubtful. On May 28, 1640, before the -rebellion began, Calderón enrolled himself in a troop of cuirassiers -raised by Olivares, the Captain-General of the Spanish cavalry; and -he did not actually take his place in the ranks till September 29. He -proved an efficient soldier, was employed on a special mission, and -received promotion. His health, as often happens with those destined to -live long, was never robust, and forced him to resign on November 15, -1642. In 1645 he was granted a military pension of thirty _escudos_ a -month: it was not paid punctually, and he was more than once obliged to -dun the Treasury for arrears. - -He had now reached an age when men begin to lose their relatives -and friends. In June 1645 his brother José was killed in action at -Camarasa; his brother Diego died at Madrid on November 20, 1647. -Calderón’s life was generally most correct, but he had his frailties, -and his commerce with the stage exposed him to the occasions of sin. -We do not know who was the mother of his son, Pedro José, but it may -be assumed that she was an actress. She died about 1648-50, soon after -the birth of the boy, who passed as Calderón’s nephew. In 1648 Calderón -was dangerously ill, and in December 1650 he alleged his increasing -age and waning strength as a reason for quitting the King’s service; -he announced his intention of taking orders, and petitioned that his -pension might, nevertheless, be continued. He had already been received -as a Tertiary of St. Francis, and accepted the nomination to the living -(founded by his grandmother in 1612) which he had thought of taking -when he went to Salamanca University, some thirty years earlier. He was -ordained in 1651, and seems to have been an exemplary priest. - -An attempt was made to utilise his talents in a new direction. He was -requested to write a chronicle of the Franciscan Tertiaries, undertook -the task in 1651, but was compelled to abandon it in 1653 owing to -his ‘many occupations.’ In a letter of this period addressed to the -Patriarch of the Indies, Alfonso Pérez de Guzmán, Calderón declares -that he had meant to cease writing for the stage when he took orders, -and that he had yielded to the personal request of the Prime Minister, -Luis de Haro, who had begged him to continue for the King’s sake. -In the same letter Calderón states that he had been censured for -writing _autos_, that a favour conferred on him had been revoked owing -to the objection of somebody unknown—_no sé quién_—that poetry was -incompatible with the priesthood, and he ends by asking the Primate -for a definite ruling: ‘the thing is either wrong or right; if right, -let there be no more difficulties; and, if wrong, let no one order me -to do it.’ The drift of this alembicated letter is clear. The favour -revoked was no doubt a chaplaincy at Toledo, and Calderón politely gave -the Primate to understand that he should supply no more _autos_ till -he received an equivalent for the post of which he had been deprived. -His hint was taken; he was appointed ‘chaplain of the Reyes Nuevos’ at -Toledo in 1653, and his scruples were quieted. For the rest of his life -he wrote most of the _autos_ given at Madrid, and he readily supplied -show-pieces to be performed at the palace of the Buen Retiro. Some idea -of the importance attached to these performances may be gathered from -the _Avisos_ of Barrionuevo, who tells us that—while the enemy was at -the gate, while there was not a _real_ in the Treasury, while the King -was compelled to dine on eggs, while a capon ‘stinking like dead dogs’ -was served to the Infanta, and while the court buffoon Manuelillo de -Gante paid for the Queen’s dessert,—there was always money to meet the -bills of the stage-machinist Juan Antonio Forneli, to maintain a staff -of from twenty-four to seventy actresses, and to import from Genoa -hogsheads of costly jasmine-oil for stage-purposes. - -Apart from the composition of _autos_ and _comedias palaciegas_, -Calderón’s life was henceforth uneventful. His position in Spain was -firmly established, but foreigners were sometimes recalcitrant. The -French traveller Bertaut thought little of one of Calderón’s plays -which he saw in 1659, and thought even less of the author whom he -visited later in the day:—‘From his talk, I saw that he did not know -much, though he is quite white-haired. We argued a little concerning -the rules of the drama which they do not know at all, and which they -make game of in that country.’ This seems to have been the average -French view.[101] Chapelain, writing to Carrel de Sainte-Garde on -April 29, 1662, says that he had read an abridgment of a play by -Calderón:—‘par où j’ay connu au moins que si les vers sont bons, son -dessein est très mauvais, et sa conduite ridicule.’ What else could a -champion of the unities think? - -Though a priest beyond reproach, Calderón was not left in peace by -busybodies and heresy-hunters. His _auto_ concerning the conversion -of the eccentric Christina of Sweden was forbidden in 1656. Another -_auto_, entitled _Las órdenes militares ó Pruebas del segundo Adán_, -gave rise to no objection when acted before the King on June 8, 1662; -but it was ‘delated’ to the Inquisition, the stage-copies were seized, -and permission to perform it was refused. There can have been no -heresy in this _auto_, for the prohibition was withdrawn nine years -later. On February 18, 1663, Calderón became chaplain to Philip IV. -(a post which carried with it no stipend), and in this same year -he joined the Congregation of St. Peter, of which he was appointed -Superior in 1666. He continued writing _comedias palaciegas_ during the -next reign: _Fieras afemina amor_ and _La Estatua de Prometeo_ were -produced in honour of the Queen-Mother’s birthday in 1675 and 1679 -respectively; and _El segundo Escipión_ was played on November 6, 1677, -to commemorate the coming of age of Charles II. On August 24, 1679, an -Order in Council was issued granting Calderón a _ración de cámara en -especie_ on account of his services, great age, and poverty; this is -perplexing, for his will (made twenty-one months later) shows that he -was very comfortably off. - -There is a disquieting sentence in the preface to the fifth volume of -Calderón’s plays: Vera Tassis says that the dramatist tried to draw up -a list of pieces falsely ascribed to him, and adds that ‘his infirm -condition did not allow of his forming a clear judgment about them.’ -What does Vera Tassis mean? Are we to understand that Calderón’s -intellect was slightly clouded towards the end, that he could not -distinguish his own plays from those of other writers, and that perhaps -he had become possessed with the notion (not uncommon in the aged) -that he would die in want? Surely not. The financial statements of -petitioners are often obscure. Calderón’s memory may naturally have -begun to fail when he was close on eighty, but in other respects his -mind was vigorous. His _Hado y divisa de Leonido y Marfisa_, composed -to celebrate the wedding of Charles II. with Marie-Louise de Bourbon, -was given at the Buen Retiro on March 3, 1680; it was produced later -for the general public at the Príncipe and Cruz _corrales_, and -altogether was played twenty-one times—a great ‘run’ for those days. -For over thirty years Calderón had been commissioned to write the -_autos_ for Madrid, and in 1681 he set to work as usual, but while -engaged on _El Cordero de Isaías_ and _La divina Filotea_, his strength -failed him. He could only finish one of these two _autos_, and left the -other to be completed by Melchor Fernández de León. He signed his will -on May 20, took to his bed and added a codicil on May 23, bequeathing -his manuscripts to Juan Mateo Lozano, the parish priest of St. -Michael’s at Madrid, who wrote the _Aprobación_ to the volume of _Autos -Sacramentales, alegóricos y historiales_ published in 1677. Calderón -died on Whitsunday, May 25, 1681. - -Almost all that we hear of him is eminently to his credit. Vera -Tassis, who knew him intimately,—though perhaps less intimately than -he implies,—dwells affectionately on Calderón’s open-handed charity, -his modesty and courtesy, his kindliness in speaking of contemporaries, -his gentleness and patience towards envious calumniators. Calderón -was a gentleman as well as a great man of letters—a rare combination. -Like Lope de Vega, he was apparently not inclined to rank his plays -as literature, and, unlike Lope, he does not seem to have changed his -opinion on this point. In his letter to the Patriarch of the Indies he -speaks slightingly of poetry as a foible pardonable enough in an idle -courtier, but one which he regarded with contempt as soon as he took -orders; and his disdain for his own work is commemorated in a ponderous -epitaph, written by those who knew him best:— - - CAMŒNIS OLIM DELICIARUM AMÆNISSIMUM FLUMEN - QUÆ SUMMO PLAUSU VIVENS SCRIPSIT, - MORIENS PRÆSCRIBENDO DESPEXIT. - -He was never sufficiently interested in his secular plays to collect -them, though he complained of being grossly misrepresented in the -pirated editions which were current. According to Vera Tassis, he -corrected _Las Armas de la hermosura_ and _La Señora y la Criada_ for -the forty-sixth volume of the _Escogidas_ printed in 1679; but he did -no more towards protecting his reputation, though at the very end -of his life he began an edition of the _autos_, the sacred subjects -of these investing them in his eyes with more importance than could -possibly attach to any secular drama. It is by the merest accident -that we have an authorised list of the titles of his secular plays. He -drew it up, ten months before he died, at the urgent request of the -Almirante-Duque de Veraguas (a descendant of Columbus), and it was -included in the preface to the _Obelisco fúnebre, pirámide funesto_, -published by Gaspar Agustín de Lara in 1784. Calderón’s plays were -printed by Vera Tassis who—though, as Lara is careful to inform us, -he had not access to the original manuscripts in Lozano’s keeping—was -a fairly competent editor, as editors went in those days. It is not -rash to say that to this happy hazard Calderón owes no small part of -his international renown. For a long while, he was the only great -Spanish dramatist whose works were readily accessible. Students who -wished to read Lope de Vega—if there were any such—could not find an -edition of his plays; Tirso de Molina was still further out of reach. -Circumstances combined to concentrate attention on Calderón at the -expense of his brethren. With the best will in the world, you cannot -act authors whose plays are not available; but Calderón could be found -at any bookseller’s, and a few of his plays, together with two or three -of Moreto’s, were acted even during the latter half of the eighteenth -century when French influence was dominant on the Spanish stage. - -Calderón thus survived in Spain; and, owing to this survival, he came -to be regarded by the evangelists of the Romantic movement abroad -as the leading representative of the Spanish drama. Some of these -depreciated Lope de Vega, with no more knowledge of him than they could -gather from two or three plays picked up at random. German writers -made themselves remarkable by their vehement dogmatism. Friedrich von -Schlegel declared that, whereas Shakespeare had merely described the -enigma of life, Calderón had solved it, thus proving himself to be, ‘in -all conditions and circumstances, the most Christian, and therefore -the most romantic, of dramatic poets.’ August von Schlegel was as -dithyrambic as his brother. Dismissing Lope’s plays as containing -interesting situations and ‘inimitable jokes,’—Schlegel, _On Jokes_, -is one of the many unwritten masterpieces, ‘for which the whole world -longs,’—he turns to Calderón, hails him as that ‘blessed man,’ and in a -rhetorical transport proclaims him to be ‘the last summit of romantic -poetry.’ Nobody writes in this vein now, and the loss is endurable. We -are no longer stirred on reading that Calderón’s ‘tears reflect the -view of heaven, like dewdrops on a flower in the sun’: such imagery -leaves us cold. But the rhetoric of the Schlegels, Tieck, and others -was most effective at the time. - -It was noised abroad that the Germans had discovered the supreme -dramatic genius of the world; the great names of Goethe and Shelley -were quoted as being worshippers of the new sun in the poetic heavens; -the superstition spread to England, and would seem to have infected -a group of brilliant young men at Cambridge—Trench, FitzGerald, and -Tennyson. _In The Palace of Art_, as first published, Calderón was -introduced with some unexpected companions:— - - Cervantes, the bright face of Calderon, - Robed David touching holy strings, - The Halicarnasseän, and alone, - Alfred the flower of kings, - - Isaïah with fierce Ezekiel, - Swarth Moses by the Coptic sea, - Plato, Petrarca, Livy and Raphaël, - And eastern Confutzee. - -This motley company was dispersed later. In the revised version of -_The Palace of Art Calderón_ finds no place, and the omission causes -no more surprise than the omission of ‘eastern Confutzee.’ He is -admired as a splendid poet and a great dramatist, but we no longer see -him, as Tennyson saw him in 1833, on a sublime and solitary pinnacle -of glory—‘a poetical Melchisedec, without spiritual father, without -spiritual mother, with nothing round him to explain or account for the -circumstances of his greatness.’ As Trench says, there are no such -appearances in literature, and Calderón has ceased to be a mystery or -a miracle. Yet it was not unnatural that those who took the Schlegels -for guides should see him in this light. The fact that the works of -other Spanish dramatists were not easily obtainable necessarily gave -an exaggerated idea of Calderón’s originality and importance, for it -was next to impossible to compare him with his rivals. We are now more -favourably situated. We know—what our grandfathers could not know—that -Friedrich von Schlegel was as wrong as wrong can be when he assured -the world that Calderón was too rich to borrow. In literature no one -is too rich to borrow, and Calderón’s indebtedness to his predecessors -is great. To give but one instance out of many: the Second Act of _Los -Cabellos de Absalón_ is taken bodily from the Third Act of Tirso de -Molina’s sombre and sinister tragedy, _La Venganza de Tamar_. - -This was no offence against the prevailing code of morality in literary -matters. Most Spanish dramatists of this period borrowed freely. Lope -de Vega, indeed, had such wealth of invention that he was never tempted -in this way: so, too, he seldom collaborated. So far from being a help, -this division of labour was almost an impediment to him, for he could -write a hundred lines in the time that it took him to consult his -collaborator. But Lope was unique. Manuel de Guerra, in his celebrated -_Aprobación_ to the _Verdadera Quinta Parte_ of Calderón’s plays, -calls him a _monstruo de ingenio_. The words recall the _monstruo de -naturaleza_, the phrase applied by Cervantes to Lope, but there is a -marked difference between the two men—a difference perhaps implied in -the two expressions. Lope was possessed by an irresistible instinct -which impelled him to constant, and often careless, creation; Calderón -creates less lavishly, treats existing themes without scruple, and his -recasts are sometimes completely successful. His devotees never allow -us to forget, for instance, that in _El Alcalde de Zalamea_ he has -transformed one of Lope’s dashing improvisations into a most powerful -drama, and they cite as a parallel case the _Electra_ of Euripides and -the _Electra_ of Sophocles. Just so, when Calderón receives a prize at -the poetical jousts held at Madrid in 1620-22, the extreme Calderonians -are reminded of ‘the boy Sophocles dancing at the festival after the -battle of Salamis.’ Why drag in Sophocles? There are degrees. It is -quite true that Calderón has made an admirable play out of Lope’s -sketch; but it is also true that the dramatic conception of _El Alcalde -de Zalamea_ is due to Lope, and not to Calderón. - -Any other dramatist in Calderón’s place would have been compelled to -accept the conventions which Lope de Vega had imposed upon the Spanish -stage—conventional presentations of loyalty and honour. Calderón -devoted his magnificent gifts to elaborating these conventions into -something like a code. His readiness in borrowing may be taken to mean -that he was not, in the largest sense, an inventor, and the substance -of his plays shows that he was rarely interested in the presentation -of character. But he had the keenest theatrical sense, and once he -is provided with a theme he can extract from it an intense dramatic -interest. Moreover, he equals Lope in the cleverness with which he -works up a complicated plot, and surpasses Lope in the adroitness -with which he employs the mechanical resources of the stage. In -addition to these minor talents, he has the gift of impressive and -ornate diction. It is a little unfortunate that many who read him -in translations begin with _La Vida es sueño_, a fine symbolic play -disfigured by the introduction of so incredible a character as Rosaura, -declaiming gongoresque speeches altogether out of place. Calderón is -liable to these momentary aberrations; yet, at his best, he is almost -unsurpassable. Read, for example, the majestic speech of the Demon in -_El Mágico prodigioso_ which Trench very justifiably compares with -Milton. The address to Cyprian loses next to nothing of its splendour -in Shelley’s version:— - - Chastised, I know - The depth to which ambition falls; too mad - Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now - Repentance of the irrevocable deed:— - Therefore I chose this ruin with the glory - Of not to be subdued, before the shame - Of reconciling me with him who reigns - By coward cession. - -It was once the fashion to praise Calderón chiefly as a philosophic -dramatist, and it may be that to this philosophic quality his plays -owe much of the vogue which they once enjoyed—and which, in a much -less degree, they still enjoy—in Germany. As it happens, only two -of Calderón’s plays can be classified as philosophic—_La Vida es -sueño_ and _En esta vida todo es verdad y todo es mentira_—and, with -respect to the latter, a question arises as to its originality. French -writers have maintained that _En esta vida_ is taken from Corneille’s -_Héraclius_, while Spaniards argue that Corneille’s play is taken from -Calderón’s. On _a priori_ grounds we should be tempted to admit the -Spanish contention, for Corneille was—I do not wish to put the point -too strongly—more given to borrowing from Spain than to lending to -contemporary Spanish playwrights. But there is the awkward fact that -_Héraclius_ dates from 1647, whereas _En esta vida_ was not printed -till 1664. This is not decisive, for we have seen that Calderón was not -interested enough in his secular plays to print them, and we gather -incidentally that _En esta vida_ was being rehearsed at Madrid by Diego -Osorio’s company in February 1659. How much earlier it was written, we -cannot say at present. The idea that Calderón borrowed from the French -cannot be scouted as impossible, for Corneille’s _Cid_ was adapted by -Diamante in 1658.[102] Perhaps both Calderón and Corneille drew upon -Mira de Amescua’s _Rueda de la fortuna_—a play which, as we know from -Lope de Vega’s letter belittling _Don Quixote_, was written in 1604, or -earlier. But, whichever explanation we accept, Calderón’s originality -is compromised. With all respect to the eminent authorities who have -debated this question of priority, we may be allowed to think that -they have shown unnecessary heat over a rather unimportant matter. -Neither _Héraclius_ nor _En esta vida_ is a masterpiece, and Sr. -Menéndez y Pelayo holds that _En esta vida_ contains only one striking -situation—the tenth scene in the First Act, when both Heraclio and -Leonido claim to be the sons of Mauricio, and Astolfo refuses to state -which of the two is mistaken:— - - Que es uno dellos diré; - pero cuál es dellos, no. - -This amounts to saying that Calderón’s play is no great marvel, for -very few serious pieces are ever produced on the stage unless the -first act is good. The hastiest of impresarios, the laziest dramatic -censor—even they read as far as the end of the First Act. But, if we -give up _En esta vida_, Calderón is deprived of half his title to rank -as a ‘philosophic’ dramatist. We still have _La Vida es sueño_, a noble -and (apparently) original play disfigured, as I have said, by verbal -affectations, such as the opening couplet on the - - Hipogrifo[103] violento - que corriste pareja con el viento, - -which is almost invariably quoted against the author. So, too, whenever -_La Vida es sueño_ is mentioned, we are almost invariably told that, as -though to prove that life is indeed a dream, ‘a Queen of Sweden expired -in the theatre of Stockholm during its performance.’ This picturesque -story does not seem to be true, and, at any rate, it adds no more to -the interest of the play than the verbal blemishes take from it. The -weak spot in the piece is the sudden collapse of Segismundo when sent -back to the dungeon, but otherwise the conception is admirable in -dignity and force. - -Many critics find these qualities in Calderón’s tragedies, and I -perceive them in _Amar después de la muerte_. The scene in which Garcés -describes how he murdered Doña Clara, and is interrupted by Don Álvaro -with— - - ¿Fue - Como ésta la puñalada?— - -is, as Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo says, worthy of Shakespeare; and it long -ago reminded Trench of the scene in _Cymbeline_ where Iachimo’s -confession— - - Whereupon— - Methinks, I see him now— - -is interrupted by Posthumus with— - - Ay, so thou dost, - Italian fiend! - -But, for some reason, _Amar después de la muerte_ is not among the -most celebrated of Calderón’s tragic plays, and it is certainly -not the most typical—not nearly so typical as _Á secreto agravio -secreta venganza_, and two or three others. Here the note of genuine -passion is almost always faint, and is sometimes wanting altogether. -Othello murders Desdemona in a divine despair because he believes her -guilty, and because he loves her: Calderón’s jealous heroes, with the -exception of the Tetrarch in _El Mayor monstruo los celos_, commit -murder as a social duty. In _Á secreto agravio secreta venganza_ -Don Lope de Almeida, with his interminable soliloquies, ceases to -be human, and becomes the incarnation of (what we now think to be) -a silly conventional code of honour. Doña Leonor in this play is -not so completely innocent in thought as Doña Mencía in _El Médico -de su honra_; but Don Lope de Almeida murders the one, and Don -Gutierre Alfonso Solís murders the other, with the same cold-blooded -deliberation shown in _El Pintor de su deshonra_ by Don Juan de Roca, -who has some apparent justification for killing Doña Serafina. - -With all the skill spent on their construction, these tragedies do -not move us deeply, and they would fail to interest, if it were not -that they embody the accepted ideas concerning the point of honour in -Spain during the seventeenth century. It is most difficult for us to -see things as a Spaniard then saw them. He began by assuming that any -personal insult could only be washed away by the blood of the offender: -a man is killed in fair fight in a duel, but the survivors of the slain -must slay the slayer. Modern Europe, as Chorley wrote more than half -a century ago, has nothing like this, ‘except the terrible Corsican -_vendetta_.’ And, as stated by the same great authority—the greatest -we have ever had on all relating to the Spanish stage—‘beneath the -unbounded devotion which the Castilian professed to the sex, lay a -conviction of their absolute and universal frailty.’ In Spanish eyes -‘no woman’s purity,’ Chorley continues, ‘was safe but in absolute -seclusion from men:—guilt was implied and honour lost in every case -where the risk of either was possible,—nay, even had accident thrown -into a temptation a lady whose innocence was proved to her master, -the appearance of crime to the world’s eye must be washed out in her -blood.’ It has often been said that, in Calderón, ‘honour’ is what -destiny is in the Greek drama. - -This code of honour seems to many of us immoral nonsense, and it is -difficult to suppose that Friedrich von Schlegel had _El Médico de -su honra_ in mind when he declared Calderón to be ‘in all conditions -and circumstances the most Christian ... of dramatic poets.’ It is -hard to imagine anything more unchristian than the conduct of Don -Gutierre Alfonso Solís which is held up for approval; but no doubt -it was approved by contemporary playgoers. In this glorification of -punctilio Calderón is thoroughly representative. He reproduces the -conventional ideas which obtained for a certain time, in certain -complicated conditions, in a certain latitude and longitude. This -local verisimilitude, which contributed to his immediate success, now -constitutes a limitation. The dramatist may be true to life, in so far -as he presents temporary aspects of it with fidelity; he is not true to -universal nature, and therefore he makes no permanent appeal. This, or -something like it, has been said a thousand times, and, I think, with -good reason. Still, it leaves Calderón where he was as the spokesman of -his age. - -He is no less representative in his _comedias de capa y espada_—his -plays of intrigue, which are really dramatic presentations of ordinary -contemporary manners in the vein of high comedy. Opponents of the -Spanish national theatre have charged him with inventing this typical -form of dramatic art, as though it were a misdemeanour. There is no -sense in belittling so characteristic a _genre_, and no ground for -ascribing the invention of cloak-and-sword plays to Calderón. They -were being written by Lope de Vega before Calderón was born, and were -still further elaborated by Tirso de Molina. Lope’s redundant genius -adapts itself easily enough to the narrow bounds of the _comedia de -capa y espada_, but he instinctively prefers a more spacious field. -The very artificiality of such plays must have been an attraction to -Calderón. All plays of this class are much alike. There are always a -gallant and a lady engaged in a love-affair; a grim father or petulant -brother, who may be a loose liver but is a rigid moralist where his -own women-folk are concerned; a _gracioso_ or buffoon, who comes on -the scene when things begin to look dangerous. The material is the -same in all cases; the playwright’s dexterity is shown in the variety -of his arrangement, the ingenious novelty of the plot, the polite -mirth of the dialogue, the apt introduction of episodes which revive -or diversify the interest, and prolong it by leaving the personages at -cross-purposes till the last moment. Calderón is a master of all the -devices that help to make a good play of this kind. Character-drawing -would be almost out of place, and, as character-drawing is Calderón’s -weak point, one of his chief difficulties is removed. He is free to -concentrate his skill on polishing witty ‘points,’ on contriving -striking situations, and preparing deft surprises at which he himself -smiles good-humouredly. The whole play is based on an idealistic -convention, and Calderón displays a startling cleverness in conforming -to the complicated rules of the game. - -He fails at the point where the convention is weakest. His _graciosos_ -or drolls are too laboriously comic to be amusing. He has abundant -wit, and the _discreteo_ of the lover and the lady is often brilliant. -But there is some foundation for the taunt that he is interested only -in fine gentlemen and _précieuses_. He had not lived in courts and -palaces for nothing. The racy, rough humour of the illiterate clearly -repelled his fastidious temper, and the fun of his _graciosos_ is -unreal. This is what might be anticipated. It takes one cast in the -mould of Shakespeare, or Cervantes, or Lope, to sympathise with all -conditions of men. Calderón fails in another point, and the failure -is certainly very strange in a man of his meticulous refinement and -social opportunities. With few exceptions, the women in his most famous -plays are unattractive. A Spanish critic puts it strongly when he -calls the women on Calderón’s stage _hombrunas_ or mannish. No foreign -critic would be brave enough to say this, but it is not an unfair -description. A man’s idea of a womanly woman is often quaint: he sees -her as something between a white-robed angel and a perfect imbecile. -That is not Calderón’s way. Doña Mencía in _El Médico de su honra_ and -Doña Leonor in _Á secreto agravio secreta venganza_ are distinctly -formidable, and, even in the cloak-and-sword plays, there is something -masculine in the academic preciosity of the lively heroines. It is -manifest that Calderón has no deep knowledge of feminine character, -that his interest in it is assumed for stage purposes, and that his -chief preoccupation is—not to portray idiosyncrasies, nor even types -of womanhood, but—to make physical beauty the theme of his eloquent, -poetic flights. In this he succeeds admirably, though his flights are -apt to be too long. You probably know Suppico de Moraes’ story of -Calderón’s acting before Philip IV. in an improvisation at the Buen -Retiro, the poet taking the part of Adam, and Vélez de Guevara that of -God the Father. Once started, Calderón declaimed and declaimed, and, -when he came to an end at last, Vélez de Guevara took up the dialogue -with the remark: ‘I repent me of creating so garrulous an Adam!’ Most -probably the tale is an invention,[104] but it is not without point, -for Philip and the rest would have been a match for Job, if they had -never been bored with the favourite’s tirades. Like most Spaniards, -Calderón is too copious; but in lyrical splendour he is unsurpassed by -any Spanish poet, and is surpassed by few poets in any language. Had he -added more frequent touches of nature to his idealised presentations, -he would rank with the greatest dramatists in the world. - -As it is, he ranks only just below the greatest, and in one dramatic -form peculiar to Spain, he is, by common consent, supreme. Everybody -quotes Shelley’s phrase about ‘the light and odour of the starry -_autos_’; but scarcely anybody reads the _autos_, and I rather doubt if -Shelley read them. It is suggested that he took an _auto_ to mean an -ordinary play, and this seems likely enough, for that is what an _auto_ -did mean at one time. But an _auto sacramental_ in Calderón’s time was -a one-act piece (performed in the open air on the Feast of Corpus -Christi) in which the Eucharistic mystery was presented symbolically. -We can imagine this being done successfully two or three times, but not -oftener. The difficulty was extreme, and as a new _auto_—usually two -new _autos_—had to be provided every year, authors had recourse to the -strangest devices. There are _autos_ in which Christ is symbolised by -Charlemagne (surrounded by his twelve peers), or by Jason, or Ulysses; -there are _autos_ in which an attempt is made to evade the conditions -by introducing saints famous for their devotion to the Eucharist. Such -pieces are illegitimate: they are not really _autos sacramentales_, but -_comedias devotas_. - -Calderón treats the subject within the rigid limits of the -convention,—as a doctrinal abstraction,—and he treats it in a spirit -of the most reverential art. He does not fail even in _El Valle de -la Zarzuela_, where he hampers himself by connecting the theme with -one of Philip IV.’s hunting-expeditions. He tells us with a certain -dignified pride that his _autos_ had been played before the King and -Council for more than thirty years, and he apologises for occasional -repetitions by saying that these are not so noticeable at a distance -of twenty years as when they occur between the covers of a book. But -no apology is needed. Calderón dealt with his abstruse theme more -than seventy times—not always with equal success, but never quite -unsuccessfully, and never repeating himself unduly. This is surely one -of the most dexterous exploits in literature, and Calderón appears to -have done it with consummate ease. His reflective genius, steeped in -dogma, was far more interested in the mysteries of faith than in the -passions of humanity, far more interested in devout symbolism than in -realistic characterisation. His figures are pale abstractions? Yes: but -he compels us to accept them by virtue of his sublime allegory, his -majestic vision of the world invisible, and the adorable loveliness of -his lyrism. - -His _autos_ endured for over a century. As late as 1760 _El Cubo de -la Almudena_ was played on Corpus Christi at the Teatro del Príncipe -in Madrid, while _La Semilla y la cizaña_ was played at the Teatro de -la Cruz. The _autos_ were obviously dying; they were no longer given -in the open air before the King and Court, and the devout multitude; -they were shorn of their pomp, and played indoors before an indifferent -audience amid irreverent remarks. On one occasion, according to -Clavijo, after the actor who played the part of Satan had declaimed -a passage effectively, an admirer in the pit raised a cheer for the -devil:—_¡Viva el demonio!_ There is evidence to prove that the public -performance of the _autos sacramentales_ was often the occasion of -disorderly and scandalous scenes. Clavijo has been blamed for his -articles in _El Pensador matritense_, advocating their suppression, -and perhaps his motives were not so pure as he pretends. Yet he was -certainly right in suggesting that the day for _autos_ was over. They -were prohibited on June 9, 1765. But they must soon have died in any -case, for the supply had ceased, and later writers like Antonio de -Zamora were mostly content to retouch Calderón’s _autos_.[105] Zamora -and Bancés Candamo were not the men to keep up the high tradition, and -the attitude of the public had completely changed. - -The fact that his _autos sacramentales_ are little read in Spain, -and are scarcely read at all out of Spain, is most unfortunate for -Calderón, for his noblest achievement remains comparatively unknown. -His reputation abroad is based on his secular plays which represent -but one side of his delightful genius, and that side is not his -strongest. The works of Lope de Vega and of Tirso de Molina have become -available once more, and this circumstance has necessarily affected the -critical estimate of Calderón as a dramatist. Paul Verlaine, indeed, -persisted in placing him above Shakespeare, but Verlaine was the last -of the Old Guard. Calderón is relatively less important than he was -thought to be before Chorley’s famous campaign in _The Athenæum_: all -now agree with Chorley that Calderón is inferior to Lope de Vega in -creative faculty and humour, and inferior to Tirso de Molina in depth -and variety of conception. But, when every deduction is made, Calderón -is still one of the most stately figures in Spanish literature. -Naturally a great lyric poet, his deliberate art won him a pre-eminent -position among poets who used the dramatic form, and he lives as the -typical representative of the devout, gallant, loyal, artificial -society in which he moved. He is not, as once was thought, the -synthesis of the Spanish genius, but no one incarnates more completely -one aspect of that genius. Who illustrates better than the author of -_El Principe constante_ what Heiberg wrote of Spanish poets generally -just ninety years ago:—‘Habet itaque poësis hispanica animam gothicam -in corpore romano, quod orientali vestimento induitur; verum in intimo -corde Christiana fides regnat, et per omnes se venas diffundit’? The -same thought recurs in _The Nightingale in the Study_:— - - A bird is singing in my brain - And bubbling o’er with mingled fancies, - Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain - Fed with the sap of old romances. - - I ask no ampler skies than those - His magic music rears above me, - No falser friends, no truer foes,— - And does not Doña Clara love me? - - Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars, - A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing, - Then silence deep with breathless stars, - And overhead a white hand flashing. - - O music of all moods and climes, - Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly, - Where still, between the Christian chimes, - The Moorish cymbal tinkles faintly! - - O life borne lightly in the hand, - For friend or foe with grace Castilian! - O valley safe in Fancy’s land, - Not tramped to mud yet by the million! - - Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale - To his, my singer of all weathers, - My Calderon, my nightingale, - My Arab soul in Spanish feathers! - -To most of us, as to Lowell, the Spain of romance is the Spain revealed -to us by Calderón. Though not the greatest of Spanish authors, nor -even the greatest of Spanish dramatists, he is perhaps the happiest in -temperament, the most brilliant in colouring. He gives us a magnificent -pageant in which the pride of patriotism and the charm of gallantry -are blended with the dignity of art and ‘the fair humanities of old -religion.’ And unquestionably he has imposed his enchanting vision upon -the world. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE DRAMATIC SCHOOL OF CALDERÓN - - -Lope de Vega, as I have tried to persuade you in a previous lecture, -may fairly be regarded as the real founder of the national theatre in -Spain. His victory was complete, and the old-fashioned Senecan drama -was everywhere supplanted by the _comedia nueva_ in which the ‘unities’ -were neglected. Playwrights who could no longer get their pieces -produced took great pains to prove that Lope ought to have failed, and -dwelt upon the enormity of his anachronisms and geographical blunders. -These groans of the defeated are always with us. Just as the pedant -clamours for Shakespeare’s head on a charger, because he chose to place -a seaport in Bohemia, so Andrés Rey de Artieda, in his _Discursos, -epístolas y epigramas_, published under the pseudonym of Artemidoro in -1605, is indignant at the triumph of ignorant incapacity:— - - Galeras vi una vez ir per el yermo, - y correr seis caballos per la posta, - de la isla del Gozo hasta Palermo. - Poner dentro Vizcaya á Famagosta, - y junto de los Alpes, Persia y Media, - y Alemaña pintar, larga y angosta. - Como estas cosas representa Heredia, - á pedimiento de un amigo suyo, - que en seis horas compone una comedia. - -The meaning of this little outburst is quite simple: it means that Rey -de Artieda was no longer popular at Valencia, and that he and his -fellows had had to make way on the Valencian stage for such followers -of Lope de Vega as Francisco Tárrega, Gaspar de Aguilar, Guillén de -Castro and Miguel Beneyto—all members of the Valencian _Academia de los -nocturnos_, in which they were known respectively as ‘Miedo,’ ‘Sombra,’ -‘Secreto’ and ‘Sosiego.’ - -A very similar denunciation of the new school was published by a much -greater writer in the same year. Cervantes ridiculed the _comedia -nueva_ as a pack of nonsense without either head or tail—_conocidos -disparates y cosas que no llevan pies ni cabeza_; yet he dolefully -admits that ‘the public hears them with pleasure, and esteems and -approves them as good, though they are far from being anything of -the sort.’ The long diatribe put into the mouth of the canon in _Don -Quixote_ is the plaint of a beaten man who calls for a literary -dictatorship, or some such desperate remedy, to save him from Lope and -the revolution. Whether Cervantes changed his views on the merits of -the question, or whether he merely bowed to circumstances, we cannot -say. But he tacitly recanted in _El Rufián dichoso_, and even defended -the new methods as improvements on the old:— - - Los tiempos mudan las cosas - y perfeccionan las artes ... - Muy poco importa al oyente - que yo en un punto me pase - desde Alemania á Guinea, - sin del teatro mudarme. - El pensamiento es ligero, - bien pueden acompañarme - con él, do quiera que fuere, - sin perderme, ni cansarse. - -Passing from theory to practice, Cervantes appeared as a very -unsuccessful imitator of Lope de Vega in _La Casa de los Celos ó las -Selvas de Ardenio_. The dictatorship for which he asked had come, but -the dictator was Lope. - -All Spanish dramatists of this period came under Lope’s influence. He -was even more supreme in Madrid than in Valencia, and other provincial -centres. He set the fashion to men as considerable as Vélez de Guevara, -Mira de Amescua, Tirso de Molina, and Calderón himself. Lope and Ruiz -de Alarcón were at daggers drawn; but these were personal quarrels, -and, original as was Alarcón’s talent, the torch of Lope flickers over -some of his best scenes. These men were much more than imitators. If -Lope ever had a devoted follower, it was the unfortunate Juan Pérez -de Montalbán; but even Pérez de Montalbán was not a servile imitator, -and it was precisely his effort to develop originality that affected -his reason. Lope’s influence was general; he founded a national drama, -but he founded nothing which we can justly call a school—a word which -implies a certain exclusiveness and rigidity of doctrine foreign to -Lope’s nature. So far was he from founding a school that, towards the -end of his life, he was voted rather antiquated, and this view was -still more widely held during Calderón’s supremacy. In the autograph -of Lope’s unpublished play, _Quien más no puede_, there is a note by -Cristóbal Gómez, who writes—‘This is a very good play, but not suitable -for these times, though suitable in the past; for it contains many -_endechas_ and many things which would not be endured nowadays; the -plot is good, and should be versified in the prevailing fashion.’ This -is dated April 19, 1669, less than forty years after Lope’s death; he -was beginning to be forgotten by almost all, except the playwrights who -stole from him. - -Calderón, on the other hand, did found a school. For one thing, his -conventionality and mannerisms are infinitely easier to imitate than -Lope’s broad effects. ‘Spanish Comedy,’ as Mr. George Meredith says, -‘is generally in sharp outline, as of skeletons; in quick movement, as -of marionettes. The Comedy might be performed by a troupe of the _corps -de ballet_; and in the recollection of the reading it resolves to an -animated shuffle of feet.’ Whatever we may think of this as a judgment -on Spanish comedy as a whole, it describes fairly enough the dramatic -work produced by many of Calderón’s followers: with them, if not with -their master, art degenerates into artifice—a clever trick. Calderón -himself seems to have grown tired of the praises lavished on his -ingenuity. He knew perfectly that neatness of construction was not the -best part of his work, and, in _No hay burlas con el amor_, he laughs -at himself and his more uncritical admirers:— - - ¿Es comedia de don Pedro - Calderón, donde ha de haber - por fuerza amante escondido, - ó rebozada muger? - -Unfortunately these stage devices—these concealed lovers, these -muffled mistresses, these houses with two doors, these walls with -invisible cupboards, these compromising letters wrongly addressed—were -precisely what appealed to the unthinking section of the public, and -they were also the characteristics most easily reproduced by imitators -in search of a short cut to success. Other circumstances combined to -make Calderón the head of a dramatic school. Except in invention and -in brilliant facility the dramatists of Lope’s time were not greatly -inferior to the master. In certain qualities Tirso de Molina and -Ruiz de Alarcón are superior to him: Tirso in force and in malicious -humour, Ruiz de Alarcón in depth and in artistic finish. There is no -such approach to equality between Calderón and the men of his group. -No strikingly original dramatic genius appeared during his long life, -extending over three literary generations. He himself had made no new -departure, no radical innovation; he took over the dramatic form as -Lope had left it, and, by focussing its common traits, he established -a series of conventions—a conventional conception of loyalty, honour, -love and jealousy. The stars in their courses fought for him. He was -equally popular at court and with the multitude, pleasing the upper -rabble by his glittering intrigue and dexterous _discreteo_, pleasing -the lower rabble by his melodramatic incident and the mechanical humour -of his _graciosos_, pleasing both high and low by his lofty Catholicism -and passionate devotion to the throne. Though not in any real sense -more Spanish than Lope de Vega, Calderón seems to be more intensely -national, for he reduced the _españolismo_ of his age to a formula. Out -of the plays of Lope and of Tirso, he evolved a hard-and-fast method -of dramatic presentation. He came at a time when it was impossible to -do more. All that could be done by those who came after him was to -emphasise the convention which, by dint of constant repetition, he had -converted into something like an imperative theory. - -It follows, as the night the day, that the monotony which has been -remarked in Calderón’s plays is still more pronounced in those of his -followers. The incidents vary, but the conception of passion and of -social obligation is identical. The dramatists of Calderón’s school -adopt his method of presenting the conventional emotions of loyalty, -devotion, and punctilio as to the point of honour; and, having enclosed -themselves within these narrow bounds, they are almost necessarily -driven to exaggeration. This tendency is found in so powerful a writer -as Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, of whom we know scarcely anything -except that he was born at Toledo in 1607, and that he was on friendly -terms with both the devout José de Valdivielso and the waggish Jerónimo -de Cáncer—who in his _Vejamen_, written in 1649, gives a comical -picture of the dignified dramatist tearing along in an undignified -hurry. In 1644 Rojas Zorrilla was proposed as a candidate for the Order -of Santiago, but the nomination was objected to on the ground that he -was of mixed Moorish and Jewish descent, and that some of his ancestors -two or three generations earlier had been weavers and carpenters. -These allegations were evidently not proved, for Rojas Zorrilla became -a Knight of the Order of Santiago on October 19, 1645. The autograph -of _La Ascensión del Cristo, nuestro bien_ states that this piece was -written when the author was fifty-five: this brings us down to 1662. -Rojas Zorrilla then disappears: the date of his death is unknown. The -first volume of his plays was published in 1640, the second in 1645. In -the preface to the second volume he makes the same complaint as Lope de -Vega and Calderón—namely, that plays were fathered upon him with which -he had nothing to do—and he promises a third volume which, however, was -not issued. - -It has been denied that Rojas Zorrilla belongs to Calderón’s school, -and no doubt he was much more than an obsequious pupil. Yet he was -clearly affiliated to the school. He belonged to the same social class -as Calderón; he was seven years younger, and must have begun writing -for the stage just when it became evident that Calderón was destined -to succeed Lope de Vega in popular esteem; and, moreover, he actually -collaborated later with Calderón in _El Monstruo de la fortuna_. It -is hard to believe that Calderón, at the height of his reputation, -would condescend to collaborate with a junior whose ideals differed -from his own. No such difference existed: as might be expected from a -disciple, Rojas Zorrilla is rather more Calderonian than Calderón. Out -of Spain he is usually mentioned as the author of _La Traición busca -el castigo_, the source of Vanbrugh’s _False Friend_ and Lesage’s _Le -Traître puni_; but, if he had written nothing better than _La Traición -busca el castigo_, he would not rise above the rank and file of Spanish -playwrights. His most remarkable work is _García del Castañar_, a -famous piece not included in either volume of the plays issued by Rojas -Zorrilla himself. The natural explanation would be that it was written -after 1645, and this is possible. Yet it cannot be confidently assumed. -As we have already seen, _La Estrella de Sevilla_ is not contained in -the collections of Lope’s plays. Plays were not included or omitted -solely on their merits, but for other reasons: because they were -likely to please ‘star’ actors, or because they had failed to please a -particular audience. - -The story of _García del Castañar_ is so typical that it is worth -telling. García is the son of a noble who had been compromised in the -political plots which were frequent during the regency of the Infante -Don Juan Manuel. He takes refuge at El Castañar near Toledo, lives -there as a farmer, marries Blanca de la Cerda (who, though unaware of -the fact, is related to the royal house), and looks forward to the time -when, through the influence of his friend the Count de Orgaz, he may -be recalled. News reaches him that an expedition is being fitted out -against the Moors, and he subscribes so largely that his contribution -attracts the attention of Alfonso XI., who makes inquiries about -him. The Count de Orgaz takes this opportunity to commend García to -the King’s favour, but dwells on his proud and solitary nature which -unfits him for a courtier’s life. Alfonso XI. determines to visit -García in disguise. Orgaz informs García of the King’s intention -and adds that, as Alfonso _XI._ habitually wears the red ribbon -of a knightly order, there will be no difficulty in distinguishing -him from the members of his suite. Four visitors duly arrive at El -Castañar, passing themselves off as hunters who have lost their way, -and, as one of the four is decorated as described by Orgaz, García -takes him to be the King. In reality he is Don Mendo, a courtier of -loose morals. Unrecognised, Alfonso XI. converses with García, telling -him of the King’s satisfaction with his gift, and holding out to him -the prospect of a brilliant career at court: García, however, is not -tempted, and declares his intention of remaining in happy obscurity. -The hunting-party leaves Castañar; but Don Mendo, enamoured of Doña -Blanca, returns next day under the impression that García will be -absent. Entering the house by stealth, he is discovered by García -who, believing him to be the King, spares his life. Don Mendo does -not suspect García’s misapprehension, and retires, supposing that the -rustic was awed by the sight of a noble. But the stain on García’s -honour can only be washed away with blood. In default of the real -culprit, he resolves to kill his blameless wife, who takes flight, -and is placed by Orgaz under the protection of the Queen. García -is summoned to court, is presented to the King, perceives that the -foiled seducer was not his sovereign, slays Don Mendo in the royal -ante-chamber, returns to the presence with his dagger dripping blood, -and, after defending his action as the only course open to a man of -honour, closes his eloquent tirade by declaring that, even if it should -cost him his life, he can allow no one—save his anointed King—to insult -him with impunity:— - - Que esto soy, y éste es mi agravio, - éste el ofensor injusto, - éste el brazo que le ha muerto, - éste divida el verdugo; - - pero en tanto que mi cuello - esté en mis hombros robusto, - no he de permitir me agravie - del Rey abajo, ninguno. - -_Del Rey abajo, ninguno_—‘None, under the rank of King’—is the -alternative title of _García del Castañar_, and these four energetic -words sum up the exaltation of monarchical sentiment which is the -leading motive of the play. Buckle, writing of Spain, says in his -sweeping way that ‘whatever the King came in contact with, was in some -degree hallowed by his touch,’ and that ‘no one might marry a mistress -whom he had deserted.’ This is not quite accurate. We know that, at -the very time of which we are speaking, the notorious ‘Calderona’—the -mother of Don Juan de Austria—married an actor named Tomás Rojas, and -that she returned to her husband and the stage after her _liaison_ with -Philip IV. was ended. Still, it is true that reverence for the person -of the sovereign was a real and common sentiment among Spaniards. -Clarendon speaks of ‘their submissive reverence to their princes being -a vital part of their religion,’ and records the horrified amazement -of Olivares on observing Buckingham’s familiarity with the Prince of -Wales—‘a crime monstrous to the Spaniard.’ This reverential feeling, -like every other emotion, found dramatic expression in the work of Lope -de Vega. It is the leading theme in _La Estrella de Sevilla_, and Lope -has even been accused of almost blasphemous adulation by those who only -know this celebrated play in the popular recast made at the end of the -eighteenth century by Cándido María Trigueros, and entitled _Sancho -Ortiz de las Roelas_. The charge is based on a well-known passage:— - - ¡La espada sacastes vos, - y al Rey quisisteis herir - ¿El Rey no pudo mentir? - No, que es imagen de Dios. - -But it is not Lope who says that the King is the image of God. These -lines are interpolated by Trigueros, who felt no particular loyalty to -anybody, and overdid his part when he endeavoured to put himself in -Lope’s position. What was an occasional motive in Lope’s work reappears -frequently and in a more emphatic form in Calderón’s work. The -sentiment of loyalty is expressed with something like fanaticism in _La -Banda y la flor_ and in _Guárdate del agua mansa_; and with something -unpleasantly like profanity in the _auto sacramental_ entitled _El -Indulto general_ where the lamentable Charles II. seems to be placed -almost on the same level as the Saviour. - -Rojas Zorrilla’s glorification of the King in _García del Castañar_ is -inspired by Calderón’s example, and he follows the chief in other ways -less defensible. Splendid as Calderón’s diction often is, it lapses -into gongorism too easily. Rojas Zorrilla’s natural mode of expression -is direct and energetic; his dialogue is both natural and brilliant in -_Don Diego de Noche_ and _Lo que son mugeres_; he knew the difference -between a good style and a bad one, and he pauses now and then to -satirise Góngora and the _cultos_. But he must be in the fashion, and -as Calderón has dabbled in _culteranismo_, he will do the same. And -he bursts into gongorism with all the crude exaggeration of one who -is deliberately sinning against the light. His little flings at the -Gongorists are few and feeble as in _Sin honra no hay amistad_, where -he describes the darkened sky:— - - Está hecho un Góngora el cielo, - más obscuro que su libro. - -But a few pages later, in the second volume of his collected plays, he -rivals the most extravagant of Góngora’s imitators when he describes -the composition and dissolution of the horse in _Los Encantos de -Medea_:— - - Era de tres elementos - compuesto el bruto gallardo, - de fuego, de nieve, y aire; ... - fuese el aire á los palacios - de su región, salió el fuego, - nieve, aire y fuego, quedando - agua lo que antes fue nieve, - lo que fue antes fuego, rayo; - exhalación lo que aire, - nada lo que fue caballo. - -This is what Ben Jonson would call ‘clotted nonsense,’ and you find -the same bombast in another play of Rojas Zorrilla’s—and an excellent -play it is—entitled _No hay ser padre, siendo Rey_, upon which Rotrou’s -_Venceslas_ is based. In such faults of taste Rojas Zorrilla leaves -Calderón far behind. You have seen him at his strongest in _García del -Castañar_: you will find him at his weakest—and it is execrably bad—if -you turn to the thirty-second volume of the _Comedias Escogidas_, and -read _La Vida en el atahud_. Here St. Boniface goes to Tarsus and is -decapitated: in the ordinary course, you expect the curtain to fall at -this point. But Rojas Zorrilla prepares a surprise for you. The trunk -of the saint is presented on the stage, the martyr holding his head in -his hand; and the head addresses Milene and Aglaes in such a startling -way that both become Christians. It seems very likely that, if Ludovico -Enio had not been converted by the sight of the skeleton in Calderón’s -_Purgatorio de San Patricio_, Milene and Aglaes would not have been -confronted with the severed head, talking, in _La Vida en el atahud_. - -Like Calderón, though in a lesser degree, Rojas Zorrilla is not above -utilising the material provided by his predecessors: even in _García -del Castañar_ there are reminiscences of Lope de Vega’s _Peribáñez y el -Comendador de Ocaña_, of Lope’s _El Villano en su rincón_, of Vélez de -Guevara’s _La Luna de la Sierra_, and of Tirso de Molina’s _El Celoso -prudente_. But, if he has all Calderón’s defects, he has many of his -great qualities. Few cloak-and-sword plays are better worth reading -than _Donde hay agravios, no hay celos_, or than _Sin honra no hay -amistad_, or than _No hay amigo para amigo_ (the source of Lesage’s -_Le Point d’honneur_). Rojas Zorrilla has perhaps less verbal wit -than Calderón, but he has much more humour, and he shows it in such -pieces as _Entre bobos anda el juego_, from which the younger Corneille -took his _Don Bertrand de Cigarral_, and Scarron his _Dom Japhet -d’Arménie_. Scarron, indeed, picked up a frugal living on the crumbs -which fell from Rojas Zorrilla’s table. He took his _Jodelet ou le -Maître valet_ from _Donde hay agravios no hay celos_, and his _Écolier -de Salamanque_ from _Obligados y ofendidos_, a piece which also -supplied the younger Corneille and Boisrobert respectively with _Les -Illustres Ennemis_ and _Les Généreux Ennemis_. But observe that, in -Rojas Zorrilla’s case as in Calderón’s, the foreign adapters use only -the light comedies. The rapturous monarchical sentiment of _García del -Castañar_ no doubt seemed too hysterical for the court of Louis XIV., -and hence the author’s most striking play remained unknown in Northern -Europe. You may say that he forced the note, as Spaniards often do, -and that he has no one but himself to thank. Perhaps: Rojas Zorrilla -adopts a convention, and every convention tends to become more and -more unreal. Possibly the first man who signed himself somebody else’s -obedient servant meant what he wrote: you and I mean nothing by it. -But conventions are convenient, and, though nobody can have had much -respect for Philip IV. towards the end of his reign, the monarchical -sentiment was latent in the people. Moreover, the scene of _García del -Castañar_ is laid in the early part of the fourteenth century. When all -is said, _García del Castañar_ has an air of—what we may call—local -truth, a nobility of conception, and a concentrated eloquence which go -to make it a play in a thousand. - -Nothing is easier to forget than a play which has little more than -cleverness to recommend it, and many of the pieces written by -Calderón’s followers are clever to the last degree of tiresomeness. -There is cleverness of a kind in _El Conde de Sex ó Dar la vida por -su dama_, and, if there were any solid basis for the ascription of it -to Philip IV., we should have to say that it was a very creditable -performance for a king. But then kings in modern times have not -greatly distinguished themselves in literature. You remember Boileau’s -remark to Louis XIV.:—‘Votre Majesté peut tout ce qu’Elle veut faire: -Elle a voulu faire de mauvais vers; Elle y a réussi.’ However, if -_El Conde de Sex_ would do credit to a royal amateur, it would be -a rather mediocre performance for a professional playwright like -Antonio Coello, to whom also it is attributed. Coello was already -known as a promising dramatist when Pérez de Montalbán wrote _Para -todos_ in 1632, but we can scarcely say that his early promise was -fulfilled. The air of courts does not encourage independence, and -Coello, apparently distrustful of his powers, collaborated in several -pieces with fellow-courtiers like Calderón, Vélez de Guevara and -Rojas Zorrilla—notably with the two latter in _También la afrenta es -veneno_, which dramatises the malodorous story of Leonor Telles (wife -of Fernando I. of Portugal) and her first husband, João Lourenço da -Cunha, _el de los cuernos de oro_. Shortly before he died in 1652 -Coello had his reward by being made a member of the royal household, -but he would now be forgotten were it not that he is said to be the -real author of _Los Empeños de seis horas_ (_Lo que pasa en una -noche_), which is printed in the eighth volume of the _Escogidas_ as -a play of Calderón’s. Assuming that the ascription of it to Coello is -correct, he becomes of some interest to us in England, for the play -was adapted by Samuel Tuke under the title of _The Adventures of Five -Hours_. This piece of Tuke’s made a great hit in London when it was -printed in 1662; four years later Samuel Pepys confided to his diary -that ‘when all is done, it is the best play that ever I read in all my -life,’ and when he saw it acted a few days afterwards, he effusively -declared that _Othello_ seemed ‘a mean thing’ beside it. There is a -tendency to make the Spanish author—for Tuke adds little of his own—pay -for Pepys’s extravagance. _Los Empeños de seis horas_ is nothing like -a masterpiece, but it is a capital light comedy—neatly constructed, -witty, brisk and entertaining. It is, indeed, so much better than -anything else which bears Coello’s name that there is some hesitation -to believe he wrote it. However, he has the combined authority of -Barrera and Schaeffer in his favour, though neither of these oracles -gives any reason to support the ascription. - -As a writer of high comedy Coello had many rivals in Spain—men -slightly his seniors, like Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza, who became -known in England through Fanshawe’s translations, and who must also -have been known in France, since his play _El Marido hace mujer_ was -laid under contribution by Molière in _L’École des maris_; men like -his contemporary Álvaro Cubillo de Aragón, whose _El Señor de Buenas -Noches_ was turned to account by the younger Corneille in _La Comtesse -d’Orgueil_; men like his junior, Fernando de Zárate y Castronovo, the -author of _La Presumida y la hermosa_, in which Molière found a hint -for _Les Femmes savantes_. But the most successful writer in this vein -was Agustín Moreto y Cavaña, who was born in 1618, just as Calderón -was leaving Salamanca University to seek his fortune as a dramatist -at Madrid. To judge by his more characteristic plays we should guess -Moreto to have been the happiest of men, and the gayest; but late in -life he gave an opening to writers of ‘hypothetical biography,’ and -they took it. For instance, when he was over forty he became devout, -took orders, and made a will directing that he should be buried in the -Pradillo del Carmen at Toledo—a place which has been identified as the -burial-ground of criminals who had been executed. This identification -gave rise to the theory that he must have had some ghastly crime upon -his conscience, and, as particulars are generally forthcoming in such -cases, some charitable persons leapt to the conclusion that Moreto was -the undetected assassin of Lope’s friend, Baltasar Elisio de Medinilla. - -One is always reluctant to spoil a good story, but luck is against me -this afternoon. A few moments ago I mentioned the ‘Calderona,’ and -stated that she returned to the stage after her rupture with Philip -IV.: that destroys the usual picturesque story of her throwing herself -in an agony of abjection at Philip’s feet, and going straightway into a -convent to do penance for the rest of her life. I am afraid that I must -also destroy this agreeable legend about Moreto’s being a murderer. -It is unfortunate for Moreto, for many who have no strong taste for -literature are often induced to take interest in a man of letters if -he can be proved guilty of some crime: they will spell out a little -Old French because they have heard that Villon was a cracksman. Well, -we must tell the truth, and take the consequences. The identification -of the Pradillo del Carmen turns out to be wrong. The Pradillo del -Carmen was the cemetery used for those who died in the hospital to -which Moreto was chaplain, and to which he bequeathed his fortune: -the Pradillo del Carmen has nothing to do with the burial-place for -criminals, though it lies close by. Moreto evidently wished not to be -separated in death from the poor people amongst whom he had laboured; -but, as it happens, his directions were not carried out, for when he -died on December 28, 1669, he was buried in the church of St. John the -Baptist at Toledo. And this is not the only weak point in the story. -Medinilla was killed in 1620 when Moreto was two years old, and few -assassins, however precocious, begin operations at that tender age. -Lastly, it would seem that Medinilla was perhaps not murdered at all, -but was killed in fair fight by Jerónimo de Andrade y Rivadeneyra. -These prosaic facts compel me to present Moreto to you—not as an -interesting cut-throat, not as a morose and sinister murderer, crushed -by his dreadful secret, but—as a man of the most genial disposition, -noble character, and singularly virtuous life. - -He was all this, and he was also one of the cleverest craftsmen who -ever worked for the Spanish stage. But nature does not shower all her -gifts on any one man, and she was niggardly to Moreto in the matter -of invention. He made no secret of the fact that he took whatever he -wanted from his predecessors. His friend Jerónimo de Cáncer represents -him as saying:— - - Que estoy minando imagina - cuando tu de mí te quejas; - que en estas comedias viejas - he hallado una brava mina. - -He did, indeed, find a _brava mina_ in the old plays, and especially -in Lope de Vega’s. From Lope’s _El Gran Duque de Moscovia_ he takes _El -Príncipe perseguido_; from Lope’s _El Prodigio de Etiopia_ he takes -_La Adúltera penitente_; from Lope’s _El Testimonio vengado_ he takes -_Como se vengan los nobles_; from Lope’s _Las Pobrezas de Rinaldo_ he -takes _El Mejor Par de los doce_; from Lope’s _De cuando acá nos vino_ -... he takes _De fuera vendrá quien de casa nos echará_; from Lope’s -delightful play _El Mayor imposible_ he constructs the still more -delightful _No puede ser_, from which John Crowne, at the suggestion of -Charles _II._, took his _Sir Courtly Nice, or, It cannot be_, and from -which Ludvig Holberg, the celebrated Danish dramatist, took his _Jean -de France_. Moreto was scarcely less indebted to Lope’s contemporaries -than to Lope himself. From Vélez de Guevara’s _El Capitán prodigioso -y Príncipe de Transilvania_ he took _El Príncipe prodigioso_; from -Guillén de Castro’s _Las Maravillas de Babilonia_ he took _El bruto de -Babilonia_, and from Castro’s _Los hermanos enemigos_ he took _Hasta el -fin nadie es dichoso_; from Tirso de Molina’s _La Villana de Vallecas_ -he took _La ocasion hace al ladrón_; and from a novel of Castillo -Solórzano’s he took the entire plot of _La Confusion de un jardín_. -This is a fairly long list, but it does not include all Moreto’s debts. - -He has his failures, of course. _El ricohombre de Alcalá_ looks anæmic -beside its original. _El Infanzón de Illescas_, which is ascribed to -both Lope and Tirso; and _Caer para levantar_ is a wooden arrangement -of Mira de Amescua’s striking play, _El Esclavo del demonio_. If you -can filch to no better purpose than this, then decidedly honesty is -the best policy. Perhaps Moreto came to this conclusion himself in -some passing mood, and it must have been at some such hour that he -wrote _El Parecido en la Corte_ and _Trampa adelante_, both abounding -in individual humour. But such moods are not frequent with him. If -you choose to say that Moreto was a systematic plagiarist, it is -hard for me to deny it. Every playwright of this period plagiarised -and pilfered, more or less, from Calderón downwards: we must accept -this as a fact—a fact as to which there was seldom any concealment. -Just as Moreto was drawing towards the end of his career as dramatist, -a most intrepid plagiarist arose in the person of Matos Fragoso, of -whom I shall have a word to say presently. But Matos Fragoso was sly, -and a bungler: Moreto was frank, and a master of the gentle art of -conveyance. He pilfers in all directions; but he manipulates the stolen -goods almost out of recognition, usually adding much to their value. -And this implies the possession of remarkable talent. In literature, as -in politics, if he can only contrive to succeed, a man is pardoned for -proceedings which in other callings might lead to jail: and Moreto’s -success is triumphant. The germ of his play, _El lindo Don Diego_, -is found in Guillén de Castro’s _El Narciso de su opinión_; but for -Castro’s rough sketch Moreto substitutes a finished, final portrait -of the insufferable, the fatuous snob who pays court to a countess, -is as elated as a brewer when he marries her and fancies himself an -aristocrat, but wakes up with a start to the reality of things on -discovering that the supposed countess is the sharp little servant -Beatriz who has seen through him all along, and has exhibited him in -his true character as a born fool. Don Diego is always with us—in -England now, as in Spain three centuries ago—and _El lindo Don Diego_ -might have been written yesterday. - -Still better is _El desdén con el desdén_, a piece which shows to -perfection Moreto’s unparalleled tact in making a mosaic a beautiful -thing. Diana, the young girl who knows no more of the world than of -the moon, but who imagines men to be odious wretches from what she -had read of them—Diana is taken from Lope’s _La Vengadora de las -mugeres_; the behaviour of her various suitors is suggested by Lope’s -_De corsario á corsario_; the quick-witted maid is from Lope’s _Los -Milagros del desprecio_; the trick by which the Conde de Urgel traps -Diana is borrowed from Lope’s _La Hermosa fea_. Not one of the chief -traits in _El desdén con el desdén_ is original; but out of these -fragments a play has been constructed far superior to the plays from -which the component parts are derived. The plot never flags and is -always plausible, the characters are full of life and interest, and the -dialogue sparkles with mischievous gaiety. All this is Moreto’s, and it -is a victory of intellectual address. It clearly impressed Molière, who -set out to do by Moreto what Moreto had done by others: the result is -_La Princesse d’Élide_, one of Molière’s worst failures. Gozzi renewed -the attempt, and failed likewise in _La Principessa filosofa_. _El -desdén con el desdén_ outlives these imitations as well as others from -skilful hands in England and in Sweden, and surely it deserves to live -as an example of what marvellous deftness can do in contriving from -scattered materials a charming and essentially original work of art. - -Compared with Moreto, Juan Matos Fragoso is, as I have said, a bungler. -In _A lo que obliga un agravio_, which is from Lope’s _Los dos -bandoleros_, he fails, though he has the collaboration of Sebastián de -Villaviciosa. He fails by himself in _La Venganza en el despeño_, which -is taken from Lope’s _El Príncipe despeñado_. There is some reason to -think that he tried to pass himself off as the author of Lope’s _El -Desprecio agradecido_. This play is given in the thirty-ninth volume -of the _Escogidas_ with Matos Fragoso’s name attached to it, and, as -Matos Fragoso edited this particular volume, it seems to follow that he -lent himself to a mean form of fraud. However, there is no gainsaying -his popularity, and he may be read with real pleasure—as in _El Sabio -en el rincón_, which is from Lope’s _El Villano en su rincón_—when he -hits on a good original, and gives us next to nothing of his own. A -better dramatist, and a far more reputable man, was Antonio de Solís, -who was born ten years after Calderón; but Solís’s reputation really -depends on his _Historia de la conquista de Méjico_, which appeared in -1684, two years before his death. He was naturally a prose-writer who -took to the drama because it was the fashion. And that play-writing -was a fashionable craze may be gathered from the fact that Spain -produced over five hundred dramatists during the reigns of Philip IV. -and Charles II. So the historians of dramatic literature tell us, but -perhaps even they have not thought it necessary to read all this mass -of plays with minute attention. Here and there a name floats down -to us, not always flatteringly; Juan de Zabaleta, for instance, is -remembered chiefly through Cáncer’s epigram on his ugliness and on his -failure:— - - Al suceder la tragedia - del silbo, si se repara, - ver su comedia era cara, - ver su cara era comedia. - -This is not the kind of immortality that any one desires, but this—or -something not much better—is the only kind of immortality that most of -the five hundred are likely to attain. The iniquity of oblivion blindly -scattereth its poppy on the crowd, and the long line closes with -Bancés Candamo, who died in 1704. He was the favourite court-dramatist -as Calderón had been before him. To say that Bancés Candamo occupied -the place once filled by Calderón is to show how greatly the Spanish -theatre had degenerated. No doubt it must have perished in any case, -for institutions die as certainly as men. But its end was hastened by -two most influential personages—one a man of genius, and the other a -fribble—who had the welfare of the stage at heart. By reducing dramatic -composition to a formula, Calderón arrested any possible development; -by lavish expenditure on decorations, Philip IV. imposed his taste -for spectacle upon the public. The public gets what it deserves: when -the stage-carpenter comes in, the dramatist goes out. Compelled to -write pieces which would suit the elaborate scenery provided at the -Buen Retiro, Calderón was the first to suffer. He and Philip,[106] -between them, dealt the Spanish drama its death-blow. It lingered on -in senile decay for fifty years, and with Bancés Candamo it died. It -was high time for it to be gone: for nothing is more lamentable than -the progressive degradation of what has once been a great and living -force. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -MODERN SPANISH NOVELISTS - - -If asked to indicate the most interesting development in Spanish -literature during the last century, I should point—not to the drama and -poetry of the Romantic movement, but—to the renaissance of fiction. -As the passion for narrative ‘springs eternal in the human breast,’ -Cervantes was sure to have a train of successors who would attempt to -carry on his great tradition. But, in the history of art, a short, -glorious summer is usually followed by a long, blighting winter. -The eighteenth century was an age of barrenness in Spain, so far as -concerns romance. No doubt Torres Villaroel’s autobiography contains -so much fiction that it may fairly be described as a picaresque novel, -and you might easily be worse employed than in reading it. Nature -intended the author to be a man of letters and a wit; poverty compelled -him to become an incapable professor of mathematics, and a diffuse -buffoon. With the single exception of Isla, no Spanish novelist of -this time finds readers now, and Isla’s main object is utilitarian. -The amusement in _Fray Gerundio_ is incidental, and art has a very -secondary place. Spain appears to have remained unaffected by the -great schools of novelists in England and France: instead of being -influenced by these writers, she influenced them. After lending to -Lesage, she lent to Marivaux; she lent also to Fielding and Sterne, not -to mention Smollett; but she herself was living on her capital. She has -no contemporary novelists to place beside Ramón de la Cruz, González -del Castillo, and the younger Moratín, all of whom found expression for -their talent in the dramatic form. Not till about the middle of the -last century does any notable novelist come - - From tawny Spain, lost in the world’s debate. - -While the War of Independence was in progress men were otherwise -engaged than in novel-reading, and in Ferdinand VII.’s reign literature -was apt to be a perilous trade. The banishment or flight of almost -every Spaniard of liberal opinions or intellectual distinction had -one result which might have been foreseen, if there had been a -clear-sighted man in the reactionary party. It brought to an end -the period of cut-and-dry classical domination. The exiles returned -with new ideals in literature as well as in politics. There was a -restless ferment of the libertarian, romantic spirit. Interest revived -in the old national romantic drama which had fallen out of fashion, -and had been known chiefly in recasts of a few stock pieces. Quaint -signs of change are discernible in unexpected quarters. When the -termagant Carlota, the Queen’s sister, snatched a state-paper out of -Calomarde’s hands and boxed his ears soundly, the crafty minister put -the affront aside by wittily quoting the title of one of Calderón’s -plays: ‘_Las manos blancas no ofenden_.’ Fifteen years earlier he -would probably have quoted from some wretched playwright like Comella. -French books were still eagerly read, but they were not ‘classical’ -works. Chateaubriand and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre became available -in translations. Joaquín Telesforo de Trueba y Cosío, a _montañés_ -residing in London, came under the spell of Walter Scott, and had the -courage to write two historical romances in English: I have read many -worse novels than _Gomez Arias_ and _The Castilians_, and every day -I see novels written in much worse English. The shadow of Scott was -projected far and wide over Spain, and those who read _The Bride of -Lammermoor_ usually went on to read _Notre-Dame de Paris_. If Scott -had never written historical novels, and if Ferdinand VII. had not -made many excellent Spaniards feel that they were safer anywhere than -in Spain, we should not have had Espronceda’s _Sancho Saldaña ó El -Castellano de Cuéllar_, nor Martínez de la Rosa’s Doña Isabel de Solís, -nor perhaps even Enrique Gil’s much more engaging story, _El Señor -de Bembibre_, which appeared in 1844. The first two are unsuccessful -imitations of Scott, and _El Señor de Bembibre_ is charged with -reminiscences of _The Bride of Lammermoor_. - -It is one of life’s little ironies that the first writer of this period -to give us a genuinely Spanish story was not a writer of pure Spanish -origin. Fernán Caballero, as she chose to call herself,—and as it is -most convenient to call her, for she was married thrice, and therefore -used four different legal signatures, apart from her pseudonym,—was -the daughter of Johann Nikolas Böhl von Faber, who settled in Spain -and did useful journeyman’s work in literature. Born and partly -educated abroad, with a German father and a Spanish mother, it is not -surprising that she had the gift of tongues, and that one or two of -her early stories should have been originally written in French or in -German. Yet nothing could be less French or German than _La Gaviota_, -which appeared four years after _El Señor de Bembibre_ in a Spanish -version said (apparently on good authority) to be by Joaquín de Mora. -But, though Mora may be responsible for the style, nobody has ever -supposed that he was responsible for the matter, and any such theory -would be absurd, considering that Fernán Caballero wrote many similar -tales long after Mora’s death. In _La Gaviota_, in _La Familia de -Albareda_, in the _Cuadros de costumbres_, and the rest—transcriptions -of the simplest provincial customs, long since extirpated from the -soil in which they seemed to be irradicably implanted—there is for us -nowadays an historical interest; but there is nothing historical about -them: they are records of personal observation. Fortunately for herself -Fernán Caballero, who had no elaborate learning, did not attempt any -reconstruction of the past, and was mostly content to note what she -saw around her. In this sense she may be considered as a pioneer in -realism. The title would probably not have pleased her, owing to the -connotation of the word ‘realism’; but nevertheless she belongs to the -realistic school, and she expressly admits that she describes instead -of inventing. To prevent any possible misapprehension, it should be -said at once that her realism is gentle, peaceful and demure. She had -some small pretensions of her own, felt a mistaken vocation to do good -works among the heathen, and to be a trumpeter of orthodoxy. Each -of us is convinced, of course, that orthodoxy is his doxy, and that -heterodoxy is other people’s doxy; but Fernán Caballero’s insistence -has a self-righteous note which may easily grow tiresome. There are -some who find pleasure in her exhortations—especially amongst those who -regard them as expositions of obsolete doctrine; but very few of us -have reached this stage of cynicism. - -These moralisings are the unessential and disfiguring element in Fernán -Caballero’s unconscious art. It is something to be able to tell a -story with intelligence and point, and this she does constantly. And, -besides the power of narration, she has the characteristic Spanish -faculty of undimmed sight. When she limits herself to what she has -actually seen (and, to be just, her expeditions afield are rare), -she is always alert, always attractive by virtue of her delicate, -feminine perception. Many phases of life are unknown to her; from other -phases she deliberately turns away; hence her picture is necessarily -incomplete. But she sympathises with what she knows, and the figures -on her narrow stage are rendered with dainty adroitness. There is no -great variety in her tableau of that mild Human Comedy which, with its -frugal joys and meek sorrows, it was her office to describe; but it -has the note of sincerity. Her methods are as realistic as those used -in later romances professing to be based on ‘human documents’—a phrase -now worn threadbare, but not yet invented when she began to write. She -reverted by instinct to realism of the national type,—realism which was -fully developed centuries before the French variety was dreamed of,—and -it was in the realistic field that her successors won triumphs greater -than her own. - -Some ten or twelve years after the appearance of _La Gaviota_, Antonio -de Trueba leapt into popularity with a succession of stories all of -which might have been called—as one volume was called—_Cuentos de -color de rosa_. In the past my inability to appreciate Trueba as he -is appreciated in his native province of Vizcaya has brought me into -trouble. Each of us has his limitations, and, fresh from reading -Trueba once more, I stand before you impenitent, persuaded that, if -he flickers up into infantile prettiness, he sputters out in insipid -optimism. We cannot all be Biscayans, and must take the consequences. -In the circumstances I do not propose to deal with Trueba,—who, like -the rest of us, appears to have had a tolerably good conceit of -himself,—nor to spend much time in discussing the more brilliant Pedro -Antonio de Alarcón. Alarcón seems likely to be remembered better by _El -Sombrero de tres picos_—a lively expansion in prose of a well-known -_romance_—than by any of his later books. All literatures have their -disappointing personalities: men who at the outset seemed capable of -doing anything, who insist on doing everything, and who end by doing -next to nothing. Nobody who knows the meaning of words would say that -the author of _El Sombrero de tres picos_ did next to nothing, but much -more was expected of him. Whether there was, or was not, any reasonable -ground for these high hopes is another question. The ‘Might-Have-Been’ -is always vanity. Save in such rare cases as that of Cervantes, who -published the First Part of _Don Quixote_ when he was fifty-eight (the -age at which Alarcón died in 1891), imaginative writers have generally -done their best work earlier in their careers. But, however this may -be, our expectations were not fulfilled in Alarcón’s case. A few -short stories represent him to posterity: like M. Bourget, he ‘found -salvation,’ lost much of his art, and, in his more elaborate novels, -became tedious. Fortunately, about ten years before the publication of -_El Sombrero de tres picos_, a new talent had revealed itself to those -who had eyes to see; and, as always happens everywhere, these were not -many. - -While Trueba was writing the rose-coloured tales which endeared him to -the general public, José María de Pereda was growing up to manhood in -the north of Spain.[107] Though the verdict of the capital still counts -for much, it would not be true nowadays to say that the rest of Spain -accepts without question the dictation of Madrid in matters of literary -taste and fashion; but it was true enough of all the provinces—with the -possible exception of Cataluña—in the late fifties and early sixties, -when Pereda began to write for a Santander newspaper, _La Abeja -montañesa_. Though he was over thirty, he had then no wide experience -of life; he had been reared in a simple, old-fashioned circle where -everybody stood fast in the ancient ways, and where there was no -literary chatter. He seems to have had the usual traditional stock of -knowledge flogged into him in the old familiar way by the irascible -pedagogue whose portrait he has drawn not too kindly. From Santander -Pereda went to Madrid, studied there a short while, joyfully returned -home, and, till his health failed, scarcely ever left Polanco again, -except during the short period when he was sent as a deputy to the -Cortes. He hated the life of the capital, and remained till the end of -his days an incorrigibly faithful _montañesuco_. - -It is necessary to bear these circumstances in mind, for they help -us to understand Pereda’s attitude. Hostile critics never tired of -charging him with provincialism, but ‘provincialism’ is not the -right word. The man was a born aristocrat, with no enthusiasm for -novelties in abstract speculation, no liking for political and social -theories which involved a rupture with the past; but his mind was -not irreceptive, and, if his outlook is circumscribed, what he does -see is conveyed with a pitiless lucidity. This power of imparting a -concentrated impression is noticeable in the _Escenas montañesas_ -which appeared in 1864 with an introductory notice by Trueba, then in -the flush of success. It is an amusing spectacle, this of the lamb -standing as sponsor to the lion; and, with a timorous bleat, the lamb -disengages its responsibility as far as decency allows. The book was -praised by Mesonero Romanos—to whom Pereda subsequently dedicated _Don -Gonzalo González de la Gonzalera_; but with few exceptions outside -Santander, where local partiality rather than æsthetic taste led to a -more favourable judgment, all Spain agreed with Trueba’s implied view -that Pereda’s temperate realism was a morose caricature. The hastiest -commonplaces of criticism are the most readily accepted, and Pereda was -henceforth provided with a reputation which it took him about a dozen -years to live down. He lived it down, but not by compromising with his -censors. He remained unchanged in all but the mastery of his art which -gradually increased till _Bocetos al temple_ was recognised as a work -of something like genius. - -It is a striking volume, but the distinguishing traits of _Bocetos al -temple_ are precisely those which characterise _Escenas montañesas_. -Pereda has developed in the sense that his touch is more confident, but -his point of view is the same as before. Take, for example, _La Mujer -del César_, the first story in the book: the moral simply is that it -is not enough to be beyond reproach, but that one must also seem to be -so. You may call this trite or old-fashioned in its simplicity, but it -is not ‘provincial.’ What is true is that the atmosphere of _Bocetos al -temple_ is ‘regional.’ The writer is not so childish as to suppose that -Madrid is peopled with demons, and the country hill-side with angels. -Pereda had no larger an acquaintance with angels than you or I have, -and his personages are pleasingly human in their blended strength and -weakness; but he had convinced himself that the constant virtues of the -antique world are hard to cultivate in overgrown centres of population, -and that the best of men is likely to suffer from the contagion of city -life. To this thesis he returned again and again: in _Pedro Sánchez_, -in _El Sabor de la Tierruca_, in _Peñas arriba_, he argues his point -with the pertinacity of conviction. There is nothing provincial in -the thesis, and it is good for those of us who are condemned to live -in fussy cities to know that we, too, seem as narrow-minded as any -fisherman or agricultural labourer. Can anything be more laughably -provincial than the Cockney, or the _boulevardier_, who conceives that -London, or New York, or Paris is the centre of the universe, that the -inhabitants of these places are foremost in the files of time? Nobody -is more provincial than an ordinary dweller in one of these large, -straggling, squalid villages. Pereda is not afflicted with megalomania; -he is not impressed by numbers; he does not ‘think in continents.’ He -believes all this to be the bounce of degenerate vulgarians, and leaves -us with a disquieting feeling that he may not be very far wrong. - -He is not one of those who look forward to a new heaven and a new -earth next week. If you expect to find in him the qualities which you -find in Rousseau, or in any other wonder-child of the earthquake and -the tempest, you will assuredly be disappointed. But, if we take him -for what he is—a satirical observer of character, an artist whose -instantaneous presentation of character and of the visible world has -a singular relief and saliency—we shall be compelled to assign him -a very high place among the realists of Spain. No one who has once -met with the frivolous and vindictive Marquesa de Azulejo, with the -foppish Vizconde del Cierzo, with the futile Condesa de la Rocaverde, -or with Lucas Gómez, the purveyor of patchouli literature, can ever -forget them. In this particular of making his secondary figures -memorable, Pereda somewhat resembles Dickens, and both use—perhaps -abuse—caricature as a weapon. But the element of caricature is more -riotous in Dickens than in Pereda, and the acumen in Pereda is more -contemptuous than in Dickens. Pereda is in Spanish literature what -Narváez was in Spanish politics: he ‘uses the stick, and hits hard.’ -Cervantes sees through and through you, notes every silly foible, -and yet loves you as though you were the most perfect of mortals, -and he the dullest fellow in the world. Pereda has something of -Cervantes’s seriousness without his constant amenity. He is nearer to -Quevedo’s intolerant spirit. Exasperated by absurdity and pretence, -he reverses the apostolic precept: so far from suffering fools -gladly, he gladly makes fools suffer. The collection entitled _Tipos -trashumantes_ contains admirable examples of his dexterity in malicious -portraiture—the political quack in _El Excelentísimo Señor_ who, like -the rest of us Spaniards (says Pereda dryly), is able to do anything -and everything; the scrofulous barber in _Un Artista_, whose father was -killed in the _opéra-comique_ revolution of ’54, who condescends to -visit Santander professionally in the summer, and familiarly refers to -Pérez Galdós by his Christian name; the hopeless booby in _Un Sabio_, -who has addled his poor brain by drinking German philosophy badly -corked by Sanz del Río, and who abandons the belief in which he was -brought up for spiritualistic antics which enable him to commune with -the departed souls of Confucius and Sancho Panza. These performances -are models of cruel irony. - -_Bocetos al temple_ was the first of Pereda’s books to attract the -public, and it may be recommended to any one who wishes to judge -the writer’s talent in its first phase. Pereda did greater things -afterwards, but nothing more characteristic. It was always a source of -weakness to his art that he had a didactic intention—an itch to prove -that he is right, and that his opponents are wrong, often criminally -wrong—and this tendency became more pronounced in some of his later -books. Such novels as _El Buey suelto_, and the still more admirable -_De tal palo, tal astilla_, have an individual interest of their own, -but we are never allowed the privilege of forgetting that the one is -a refutation of Balzac’s _Petites misères de la vie conjugale_, and -the other a refutation of Pérez Galdós’s _Doña Perfecta_. To Pereda -the problem seems perfectly simple. You have been discouraged from -matrimony by Balzac, who has told you that the life of a married man -is a canker of trials and disappointments—small, but so numerous that -at last they amount to a tragedy, and so cumulative that the doomed -creature feels himself a complete failure both as a husband and a -father. Pereda seeks to encourage you by exhibiting the other side of -the medal. Gedeón is a bachelor, a _buey suelto_: he has freedom, but -it is the desolate freedom of the stray steer—or rather of the wild -ass. He is worried to death by the nagging and quarrelling of his -maid-servants; he gets rid of them, and is plundered by men-servants; -he is miserable in a boarding-house, he is neglected in an hôtel; he -has no family ties, is profoundly uncomfortable, goes from bad to -worse, and finally expiates by marrying his mistress shortly before -his death. The picture of well-to-do discomfort is powerful, but, as -a refutation of Balzac, it is not convincing. So, again, in _De tal -palo, tal astilla_. Fernando encounters the pious Águeda; his suit -fails, he commits suicide, and she finds rest in religion, the only -consoling agent. This is all far too simple. Are we to believe that -every bachelor is a selfish dolt, or that only atheists commit suicide? -Pereda, no doubt, lived to learn differently, but meanwhile his -insistence on his own views had spoiled two works of art. - -Something of this polemical strain runs through all his romances, and, -after the fall of the republic and the restoration of the Bourbons, -his conservatism may have contributed to make him popular in the late -seventies and the early eighties. But we are twenty or thirty years -removed from the passions of that period, and Pereda’s work stands the -crucial test of time. He is not specially skilful in construction, -and digresses into irrelevant episodes; but he can usually tell his -tale forcibly, and, when he warms to it, with grim conciseness; he is -seldom declamatory, is a master of diction untainted by gallicisms, and -records with caustic humour every relevant detail in whatever passes -before his eyes. He is the chronicler of a Spain, reactionary and -picturesque, which is fast disappearing, and will soon have vanished -altogether. If the generations of the future feel any curiosity as to -a social system which has passed away, they will turn to Pereda for a -description of it just before its dissolution. He paints it with the -desperate force of one who feels that he is on the losing side. His -interpretation may be—it very often is—imperfect and savagely unjust; -but its vigour is imposing, and, if his world contains rather too many -degraded types, it is also rich in noble figures like Don Román Pérez -de la Llosía in _Don Gonzalo González de la Gonzalera_, and in profiles -of humble illiterates who, in the eyes of their artistic creator, did -more real service to their country than many far better known to fame. - -One is tempted to dwell upon Pereda’s achievement—first, because his -novels are thronged with lifelike personages; and second, because -they proved that Spain, though separated from the rest of Europe in -sentiment and belief, was not intellectually dead. While Pereda was -writing _Pedro Sánchez_ and _Sotileza_, the world north of the Pyrenees -was wrangling over naturalism in romance as though it were a new -discovery. The critics of London and Paris were clearly unaware that -naturalism had been practised for years past in Spain by novelists who -thus revived an ancient national tradition. Pereda is still little read -out of Spain, and, though attempts to translate him have been made, he -is perhaps too emphatically Spanish to bear the operation. Spaniards -themselves need some aids to read him with comfort, and the glossary -at the end of _Sotileza_ has been a very present help to many of us in -time of trouble. A writer who indulges in dialectical peculiarities -or in technical expressions to such an extent may be presumed to -have counted the cost: and the cost is that he remains comparatively -unknown beyond his own frontier. He cannot be reproached with making -an illegitimate bid for popularity, nor accused of defection from the -cause of realism. Pereda was not indifferent to fame, but he did not go -far to seek it. Like the Shunamite woman, he chose to dwell among his -own people, to picture their existence passed in contented industry, to -exalt their ideals, and to value their applause more than that of the -outside world. - - Fu vera gloria? Ai posteri - L’ardua sentenza. - -A perfect contrast in every way was Juan Valera, whose ductile talent -had concerned itself with many matters before it found an outlet in -fiction. Pereda was stubbornly regional and fanatically orthodox: -Valera was a cosmopolitan strayed out of Andalusia, a careless Gallio, -observing with serene amusement the fussiness of mankind over to -be, or not to be. Pereda tends to tragic or melodramatic pessimism: -Valera is a bland and disinterested spectator, to whom life is a -brilliant, diverting comedy. He had lived much, reflected long, and -seen through most people and most things before committing himself to -the delineation of character. To the end of his life he never learned -the trick of construction, but he was a born master of style and had -an unsurpassed power of ingratiation. He had scarcely come up from -Córdoba when he became ‘Juanito’ to all his acquaintances in Madrid, -and his personal charm accompanied him into literature. Macaulay says -somewhere that if Southey wrote nonsense, he would still be read with -pleasure. This is true also of Valera, who, unlike Southey, never -borders on nonsense. Though he has no prejudices to embarrass him, he -has a rare dramatic sympathy with every mental attitude, and this keen, -intelligent comprehension lends to all his creative work a savour of -universality which makes him—of all modern Spanish novelists—the most -acceptable abroad. Yet, despite his sceptical cosmopolitanism, which -is by no means Spanish, Valera is an authentic Spaniard of the best -age in his fusion of urbanity and authoritative insight. This politely -incredulous man of the world is profoundly interested in mysticism, and -still more in its practical manifestations. Nothing human is alien to -him, and nothing is too transcendental to escape criticism. - -In this frame of mind, habitual with him, he sat down to write _Pepita -Jiménez_. The story is the simplest imaginable. Pepita, a young widow, -is on the point of marrying Don Pedro de Vargas, when she meets -his son Luis, a young seminarist with exaggerated ideas of his own -spiritual gifts. Luis is a complete clerical prig, who disdains such -everyday work as preaching the gospel in his own country, and vapours -about being martyred by pagans. As he has not a vestige of religious -vocation, the end is easily foretold. At some cost to her own character -Pepita pricks the bubble, and all the young man’s aspirations melt into -the air; he is made to perceive that his pretensions to sanctity are -silly, marries the heroine who was to have been his stepmother, and -subsides into a worthy, commonplace husband. In his _Religio Poetae_ -Patmore praises _Pepita Jiménez_ as an example of ‘that complete -synthesis of gravity of matter and gaiety of manner which is the -glittering crown of art, and which, out of Spanish literature, is to -be found only in Shakespeare, and even in him in a far less obvious -degree.’ Patmore has almost always something striking to say, and even -his critical paradoxes are interesting. We have no means of knowing how -far his Spanish studies went, but we may guess that his acquaintance -with Spanish literature was perhaps not very wide, and not very deep. -As regards Pepita Jiménez his verdict is conspicuously right: it is -conspicuously wrong with respect to Spanish literature as a whole. The -perfect blending of which he speaks is as rare in Spain as elsewhere. -In Valera it is the result of deliberate artistic method; his gravity -is a necessity of the situation; his gaiety is rooted in his sceptical -politeness. In his critical work his politeness is decidedly overdone; -he praises and lauds in terms which would seem excessive if applied to -Dante or Milton. He knows the stuff of which most authors are made, -presumes on their proverbial vanity, and flatters so violently that he -oversteps the limits of good-breeding. Some of you may remember the -dignified rebuke of these tactics by Sr. Cuervo. But in his novels -Valera strikes no attitude of impertinent or sublime condescension. He -analyses his characters with a subtle and admirably patient delicacy. - -A hostile critic might perhaps urge that Valera’s novels are too much -alike; that Doña Luz is cast in the same mould as Pepita Jiménez, -that Enrique is a double of Luis, and so forth. There is some truth -in this. Valera does repeat the situations which interest him most, -but so does every novelist; his treatment differs in each case, and -is logically consistent with each character. There is more force in -the objection that he overcharges his books with episodical arabesques -which, though masterly _tours de force_, retard the development of -the story. Now that we have them, we should be sorry to lose the -brilliant passages in which the quintessence of the great Spanish -mystics is distilled; but it is plainly an error of judgment to assign -them to Pepita. However, this objection applies less to _Doña Luz_ -than to _Pepita Jiménez_, and it applies not at all to _El Comendador -Mendoza_—doubtless a transfigured piece of autobiography, both poignant -and gracious in its evocation of a far-off passion. And in his shorter -stories Valera often attains a magical effect of disquieting irony. -Most authors write far too much, either from necessity or from vanity, -and Valera, who was too acute to be vain, wasted his energies in too -many directions and on too many subjects. Still he has improvised -comparatively little in the shape of fiction, and, even in extreme old -age, when the calamity of blindness had overtaken him, he surprised and -enchanted his admirers with more than one arresting volume. Speaking -broadly, the characteristics of the best Spanish art are force and -truth, and in these respects Valera holds his own. Yet he is more -complicated and elaborate than Spaniards are wont to be. His work is -penetrated with subtleties and reticences; his force is scrupulously -measured, and his truth is conveyed by implication and innuendo, -never by emphasis nor crude insistency. Compared with his exquisite -adjustment of word to thought, the methods of other writers seem coarse -and brutal. You may refuse to recognise him as a great novelist, if you -choose; but it is impossible to deny that he was a consummate literary -artist. - -At this point I should prefer to bring my review to a close. The -authors of whom we have been speaking belong to history. So, too, does -Leopoldo Alas, the author of _La Regenta_, an analytical novel which -will be read long after his pungent criticisms are forgotten, though as -a critic he did excellent work. It is a more delicate matter to judge -contemporaries. You will not expect me to compile a list of names as -arid and interminable as an auctioneer’s catalogue. How many important -novelists are there in France, or England, or Russia? Not more than two -or three in each, and we shall be putting it fairly high if we assume -that Spain has as many notable novelists as these three countries put -together. Passing by a crowd of illustrious obscurities, we meet with -Benito Pérez Galdós, and with innumerable examples of his diffuse -talent. Copiousness has always been more highly esteemed in Spain than -elsewhere, and in this particular Pérez Galdós should satisfy the -exacting standard of his countrymen. But to some of us copiousness -is no great recommendation. There are forty volumes in the series of -_Episodios Nacionales_, and who knows how many more in the series of -_Novelas Españolas Contemporáneas_? Frankly there is a distasteful air -of commercialism in this huge and punctual production. It would seem -as though in Spain, as in England, literature is in danger of becoming -a business, and of ceasing to be an art. This is not the way in which -masterpieces have been written hitherto; but masterpieces are rare, and -there is no recipe for producing them. - -If there had been, we may feel sure that Pérez Galdós would have hit -upon it, for his acumen and perseverance are undoubted. Not one of the -_Episodios Nacionales_ is a great book, but also not one is wanting -in great literary qualities—the faculty of historical reconstruction, -the evaluation of the personal factor in great events, and the gift of -picturesque detail. If the power of concentration were added to his -profuse equipment, Pérez Galdós would be an admirable master. Even as -it is, to any one who wishes to obtain—and in the most agreeable way—a -just idea of the political and social evolution of Spain from the time -of Charles IV. to the time of the Republic, the _Episodios Nacionales_ -may be heartily commended. And, in these crowded pages, some figures -stand out with remarkable saliency—as, for instance, the guerrilla -priest in _Carlos VI. en la Rápita_, a volume which shows the author to -be unwearied as he draws near the end of his long task, and as vivid -as ever in historical narrative. He is, moreover, an astute observer -of the present, far-seeing in _Fortunata y Jacinta_ and humoristic in -_El Doctor Centeno_. You perhaps remember the description of the cigar -which Felipe smoked, the account of the banquet presided over by the -solemn and amiable Don Florencio—Don Florencio with alarming eyebrows, -so thick and dark that they looked like strips of black velvet. These -peculiarities are hit off in Dickens’s best manner, and yet with a -certain neutral touch. Not that Pérez Galdós is habitually neutral: -he is an old-fashioned Liberal with a thesis to prove—the admirable -thesis that liberty is the best thing in the world. But this is not -an obviously Spanish idea. The modernity of Pérez Galdós is exotic in -Spain. He gives us an interesting view of Spanish society in all its -aspects. Still,—let us never forget it,—the picture is painted not by -a native, but by a colonial, hand. Born in the Canary Islands, Pérez -Galdós lives in Spain, but is not of it; he dwells a little apart from -the high road of its secular life. And this lends a peculiar value to -his presentation; for what it loses in force, it gains in objectivity. - -A foreign influence is unquestionably visible in the novels of both -Armando Palacio Valdés and the Condesa Pardo Bazán—perhaps the most -gifted authoress now before the public. The existence of this foreign -element is denied by partisans, but it would not be disputed by the -writers themselves. Was not the Condesa Pardo Bazán the standard-bearer -of French naturalism in Spain during the early nineties? We are apt -to forget it, for what she then called ‘the palpitating question’ -palpitates no more. Who can read the Condesa Pardo Bazán’s _Madre -Naturaleza_ without being reminded of Zola, or Palacio Valdés’s _La -Hermana San Sulpicio_ without being reminded of the Goncourts? Yet -in _La Hermana San Sulpicio_, where Gloria is the very type of the -sparkling Andalusian, and in the still more charming _Marta y María_ -which appeared some years earlier, there is a genuine original talent -which fades out in _La Espuma_ and _La Fe_. In these last two books -Palacio Valdés does moderately well what half a dozen French novelists -had done better. One vaguely feels that Palacio Valdés is losing his -way, but he finds it again in the Spanish atmosphere of _Los Majos de -Cádiz_ where we see Andalusia once more through Asturian spectacles. -As to the Condesa Pardo Bazán, she has unfortunately diffused her -energies in all directions. No one can succeed in everything—as a poet, -a romancer, an essayist, a critic, a lecturer, and a politician. Yet -the Condesa Pardo Bazán is all this, and more. We would gladly exchange -all her miscellaneous writings for another novel like _Los Pazos de -Ulloa_, where the peasant is displayed in a light which must have -pained Pereda. Is Galicia so different from the Mountain? But extremes -meet at last. Dr. Máximo Juncal in _La Madre Naturaleza_ thinks with -Pereda that townsfolk are beyond salvation: only—and the difference is -capital—he would leave nature to work her will without the restraints -of traditional ethics. Clearly all women are not hampered by timidity -and conservative instincts! But Palacio Valdés may be read for the -constant, acrid keenness of his appreciation of character, and the -Condesa Pardo Bazán for her vigorous portraiture of the Galician -peasantry, and her art as a landscape painter. - -We have the measure of what they can do, and they are at least as -well known out of Spain as they deserve. A more enigmatic personality -is Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. It is the charm of most modern Spanish -novelists that they are intensely local. Pérez Galdós is an exception; -but Valera is at his best in Andalusia, Pereda in Cantabria, Palacio -Valdés in Asturias, and the Condesa Pardo Bazán in Galicia. Blasco -Ibáñez is a Valencian; he knows the orchard of Spain as Mr. Hardy knows -Dorsetshire, and he is most himself in the Valencian surroundings of -_Flor de Mayo_, _La Barraca_, and _Cañas y barro_. But his allegiance -is divided between literature and politics. Not content with -propagating his ideas in the columns of his newspaper, _El Pueblo_, -he propagates them under cover of fiction. He is the novelist of -the social revolution, and the revolution is needed everywhere. The -scene of _La Catedral_ is laid in Toledo, the scene of _El Intruso_ -in Bilbao, and in _La Horda_ we have the proletariate of Madrid in -squalid truthfulness. Each of these is a _roman à thèse_, or, if you -prefer it, an incitement to rebellion. Blasco Ibáñez is the apostle -of combat, he knows the strength of the established system, and his -revolutionary heroes die defeated by the organised forces of social -and ecclesiastical conservatism. But he is fundamentally optimistic, -convinced that the final victory of the revolution is assured if the -struggle be maintained. We may not sympathise with his views, and may -doubt whether they will prevail; but the gospel of constancy in labour -needs preaching in Spain, and Blasco Ibáñez preaches it with impressive -(and sometimes rather incorrect) eloquence. His latest story, _La Maja -desnuda_, is more in the French manner, but it is no mere imitation; it -is original in treatment, a record of gradual disillusion, a painful, -cruel, true account of the intense wretchedness of a pair who once were -lovers. Blasco Ibáñez has given us three or four admirable novels, and -he is still young enough to reconsider his theories, and to grow in -strength and sanity. - -He is not alone. In _Paradox_, _Rey_, and in _Los últimos románticos_ -Pío Baroja introduces a fresh and reckless note of social satire, -while novelty of thought and style characterise Martínez Ruiz in _Las -confesiones de un pequeño filósofo_ and Valle-Inclán in _Flor de -Santidad_ and _Sonata de otoño_. These are the immediate hopes of the -future. But prophecy is a vain thing: the future lies on the knees of -the gods. - - - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] ‘Nierva’ in Eugenio de Ochoa, _Rimas inéditas_ (Paris, 1851), p. -305. - -[2] The Archpriest’s poems are preserved in three ancient manuscripts -known respectively as the Gayoso, Toledo, and Salamanca MSS. (1) -The Gayoso MS. was finished on Thursday, July 23, 1389; it formerly -belonged to Benito Martínez Gayoso, came into the possession of Tomás -Antonio Sánchez on May 12, 1787, and is now in the library of the Royal -Spanish Academy at Madrid. (2) The Toledo MS., which belongs to the -same period, has been transferred from the library of Toledo Cathedral -to the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid. (3) The Salamanca MS., formerly -in the library of the Colegio Mayor de San Bartolomé at Salamanca, is -now in the Royal Library at Madrid: though somewhat later in date than -the Gayoso and Toledo MSS., it is more carefully written, and the text -is less incomplete. - -[3] In a contribution to the _Jahrbücher der Literatur_ (Wien, 1831-2), -vols. iv., pp. 234-264; lvi., pp. 239-266; lvii., pp. 169-200; -lviii., pp. 220-268; lix., pp. 25-50. See the reprint in Ferdinand -Wolf, _Studien zur Geschichte der spanischen und portugiesischen -Nationalliteratur_ (Berlin, 1859). - -[4] - - Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis, - Ut possis animo quemvis sufferre laborem.—_Disticha_, iii. 6. - - -[5] In _Letters from an English Traveller in Spain, in 1778, on the -origin and progress of Poetry in that Kingdom_ (London, 1781). This -work was published anonymously by John Talbot Dillon, who acknowledges -his ‘particular obligations’ to the works of Luis José Velázquez, López -de Sedano, and Sarmiento. - -[6] _Romancero General, ó Colección de romances castellanos anteriores -al siglo XVIII. recogidos, ordenados, clasificados y anotados por Don -Agustín Durán_ (Madrid, 1849-1851). This collection forms vol. x. and -vol. xvi. of the _Biblioteca de Autores Españoles_. - -_Primavera y Flor de romances publicada con una introducción y notas -por D. Fernando José Wolf y D. Conrado Hofmann_ (Berlin, 1856). - -Throughout the present lecture the references to the _Primavera_ are to -the second enlarged edition issued by Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo at Madrid -in 1899-1900. - -[7] _Sammlung der besten, alten Spanischen Historischen, Ritter- und -Maurischen Romanzen. Geordnet und mit Anmerkungen und einer Einleitung -versehen von Ch. B. Depping_ (Altenburg und Leipzig, 1817). - -[8] In the _Avertissement_ to _Le Cid_ (editions of 1648-56), Corneille -quotes two ballads from the _Romancero general_: - - (_a_) Delante el rey de León Doña Jimena una tarde... - - (_b_) Á Jimena y á Rodrigo prendió el rey palabra y mano. - -They are given in Durán, Nos. 735 and 739. - -[9] _Traitté de l’origine des romans_, preceding Segrais’ _Zayde, -Histoire Espagnole_ (Paris, 1671), p. 51. - -[10] _Primavera_ (Apéndices), No. 17. - -[11] _Ibid._ (Apéndices), No. 18. - -[12] _Primavera_, No. 5; Durán, No. 599. - -[13] _Anseis von Karthago._ _Herausgegeben von Johann Alton_, 194ste -Publication des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart. (Tübingen, 1892.) - -[14] _Primavera_, No. 5_a_; Durán, No. 602. - -[15] James Young Gibson, _The Cid Ballads, and other Poems and -Translations from Spanish and German_ (London, 1887). - -[16] _Primavera_, No. 7; Durán, No. 606. - -[17] _Orientales_, XVI. Victor Hugo may probably have heard of this -_romance_, and of the Lara _romance_ mentioned on pp. 91-92, through -his elder brother Abel, who gave prose translations of both ballads in -his _Romances historiques_ (Paris, 1822), pp. 11-12, 135-137. - -[18] Durán, No. 586. Durán points out the absurd impropriety of the -line:— - - Sabrás, mi florida Cava, que de ayer acá, no vivo. - -The ending of this _romance_ is far better known than the beginning:— - - Si dicen quien de los dos la mayor culpa ha tenido, - digan los hombres ‘La Cava,’ y las mujeres ‘Rodrigo.’ - -[19] _Primavera_, No. 13_a_; Durán, No. 654. - -[20] Durán, No. 646. _The Complaint of the Count of Saldaña_, as -Lockhart entitles it, is from Durán, No. 625:— - - Bañando está las prisiones con lágrimas que derrama. - -_The Funeral of the Count of Saldaña_ is from Durán, No. 657:— - - Hincado está de rodillas ese valiente Bernardo. - -_Bernardo and Alphonso_ is from Durán, No. 655:— - - Con solos diez de los suyos ante el Rey, Bernardo llega. - -[21] Durán, No. 617. - -[22] _Primavera_, No. 15; Durán, No. 700. - -[23] _Primavera_, No. 17; Durán, No. 704. - -[24] _Primavera_, No. 16; Durán, No. 703. - -[25] Durán, No. 686. - - No se puede llamar rey quien usa tal villanía. - -[26] _Primavera_, No. 26; Durán, No. 691. - -[27] _Primavera_, No. 19; Durán, No. 665. - -[28] _Primavera_, No. 24. - -[29] _Primavera_, No. 25. - -[30] Durán, No. 721. - -[31] _Primavera_, No. 27. - -[32] _Primavera_, No. 29; Durán, No. 731. - -[33] Durán, No. 732. - -[34] Durán, No. 737. - -[35] Durán, No. 738. - -[36] Durán, No. 740. - -[37] Durán, No. 742. - -[38] Durán, No. 886. Lockhart begins at the line— - - El rey aguardara al Cid como á bueno y leal vasallo. - -[39] _Primavera_, No. 34; Durán, No. 756. - -[40] _Primavera_, No. 30_b_; Durán, No. 733. - -[41] The other two are (_a_) _Primavera_, No. 30:— - - Cada dia que amanece veo quien mató á mi padre. - -(b) _Primavera_, No. 61_a_, and Duran, No. 922:— - - En Burgos está el buen rey don Alonso el Deseado. - -[42] _Primavera_, No. 42_a_; Durán, No. 775. - -[43] _Primavera_, No. 50; Durán, No. 1897. - -[44] _Primavera_, No. 35; Durán, No. 762. - -[45] _Primavera_, No. 45; Durán, No. 777. - -[46] _Primavera_, No. 47; Durán, No. 791. - -[47] _Primavera_, No. 54; Durán, No. 816. - -[48] _Primavera_, No. 55; Durán No. 858. - -[49] Durán, No. 935. - -[50] Durán, No. 933. - -[51] _Primavera_, No. 65; Durán, No. 966. - -[52] _Primavera_, No. 68; Durán, No. 972. - -[53] Durán, No. 978. - -[54] Durán, No. 979. - -[55] Durán, No. 981. - -[56] _Primavera_, No. 101_a_; Durán, No. 1227. - -[57] _Primavera_, No. 72; Durán, No. 1046. - -[58] Durán, No. 1082. - -[59] _Primavera_, No. 95; Durán, No. 1088. - -[60] _The Departure of King Sebastian_, referring to the expedition of -1578, is obviously modern; the original is to be found in Durán, No. -1245:— - - Una bella lusitana, dama ilustre y de valía. - -[61] _Primavera_, No. 96_a_; Durán, 1086. - -[62] _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_ (London, 1765), vol. i., pp. -319-323. Percy’s version begins as follows:— - - Gentle river, gentle river, - Lo, thy streams are stained with gore, - Many a brave and noble captain - Floats along thy willow’d shore. - - All beside thy limpid waters, - All beside thy sands so bright, - Moorish chiefs and Christian warriors - Join’d in fierce and mortal fight. - - Lords, and dukes, and noble princes - On thy fatal banks were slain; - Fatal banks that gave to slaughter - All the pride and flower of Spain. - -Percy also gives an adaptation of Durán, No. 53:— - - Por la calle de su dama paseando se halla Zaide. - -In a preliminary note he says:—‘The Spanish editor pretends (how truly -I know not) that they are translations from the Arabic or Morisco -language. Indeed the plain, unadorned nature of the verse, and the -native simplicity of language and sentiment, which runs through these -poems, prove that they are ancient; or, at least, that they were -written before the Castillians began to form themselves on the model of -the Tuscan poets, and had imported from Italy that fondness for conceit -and refinement which has for these two centuries past so miserably -infected the Spanish poetry, and rendered it so unnatural, affected, -and obscure.’ - -[63] _Primavera_, No. 85a; Durán, No. 1064. Byron’s adaptation is -entitled _A Very Mournful Ballad on the Siege and Conquest of Alhama, -which, in the Arabic language is to the following purport_:— - - The Moorish king rides up and down, - Through Granada’s royal town; - From Elvira’s gates to those - Of Bivarambla on he goes. - Woe is me, Alhama! - - Letters to the monarch tell, - How Alhama’s city fell: - In the fire the scroll he threw, - And the messenger he slew. - Woe is me, Alhama! etc. - -Ginés Pérez de Hita states that this ballad was originally written in -Arabic, and that the inhabitants of Granada were forbidden to sing it. -Possibly the _romance_ was suggested by some Arabic song on the loss of -Alhama. - -[64] _Primavera_ (Apéndices), No. 18. - -[65] Published at Sevillo in 1588, and reprinted at Jaén in 1867. - -[66] _Primavera_, No. 71; Durán, No. 1039. - -[67] _Primavera_, No. 79; Durán, No. 1073. - -[68] See M. R. Foulché-Delbosc’s edition (Macon, 1904), p. 189. - - Aquel que tu vees con la saetada, - que nunca mas faze mudança del gesto, - mas, por virtud de morir tan onesto, - dexa su sangre tan bien derramada - sobre la villa no poco cantada, - el adelantado Diego de Ribera - es el que fizo la vuestra frontera - tender las sus faldas mas contra Granada. - -[69] _Primavera_, No. 74; Durán, No. 1043. - -[70] _Primavera_, No. 78_a_; Durán, No. 1038. - -[71] _Primavera_, No. 88; Durán, No. 1102. - -[72] _Primavera_, No. 134; Durán, No. 1131. - -[73] _Primavera_, No. 93; Durán, No. 1121. - -[74] The original of _The Bull-fight of Gazul_ is Durán, No. 45:— - - Estando toda la corte de Almanzor, rey de Granada. - -It appears first in the _Romancero general_: so also does the original -of _The Zegri’s Bride_, Durán, No. 188. - - Lisaro que fue en Granada cabeza de los Cegríes. - -_The Bridal of Andalla_ represents Durán, No. 128:— - - Ponte á las rejas azules, deja la manga que labras. - -The verses entitled _Zara’s Earrings_ are altogether out of place in -this section. The orientalism is Lockhart’s own; there is n_o_ mention -of ‘Zara,’ ‘Muça,’ ‘Granada,’ ‘Albuharez’ daughter,’ and ‘Tunis’ in the -original, which will be found in Durán, N_o_. 1803. - - ¡La niña morena, que yendo á la fuente - perdió sus zarcillos, gran pena merece! - -_The Lamentation for Celin_ represents a poem first printed in the -_Romancero general_, and given in Durán, No. 126. - -[75] _Primavera_, No. 132; Durán, No. 3. - -[76] _Primavera_, No. 193; Durán, No. 373. - -[77] _Primavera_, No. 171; Durán, No. 374. - -[78] Durán, No. 379. - -[79] _Primavera_, No. 184; Durán, No. 400. - -[80] _Primavera_, No. 186; Durán, No. 402. - -[81] _Primavera_, No. 151; Durán, No. 295. - -[82] _Primavera_, No. 150; Durán, No. 294. - -[83] - - Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me - As I gaze upon the sea! - All the old romantic legends, - All my dreams, come back to me. - - Sails of silk and ropes of sandal, - Such as gleam in ancient lore; - And the singing of the sailors, - And the answer from the shore! - - Most of all, the Spanish ballad - Haunts me oft, and tarries long, - Of the noble Count Arnaldos - And the sailor’s mystic song. - - Like the long waves on a sea-beach, - Where the sand as silver shines, - With a soft, monotonous cadence - Flow its unrhymed lyric lines;— - - Telling how the Count Arnaldos, - With his hawk upon his hand, - Saw a fair and stately galley, - Steering onward to the land;— - - How he heard the ancient helmsman - Chant a song so wild and clear, - That the sailing sea-bird slowly - Poised upon the mast to hear, - - Till his soul was full of longing, - And he cried with impulse strong,— - ‘Helmsman! for the love of heaven, - Teach me, too, that wondrous song!’ - - ‘Wouldst thou,’ so the helmsman answered, - ‘Learn the secret of the sea? - Only those who brave its dangers - Comprehend its mystery!’ - -[84] _Primavera_, No. 153; Durán, No. 286. - -[85] Depping, IV., No. 19, p. 418:— - - À coger el trebol, Damas! - La mañana de san Juan, - À coger el trebol, Damas! - Que despues no avrà lugar. - -[86] _Primavera_, No. 124; Durán, No. 8. - -[87] Durán, No. 1808. - -[88] _Primavera_, No. 125; Durán, No. 300. - -[89] _Romancero general_ (Madrid, 1604), p. 407_v_. - -[90] Durán, No. 1454. - -[91] Durán, No. 292. - -[92] _Ibid._, No. 274. - -[93] _Primavera_, No. 116; Durán, No. 1446. - -[94] _Primavera_, No. 147; Durán, No. 351. - -[95] _Primavera_, No. 142; Durán, No. 1459. - -[96] _Primavera_, No. 131; Durán, No. 255. - -[97] _Primavera_, No. 163; Durán, No. 365. - -[98] _XV. Romances_. (Ordenólos R. Foulché-Delbosc.) Barcelona [1907]. - -[99] _Los Lunes de El Imparcial_ (9 de Julio de 1906): ‘_El peor -enemigo de Cervantes._’ - -[100] The present lecture was first delivered at the University of -Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, on November 25, 1907. - -[101] Yet Quinault had already adapted _El galán fantasma_ under the -title of _Le Fantôme amoureux_, which is the source of Sir William -Lower’s _Amorous Fantasme_ (1660), and there are other French -imitations by Quinault, Scarron, and Thomas Corneille. Calderón was -popular in Italy. As early as 1654, Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi -(afterwards Clement IX.) based on _No siempre lo peor es cierto_ the -libretto of _Dal male il bene_, which was set to music by Antonio Maria -Abbatini and Marco Marazzoli. In 1656 _El mayor monstruo los celos_ -was arranged for the Italian stage by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, who -afterwards produced many other adaptations of Calderón’s plays: see an -interesting and learned article by Dr. Arturo Farinelli in _Cultura -Española_ (Madrid, February 1907), pp. 123-127. - -[102] If Calderón be really the author of the _sainete_ entitled _El -Labrador Gentilhombre_ printed at the end of _Hado y divisa de Leonido -y Marfisa_, he had evidently read Molière’s _Bourgeois gentilhomme_. -But the authorship of this _sainete_ is uncertain. - -[103] Most Spaniards who ridicule Calderón for using _hipogrifo_ -accentuate the word wrongly in speech and writing. _Hipógrifo_ is a -mistake; the word is not a _palabra esdrújula_, as may be seen from -Lope de Vega’s use of it in _La Gatomaquia_ (silva vii.):— - - Que vemos en Orlando el hipogrifo, - monstruo compuesto de caballo y grifo. - -Calderón himself gives it as a palabra llana in his _auto_ entitled -_La lepra de Constantino_. For other examples, see Rufino José Cuervo, -_Apuntaciones críticas sobre el lenguaje bogotano con frecuente -referencia al de los países de Hispano-América_. Quinta edición (Paris, -1907), pp. 11-12. - -[104] Pedro Jozé Suppico de Moraes, _Collecção politica de apothegmas, -ou ditos agudos, e sentenciosos_ (Coimbra, 1761), Parte 1., pp. 337-338. - -[105] Zamora’s arrangement of Calderón’s _auto_ entitled _El pleito -matrimonial_ was played at the Príncipe theatre in Madrid on the Feast -of Corpus Christi, 1762. - -[106] Philip IV. is usually described as a man of artistic tastes, -but the evidence does not altogether support this view. For instance, -on February 18, 1637, at a poetical improvisation in the Buen Retiro, -Philip set Calderón and Vélez de Guevara the following subjects:—(1) -‘Why is Jupiter always painted with a fair beard?’ (2) ‘Why are the -waiting-women at Court called _mondongas_, though they do not sell -_mondongo_ (black-pudding)?’ Time did not improve Philip. Some twenty -years later, according to Barrionuevo, Philip arranged that women -only should attend a certain performance at the theatre, and gave -instructions that they should leave off their _guardain-fantes_ on -this occasion. His idea was to be present with the Queen, and (from a -spot where he could see without being observed) watch the effect when -a hundred mice were suddenly let out of mice-traps in the _casuela_ -and _patio_—‘which, if it takes place, will be worth seeing, and a -diversion for Their Majesties.’ Owing (apparently) to remonstrances -which reached him, Philip was compelled to abandon the project, but -his intention gives the measure of his refinement. See an instructive -article, entitled _Los Jardines del Buen Retiro_, by Sr. D. Rodrigo -Amador de los Rios in _La España Moderna_ (January 1905); and the -_Arisos de D. Jerónimo to de Barrionuevo_ (1654-1658) edited by Sr. D. -Antonio Paz y Mélia (Madrid, 892-93), vol. ii, p. 308. - -[107] It may be worth noting that the date of Pereda’s birth is wrongly -given in all the books of reference, and he himself was mistaken on -the point. He was born on February 6, 1833, and not—as he thought—on -February 7, 1834. - - - - -INDEX - - - Abad de los Romances (Domingo), 53-54. - - Abarbanel (Judas), 147. - - Abbatini (Antonio Maria), 191. - - _Abindarraez y Jarifa, Historia de_, 111. - - Abentarique (Abulcacim Tarif), 88. - - Achilles Tatius, 162. - - Accursius, 44. - - Acquaviva (Giulio), 123. - - Æsop, 35. - - Águila (Suero del), 60. - - Aguilar (Alonso de), 105, 106. - - —— (Gaspar de), 211. - - Alarcón (Juan Ruiz de). _See_ Ruiz de Alarcón. - - —— (Pedro Antonio de), 235-236. - - Alas (Leopoldo), 246. - - Albornoz (Gil de), 28, 29, 43. - - Alcalá Galiano (Antonio Maria de), 2. - - Alemán (Mateo), 149. - - Alfonso V. (of Aragón), 76, 82, 104. - - —— V. (of León), 93. - - —— VI. (of Castile), 4, 5, 6, 7. - - —— X. [the Learned], (of Castile), 21. - - —— XI. (of Castile), 49. - - _Alixandre, Libro de_, 25, 49. - - Al-Kadir. _See_ Yahya Al-Kadir. - - Almanzor, 93. - - _Almería, Rhymed Latin Chronicle of_, 4. - - Al-muktadir, 6. - - Al-mustain, 6, 7. - - Al-mutamen, 6. - - Alton (Johann), 85 _n_. - - Álvarez de Villasandino (Alfonso), 57. - - _Amore, De._ _See_ Pamphilus Maurilianus. - - Andrade y Rivadeneyra (Jerónimo de), 225. - - _Anséis de Carthage_, 85. - - _Apolonio, Libro de_, 25, 47. - - Argote de Molina (Gonzalo), 53, 62, 71, 107. - - —— y Góngora (Luis). _See_ Góngora y Argote (Luis). - - _Athenæum, The_, 208. - - Avellaneda (Alonso Fernández de). _See_ Fernández de Avellaneda - (Alonso). - - Ayala (Pero López de). _See_ López de Ayala (Pero). - - Ayamonte (Marqués de), 149. - - - Bakna (Juan Alfonso de), 57, 75. - - Balzac (Honoré de), 241. - - Bancés Candamo (Francisco Antonio de), 207, 229, 230. - - Baroja (Pío), 251. - - Barrera y Leirado (Cayetano Alberto de la), 223. - - Barrientos (Lope), 60. - - Barrionuevo (Jerónimo de), 190, 230 _n._ - - Bella (Antonio de la), 129. - - Bello (Andrés), 15. - - Belmonte Bermúdes (Luis de), 185. - - Beneyto (Miguel), 211. - - _Beowulf_, 12. - - Berceo (Gonzalo de), 25. - - Bertaut (François), 190. - - _Berthe, Roman de_, 113. - - Blanca, wife of Enrique IV., 74. - - Blanche de Bourbon, wife of Peter the Cruel, 102. - - Blanco de Paz (Juan), 128, 129, 130, 135. - - Blasco Ibáñez (Vicente), 250-251. - - Boabdil [= Abu Abd Allah Muhammad], 105. - - Boccaccio, 59, 61, 69. - - Bodel (Jean), 26. - - Böhl von Faber (Johan Nikolas), 233. - - Boileau-Despréaux (Nicolas), 222. - - Boisrobert (François Le Métel de), 183. - - Bourget (Paul), 236. - - Brentano (Clemens), 117. - - Brillat-Savarin (Anthelme), 62. - - Browne (Sir Thomas), 123. - - Browning (Robert), 110, 174. - - Brûlart de Sillery (Noel), 140. - - Buckle (Henry Thomas), 218. - - Burgos (Diego de), 68. - - Byron (George Gordon, Lord), 107, 159. - - - Caballero (Fernán), 233-235. - - Calderón de la Barca (Diego), 186, 188. - - —— —— (José), 187, 188. - - —— —— (Pedro), 144, 172; - biography of, 184-193; - works of, 193-209; 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, - 224, 227, 229, 230, 232. - - —— —— (Pedro), son of the dramatist, 189. - - Calderona (María), 218, 224. - - Calomarde (Francisco Tadeo), 232. - - Cáncer y Velasco (Jerónimo de), 215, 225. - - _Cancionero de Stúñiga_, 75. - - —— _general_, 79. - - Carlota, wife of Francisco de Paula de Borbón, 232. - - Carpio y Luján (Lope Félix del), 166, 169, 171. - - —— —— (Marcela del), 166, 171. - - Carvajal, 75, 82, 83. - - Castillejo (Cristóbal de), 118. - - Castillo Solórzano (Alonso de), 226. - - Castro y Bellvis (Guillén de), 23, 211, 226, 227. - - Catherine of Lancaster, wife of Enrique III., 55. - - Cava (La), 85, 87-88. - - _Celestina, La_, 54, 71, 121. - - Cellot (Louis), 183. - - Cervantes (Cardinal Juan de), 74. - - —— (Juan de), grandfather of the novelist, 120. - - —— Saavedra (Andrea de), 132, 136, 139. - - —— —— (Luisa de), 132. - - —— —— (Magdalena de), 132, 139. - - —— —— (Miguel de), 1, 2, 27, 41, 52, 87; - life of, 120-141; - as a poet, 142-145; - _La Galatea_, 145-147; - First Part of _Don Quixote_, 148-158; - _Novelas Exemplares_, 158-159; - _Viage del Parnaso_, 159-160; - plays, 160; - Second Part of _Don Quixote_, 160-162; - _Persiles y Sigismunda_, 162, 164, 165, 168, 172, 173, 197, 204, 211, - 231, 236, 240. - - —— —— (Rodrigo de), father of the novelist, 121, 128, 132. - - —— —— (Rodrigo de), brother of the novelist, 125, 126, 132, 136. - - Chapelain (Jean), 191. - - Charlemagne, 20, 85, 89. - - Charles II., 191, 192, 219, 229. - - —— V., 95. - - Chartier (Alain), 68. - - Chaucer (Geoffrey), 26, 32. - - Chateaubriand (François-René de), 112, 232. - - Chorley (John Rutter), 180, 181, 202, 208. - - Christina, Queen of Sweden, 191. - - Cicognini (Giacinto Andrea), 191 _n._ - - _Cid, Poema del_, 12-21. - - —— _Romancero del_, 23. - - —— The. _See_ Díaz de Bivar (Rodrigo). - - Clavijo y Fajardo (José), 207. - - Clement IX., 191 _n._ - - Coello (Antonio), 187, 222-223. - - Comella (Luciano Francisco), 232. - - Conde (José Antonio), 80. - - Córdoba (Gonzalo de), 105. - - —— (Martín de), 127. - - Corneille (Pierre), 24, 79 _n._, 183, 198, 199. - - Corneille (Thomas), 191, 221, 223. - - Cornu (Jules), 15. - - Corral (Pedro del), 64, 85, 86. - - Cortinas (Leonor de), 120, 128, 135. - - _Crónica de Castilla_, 21. - - —— _de Juan II._, 71. - - —— _de Veinte Reyes_, 21. - - —— _general_ (First), 19, 21, 86. - - —— —— (Second [1344]), 21, 91, 98. - - —— _rimada_, 22-23, 93. - - —— _Troyana_, 86. - - Crowne (John), 226. - - Cruz y Cano (Ramón de la), 232. - - Cubillo de Aragón (Álvaro), 345. - - Cuervo (Rufino José), 200 _n._, 245. - - Cueva (Juan de la), 96, 175. - - Cunha (João Lourenço da), 222. - - - Dali Mami, 125, 126. - - Damas-Hinard (Jean-Joseph-Stanislas-Albert), 15. - - Dante, 25, 50, 61, 62, 69, 73, 183. - - Depping (Georg Bernard), 79, 117 _n_. - - Désirée, Queen of Sweden, 201. - - Diamante (Juan Bautista), 199. - - _Diana, La_, 121. - - Díaz de Bivar (Rodrigo or Ruy), - biography of, 1-11; - epics on, 12-23; - plays and poems on, 23-24; - _romances_ on, 93-101. - - —— de Toledo (Pedro), 68. - - Dickens (Charles), 239, 248. - - Díez de Games (Gutierre), 59. - - Dillon (John Talbot), 53 _n_. - - Dionysius Cato, 33. - - Dolfos (Bellido), 4. - - D’Ouville (Antoine Le Métel, sieur), 183. - - Dozy (Reinhart Pieter Anne), 22, 80. - - Ducamin (Jean), 31, 43. - - Dunham (Samuel Astley), 2. - - Durán (Agustín), 77, 78, 79 _n._, 84 _n._, 86 _n._, 87, 88 _n._, 90, - 91 _n._, 92 _n._, 93 _n._, 94 _n._, 95 _n._, 96 _n._, 97 _n._, - 98 _n._, 99 _n._, 100 n., 101 _n._, 102 _n._, 103 _n._, 104 _n._, - 105 _n._, 106 _n._, 107 _n._, 108 _n._, 109 _n._, 110 _n._, 111 _n._, - 112 _n._, 113 _n._, 114 _n._, 116 _n._, 117 _n._, 118 _n._ - - - Emmanuel Philibert, Prince of Savoy, 154. - - Enrique III., _El Doliente_, 55, 63. - - —— IV., 56, 74, 75. - - _Eremite qui s’enyvra_ (_L’_), 47. - - _Eremyte que le diable conchia du coc et de la geline_ (_L’_), 47. - - Erman (Georg Adolf), 114. - - Escobar (Juan de), 94. - - Eslava (Antonio de), 159. - - Espronceda (José de), 233. - - Euripides, 197. - - Ezpeleta (Gaspar de), 136. - - - Fadrique, brother of Peter the Cruel, 102. - - _Faerie Queene, The_, 73. - - Fáñez Minaya (Alvar), 7, 9, 12, 20, 83. - - Fanshawe (Richard), 223. - - Farinelli (Arturo), 191 _n._ - - Ferdinand, Saint, 11. - - —— VII., 232, 233. - - Fernández (Pedro), 28, 29. - - —— de Avellaneda (Alonso), 139, 160, 161. - - —— de León (Melchor), 192. - - —— de Moratín (Leandro), 232. - - Fernando de Antequera, 55, 66, 108. - - _Fernán González, Estoria del noble caballero_, 91. - - —— —— _Poema de_, 91. - - Fielding (Henry), 231. - - Figueroa (Lope de), 124. - - FitzGerald (Edward), 195. - - Fletcher (John), 159. - - _Floire et Blanchefleur_, 26. - - Ford (John), 177. - - Forneli (Juan Antonio), 190. - - Foulché-Delbosc (Raymond), 72, 91-92, 108 _n._, 119. - - Franqueza (Pedro), 154. - - Frederic II., 25. - - Frere (John Hookham), 14, 15. - - Fuentes (Alonso de), 83. - - - Gálvez de Montalvo (Luis), 131, 146. - - Gante (Manuelillo de), 190. - - García (Sancho), 12. - - Garci-Fernández, 12. - - _Garin le Lohérain_, 22. - - Gautier de Coinci, 25. - - Gibson (James Young), 37, 86, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 108, 109, 114, - 118. - - Gil (Enrique), 233. - - —— (Juan), 129, 130. - - Girón (Rodrigo), 110. - - Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von), 180, 195. - - Gómez (Cristóbal), 212. - - —— de Quevedo y Villegas (Francisco), 240. - - Goncourt (Edmond and Jules de), 249. - - Góngora y Argote (Luis), 74, 78, 84, 103, 111, 112, 144, 159, 164, 167, - 172. - - González (Fernán), 5, 13, 83; - _romances_ on, 87-91. - - —— del Castillo (Juan Ignacio), 232. - - —— de Mendoza (Pedro), 68. - - Gormaz (Gómez de), 23. - - Gozzi (Carlo), 228. - - Granson (Oton de), 26, 68. - - Grimm (Jacob), 77. - - Guardo (Juana de), 167. - - Guerra (Manuel de), 196. - - Guevara (Antonio de), 155. - - —— (Luis Vélez de). _See_ Vélez de Guevara (Luis). - - Guillaume de Machault, 26, 68. - - Gutiérrez (Tomás), 134. - - Guzmán (Juan de), 57. - - —— (Luis de), 64. - - - Hallevi (Sh’lomoh). _See_ Santa María (Pablo de). - - Haro (Luis de), 189. - - Hartmann von Aue, 25. - - Hartzenbusch (Juan Eugenio), 5, 61. - - Hassan Pasha, 126, 127, 128, 129. - - Heiberg (Johan Ludvig), 208. - - Heine (Heinrich), 117. - - Heliodorus, 162. - - Heredia (José María de), 24. - - Hernández Flores (Francisca), 163. - - _Hernaut de Beaulande_, 91. - - Herrera (Fernando de), 73, 149. - - Hervieux (Léopold), 44. - - Hofmann (Conrad), 78 _n._, 84, 93. - - Heyne (Gotthold), 13. - - Hita, Archpriest of. _See_ Ruiz (Juan). - - Holberg (Ludvig), 226. - - Huet (Pierre-Daniel), 80. - - Hugo (Abel), 87 _n._ - - —— (Victor), 24, 87, 92. - - Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 61. - - Huntington (Archer Milton), 15. - - Hurtado de Mendoza (Antonio), 223. - - —— —— (Diego), 66. - - —— de Velarde (Alfonso), 104. - - - Ibn-Bassam, 8, 9, 10. - - Ibn-Jehaf, 8. - - Illán. _See_ Julian. - - Imperial (Francisco), 62. - - Irving (Washington), 112. - - Isabel I., 56, 68. - - —— wife of Juan II., 56, 75. - - —— de Valois, wife of Philip II., 122, 142, 143. - - Isla (José Francisco de), 231. - - Isunza (Pedro de), 134. - - Italicus, 71. - - - Jacobs (Joseph), 44. - - Janer (Florencio), 31. - - Jaufré de Foixá, 68. - - Jeanroy (Alfred), 43. - - Jerónimo (Bishop), 8, 9, 20. - - Jimena, sister of Alfonso the Chaste, 89. - - —— wife of the Cid, 2, 6, 9, 23, 93. - - Jiménez de Rada (Rodrigo), - - John of Austria, son of Charles V., 123, 124, 125, 130. - - Jonson (Ben), 177, 179, 220. - - Jove-Llanos (Gaspar de), 30. - - Juan II., 55, 56, 57, 67, 72, 75, 82, 109. - - —— de Austria, son of Philip IV., - 218. - - —— Manuel, 26, 44, 79, 81. - - Juana, wife of Enrique IV., 74, 75. - - _Judas_, 82. - - Julian (Count), 85, 87, 88. - - - _Karesme et de Charnage_ (_Bataille de_), 47. - - Kent (William), 124. - - Konrad, 16, 25. - - - Lafayette (Madame de), 112. - - La Fontaine (Jean de), 46. - - Lainez (Diego), 2. - - Lando (Ferrant Manuel de), 53, 57. - - Lang (Henry R.), 58. - - Lara, Infantes of, 83, 87, 91-92. - - —— (Gaspar Agustín de), 194. - - Lasso de la Vega (Gabriel Lobo), 87, 90, 110. - - Layamon, 26. - - _Lazarillo de Tormes_, 48, 121. - - Leconte de Lisle (Charles-Marie), 24. - - Legrand d’Aussy (Pierre-Jean-Baptiste), 47. - - Lemos (Conde de), 139, 140, 141, 166. - - León Hebreo. _See_ Abarbanel (Judas). - - Lerma, Duke of, 154, 166. - - Lesage (Alain-René), 183, 216, 221, 231. - - Lidforss (Volter Edvard), 15. - - Lockhart (John Gibson), 79, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, - 96, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 110, 111 _n._, 112, 113, 114, - 115, 117, 118. - - Longfellow (Henry Wadsworth), 115. - - López de Ayala (Pero), 54, 64. - - —— de Hoyos (Juan), 122. - - —— de Mendoza (Íñigo). _See_ Santillana (Marqués de). - - —— de Sedano (Juan Joseph), 53 _n._ - - Lotti (Cosme), 188. - - Lowell (James Russell), 209. - - Lower (William), 191. - - Lozano (Juan Mateo), 192, 194. - - Lucena (Juan de), 68. - - Luján (Micaela de), 166. - - Luna (Álvaro de), 5, 56, 58, 59, 64, 67, 71, 75. - - —— (Miguel de), 88. - - Luzán (Ignacio de), 180. - - - Macaulay (Thomas Babington, Lord), 73, 244. - - MacColl (Norman), 142. - - Macías, _o Namorado_, 57, 58, 69. - - Madrigal (Alfonso de), _el Tostado_, 59. - - Maldonado (López), 143. - - Malón de Chaide (Pedro), 151. - - Malpica (Marqués de), 166. - - Manrique de Lara (Jerónimo), 164. - - _María Egipciacqua, Vida de Santa_, 25. - - Mariana, wife of Philip IV., 191. - - —— (Juan de), 146, 153. - - Marie de France, 26, 35, 45. - - Marie-Louise de Bourbon, 192. - - Marivaux (Pierre de), 231. - - Marazzoli (Marco), 191. - - Martínez de la Rosa (Francisco de Paula), 233. - - —— de Toledo (Alfonso), 31, 54, 59. - - —— Gayoso (Benito), 27 _n._ - - —— Marina (Francisco), 146. - - —— Ruiz (J.), 251. - - Masdeu (Juan Francisco de), 2. - - Matos Fragoso (Juan de), 227, 228-229. - - Medina (Francisco de), 149. - - Medinilla (Baltasar Elisio de), 224, 225. - - Mena (Juan de), 60, 62, 63, 68, 70-74, 108. - - Mendoza (Antonio Hurtado de). _See_ Hurtado de Mendoza (Antonio). - - Menéndez Pidal (Ramón), 15, 21. - - Menéndez y Pelayo (Marcelino), 16, 70, 78 _n._, 84, 89, 90, 92, 103, - 104, 110, 112, 119, 199, 201. - - Meredith (George), 213. - - Mesonero Romanos (Ramón de), 237. - - Michaëlis de Vasconcellos (Carolina), 96. - - Middleton (Thomas), 159. - - Milá y Fontanals (Manuel), 22, 79, 89, 112. - - Milton (John), 72, 165. - - Mira de Amescua (Antonio), 199, 212, 226. - - Molière, 49, 183, 223, 228. - - Molina (Luis de), 138. - - Moncada (Miguel de), 123. - - Montalbán (Juan Pérez de). _See_ Pérez de Montalbán (Juan). - - Montemôr (Jorge de), 118. _See_ also _Diana, La_. - - Mora (Joaquín de), 233. - - Moratín (Leandro Fernández de). _See_ Fernández de Moratín (Leandro). - - Moreto y Cavaña (Agustín), 224-228. - - Muhammad, El Maestro, 85. - - Muñoz (Félez), 20. - - - Nájera (Esteban de), 84, 104. - - Navas (Marqués de las), 165. - - Nebrija (Antonio de), 78, 82, 118. - - Nevares Santoyo (Marta de), 168, 169. - - Nucio (Martín), 84. - - Núñez de Toledo (Hernán), 72. - - —— Morquecho (Doctor), 134. - - - Ocampo (Florián de), 21. - - Ochoa y Ronna (Eugenio de), 2 _n_. - - Olivares (Conde de), 170, 188, 218. - - Ormsby (John), 15, 23. - - Ortiz de Stúñiga (Íñigo), 71. - - Osorio (Diego), 199. - - —— (Elena), 165. - - —— (Inés), 133. - - - Padilla (María de), 102. - - —— (Pedro de), 131. - - Palacio Valdés (Armando), 248-249, 250. - - Palacios Salazar y Vozmediano (Catalina de), 131, 138, 139, 141. - - Palafox (Jerónimo de), 129. - - Pamphilus Maurilianus, 38, 39, 47, 48, 50. - - _Panadera, Coplas de la_, 69, 71. - - Paratinén (Alfonso), 28. - - Paravicino y Arteaga (Hortensio Félix), 186, 187. - - Pardo Bazán (Condesa de), 248-249, 250. - - Paris (Gaston), 15, 16. - - Patmore (Coventry Kersey Dighton), 245. - - Paz y Mélia (Antonio), 230 _n_. - - Pedro, brother of Alfonso V. of Aragón, 104. - - Pepys (Samuel), 223. - - Per Abbat, 13, 14. - - Percy (Thomas), 106. - - Pereda (José María de), 236-243, 250. - - Pérez (Alonso), 146. - - —— (Gil), 85. - - —— de Guzmán (Alfonso), 189, 190. - - —— —— (Fernán), 2, 56, 61, 62, 63, 64-66, 86. - - —— de Hita (Ginés), 104, 105, 107 _n._, 110, 111, 112. - - —— de Montalbán (Juan), 173, 177, 187, 212, 222. - - —— Galdós (Benito), 53, 240, 247-248, 250. - - —— Pastor (Cristóbal), 185. - - Peter I. of Castile (the Cruel), 28, 49, 83; - _romances_ on, 101-103. - - Petrarch, 61, 69, 70. - - Phaedrus, 35. - - Philip II., 10, 130, 151. - - —— IV., 170, 184, 187, 188, 190, 191, 205, 206, 222, 224, 229, 230. - - —— Prince of Savoy, 154. - - Pindarus Thebanus. _See_ Italicus. - - Pius V., 10. - - Pomponius, 44. - - Ponce de León (Luis), 144. - - —— —— (Manuel), 124. - - _Primavera y Flor de romances_, 78, 81 _n._, 84, 86 _n._, 87 _n._, - 90 _n._, 91 _n._, 92 _n._, 93 _n._, 97 _n._, 98 _n._, 99 _n._, - 100 _n._, 102 _n._, 104 _n._, 105 _n._, 106 _n._, 107 _n._, - 108 _n._, 109 _n._, 110 _n._, 111 _n._, 112 _n._, 113 _n._, - 114 _n._, 116 _n._, 117 _n._, 118 _n._ - - Pulgar (Hernando del), 110. - - Puymaigre (Count Théodore de), 50. - - Puyol y Alonso (Julio), 27, 29, 44, 45, 48. - - - Quevedo y Villegas (Francisco Gómez de). _See_ Gómez de Quevedo y - Villegas (Francisco). - - Quinault (Philippe), 191 _n._ - - Quintana (Manuel José), 14. - - - Rabelais (François), 46. - - Rasis, The Moor [= Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Musa, _al-Razi_], - 85, 86. - - Regnier (Maturin), 48. - - Renan (Ernest), 10. - - Rennert (Hugo Albert), 75, 146, 162. - - Restori (Antonio), 15. - - Rey de Artieda (Andrés), 210. - - _Reyes Magos, Misterio de los_, 25. - - Riaño (Pedro de), 118. - - Ribeiro (Bernardim de), 75. - - Ribera (Diego de), 108. - - Ríos (José Amador de los), 30, 58, 59. - - —— (Rodrigo Amador de los), 230 _n._ - - Ritson (Joseph), 46, 47. - - Robles (Blas de), 132. - - —— (Fernán Alonso de), 55. - - Roderick, 12, 13; - _romances_ on, 83, 84-88. - - _Rodrigo, Cantar de_. See _Crónica rimada_. - - Rodríguez (Lucas), 90, 96. - - —— de la Cámara (Juan), 74-76, 82, 83. - - —— del Padrón (Juan). _See_ Rodríguez de la Cámara (Juan). - - —— Marín (Francisco), 135. - - Rojas (Ana Franca de), 131, 138. - - —— (Tomás), 218. - - —— Zorrilla (Francisco de), 61, 185, 214-222, 223. - - _Roland, Chanson de_, 8, 16, 18, 89. - - _Rolliad, The_, 71. - - _Roman de la Rose, Le_, 49, 68, 73. - - Romana (Marqués de la), 14, 15. - - Rospigliosi (Giulio). _See_ Clement IX. - - Rotrou (Jean de), 183, 220. - - Rowley (William), 159. - - _Ruderici Campidocti, Gesta_, 9, 13. - - Rueda (Lope de), 122, 175, 176. - - Ruffino (Bartolomeo), 143. - - Ruiz (Juan), 25-54. - - —— de Alarcón (Juan), 60, 172, 173, 184, 212, 213. - - —— de Ulibarri (Juan), 13. - - - Saavedra (Isabel de), daughter of Cervantes, 138, 140. - - Sainte-Beuve (Charles-Augustin), 143. - - Saint-Pierre (Bernardin de), 232. - - Saldaña (Conde de), 89, 90 _n._ - - Sánchez (Miguel), 175. - - —— (Tomás Antonio), 14, 27 _n._, 30, 31. - - Sancho II., 4, 5. - - —— (Conde Don), 89. - - Sandoval y Rojas (Bernardo de), 140. - - Sannazaro (Jacopo), 145, 146. - - Santa Cruz (Marqués de), 143, 165. - - —— María (Pablo de), 56. - - Santillana (Marqués de), 31, 53, 56, 62, 64, 66-70, 71, 81, 82, 83. - - Sanz del Águila (Diego), 138. - - —— del Río (Julián), 240. - - Sarmiento (Martín), 53 _n._ - - Sarriá (Marqués de). _See_ Lemos. - - Scarron (Paul), 191 _n._, 221. - - Schack (Adolf Friedrich). - - Schæffer (Adolf), 223. - - Schiller (Johann Friedrich), 110, 180. - - Schlegel (August Wilhelm von), 194, 195, 196. - - —— (Friedrich von), 194, 196. - - Scott (Walter), 102, 112, 232, 233. - - Scudéri (Madelène de), 112. - - Segrais (Jean Regnauld, sieur de), 80 _n_. - - Sepúlveda (Lorenzo de), 83, 84, 87, 90, 93, 94, 101, 104, 105. - - Sesa (Fifth Duke of), 124. - - —— (Sixth Duke of), 168, 171. - - Shakespeare (William), 48, 49, 153, 154, 159, 162, 167, 179, 182, 194, - 204, 210. - - Shelley (Percy Bysshe), 195, 198, 205. - - Silva (Feliciano de), 147. - - Smollett (Tobias George), 231. - - Soeiro (Manoel), 174. - - Solís y Ribadeneyra (Antonio de), 229. - - Sophocles, 197. - - Sosa (Antonio de), 130. - - Southey (Robert), 23, 101, 244. - - Sterne (Laurence), 231. - - _Strengleikar_, 26. - - Suppico de Moraes (Pedro Jozé), 205. - - - Tárrega (Francisco), 211. - - Tennyson (Alfred, Lord), 176, 195, 196. - - Thiber, 89. - - Timoneda (Juan de), 87, 108, 109. - - Tirso de Molina [_i.e._ Gabriel Téllez], 172, 184, 194, 196, 203, 208, - 212, 213, 221, 226. - - Torre (Alfonso de la), 59. - - Torres (Francisco de), 28, 29. - - —— Villaroel (Diego), 231. - - Trench (Richard Chenevix), 195, 196, 198, 201. - - _Tres Reyes dorient, Libro dels_, 25. - - Trigueros (Cándido María), 218, 219. - - Trillo de Armenta (Antonia), 166. - - Trueba (Antonio de), 235, 236, 237, 238. - - —— y Cosío (Joaquín Telesforo de), 232. - - Tuke, Samuel, 223. - - Turia (Ricardo de), _pseud._, 178. - - Turpin (Archbishop), 8. - - - Urban VIII., 170. - - —— (Count). _See_ Julian (Count). - - Urbina (Diego de), 123. - - —— y Cortinas (Isabel de), 165. - - - Valdivia (Diego de), 133. - - Valdivielso (José de), 214. - - Valera (Diego de), 58. - - —— (Juan), 2, 243-246, 250. - - Valle-Inclán (Ramón del), 251. - - Vanbrugh (John), 216. - - Vázquez (Mateo), 143. - - Vega (Bernardo de la), 148. - - —— (Garcilaso de la), _romances_ on, 110. - - —— (Garcilaso de la), poet, 52, 144, 149. - - —— (Leonor de la), 66. - - —— Carpio (Félix de), father of the dramatist, 163. - - —— —— (Lope Félix de), 23, 70, 77, 78, 84, 100, 133, 137, 139, 141, - 144, 149, 150, 153, 159, 160; - biography of, 163-172; - character and tastes, 172-174; - as a poet, 174; - as a dramatist, 175-183; 184, 185, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 199, - 200 _n._, 203, 204, 208, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 218, - 219, 221, 224, 226, 228, 229. - - Vega Carpio y Guardo (Antonia Clara), 171. - - —— —— y Guardo (Carlos Félix), 167. - - Velázquez (Jerónimo), 133, 165. - - —— (Luis José), 53 _n._ - - Vélez de Guevara (Luis), 104, 184, 205, 212, 221, 222, 226, 230 _n._ - - Veraguas (Duke of), 194. - - Vera Tassis y Villarroel (Juan), 184, 185, 192, 193. - - Verlaine (Paul), 208. - - Verville (Béroalde de), 46. - - Vicente (Gil), 118. - - Victor Amadeus, Prince of Savoy, 154. - - Vidal (Raimon), 68. - - Villafranca (Marqués de), 136. - - Villaviciosa (Sebastián de), 228. - - Villegas (Pedro de), 186. - - Villena (Enrique de), 60-64. - - Vollmöller (Carl), 15. - - - Waller (Edmund), 177. - - Warnke (Carl), 35. - - Wolf (Ferdinand Joseph), 31 _n._, 44, 45, 47, 78, 84, 93. - - Wolfram von Eschenbach, 25. - - - Ximena. _See_ Jimena. - - Yahya Al-Kadir, 6, 7, 8. - - ‘Ysopete,’ 35, 45. - - - Zabaleta (Juan de), 229. - - Zamora (Antonio de), 207. - - Zárate y Castronovo (Fernando de), 224. - - Zola (Émile), 249. - - -Printed by T. and A. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: Chapters on Spanish Literature</p> -<p>Author: James Fitzmaurice-Kelly</p> -<p>Release Date: February 28, 2017 [eBook #54259]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHAPTERS ON SPANISH LITERATURE***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4>E-text prepared by Josep Cols Canals, Turgut Dincer,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - <a href="https://archive.org/details/chaptersonspanis00fitziala"> - https://archive.org/details/chaptersonspanis00fitziala</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<p class="center"><br /><br />CHAPTERS ON<br /> -SPANISH LITERATURE</p> - -<hr /> - -<h1><span class="gesperrt"> -CHAPTERS ON<br /> -SPANISH LITERATURE</span></h1> - -<p class="center"> -<small><small><small>BY</small></small></small><br /> -<br /> -<span class="gesperrt">JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY</span><br /> -<br /> -<small><small><small>FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY<br /> -CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE SPANISH ACADEMY<br /> -MEDALLIST OF THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA, ETC.</small></small></small><br /> -<br /> -<small><span class="gesperrt">LONDON<br /> -ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE<br /> -AND COMPANY LTD.</span><br /> -1908</small></p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="center"> -<small><small>TO</small></small><br /> -<br /> -<small>MY FELLOW-MEMBERS</small><br /> -<br /> -<small><small>OF</small></small><br /> -<br /> -<small>THE HISPANIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA</small><br /> -<br /> -<small><small>THESE LECTURES<br /> -<br /> -ARE CORDIALLY DEDICATED</small></small><br /> -</p> - -<hr /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii"> </a></span></p> -<h2>PREFACE</h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Last</span> summer the Trustees of the Hispanic Society of -America did me the honour to invite me to give a course -of lectures on Spanish literature in the United States, -and almost at the same time an invitation to lecture -on the same subject reached me from the Provost of -University College, London. The chapters contained in -the present volume are the result. The lectures on the -Cid, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Calderón, and Modern -Spanish Novelists were delivered during the autumn -and winter of 1907 at the University of Columbia; -some of these were repeated at Cornell, Harvard, -Johns Hopkins, Pennsylvania, and Yale Universities; -some at Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, and Smith’s -College (Northampton, Massachusetts); and the whole -series was given this spring at University College, -London.</p> - -<p>Owing to the limited amount of time available for -each lecture, it became necessary to omit a few paragraphs -here and there in delivery. These are now -restored. With the exception of the chapter on the -Archpriest of Hita (part of which has been recast), -all the lectures are printed substantially as they were -written. Occasional references have been added in the -form of notes.</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a></span></p> -<p>In addresses of this kind some repetition of ‘you’ and -‘I’ is almost unavoidable. It has, however, been thought -better to retain the conversational character of the -lectures, and it is hoped that the use of the objectionable -first personal pronoun does not degenerate into abuse.</p> - -<p>Lastly, it is a duty and pleasure to thank my friendly -audiences in America and England for the indulgence -with which they listened to these discourses.</p> - -<p class="right padr1">JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY.</p> - -<p><small><span class="smcap">Kneippbaden</span>: <i>vid</i> <span class="smcap">Norrköping</span>,<br /> -<span class="h">xxxxxxxxx</span><i>May 1, 1908</i>.</small></p> - -<hr /> -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - - - - -<table summary="Contents" width="100%" border="0"><tr> -<td class="tdc"><small><small>CHAP.</small></small></td><td> </td><td class="tdr"><small><small>PAGE</small></small></td> -</tr><tr> -<td> </td><td class="tdl">PREFACE</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_vii">vii</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td class="tdr">I.</td><td class="tdl">THE CID</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td class="tdr">II.</td><td class="tdl">THE ARCHPRIEST OF HITA</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td class="tdr">III.</td><td class="tdl">THE LITERARY COURT OF JUAN II.</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_55">55</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td class="tdr">IV.</td><td class="tdl">THE <i>ROMANCERO</i></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td class="tdr">V.</td><td class="tdl">THE LIFE OF CERVANTES</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td class="tdr">VI.</td><td class="tdl">THE WORKS OF CERVANTES</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_143">142</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td class="tdr">VII.</td><td class="tdl">LOPE DE VEGA</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td class="tdr">VIII.</td><td class="tdl">CALDERÓN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td class="tdr">IX.</td><td class="tdl padr1">THE DRAMATIC SCHOOL OF CALDERÓN</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_184">184</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td class="tdr">X.</td><td class="tdl">MODERN SPANISH NOVELISTS</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td> -</tr><tr> -<td> </td><td class="tdl">INDEX</td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_252">252</a></td> -</tr></table> -<hr /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1"> </a></span></p> - - -<h2>CHAPTER I<br /><br /> - -<small>THE CID</small></h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Just</span> as a portrait discloses the artist’s opinion of his sitter, -so the choice of a hero is an involuntary piece of self-revelation. -As man fashions his idols in his own image, we are in -a fair way to understand him, if we know what he admires: -and, as it is with individual units, so is it with races. -National heroes symbolise the ambitions, the foibles, the -general temper and radical qualities of those who have set -them up as exemplars. But there are two sides to every -character, and Spain has two national heroes known all the -world over: the practical Cid and the idealistic Don Quixote, -one of them an historical figure, and the other the child of -a great man’s fancy. Perhaps to the majority of mankind -the offspring of Cervantes’s poetic imagination is more -vividly present than the authentic warrior who headed -many a desperate charge. It is the singular privilege of -genius to substitute its own intense conceptions for the unromantic -facts, and to create out of nothing beings that -seem more vital than men of flesh and blood. Don Quixote -has become a part of the visible universe, while most of us -behold the Cid, not as he really was, but as Corneille -portrayed him more than five centuries after his death. It -may not be amiss to bring him back to earth by recalling -the ascertainable incidents in his adventurous career.</p> - -<p>So marked are the differences between the Cid of history -and the Cid of legend that, early in the nineteenth century -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span>his very existence was called in question by the sceptical -Jesuit Masdeu, an historian who delighted in paradox. -Masdeu’s doubts were reiterated by Samuel Dunham in his -<cite>History of Spain and Portugal</cite>, and by Dunham’s translator, -Antonio María de Alcalá Galiano, a writer of repute in his -own day. Alcalá Galiano’s incredulity caused him some -personal inconvenience, for—as his kinsman, the celebrated -novelist Juan Valera, records—he was threatened with an -action at law by a Spanish gentleman who piqued himself -on his descent from the Cid, and was not disposed to see -his alleged ancestor put aside as a fabulous creature like -the Phœnix. These negations, more or less sophistical, are -the follies of the learned, and they have their match in -the assertions of another school that sought to reconcile -divergent views by assuming the existence of two Cids, each -with a wife called Jimena, and each with a war-horse called -Babieca. This generous process of duplicating everybody -and everything has not found favour. Cervantes expresses -his view through the canon in <cite>Don Quixote</cite>:—‘That there -was a Cid, as well as a Bernardo del Carpio, is beyond -doubt; but that they did the deeds which they are said to -have done, I take to be very doubtful.’ Few of us would -care to be so affirmative as the canon with respect to -Bernardo del Carpio, but he is perfectly right as regards -the Cid.</p> - -<p>It is certain that the Cid existed in the flesh. He was -the son of Diego Lainez, a soldier who fought in the -Navarrese campaign. Pérez de Guzmán, in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Loores de -los claros varones de España</cite>, says that the Cid was born at -Río de Ovierna:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Este varón tan notable</div> -<div class="line">en Río de Ovierna<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">1</a> nasció.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span>But the usual version is that the Cid was born at Bivar -near Burgos, about the year 1040, and thence took his -territorial designation. To contemporaries he was first of -all known simply as Rodrigo (or Ruy) Díaz de Bivar—Roderick, -son of James, of Bivar; and later, from his -prowess in single combat, as the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Campeador</em> (the Champion -or Challenger). What was probably his earliest feat of -this kind, the overthrow of a Navarrese knight, is recorded -in a copy of rudely rhymed Latin verses, apparently the -most ancient of the poems which were to commemorate the -Cid’s exploits:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container" lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Eia! laetando, populi catervae,</div> -<div class="line">Campi-doctoris hoc carmen audite!</div> -<div class="line">Magis qui eius freti estis ope,</div> -<div class="line i6">Cuncti venite!</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Nobiliori de genere ortus,</div> -<div class="line">Quod in Castella non est illo maius:</div> -<div class="line">Hispalis novit et Iberum litus</div> -<div class="line i6">Quis Rodericus.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Hoc fuit primum singulare bellum,</div> -<div class="line">Cum adolescens devicit Navarrum:</div> -<div class="line">Hinc Campi-doctor dictus est maiorum</div> -<div class="line i6">Ore virorum.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The epithet gained at this early period clung to him -through life: it is applied to him even by his enemies. It -is curious to find that the Arab chroniclers constantly speak -of him as Al-kambeyator, but never as the Cid—a word -which is usually said to derive from the Arabic <em>Sidi</em> (= My -Lord). This circumstance makes it doubtful whether he -was widely known as the Cid during his own lifetime. -There is, indeed, a pleasing legend to the effect that the -King of Castile, on hearing Ruy Díaz de Bivar addressed as -<em>Sidi</em> by Arab prisoners of war, decreed that the successful -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span>soldier should henceforth be known by that name. But -there is no evidence to support this story, and it is rather -too picturesque to be plausible. It seems more likely that -Ruy Díaz de Bivar was first addressed as <em>Sidi</em> by Arabs who -served under him or by the Arab population of Valencia -which he conquered towards the end of his career, that the -phrase was taken up by his Christian troops, and that it was -not generally current among Spaniards till after his death. -That he soon afterwards became widely known as ‘the Cid’ -or ‘my Cid’ is apparent from a line in the rhymed Latin -chronicle of the siege of Almería, written some fifty years -later:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Ipse Rodericus, mio Cid semper vocatus.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>But we need not discuss these minutiæ further. Let us -record the fact that Ruy Díaz de Bivar is known as the Cid -Campeador, and pass on to his historical achievements. At -the age of twenty-five he was appointed <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">alférez</em> (standard-bearer) -to Sancho <span class="smcap">II.</span> of Castile, a predatory monarch who -drove his brother Alfonso from León and his brother -García from Galicia, and annexed their kingdoms. Both -campaigns gave the Cid opportunities of distinction, and -he became the most conspicuous personage in Castile after -the murder of Sancho <span class="smcap">II.</span> by Bellido Dolfos at Zamora in -1072:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">¡Rey don Sancho, rey don Sancho, no digas que no te aviso</div> -<div class="line">que de dentro de Zamora un alevoso ha salido!</div> -<div class="line">llámase Vellido Dolfos, hijo de Dolfos Vellido,</div> -<div class="line">cuatro traiciones ha hecho, y con esta serán cinco.</div> -<div class="line">Si gran traidor fue el padre, mayor traidor es el hijo.—</div> -<div class="line">Gritos dan en el real: ¡A don Sancho han mal herido:</div> -<div class="line">muerto le ha Vellido Dolfos, gran traición ha cometido!</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The Castilians were in a difficult position: the assassination -of Sancho <span class="smcap">II.</span> left them without a candidate for the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span>vacant thrones of Castile and León. The Cid was not eligible; -for, though of good family, he was not of royal—nor even of -illustrious—descent. The sole legitimate claimant was the -dethroned Alfonso, and there was nothing for it but to offer -him both crowns. It is alleged that the exasperated Castilians -found a salve for their wounded pride by inflicting a -signal humiliation on the Leonese prince whom they invited -to rule over them. According to tradition, Alfonso was -compelled to swear that he had no complicity in Sancho’s -death, and this oath was publicly administered to him by -the Cid and eleven other Castilian representatives in the -church of Santa Gadea at Burgos. This story reaches us in -ancient <em>romances</em>, and Hartzenbusch has given it a further -lease of life by dramatising it in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Jura en Santa Gadea</cite>. -There may be some basis for it, and any one may believe it -who can. There is, however, no positive proof that any such -incident took place, and the tale reads rather like a later -invention, fabricated to account for the bad blood made -subsequently between the king and his formidable subject. -Picturesque stories concerning historical personages are -always ‘suspect,’ and are generally untrue. As there was -no pretender in the field, why should Alfonso submit to -insulting conditions? Is it not simpler to suppose that he -regarded the Cid with natural suspicion as the man mainly -responsible for his expulsion from León, and that the -Leonese nobles were careful to keep this resentful memory -alive? Now, as in the time of Fernán González:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Castellanos y leoneses tienen malas intenciones.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Is it not intrinsically probable that the Cid, like a true -Castilian, smarted under the Leonese supremacy; that his -allegiance was from the outset reluctant and half-hearted; -and that he scarcely troubled to conceal his ultimate design -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span>of carving out for himself a semi-independent principality -with the help of his famous sword Colada? However this -may be, king and subject were, for the moment, mutually -indispensable. Neither could afford an absolute breach at -this stage; both were deep dissemblers; and on July 19, -1074, Alfonso <span class="smcap">VI.</span> gave his cousin Jimena in marriage to the -Cid. The wedding contract has been preserved—a prosaic -document providing for the due disposition of property on -the death of one of the contracting parties.</p> - -<p>After this diplomatic marriage the Cid vanishes for some -time into the dense obscurity of domestic bliss, emerging -again into the light of history as defeating the Emir of -Granada, and then as being charged with malversation. -The details are by no means clear. What is clear is that -the Cid was exiled about 1081, that he entered the service -of Al-muktadir, Emir of Saragossa, and that he continued -in the pay of the Emir’s successors—his son Al-mutamen, -and his grandson Al-mustain. Henceforward we have a -relatively full account of the Cid’s exploits. He defeated -the combined forces of the King of Aragón, the Count of -Barcelona and their Mohammedan allies at Almenara near -Lérida; he routed the King of Aragón once more, this -second battle being fought on the banks of the Ebro; he -played fast-and-loose with Alfonso <span class="smcap">VI.</span>, was reconciled to his -former master, quarrelled, and was again banished. His -possessions were confiscated. But confiscation is a game -at which subjects can play as well as kings, and the Cid -was in a position to recoup his losses. By this time he -had gathered round him a motley host of raiders, men of -diverse creeds eager for any enterprise that offered chances -of plunder. Fortune was now about to furnish him with -a great opportunity. On the surrender of Toledo to -Alfonso <span class="smcap">VI.</span> in 1085 it was agreed that Yahya Al-kadir, the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span>defeated Emir, should receive Valencia by way of compensation; -and he was imposed on the restive inhabitants by a -force under the Cid’s nephew, Alvar Fáñez Minaya. In -ordinary circumstances the intruder might have held his -own; but the incursion of the African Almoravides, the -Jansenists of Mohammedanism, abruptly changed the -political aspect. It soon became clear that the gains of -the Reconquest were in jeopardy, and that Alfonso <span class="smcap">VI.</span> -must concentrate his army for a momentous struggle.</p> - -<p>He might fairly plead that he had kept his bargain by -installing the ex-Emir of Toledo at Valencia, and that his -own kingdom was now at stake. He had no sooner recalled -Alvar Fáñez and his troops than the Valencians revolted, -and Al-kadir besought Al-mustain to come over and help -him. The inducements offered were considerable. But -Al-mustain was a mere figurehead at Saragossa; effective -aid could come only from his lieutenant, the Cid: the two -feigned acceptance of Al-kadir’s proposals, but secretly -agreed to oust him and to divide the spoil. The relief -expedition was commanded by the Cid in Al-mustain’s -name. It was a post after his own heart. Valencia was -then, as it is now, ‘the orchard of Spain,’ and the Cid was -in no hurry to reach the capital. He ravaged the outlying -districts of the fertile province, levied forced contributions, -or induced the inhabitants to pay blackmail to escape his -forays. He advanced cautiously, fortifying his position, and -scattering delusive promises as he went along. He assured -Alfonso <span class="smcap">VI.</span> that he was working in the interest of Castile, -and he assured Al-mustain that he was working in the -interest of Saragossa; he encouraged Al-kadir to put down -the Valencian rebels, and he encouraged the rebels to throw -off Al-kadir’s authority. A master of dissimulation, resolved -to make Valencia his own, he successfully deceived -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span>all parties till the murder of Al-kadir by Ibn-Jehaf, and -the threatened advance of the Almoravides, forced him -to drop the mask. Failing to carry the city of Valencia by -storm, the Cid reduced it by starvation, and in June 1094 -the Valencians surrendered on generous conditions. These -conditions were flagrantly violated. Ibn-Jehaf was tortured -till he revealed where his treasure was hidden; he was -finally burned alive, his chief supporters shared his fate, -and the Mohammedan population was given its choice -between banishment and something like slavery.</p> - -<p>In all but name the Cid was now a king, and he was -careful to strengthen his hold on his prize. By taking -a census of Christians, and by forbidding them to leave the -city, he kept his most trustworthy troops together; and he -promoted military efficiency as well as religion by founding -a bishopric to which he nominated Jerónimo, the French -prelate mentioned in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite>, and as valiant a -fighter as Archbishop Turpin in the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chanson de Roland</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Tels curunez ne cantat unkes messe,</div> -<div class="line">Ki de sus cors feïst tantes proeces.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">The Cid came out of his trenches to rout the Almoravides at -Quarte and in the valley of Alcoy; he extended his conquests -to Murviedro, and formed an independent alliance -with the King of Aragón. And, if the report of Ibn-Bassam, -the Arab chronicler, be true, he had more vaulting ambitions: -in a gust of exaltation, the Cid—so we are told—was -heard to say that, as the first Roderick had lost Spain, a -second Roderick might be destined to win it back. Ibn-Bassam -writes in good faith, but he is a rhetorician, and -moreover, in this case, he gives the story at second-hand. -It is difficult to believe that a clear-headed, practical man -like the Cid, who had recently found it hard enough to -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span>seize a single province, can have talked in this wild way -about winning back all Spain. If he did, his judgment was -greatly at fault: the Reconquest was not completed till four -centuries later, and little more was done towards furthering -it during the Cid’s last days. His lieutenant, Alvar Fáñez, -was beaten at Cuenca: the Almoravides, flushed with victory, -again defeated the Cid’s picked troops at Alcira. The Cid -was not present on the field, but the mortification was too -much for him: he died—‘of grief and fury,’ so the Arab -historians state—in July 1099. Supported by Alvar Fáñez -and Bishop Jerónimo, Jimena held out for another two -years: then she retreated northwards, after setting fire to -the city. Valencia—the real ‘Valencia del Cid’—ceased to -exist. The Christians marched out by the light of the -flaming walls; the Cid’s embalmed body was mounted for -the last time on Babieca (a horse as famous as Roland’s -Veillantif), and was taken to San Pedro de Cardeña. There -you may still see what was his tomb, with this inscription -on it:—</p> - -<div lang="la" xml:lang="la"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Belliger, invictus, famosus marte triumphis,</div> -<div class="line">Clauditur hoc tumulo magnus Didaci Rodericus.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But his body, after many vicissitudes, now rests in the -unimposing town hall of Burgos.</p> - -<p>This is the Cid Campeador as he appears in Ibn-Bassam’s -<cite>Dhakira</cite>, written ten years after the Cid’s death, and in the -anonymous <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Gesta Ruderici Campidocti</cite> which dates from -between 1140 and 1170. The authors write from opposite -points of view, and are not critical, but they are trustworthy -in essentials, and a statement made by both may usually be -taken as a fact, or as a close approximation to fact. The -Cid, as you perceive, is far from being irreproachable. He -has all the qualities, and therefore all the defects, of a -mediæval soldier of fortune: he was brave, mercenary, perfidious -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span>and cruel. How, then, are we to account for his -position as a national hero? In the first place, we must avoid -the error of judging him by modern standards, and in the -second place, we must bear in mind that almost all we learn -of his later years—the best known period of his life—comes -to us from enemies whose prejudices may have led them -unconsciously to darken the shadows in the portrait. It is -a shock to discover that the man who symbolises the spirit -of Spanish patriotism was a border chief in the pay of the -highest bidder; it is a greater shock to find that the man -who figures as the type of knightly orthodoxy fought for -the Mohammedans against the Christians. We must part -with our simple-minded illusions, and admit that Pius <span class="smcap">V.</span> was -right in turning a deaf ear when Philip <span class="smcap">II.</span> suggested (so it -is said) the canonisation of the Cid. All heroes are apt to -lose their glamour when dragged from the twilight of tradition -and poetry into the fierce blaze of fact and history. -The Cid is no exception. Renan sums up against him with -gay severity. ‘Tout ce qu’il fut, il le dut aux ennemis -de sa patrie, même le nom sous lequel il est resté dans -l’histoire. Le représentant idéal de l’honneur espagnol -était un <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">condottiere</em>, combattant tantôt pour le Christ, tantôt -pour Mahomet. Le représentant idéal de l’amour n’a -peut-être jamais aimé. Encore une idole qui tombe sous -les coups de l’impitoyable critique!’</p> - -<p>Yet, if it were worth while, a case might be made for the -Cid without recourse to sophistry. It is enough to say that he -acted as all other leaders acted in his age and for long afterwards. -He was anything but a saint: if he had been a saint, -he would never have become the idol of a nation. It has been -thought that he had some consciousness of a providential -mission, but this is perhaps a hasty generalisation based -upon Ibn-Bassam’s story of his having said that a second -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>Roderick might reconquer Spain. This theory ascribes to -him more elevation of character and more political foresight -than we can suppose him to have possessed. The supremacy -of Castile was not an accepted political ideal till it was on -the point of establishment, and this takes us forward, nearly -a century and a half, to the reign of St. Ferdinand. The -Cid was no idealist: he lived wholly in the present. The -land of visions was never thrown open to him; he had no -touch of Jeanne d’Arc’s mystical temperament; his aims -were immediate, concrete, personal. His popularity was -due, first of all, to his conspicuous and inspiring valour; due -to the fact that the last and most celebrated of his expeditions, -though undertaken primarily for his own profit, -incidentally helped the cause of national unity by wresting -a province from the Mohammedans; due to the instinctive -feeling that he represented more or less faithfully the -interests of Castile as against those of León—a feeling -which found frank expression five centuries later in the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero general</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Soy Rodrigo de Vivar,</div> -<div class="line">castellano á las derechas.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">And, no doubt, the man bore a stamp of self-confident -greatness which awed his foes and fired the imagination -of his countrymen. As posterity is apt to condone the -crimes by which it gains, it is not surprising that later -generations should minimise the Cid’s misdeeds, and should -end by transforming his story almost out of recognition. -But these capricious and often grotesque travesties are -relatively modern.</p> - -<p>They are not found to any excess in the work of the -earliest poets who sang the Cid’s feats-of-arms. They do -not occur in the Latin poem, already quoted, which speaks -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>enthusiastically of his exploits as being numerous enough -to tax the resources of Homer’s genius:—</p> - -<div lang="la" xml:lang="la"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Tanti victoris nam si retexere,</div> -<div class="line">Coeperim cuncta, non haec libri mille</div> -<div class="line">Capere possent, Homero canente,</div> -<div class="line i8">Summo labore.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This cannot have been written much later than 1120, about -a score of years after the Cid’s death. The theme, like -many another theme of the same kind, was too alluring to -be left to monks who wrote in a learned language for a small -circle, and it was soon treated in the speech of the people -by <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">juglares</em>—not necessarily laymen—who recited their compositions -in palaces, castles, monasteries, public squares, -markets, or any other place where an audience could be -got together. In this way a body of epical poems came -into existence. You may say that this is late, and so it is -if you are thinking of <cite>Beowulf</cite> and <cite>Waldhere</cite> which, in their -actual shapes, certainly existed before the reign of Alfred, -and have even been assigned to the sixth century. But we -must make a radical distinction. <cite>Beowulf</cite> and <cite>Waldhere</cite> are, -we may say, sagas in verse, and have no immediate relation -to England, so far as subject goes: the French and Spanish -epics are conspicuously national in theme and sentiment. -We know that Spain possessed many epics which have not -survived: epics on Roderick, on Bernardo del Carpio, on -Fernán González, on Garci-Fernández, on Sancho García, -perhaps on Alvar Fáñez Minaya, the Cid’s lieutenant. Only -three of these ancient <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantares de gesta</cite> have been saved, and -among them is the epic known as the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite>, -Possibly it was not the first vernacular poem on the subject, -though it was composed about the middle of the twelfth -century, some fifty years after the Cid’s time; but, as we -shall see presently, there is a long interval between the -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span>date of composition and the date of transcription. As to -the author of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite> nothing is known. On the ground -that some two hundred lines relate to events occurring -at the monastery of Cardeña near Burgos, it has been -conjectured that the author was a monk attached to this -monastery. It has also been thought, owing to his warlike -spirit, that he was a layman, and that he came from the -Valle de Arbujuelo: this is inferred from his minute knowledge -of the country between Molina and San Esteban de -Gormaz, and from the relative vagueness of such knowledge -as the itinerary extends to Burgos and Saragossa. These, -however, are but surmises. It is further surmised that the -substance of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> may be derived from earlier -epic poems. That may be: but, as it stands, it has a unity -of its own.</p> - -<p>The <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Gesta Ruderici Campidocti</cite> survives in a unique manuscript -which was stolen during the last century from the -Monastery of St. Isidore at León, was bought in Lisbon by -Gotthold Heyne two years before he died on the Berlin -barricades of 1848, and is now, after many wanderings, -in the Academy of History at Madrid. The <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> -also reaches us in a unique manuscript, the work of a certain -Per Abbat who in 1307 wrote out the text from a pre-existing -copy; this manuscript is not known to have passed -through any such adventures as the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Gesta</cite>, but it has evidently -had some narrow escapes from destruction: the -beginning of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> is missing, a page is wanting -after verse 2337, and another page is wanting after verse -3307. Had Per Abbat not taken the trouble to write -out the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite>, or had his manuscript disappeared before -October 1596 (when it was transcribed by Juan Ruiz de -Ulibarri), the epic on the Cid would be as unknown to us -as the epics on Roderick, Bernardo del Carpio, and the rest. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span>Per Abbat seems to have followed an unfaithful copy in an -uncritical fashion, but the defects in the existing text cannot -all be laid at his door. There are passages in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema -del Cid</cite> which are almost universally regarded as interpolations, -and for these Per Abbat is not likely to be responsible. -It is more probable that he continued in the bad way of -his predecessors, who apparently took it upon themselves -to abridge the poem. This desire for greater brevity is -answerable for transpositions and corruptions which are the -despair of editors and translators; but, mutilated as it is, -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> is a primitive masterpiece, the merits of -which have been increasingly recognised since the text was -first published by Tomás Antonio Sánchez in 1779.</p> - -<p>The interest in the literary monuments of the Middle -Ages was not then what it is now. We are talking of a -period more than half a century before any French <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chanson -de geste</cite> was printed, and the taste for mediævalism had -still to be created. The Spanish poet, Quintana, who died -only fifty years ago, and was a lad when the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> -was published, could see nothing to admire in it; and yet -Quintana’s taste in literature was far more catholic than -that of most of his contemporaries. Still the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite> slowly -made its way in the world of letters. One illustration will -suffice to show that it was closely studied within a few -years of its appearance in print. John Hookham Frere, -the British Minister at Madrid, read the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> on -the recommendation of the Marqués de la Romana, who -had praised it as ‘the most animated and highly poetical as -well as the most ancient and curious poem in the language.’ -In verse 2348 of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Aun vea el hora que vos merezca dos tanto—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">the curt reply of Pero Bermuez to the Infantes of Carrión—Frere -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>proposed to read <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">merezcades</em> for <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">merezca dos</em>, and -his conjectural emendation was approved by Romana to -whom alone he mentioned it. Some years later Romana -was destined to hear it again in striking circumstances. -He was then serving with the French in Denmark, and it -became necessary for Frere to communicate with him confidentially. -It was indispensable that Frere’s messenger -should be fully accredited; it was of the utmost importance -that, in case of arrest, he should not be found in possession -of any paper which might suggest his mission. The emended -verse of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite>, easily remembered, formed his -sole credentials. Romana at once knew that the agent must -come from Frere, who—apart from his fragmentary translation -of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite>, now superseded by Ormsby’s version—thus -began in a small amateurish way the work of critical -reconstitution which has been continued by Damas-Hinard -and Bello, by Cornu and Restori, by Vollmöller and Lidforss, -by Sr. D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal and Mr. Archer Milton -Huntington.</p> - -<p>Thanks to these and other scholars whose labours cannot -be adequately acknowledged by any formal compliment, -the text of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> has been purged of many -corruptions, and made vastly more intelligible. But there -are still problems to be solved in connection with it. What, -for instance, is the relation of the Spanish epic to the -French? The ‘patriotic bias’ should have no place in -historical or literary judgments, but this is a counsel of -perfection. Scholars are extremely human, and experience -shows that the ‘patriotic bias’ often intrudes itself unseasonably -in their work. In writing of the French <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chansons de -geste</em>, Gaston Paris says:—<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">‘L’Espagne s’en inspirait dès le -milieu du XII<sup>e</sup> siècle pour chanter le Cid, et composait, -même sur les sujets carolingiens des <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantares de gesta</em> dont -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>quelques débris se retrouvent dans les <em>romances</em> du XV<sup>e</sup> -siècle.’</span> Rightly interpreted, this is a fair statement of the -case. But earlier French scholars inclined to exaggerate -the amount of Spain’s indebtedness to France in this respect, -and—by a not unnatural reaction—there is a tendency -among the younger generation of Spanish scholars to -minimise it. We are not called upon to take part in this -contention of wits: we are not concerned here to-day with -ingenious special pleas, but with facts.</p> - -<p>It is a fact that the earliest extant French <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chanson de -geste</em> was in existence a century before the earliest extant -Spanish <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantar de gesta</em>: it is also a fact that the French -version of Roland’s story was widely diffused in Spain at an -early date. It was there recorded in the forged chronicle -ascribed to Archbishop Turpin, and it filtered down to the -masses who heard it from French pilgrims on the road to -the shrine of St. James at Santiago de Compostela. Among -these pilgrims were French <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">trouvères</em>, and through them the -Spaniards became acquainted with the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chanson de Roland</cite>. -It was natural that suggestion should operate in Spain as it -operated in Germany, where Konrad produced his <cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Rolandslied</cite> -about the year 1130. There is at least a strong presumption -that the author of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> had heard -the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chanson de Roland</cite>. Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo, whose -patriotism and fine literary sense make him a witness above -suspicion, admits that there is a marked resemblance between -the battle-scenes in the two poems, and further allows that -there are cases of verbal coincidence which cannot be accidental. -We may therefore agree with Gaston Paris that -the author of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> found his inspiration in the -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chanson de Roland</cite>: that is to say, the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chanson</em> probably -suggested to him the idea of composing a similar work on -a Spanish theme, and gave him a few secondary details. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>We cannot say less, nor more: except that in subject and -sentiment the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</em> is intensely local.</p> - -<p>As regards its substance, the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</em> is intermediate between -history and fable. There is no respect for chronology; -one personage is mistaken for a namesake; the Cid’s -daughters, whose real names were Cristina and María, are -called Elvira and Sol, and are provided with husbands to -whom they were never married in fact, but who may have -been maliciously introduced (as Dozy surmised) to exhibit -the Leonese in an odious light. It is the office of an epic -poet to exalt his hero, and to belittle that hero’s enemies; -you might as reasonably look for perfect execution in the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> as for judicial impartiality. Apart from -freaks which may be due to bad copying, we accept the -fact that the metre is capricious, fluctuating between lines -of fourteen and sixteen syllables: we must also accept the -fact that history fares no better than metre, and often fares -worse. Yet the spirit of the poet is not consciously unhistorical; -he conveys the impression of believing in the -truth of his own story. There is an accent of deep -sincerity from the outset, in what—owing to mutilation—is -now the beginning of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</em>, a passage recording the -exile of the Cid:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">With tearful eyes he turned to gaze upon the wreck behind:</div> -<div class="line">His rifled coffers, bursten gates, all open to the wind:</div> -<div class="line">No mantle left, nor robe of fur: stript bare his castle hall:</div> -<div class="line">Nor hawk nor falcon in the mew, the perches empty all.</div> -<div class="line">Then forth in sorrow went my Cid, and a deep sigh sighed he;</div> -<div class="line">Yet with a measured voice, and calm, my Cid spake loftily—</div> -<div class="line">‘I thank thee, God our Father, thou that dwellest upon high,</div> -<div class="line">I suffer cruel wrong to-day, but of mine enemy.’</div> -<div class="line">As they came riding from Bivar the crow was on the right,</div> -<div class="line">By Burgos gate, upon the left, the crow was there in sight.</div> -<div class="line">My Cid he shrugged his shoulders, and he lifted up his head:</div> -<div class="line">‘Good tidings, Alvar Fáñez! we are banished men!’ he said.</div> -<div class="line"><span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span>With sixty lances in his train my Cid rode up the town,</div> -<div class="line">The burghers and their dames from all the windows looking down;</div> -<div class="line">And there were tears in every eye, and on each lip one word:</div> -<div class="line">‘A worthy vassal—would to God he served a worthy Lord!’</div> -<div class="line">Fain would they shelter him, but none dared yield to his desire.</div> -<div class="line">Great was the fear through Burgos town of King Alfonso’s ire.</div> -<div class="line">Sealed with his royal seal hath come his letter to forbid</div> -<div class="line">All men to offer harbourage or succour to my Cid.</div> -<div class="line">And he that dared to disobey, well did he know the cost—</div> -<div class="line">His goods, his eyes, stood forfeited, his soul and body lost.</div> -<div class="line">A hard and grievous word was that to men of Christian race;</div> -<div class="line">And since they might not greet my Cid, they hid them from his face.</div> -<div class="line">He rode to his own mansion gates; shut firm and fast they were,</div> -<div class="line">Such the King’s rigour, save by force, he might not enter there.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>We cannot tell how the poem began in its complete state. -Some scholars think that what is missing was merely a short -unimportant prelude; others believe that the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite>, -as we have it, is but the ending of a vast epic. It must -have been vast indeed, for the fragment that survives -amounts to 3735 lines; the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chanson de Roland</cite> consists of -4001 lines, and it seems improbable that the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</em> was -much longer. At any rate, it is difficult to imagine a more -spirited opening than that which chance has given us. The -Cid is introduced at a critical moment, misjudged, calumniated, -a loyal subject driven from his own Castilian home by -an ungrateful Leonese king. There is something spacious -in the atmosphere, there is a stately simplicity even in the -deliberate repetition of conventional epithet—‘the Castilian,’ -‘he who was born in a good hour,’ ‘the good one of Bivar,’ -‘my Cid,’ and rarely—very rarely—‘the Cid.’ The poet -lauds his hero, as he should, but does not degrade him by -fulsome eulogy; he is in touch with realities. He seems to -feel that the Cid is great enough to afford to have the truth -told about him; with engaging simplicity the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</em> relates -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span>how the crafty chief imposed on the two Jews, Raquel and -Vidas, by depositing with them two chests purporting to -be full of gold (but really containing sand), and how he -fraudulently borrowed six hundred marks on this worthless -security. In the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite>, a passage founded on a -re-cast of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</em> represents the Cid as refunding the -money, and in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero general</cite> of 1602 an anonymous -ballad-writer excused the trickery on the plea that the -chests contained the gold of the Cid’s truth:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">No habeis fiado</div> -<div class="line">vuestro dinero por prendas,</div> -<div class="line">mas solo del Cid honrado,</div> -<div class="line">que dentro de aquestos cofres</div> -<div class="line">os dejó depositado</div> -<div class="line">el oro de su verdad,</div> -<div class="line">que es tesoro no preciado.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But there is neither casuistry nor other-worldliness in the -primitive poet. He clearly looks upon the incident as a -normal business transaction, describes the Cid as postponing -payment when the Jews put in their claim, and sees no inconsistency -between this passage and an earlier one which -vouches for the Cid’s fine sense of honour. We read that -the Count of Barcelona, on his release,</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i4">spurred his steed; but, as he rode, a backward glance he bent</div> -<div class="line">Still fearing to the last my Cid his promise would repent:</div> -<div class="line">A thing, the world itself to win, my Cid would not have done;</div> -<div class="line">No perfidy was ever found in him, the Perfect One.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">No doubt the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> is very unequal. Too often -it degenerates into tracts of arid prose divided into lines of -irregular length with a final monotonous assonance: there -are too many deserts dotted with matter-of-fact details, names -of insignificant places, and the like. But the poet recovers -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span>himself, glows with local patriotism when recording a gallant -feat, and humanises his story with traits of gentler sympathy—as -when describing the parting of the Cid from Jimena -and his daughters at the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña. -And the Spanish <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">juglar</em> has the faculty of rapid, dramatic -presentation. His secondary personages are made visible -with a few swift strokes—the learned Bishop Jerónimo who, -attracted by the Cid’s fame as a fighter, comes from afar -(‘de parte de orient’), and would almost as soon miss a Mass -as a battle with the Moors; the grim Alvar Fáñez, the Cid’s -right arm, his ‘diestro braço’ as Roland was Charlemagne’s -‘destre braz’; the Cid’s nephew, Félez Muñoz, always at -the post of danger; the stolid, inscrutable Pero Bermuez, -the standard-bearer whose habitual muteness is transformed -into eloquent invective when the hour comes for denouncing -the poltroonery of the Infantes of Carrión; and even these -fictitious rascals have an air of plausibility and life. In the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> we meet for the first time with that forcible -realistic touch, that alert vision, that intense impression of -the thing seen and accurately observed which give to -Spanish literature its peculiar stamp of authenticity. And -the poem ends on an exultant note with a pæan over the -defeat of the imaginary Infantes of Carrión, the really historical -betrothal of the Cid’s daughters, and the triumphant -passing of the Cid, reconciled to the King:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">And he that in a good hour was born, behold how he hath sped!</div> -<div class="line">His daughters now to higher rank and greater honour wed:</div> -<div class="line">Sought by Navarre and Aragon for queens his daughters twain!</div> -<div class="line">And monarchs of his blood to-day upon the throne of Spain.</div> -<div class="line">And so his honour in the land grows greater day by day.</div> -<div class="line">Upon the feast of Pentecost from life he passed away.</div> -<div class="line">For him and all of us the grace of Christ let us implore.</div> -<div class="line">And here ye have the story of my Cid Campeador.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span></p> - -<p>The <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</em> is the oldest and most important existing epic -on the Cid, but there is ample proof that his deeds were -sung in other <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantares de gesta</cite> of early date—earlier than -the compilation of Alfonso the Learned’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite>, -which was finished in 1268. Recent investigations place -this beyond doubt. It was long supposed that the chapters -on the Cid in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite> were largely derived from -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite>, but Sr. D. Ramón Menéndez Pidal’s researches -into the history of the text of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite> have -shown that this view is untenable. The printed text of the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite>, issued by Florián de Ocampo at Zamora in -1541, is not what it was thought to be—namely, the original -compiled by order of Alfonso the Learned: it lies at three -removes from that original, and this fact throws new light -on the history of epic poetry in Spain. Briefly stated, the -results of the recent researches are these: the First <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica -general</cite> was utilised in another chronicle compiled in 1344; -this Second <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite> was condensed in an abridgment -which has disappeared; this last abridgment of the Second -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite> is now represented by three derivatives—the -Third <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite> issued by Ocampo, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica de -Castilla</cite>, and the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica de Veinte Reyes</cite>. And it is further -established that pre-existing <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantares de gesta</cite> on the Cid were -utilised in the chronicles as follows: the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> -(from verse 1094 onwards) was used only in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica de -Veinte Reyes</cite>, while what concerns the Cid in the first <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica -general</cite> comes principally—not (as was believed) from the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> as we know it, but—from another epic, no -longer in existence, which began and continued in very -much the same way as the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite> for about 1250 lines, -where the resemblance ended. The chapters on the Cid in -the Second <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite> derive mainly from another -vanished <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantar de gesta</cite> which coincided to some extent with -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span>a surviving epic on the Cid known as the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica rimada</cite>, or -(less generally) as the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cantar de Rodrigo</cite>.</p> - -<p>This <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica rimada</cite>, apparently written by a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">juglar</em> in the -diocese of Palencia, was thought by Dozy to be older than -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite>, and Dozy has been made to feel his -error. But let us not reproach him, as though we were -infallible. Dozy undeniably overestimated the age of the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica rimada</cite> as a whole; still the critical instinct of this -great scholar led him to conclude that it was a composite -work, that its component parts were not all of the same -period, and (a conclusion afterwards confirmed by Milá y -Fontanals) that the passage relating to King Fernando -(v. 758 ff.)—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">El buen rey don Fernando par fue de emperador—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">is the oldest fragment embodied in the text. In these -respects Dozy’s views are admitted to be correct. The -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica rimada</cite>, which in its present form is assigned to -about the end of the fourteenth century, is an amalgam of -diverse and inappropriate materials, and scarcely deserves to -be regarded as an original poem at all. If it is probable -that the author of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite> had heard the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chanson -de Roland</cite>, it is still more probable that the author of the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica rimada</cite> had heard <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Garin le Lohérain</cite>. Not only does -he incorporate part of a lost <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantar de gesta</cite> on King -Fernando; he borrows from other lost Spanish epics, from -the existing <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del Cid</cite>, from degraded oral traditions, -and perhaps from foreign sources not yet identified. The -patchwork is a poor thing pieced together by an imitator -who has lost the secret of the primitive epic, and insincerely -commemorates exploits which he must have known to be -fabulous—such as the Cid’s expedition to France, and his -triumph under the walls of Paris. But, though greatly -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>inferior to the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite>, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica rimada</cite> is interesting in -substance and manner. It includes primitive versions of -legends which, in more refined and elaborate forms, were -destined to become famous throughout Europe: the quarrel -between the Cid’s father and Count Gómez de Gormaz (not -in consequence of a blow, or anything connected with an -extravagantly artificial code of honour, but over a matter of -sheep-stealing); the death of the Count at the hands of the -Cid, not yet thirteen years of age; and the marriage of the -Count’s daughter Jimena to her father’s slayer, who is -represented as a reluctant bridegroom:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Ally despossavan a doña Ximena Gomes con Rodrigo el Castellano.</div> -<div class="line">Rodrigo respondió muy sannudo contra el rey Castellano:</div> -<div class="line">Señor, vos me despossastes mas a mi pessar que de grado.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The Cid in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite> is a loyal subject, faithful to his -alien King under extreme provocation. In the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica -rimada</cite> he is transformed into a haughty, turbulent feudal -baron, more like the Cid of the later Spanish ballads or -<em>romances</em>; and it is worth noting that the irregular versification -of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica rimada</cite>, in which lines of sixteen syllables -predominate, approximates roughly to the metre of the -<em>romances</em>, to which I shall return in a later lecture. For the -moment it is enough to say that by 1612 there were enough -ballads on the Cid to form a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romancero</em>, and that in the most -complete modern collection they amount to 205. Southey -and Ormsby, both ardent admirers of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite>, thought that -the <em>romances</em> on the Cid impressed ‘more by their number than -their light,’ and no doubt these ballads vary greatly in merit. -But a few are really admirable—such as the <em>romance</em> adapted -with masterly skill by Lope de Vega in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las Almenas de Toro</cite>.</p> - -<p>The mention of this great dramatist reminds one that -the Cid underwent another transformation in the theatre. -Guillén de Castro introduced him in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las Mocedades del Cid</cite> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span>as the central figure in a dramatic conflict between love and -filial duty; Corneille took over the situation, and created a -masterpiece which completely overshadowed Castro’s play. -The names of other dramatists who treated the same theme -are very properly forgotten: another great dramatisation of -the Cid’s story is about as likely as another great dramatisation -of the story of Romeo and Juliet. But the poetic -possibilities of the Cid legend are inexhaustible. Nearly -fifty years ago Victor Hugo, then in the noontide of his -incomparable genius, reincarnated the primitive Cid in the -first series of <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La Légende des siècles</cite>. Who can forget the -impression left by the first reading of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Quand le Cid fut entré -dans le Généralife</cite>, by the sixteen poems which form the -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Romancero du Cid</cite>, by the interview between the Cid and the -sheik Jabias in <em>Bivar</em>, and by that wonder of symbolism <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le -Cid exilé</cite>? It is as unhistorical as you please, but marvellous -for its grandiose vision and haunting music:—</p> - -<div lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Et, dans leur antichambre, on entend quelquefois</div> -<div class="line">Les pages, d’une voix féminine et hautaine,</div> -<div class="line">Dire:—Ah oui-da, le Cid! c’était un capitaine</div> -<div class="line">D’alors. Vit-il encor, ce Campéador-là?</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The question was soon answered. Within three years a -fiercer—perhaps a more melodramatic—aspect of the Cid was -revealed by Leconte de Lisle in three pieces which contributed -to the sombre splendour of the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Poèmes barbares</cite>, -and now appear among the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Poèmes tragiques</cite>; and thirty years -later, in our own day, José Maria de Heredia, the Benvenuto -of French verse, included a figure of the Cid among his -glittering <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Trophées</em>. These three are masters of their craft, -and one of them is the greatest poet of his time; but their -puissant art has not superseded the virile creation of the -nameless, candid, patriotic singer who wrote the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema del -Cid</cite> some eight hundred years ago.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER II<br /><br /> - -<small>THE ARCHPRIEST OF HITA</small></h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Many</span> of the earliest poems extant in Castilian are anonymous, -impersonal compositions, more or less imitative. The -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Misterio de los Reyes Magos</cite>, for instance, is suggested by -a Latin Office used at Orleans; the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de Apolonio</cite>, the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Vida de Santa María Egipciacqua</cite>, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro dels tres Reyes -dorient</cite>, and the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de Alixandre</cite> are from French sources. -French influence is likewise visible in the work of Gonzalo -de Berceo, the earliest Spanish poet whose name we know -for certain; writing in the first half of the thirteenth -century, Berceo draws largely on the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Miracles de Nostre -Dame</cite>, a collection of edifying legends versified by Gautier -de Coinci, Prior of the monastery at Vic-sur-Aisne. As -Gautier died in 1236, the speed with which his version of -these pious stories passed from France to Spain goes to -show that literary communication had already been -established between the two countries. At one time or -another during the Middle Ages all Western Europe -followed the French lead in literature. From about 1130, -when Konrad wrote his <cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Rolandslied</cite>, French influence -prevailed in Germany for a century, affecting poets so considerable -as Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, -and Gottfried von Strassburg. French influence was -dominant in Italy from before the reign of Frederick II., -the patron of the Provençal poets and the chief of the -Sicilian school of poetry, till the coming of Dante; French -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span>versions of tales of Troy, Alexander, Cæsar and Charlemagne -were translated; so also were French versions of the -Arthurian legend, as we gather from the celebrated passage -in the fifth canto of the <cite lang="it" xml:lang="it">Inferno</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="it" xml:lang="it"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante:</div> -<div class="line">Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse:</div> -<div class="line">Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">You all know that French influence was most noticeable in -England from Layamon’s time to Chaucer’s, and that -Chaucer himself, besides translating part of the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Roman de -la Rose</cite>, borrowed hints from Guillaume de Machault and -Oton de Granson—two minor poets whose works, by the -way, were treasured by the Marqués de Santillana, of whom -I shall have something to say in the next lecture. Wherever -we turn at this period, sooner or later we shall find -that French literature has left its mark. Scandinavian -scholars inform us that the <cite>Strengleikar</cite> includes translations -of Marie de France’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">lais</cite>; and <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Floire et Blanchefleur</cite> was also -done into Icelandic at the beginning of the fourteenth -century when the Archpriest of Hita—who refers appreciatively -to this French romance—was still young. Jean -Bodel’s well-worn couplet is a trite statement of fact:—</p> - -<div lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Ne sont que trois matières à nul homme attendant,</div> -<div class="line">De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome le grant.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>This rapid summary is enough to prove that Spain, in -copying French originals, was doing no more than other -countries. The work of her early singers has the interest -which attaches to every new literary experiment, but the -great mass of it necessarily lacks originality and force. It -was not until the fourteenth century was fairly advanced -that Spain produced two authors of unmistakable individual -genius. One of these was the Infante Don Juan Manuel, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span>the earliest prose-writer of real distinction in Castilian, -and the other was Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita, near -Guadalajara. We know scarcely anything certain about -Ruiz except his name and status which he gives incidentally -when invoking the divine assistance in writing his work:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">E por que de todo bien es comienço e rays</div> -<div class="line">la virgen santa marja por ende yo Joan Rroys</div> -<div class="line">açipreste de fita della primero fis</div> -<div class="line">cantar de los sus goços siete que ansi dis.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">In one of the manuscripts<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">2</a> which contain his poems, his -messenger Trotaconventos seems to state his birthplace:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Fija, mucho vos saluda uno que es de Alcalá.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">It has been inferred from this that the Archpriest was a -native of Alcalá de Henares, and therefore a fellow-townsman -of Cervantes. It is possible that he may have been, -but the Gayoso manuscript gives a variant on the reading in -the Salamanca manuscript:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Fija, mucho vos saluda uno que mora en Alcalá.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The truth is that we do not know where and when Juan -Ruiz was born, nor where and when he died. It is thought -that he was born towards the end of the thirteenth -century, and Sr. Puyol y Alonso in his interesting monograph -suggests 1283 as a likely date: but these are conjectures. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> -Many persons, however, find it difficult to resign themselves -to humble agnosticism, and, by drawing on imagination -for fact, endeavour to construct what we may call hypothetical -biographies. Ruiz is an unpromising subject, yet -he has not escaped altogether. A writer of comparatively -modern date—Francisco de Torres, author of an unpublished -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Historia de Guadalajara</cite>—alleges that the Archpriest was -living at Guadalajara in 1410. It is difficult to reconcile -this statement with the assertion made by Alfonso Paratinén -who seems to have been the copyist of the Salamanca -manuscript. At the end of his copy Paratinén writes: -‘This is the Archpriest of Hita’s book which he composed, -being imprisoned by order of the Cardinal Don Gil, Archbishop -of Toledo.’ This refers to Don Gil de Albornoz, an -able, pushing prelate who was Archbishop of Toledo from -1337 till his death in 1367. It is known that Don Gil de -Albornoz was exiled from Spain by Peter the Cruel in 1350, -and that on January 7, 1351, one Pedro Fernández had -succeeded Juan Ruiz as Archpriest of Hita. Now, according -to stanza 1634 in the Salamanca manuscript, Ruiz -finished his work in 1381 of the Spanish Era:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Era de mjll e tresjentos e ochenta e vn años</div> -<div class="line">fue conpuesto el rromançe, por muchos males e daños</div> -<div class="line">que fasen muchos e muchas aotras con sus engaños</div> -<div class="line">e por mostrar alos synplex fablas e versos estraños.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">The year 1381 of the Spanish Era corresponds to 1343 -in our reckoning, and we may accept the statement in the -text that Juan Ruiz wrote his poem at this date. We may -further take it that the poem was written in jail. We -might refuse to believe this on the sole authority of Alfonso -Paratinén whose copy was not made till the end of the -fourteenth (or the beginning of the fifteenth) century; but -the copyist is corroborated by the author who, in each of -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> -his first three stanzas, begs God to free him from the prison -in which he lies:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">libra Amj dios desta presion do yago.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>It is reasonable to assume that Juan Ruiz was well past -middle age when he wrote his book; hence it is almost -incredible that, as Torres states, he survived his imprisonment -by nearly sixty years. There is nothing, except the -absence of proof, against the current theory that the Archpriest -died in prison—possibly at Toledo—shortly before -January 7, 1351, when Pedro Fernández took his place at -Hita; but there is nothing, except the same absence of -proof, against a counter-theory that he was released before -this date, that he followed Don Gil Albornoz into exile, and -that he died at Avignon. All such theories are, I repeat, -in the nature of hypothetical biography. We have no data, -and are left to ramble in the field of conjecture.</p> - -<p>Some idea of the Archpriest’s personality may, however, -be gathered from his work. We are not told how long he -was in jail, nor what his offence was. He himself declares -in his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cántica, de loores de Santa María</cite> that his punishment -was unjust:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Santa virgen escogida ...</div> -<div class="line">del mundo salud e vida ...</div> -<div class="line">de aqueste dolor que siento</div> -<div class="line">en presion syn meresçer,</div> -<div class="line">tu me deña estorcer</div> -<div class="line">con el tu deffendjmjento.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>His testimony in his own favour is not conclusive. -Possibly, as Sr. Puyol y Alonso suggests, Juan Ruiz may -have offended some of the upper clergy by ridiculing them -in much the same way as he satirises the Dean and Chapter -in his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cántica de los clérigos de Talavera</cite> where influential -dignitaries are most disrespectfully mentioned by name, or -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span> -perhaps made recognisable under transparent pseudonyms. -The Archpriest is more likely to have been imprisoned for -some such indiscretion than for loose living. Clerical -morality was at a low point in Spain during the fourteenth -century, and, though Juan Ruiz was a disreputable cleric, -he was no worse than many of his brethren. But he was -certainly no better than most of them. His first editor, -Tomás Antonio Sánchez, acting against the remonstrances -of Jove-Llanos and the Spanish Academy of History, contrived -to lend Juan Ruiz a false air of respectability by -omitting from the text some objectionable passages and -by bowdlerising others. Sánchez did not foresee that his -good intentions would be frustrated by José Amador de los -Ríos, who thoughtfully collected the scandalous stanzas -which had been omitted, and printed them by themselves -in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Ilustraciones</cite> to the fourth volume of his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Historia de la -literatura española</cite>. If Sánchez had made Juan Ruiz seem -better than he was, Ríos made him seem worse. Yet Ríos -had succeeded somehow in persuading himself that Juan -Ruiz was an excellent man who voluntarily became ‘a holocaust -of the moral idea which he championed.’ Few who -read the Archpriest’s poem are likely to share this view. It -would be an exaggeration to say that he was an unbeliever, -for, though he indulges in irreverent parodies of the liturgy, -his verses to the Blessed Virgin are unmistakably sincere; -he was a criminous clerk like many of his contemporaries -who had taken orders as the easiest means of gaining a -livelihood; but, unlike these jovial goliards, the sensual -Archpriest had the temperament of a poet as well as the -tastes of a satyr. It is as a poet that he interests us, as the -author of a work the merits of which can scarcely be overestimated -as regards its ironical, picaresque presentation -of scenes of clerical and lay life. The Archpriest was no -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span> -literary fop, but he was dimly aware that he had left behind -him a work that would keep his memory alive:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">ffis vos pequeno libro de testo, mas la glosa,</div> -<div class="line">non creo que es chica antes es byen grand prosa,</div> -<div class="line">que sobre cada fabla se entyende otra cosa,</div> -<div class="line">syn la que se alega en la rason fermosa.</div> -<div class="line i1">De la santidat mucha es byen grand lycionario,</div> -<div class="line">mas de juego e de burla chico breujario,</div> -<div class="line">per ende fago punto e çierro mj almario,</div> -<div class="line">sea vos chica fabla solas e letuario.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The very name of his book, which has but recently -become available in a satisfactory form, has long been -doubtful. About a century after it was written, Alfonso -Martínez de Toledo, the Archpriest of Talavera, called it a -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Tratado</cite>; a few years later than the Archpriest of Talavera, -Santillana referred to it curtly as the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro del Arcipreste de -Hita</cite>; Sánchez entitled it <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poesías</cite> when he issued it in 1790, -and Florencio Janer republished it in 1864 as the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de -Cantares</cite>. But, as Wolf pointed out in 1831,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">3</a> Ruiz himself -speaks of it as the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite>. However, we do -not act with any indecent haste in these matters, and it -was not till just seventy years later that Wolf’s hint was -taken by M. Ducamin. We can at last read the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de -buen amor</cite> more or less as Ruiz wrote it; or, rather, we -can read the greater part of it, for fragments are missing, -some passages having been removed from the manuscripts, -perhaps by over-modest readers. Yet much remains to do. -A diplomatic edition is valuable, but it is only an instalment -of what we need. If any one amongst you is in search of a -tough piece of work, he can do no better for himself and us -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span> -than by preparing a critical edition of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite> -with a commentary and—above all—a vocabulary.</p> - -<p>The Archpriest of Hita was an original genius, but his -originality consists in his personal attitude towards life and -in his handling of old material. No literary genius, however -great, can break completely with the past, and the Archpriest -underwent the influence of his predecessors at home. -It is the fashion nowadays to say that he was not learned, -and no doubt he poses at times as a simpering provincial -ignoramus, especially as regards ecclesiastical doctrine and -discipline:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Escolar so mucho rrudo, njn maestro njn doctor,</div> -<div class="line">aprendi e se poco para ser demostrador.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But the Archpriest does not wish to be taken at his word, -and, to prevent any possible misunderstanding, in almost the -next breath he slyly advises his befooled reader to consult -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Espéculo</cite> as well as</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">los libros de ostiense, que son grand parlatorio,</div> -<div class="line">el jnocençio quarto, vn sotil consistorio,</div> -<div class="line">el rrosario de guido, nouela e diratorio.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">He dabbles in astrology, notes (with something like a -wink) that a man’s fate is ruled by the planet under which -he is born, and cites Ptolemy and Plato to support a theory -which is so comfortable an excuse for his own pleasant vices. -We shall see that he knew much of what was best worth -knowing in French literature, and that he knew something -of colloquial Arabic appears from the Moorish girl’s replies -to Trotaconventos. Probably enough his allusions to Plato -and Aristotle imply nothing more solid in the way of -learning than Chaucer’s allusion to Pythagoras in <cite>The Book -of the Duchesse</cite>. Still he seems to have known Latin, -French, Arabic, and perhaps Italian, besides his native -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span> -language, and we cannot lay stress on his ignorance without -appearing to reflect disagreeably on the clergy of to-day. -The Archpriest was not, of course, a mediæval scholiast, -much less an exact scholar in the modern sense; but, for -a man whose lot was cast in an insignificant village, his -reading and general culture were far above the average. -A brief examination of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite> will make -this clear: it will also show that the Archpriest had qualities -more enviable than all the learning in the world.</p> - -<p>He opens with forty lines invoking the blessing of God -upon his work, and then he descends suddenly into prose, -quoting copiously from Scripture, insisting on the purity of -his motives, and asserting that his object is to warn men and -women against foolish or unhallowed love. Having lulled -the suspicions of uneasy readers with this unctuous preamble, -he parenthetically observes: ‘Still, as it is human nature to -sin, in case any should choose to indulge in foolish love -(which I do not advise), various methods of the same will be -found set out here.’ After thus disclosing his real intention, -he announces his desire to show by example how every -detail of poetry should be executed artistically—<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">segund que -esta çiencia requiere</cite>—and returns to verse. He again commends -his work to God, celebrates the joys of Our Lady, -and then proceeds to write a sort of picaresque novel in -the metre known as the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">mester de clerecía</cite>—a quatrain of -monorhymed alexandrines.</p> - -<p>The Archpriest begins by quoting Dionysius Cato<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">4</a> to the -effect that, though man may have his trials, he should -cultivate a spirit of gaiety. And, as no man in his wits can -laugh without cause, Juan Ruiz undertakes to provide entertainment, -but hopes that he may not be misunderstood as -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span> -was the Greek when he argued with the Roman. This -allusion gives the writer his opportunity, and he relates a -story which recalls the episode of Panurge’s argument with -Thaumaste, ‘ung grand clerc d’Angleterre.’ Briefly, the -tale is this. When the Romans besought the Greeks to -grant them laws, they were required to prove themselves -worthy of the privilege, and, as the difference of language -made verbal discussion impossible, it was agreed that the -debate should be carried on by signs (Thaumaste, you may -remember, preferred signs because ‘les matières sont tant -ardues, que les parolles humaines ne seroyent suffisantes à -les expliquer à mon plaisir’). The Greek champion was a -master of all learning, while the Romans were represented -by an illiterate ragamuffin dressed in a doctor’s gown. The -sage held up one finger, the lout held up his thumb and -two fingers; the sage stretched out his open hand, the lout -shook his fist violently. This closed the argument, for the -wise Greek hastily admitted that the Roman claim was -justified. On being asked to interpret the gestures which -had perplexed the multitude, the Greek replied: ‘I said -that there was one God, the Roman answered that there -were three Persons in one God, and made the corresponding -sign; I said that everything was governed by God’s will, the -Roman answered that the whole world was in God’s power, -and he spoke truly; seeing that they understood and -believed in the Trinity, I agreed that they were worthy -to receive laws.’ The Roman’s interpretation differed -materially: ‘He held up one finger, meaning that he would -poke my eye out; as this infuriated me, I answered by -threatening to gouge both his eyes out with my two fingers, -and smash his teeth with my thumb; he held out his open -palm, meaning that he would deal me such a cuff as would -make my ears tingle; I answered back that I would give -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span> -him such a punch as he would never forget as long as he -lived.’ The humour is distinctly primitive, but Juan Ruiz -bubbles over with contagious merriment as he rhymes the -tale, and goes on to warn the reader against judging anything—more -especially the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite>—by appearances:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">la bulrra que oyeres non la tengas en vil,</div> -<div class="line">la manera del libro entiendela sotil;</div> -<div class="line">que saber bien e mal, desjr encobierto e donegujl,</div> -<div class="line">tu non fallaras vno de trobadores mjll.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>Then, in his digressive way, the Archpriest avers that -man, like the beasts that perish, needs food and a companion -of the opposite sex, adding mischievously that this -opinion, which would be highly censurable if he uttered it, -becomes respectable when held by Aristotle.</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Como dise Aristotiles, cosa es verdadera,</div> -<div class="line">el mundo por dos cosas trabaja: por la primera</div> -<div class="line">por aver mantenençia; la otra cosa era</div> -<div class="line">por aver juntamjento con fenbra plasentera.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line i1">Sylo dixiese de mjo, seria de culpar;</div> -<div class="line">diselo grand filosofo, non so yo de rebtar;</div> -<div class="line">delo que dise el sabio non deuemos dubdar,</div> -<div class="line">que por obra se prueva el sabio e su fablar.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>Next the Archpriest, confessing himself to be a man of -sin like the rest of us, relates how he was once in love with -a Lady of Quality (too wary to be trapped by gifts) who -rebuffed his messenger by saying that men were deceivers -ever, and by quoting from ‘Ysopete’ an adaptation of -the fable concerning the mountain in labour. The form -‘Ysopete’ suggests that the Archpriest used some French -version of Æsop or Phaedrus, though not that of Marie -de France, in whose translation (as edited by Warnke) this -particular fable does not appear.</p> - -<p>Undaunted by this check, the Archpriest does not lose -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span> -his equanimity, reflects how greatly Solomon was in the -right in saying that all is vanity, and determines to speak no -ill of the coy dame, since women are, after all, the most -delightful of creatures:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">mucho seria villano e torpe pajes</div> -<div class="line">sy dela muger noble dixiese cosa rrefes,</div> -<div class="line">ca en muger loçana, fermosa e cortes,</div> -<div class="line">todo bien del mundo e todo plaser es.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>A less squeamish beauty—<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">otra non santa</cite>—attracted the -fickle Archpriest, who wrote for her a <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">troba cazurra</cite>, and -employed Ferrand García as go-between. García courted -the facile fair on his own account, and left Juan Ruiz to -swear (as he does roundly) at a second fiasco. However, -the Archpriest philosophically remarks that man cannot -escape his fate, and illustrates this by telling how a Moorish -king named Alcarás called in five astrologists to cast his -son’s horoscope: all five predicted different catastrophes, -and all five proved to be right. Comically enough, Juan -Ruiz remembers at this point that he is a priest, disclaims -all sympathy with fatalistic doctrine, and smugly adds that -he believes in predestination only so far as it is compatible -with the Catholic faith. But he forgets his orthodoxy as -conveniently as he remembered it, rejoices that he was born -under the sign of Venus (a beautifying planet which not -only keeps young men young, but takes years off the old), -and, since even the hardest pear ripens at last, he hopes -for better luck. Yet he is disappointed in his attempt to -beguile another Lady of Quality who proves to be (so to -say) a <em>bonâ fide</em> holder for value, and the recital of this third -misadventure ends with the fable of the thief and the dog.</p> - -<p>At this point his neighbour Don Amor or Love comes to -visit the chagrined Archpriest, and is angrily reproached for -promising much and doing little beyond enfeebling man’s -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> -mental and physical powers—a point exemplified by a -Spanish variant of that most indecorous <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fableau</cite>, the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Valet -aux douze femmes</cite>. After listening to fable upon fable, -introduced to prove that he is in alliance with the Seven -Deadly Sins, Love gently explains to the Archpriest that he -is wrong to flare into a heat, that he has attempted to fly -too high, that fine ladies are not for him, that he should -study the Art of Love as expounded by Pamphilus and Ovid, -that beauty is more than rank, and that he should enlist the -services of an ingratiating old woman. Love quotes the -tale of the two idlers who wished to marry, supplements this -with the obscene story of Don Pitas Payas, and recommends -the Archpriest to put money in his purse when he goes -a-wooing. Part of this passage may be quoted in Gibson’s -rendering:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">O money meikle doth, and in luve hath meikle fame,</div> -<div class="line">It maketh the rogue a worthy wight, a carle of honest name,</div> -<div class="line">It giveth a glib tongue to the dumb, snell feet unto the lame,</div> -<div class="line">And he who lacketh both his hands will clutch it all the same.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">A man may be a gawkie loon, and eke a hirnless brute,</div> -<div class="line">But money makes him gentleman, and learnit clerk to boot;</div> -<div class="line">For as his money bags do swell, so waxeth his repute,</div> -<div class="line">But he whose purse has naught intill’t, must wear a beggar’s suit.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">With money in thy fist thou need’st never lack a friend,0</div> -<div class="line">The Pope will give his benison, and a happy life thou’lt spend,</div> -<div class="line">Thou may’st buy a seat in paradise, and life withouten end,</div> -<div class="line">Where money trickleth plenteouslie there blessings do descend.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">I saw within the Court of Rome, of sanctitie the post,</div> -<div class="line">That money was in great regard, and heaps of friends could boast,</div> -<div class="line">That a’ were warstlin’ to be first to honour it the most,</div> -<div class="line">And curchit laigh, and kneelit down, as if before the Host.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">It maketh Priors, Bishops, and Abbots to arise,</div> -<div class="line">Archbishops, Doctors, Patriarchs, and Potentates likewise,</div> -<div class="line">It giveth Clerics without lair the dignities they prize,</div> -<div class="line">It turneth falsitie to truth, and changeth truth to lies....</div> -<div class="line l7"> <span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span></div> -<div class="line">O Money is a Provost and Judge of sterling weight,</div> -<div class="line">A Councillor the shrewdest, and a subtle Advocate;</div> -<div class="line">A Constable and Bailiff of importance very great,</div> -<div class="line">Of all officers that be, ’tis the mightiest in the state.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">In brief I say to thee, at Money do not frown,</div> -<div class="line">It is the world’s strong lever to turn it upside down,</div> -<div class="line">It maketh the clown a master, the master a glarish clown,</div> -<div class="line">Of all things in the present age it hath the most renown.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Finally Love sets to moralising, and departs after warning -his client against over-indulgence in either white wine or -red, holding up as an awful example the hermit who, -after years of ascetic practices, got drunk for the first -time in his life, and committed atrocious crimes which -brought him to the gallows. The Archpriest ponders over -Love’s seductive precepts, finds that his conduct hitherto -has been in accordance with them, determines to persevere -in the same crooked but pleasant path, and looks forward to -the future with glad confidence. He straightway consults -Love’s wife—Venus—concerning a new passion which (as he -says) he has conceived for Doña Endrina, a handsome young -widow of Calatayud. Whatever may be the case with the -Archpriest’s other love affairs, this episode in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de -buen amor</cite> is imaginative, being an extremely brilliant -hispaniolisation of a dreary Latin play entitled <cite lang="la" xml:lang="la">De Amore</cite>, -ascribed to a misty personage known as Pamphilus Maurilianus—apparently -a monk who lived during the twelfth -century. The old crone of the Latin play reappears in the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite> as Urraca (better recognised by her nickname -of Trotaconventos), Galatea becomes Doña Endrina, -and Pamphilus becomes Don Melón de la Uerta. There are -passages in which Don Melón de la Uerta seems, at first -sight, to be a pseudonym of the Archpriest’s; but the -source of the story is beyond all doubt, for Juan Ruiz -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span> -supplies a virtuous ending, and carefully explains that for -the licentious character of the narrative Pamphilus and -Ovid are responsible:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">doña endrina e don melon en vno casados son,</div> -<div class="line">alegran se las conpañas en las bodas con rrason;</div> -<div class="line">sy vjllanja ha dicho aya de vos perdon,</div> -<div class="line">quelo felo de estoria dis panfilo e nason.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>In order that there may be no misconception on this -point, the Archpriest returns to it later, averring that no -such experience ever befell him personally, and that he -gives the story to set women on their guard against lying -procuresses and bland lechers:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Entyende byen mj estoria dela fija del endrino,</div> -<div class="line">dixela per te dar ensienpro, non por que amj vjno;</div> -<div class="line">guardate de falsa vieja, de rriso de mal vesjno,</div> -<div class="line">sola con ome non te fyes, njn te llegues al espjno.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>He resumes with an account of an enterprise which -narrowly escaped miscarriage owing to a quarrel with Trotaconventos, -to whom he had applied an uncomplimentary -epithet in jest; but, seeing his blunder, he pacified his -tetchy ally, and carried out his plan. Cast down by the -sudden death of his mistress, he consoled himself by writing -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantares cazurros</cite> which delighted all the ladies who read -them (a privilege denied to us, for these compositions are -not included in the existing manuscripts of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen -amor</cite>). Having recovered from his dejection, in the month -of March the Archpriest went holiday-making in the mountains, -where he met with a new type of women whose -coming-on dispositions and robust charms he celebrates -satirically. These <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantigas de serrana</cite>,—slashing parodies on -the Galician <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantos de ledino</cite>,—perhaps the boldest and most -interesting of his metrical experiments, are followed by -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span> -copies of devout verses on Santa María del Vado and on the -Passion of Christ.</p> - -<p>The next transition is equally abrupt. While dining at -Burgos with Don Jueves Lardero (the last Thursday before -Lent), the Archpriest receives a letter from Doña Quaresma -(Lent) exhorting her officials—more especially archpriests -and clerics—to arm for the combat against Don Carnal who -symbolises the meat-eating tendencies prevalent during the -rest of the year. Then follows an allegorical description of -the encounter between Doña Quaresma and Don Carnal -who, after a series of disasters, recovers his supremacy, and -returns in triumph accompanied by Don Amor (Love). On -Easter Sunday Don Amor’s popularity is at its height, and -secular priests, laymen, monks, nuns, ladies and gentlemen, -sally forth in procession to meet him:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Dia era muy ssanto dela pascua mayor,</div> -<div class="line">el sol era salydo muy claro e de noble color;</div> -<div class="line">los omes e las aves e toda noble flor,</div> -<div class="line">todos van rresçebir cantando al amor....</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line i1">Las carreras van llenas de grandes proçesiones,</div> -<div class="line">muchos omes ordenados que otorgan perdones,</div> -<div class="line">los legos segrales con muchos clerisones,</div> -<div class="line">enla proçesion yua el abad de borbones.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line i1">ordenes de çisten conlas de sant benjto,</div> -<div class="line">la orden de crus njego con su abat bendjto,</div> -<div class="line">quantas ordenes son nonlas puse en escripto:</div> -<div class="line">‘¡ venite, exultemus!’ cantan en alto grito....</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line i1">los dela trinjdat conlos frayles del carmen</div> -<div class="line">e los de santa eulalya, por que non se ensanen,</div> -<div class="line">todos manda que digan que canten e que llamen:</div> -<div class="line">‘¡ benedictus qui venjt!’ Responden todos: ‘amen.’</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>Rejecting the invitations of irreverent monks, priests, -knights and nuns, Love lodges with the Archpriest, and sets -up his tent close by till next morning, when he leaves for -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> -Alcalá. The Archpriest becomes enamoured of a rich young -widow, and—later—of a lady whom he saw praying in church -on St. Mark’s Day; but his suit is rejected by both, and his -baffled agent Trotaconventos recommends him to pay his -addresses to a nun. The beldame takes the business in -hand, and finds a listener in Doña Garoza who, after much -verbal fencing and interchange of fables, asks for a description -of her suitor. Thanks to her natural curiosity, we see -Juan Ruiz as he presented himself to Trotaconventos’s (that -is to say, his own) sharp, unflattering sight, and the portrait -is even more precise and realistic than Cervantes’s likeness -of himself. Juan Ruiz was tall, long in the trunk, broad-shouldered -but spare, with a good-sized head set on a thick -neck, dark-haired, sallow-complexioned, wide-mouthed with -rather coarse ruddy lips, long-nosed, with black eyebrows far -apart overhanging small eyes, with a protruding chest, hairy -arms, big-boned wrists, and a neat pair of legs ending in -small feet: though given to strutting like a peacock with -deliberate gait, he was a man of sound sense, deep-voiced, -and a skilled musician:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Es ligero, valiente, byen mançebo de djas,</div> -<div class="line">sabe los instrumentos e todas juglerias,</div> -<div class="line">doñeador alegre para las çapatas mjas,</div> -<div class="line">tal ome como este, non es en todas crias.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>Doña Garoza allows the Archpriest to visit her, makes him -acquainted with the charm of Platonic love—<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">lynpio amor</em>—prays -for his spiritual welfare, and might have persuaded -him to renounce all carnal affections, had she not died -within two months of meeting him. Forgetting her virtuous -teaching, the Archpriest tries to set afoot an intrigue with a -Moorish girl, to whom he sends Trotaconventos with poems; -but his luck is out. The Moorish girl is deaf to his -entreaties, and Trotaconventos is taken from him by death. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span> -Saddened by this loss, and by the thought that many a door -which her ingratiating arts had forced open for him will now -be closed, he utters a long lament over the transitoriness of -mortal life, moralises at large, denounces the inexorable -cruelty of death, and at last resigns himself with the reflection -that the old wanton, who so nobly did such dirty work, -is honourably placed in heaven between two martyrs:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">!ay! mj trota conventos, mj leal verdadera!</div> -<div class="line">muchos te sigujan biua, muerta yazes señera;</div> -<div class="line">¿ado te me han leuado? non cosa çertera;</div> -<div class="line">nunca torna con nueuas quien anda esta carrera.</div> -<div class="line i1">Cyerto, en parayso estas tu assentada,</div> -<div class="line">con dos martyres deues estar aconpañada,</div> -<div class="line">sienpre en este mundo fuste per dos maridada;</div> -<div class="line">¿quien te me rrebato, vieja par mj sienpre lasrada?</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The Archpriest adds an impudent epitaph on Trotaconventos, -who is represented as saying that, though her mode -of life was censurable, she made many a happy marriage; as -begging all who visit her grave to say a <em>Pater Noster</em> for her; -and as wishing them in return the conjoint joys of both -heavenly and earthly love. After this sally of blasphemous -irony comes advice as to the arms which Christians should -use against the devil, the world, and the flesh—a tedious -exhortation from which the author breaks away to declare -that he has always wished everything (including sermons) to -be short, and with this he digresses into a panegyric on little -women. But another March has come round, and, as usual, -in the spring the Archpriest’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts -of love. In default of the gifted Trotaconventos, he employs -Don Furón, a liar, drunkard, thief, mischief-maker, gambler, -bully, glutton, wrangler, blasphemer, fortune-teller, debauchee, -trickster, fool and idler: apart from the defects -inherent to these fourteen characters, Don Furón is as good -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span> -a <em>fa tutto</em> as one can hope to have. But he fails in the only -embassy on which he is sent, and, with a good-humoured -laugh at his own folly, the Archpriest narrates his last misadventure -as a lover. With an elaborate exposition of the -saintly sentiments which actuated the author (for whom -every reader is entreated to say a <em>Pater Noster</em> and an <em>Ave -Maria</em>), the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite> ends. What seems to be a -supplement contains seven poems addressed to the Virgin (a -begging-song for poor students being interpolated between -the second and third poem). The Salamanca manuscript -closes with an amusingly impertinent composition in which a -certain archpriest unnamed—possibly Juan Ruiz himself—is -described as being sent by Don Gil Albornoz, the Archbishop -of Toledo, with a brief from the Pope inculcating -celibacy on the Dean and Chapter of Talavera. What -follows has all the air of being a personal experience. The -brief is no sooner read in church than the Dean is on his -legs, threatening to resign rather than submit; the Treasurer -wishes that he could lay hands on the meddling Archbishop, -and both the Precentor Sancho and the Canon Don Gonzalo -join in an indignant protest against the attempt to curtail -clerical privileges. The Gayoso manuscript, which omits this -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cántica de los clérigos de Talavera</cite>, includes two songs for -blind men, and these are printed by M. Ducamin as a sort of -last postscript to the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite>.</p> - -<p>Having analysed the contents of the work, we are now in -a better position to form a judgment on the conclusion implied -by an incidental question in M. Alfred Jeanroy’s admirable -book, <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Origines de la poésie lyrique en France au moyen -âge</cite>:—‘Mais qui ne sait que l’œuvre de Hita est une macédoine -d’imitations françaises, qui témoignent du reste de la -plus grande originalité d’esprit?’ The proposition may be -too broadly put, but it is fundamentally true. The Archpriest -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> -borrows in all directions. The sources of between -twenty and thirty of his fables have been pointed out by -Wolf, and may be followed up a little higher in the works of -M. Hervieux and Mr. Jacobs. Orientalists no doubt could -tell us, if they chose, the origin of the story of King Alcarás -and his doomed son:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Era vn Rey de moros, Alcarás nonbre avia;</div> -<div class="line">nasçiole vn fijo bello, mas de aquel non tenja,</div> -<div class="line">enbjo por sus sabios, dellos saber querria</div> -<div class="line">el signo e la planeta del fijo quel nasçia.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Once at least the Archpriest hits on a subject which also -attracted his contemporary the Infante Don Juan Manuel: -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite> and the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Conde Lucanor</cite> both relate -the story of the thief who sold his soul to the devil. But -the differences between the two men are more marked -than the resemblances. The Archpriest has nothing of the -Infante’s imposing gravity and cold disdain; his temperament -is more exuberant, the note of his humour is more -incorrigibly picaresque, and he seeks his subjects further -afield. The tale of the pantomimic dispute between the -learned Greek and the illiterate Roman is thought by Wolf -to derive probably from some mediæval Latin source, and -Sr. Puyol y Alonso particularises with the ingenious suggestion -that the Archpriest took it from a commentary by -Accursius on Pomponius’s text of the Digest (<em>De origine juris</em>, -Tit. ii.). Perhaps: but this is just the sort of story that -circulated orally in the Middle Ages from one country to -another as smoking-room jests float across the Atlantic now, -and Ruiz is quite as likely to have picked it up from a -tramping tinker, or a tumbler at a booth, as from the famous -juridical <em>glossator</em> of the previous century.</p> - -<p>We cannot tell who his friends were nor where he went; -but the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite> shows that he had acquaintances -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span> -in all classes—especially in the least starched of them—and -it would not surprise me to learn that he had wandered as -far as Italy or France. Life was brighter, more full of -opportunities, for a clerical picaroon in the fourteenth century -than it is to-day. Now he would be suspended as a -scandal: then the world was all before him where to choose. -Of Italian I am not so sure: certainly the Archpriest knew -French literature better than we should expect. Observe -that the Treasurer of the Talavera Chapter mentions -Blanchefleur, Floire and Tristan, and (of course) finds their -trials less pathetic than his own and the worthy Teresa’s.</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">E del mal de vos otros amj mucho me pesa,</div> -<div class="line">otrosi de lo mjo e del mal de teresa,</div> -<div class="line">pero dexare atalauera e yr me aoropesa</div> -<div class="line">ante quela partyr de toda la mj mesa.</div> -<div class="line i1">Ca nunca fue tan leal blanca flor a flores</div> -<div class="line">njn es agora tristan con todos sus amores;</div> -<div class="line">que fase muchas veses rrematar los ardores,</div> -<div class="line">e sy de mi la parto nunca me dexaran dolores.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>How did the Archpriest come to hear the tale of Tristan, -not yet widely diffused in Spain? Was it through <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le -Chèvrefeuille</cite>, one of Marie de France’s lais? His previous -reference to ‘Ysopete’ might almost tempt some to think -so:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">esta fabla conpuesta, de ysopete sacada.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>However this may be, there is no doubt as to where -the Archpriest found his <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">exemplo</em> of the youth who wished -to marry three wives, and thought better of it: this, as -already stated, is a variant on the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fableau</em> known as <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le -Valet aux douze femmes</cite>. Sr. Puyol y Alonso hints at a -Spanish origin for the story of the two sluggards who, when -they went a-courting, tried to make a merit of their sloth; -but Wolf notes the recurrence of something very similar -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span> -in other literatures, and it most likely reached Ruiz from -France in some collection of supposititious Æsopic fables. -The <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Exemplo de lo que conteció á don Payas, pintor de Bretaña</cite>—an -indecent anecdote which follows immediately on the -tale of the rival sluggards—betrays its provenance in its -diction. Note the Gallicisms in such lines as:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Yo volo yr afrandes, portare muyta dona ...</div> -<div class="line">Yo volo faser en vos vna bona fygura ...</div> -<div class="line">Ella dis: monseñer, faset vuestra mesura ...</div> -<div class="line">dis la muger: monseñer, vos mesmo la catat ...</div> -<div class="line">en dos anos petid corder non se faser carner....</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>Can we doubt that these are free translations from a -French original not yet identified? It is significant that, -as the story of the Greek and the <em>ribaldo</em> reappears long -afterwards in Rabelais, so the story of Don Payas reappears -in Béroalde de Verville’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Moyen de parvenir</cite> and in La -Fontaine’s salacious fable <cite>Le Bât</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Un peintre étoit, qui, jaloux de sa femme</div> -<div class="line">Allant aux champs, lui peignit un baudet</div> -<div class="line">Sur le nombril, en guise de cachet.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Again, compare the Archpriest’s stanzas (already quoted) -on the power of money with our English <cite>Song in praise -of Sir Penny</cite>:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Go bet, Peny, go bet [go],</div> -<div class="line">For thee makyn bothe frynd and fo.</div> -<div class="line l03"> </div> -<div class="line">Peny is a hardy knyght,</div> -<div class="line">Peny is mekyl of myght,</div> -<div class="line">Peny of wrong, he makyt ryght</div> -<div class="line i2">In every cuntré qwer he goo.</div> -<div class="line i5">[Go bet, etc.]</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Ritson quotes a companion poem from ‘a MS. of the 13th -or 14th century, in the library of Berne’:—</p> - -<div lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Denier fait cortois de vilain,</div> -<div class="line">Denier fait de malade sain,</div> -<div class="line"><span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>Denier sorprent le monde a plain,</div> -<div class="line">Tot est en son commandement.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">And no doubt he is right in supposing that these variants -(together with the Archpriest’s version) come from <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Dom -Argent</cite>, a story—not, as Ritson thought, a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fableau</em>—given -in extract by Le Grand d’Aussy in the third volume of -the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Fabliaux, Contes, Fables et Romans du XII<sup>e</sup> et du XIII<sup>e</sup> -siècle</cite> published in 1829. Once more, take the story of -the abstemious hermit who once got drunk, went from bad -to worse, and finally fell into the hangman’s hands. As -Wolf points out, this episode was introduced earlier in the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de Apolonio</cite>; but the Archpriest develops it more -fully, amalgamating the tale of <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Eremite qui s’enyvra</cite> with -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Ermyte que le diable conchia du coc et de la geline</cite>. Lastly, -the combat between Don Carnal and Doña Quaresma is -most brilliantly adapted from the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Bataille de Karesme et -de Charnage</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Seignor, ge ne vos quier celer,</div> -<div class="line">Uns fablel vueil renoveler</div> -<div class="line">Qui lonc tens a esté perdus:</div> -<div class="line">Onques mais Rois, ne Quens, ne Dus</div> -<div class="line">N’oïrent de millor estoire,</div> -<div class="line">Par ce l’ai-ge mis en mémoire.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But the Archpriest’s genial reconstruction outdoes the -original at every point. And this is even more emphatically -true of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Pamphilus de Amore</cite>, which also no doubt, like the -<em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fableaux</em> and <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">contes</em>, drifted into Spain from France. At -moments Juan Ruiz is content to be an admirable translator. -Read, for instance, what Pamphilus says to Galatea in the -First Act (sc. iv.) of the Latin play—</p> - -<div lang="la" xml:lang="la"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Alterius villa mea neptis mille salutes</div> -<div class="line">Per me mandavit officiumque tibi:</div> -<div class="line">Hec te cognoscit dictis et nomine tantum,</div> -<div class="line">Et te, si locus est, ipsa videre cupit—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<p class="noindent"><span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>and compare it with Don Melón’s address to Doña Endrina -in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i2">Señora, la mj sobrina, que en toledo seya,</div> -<div class="line">se vos encomjenda mucho, mjll saludes vos enbya;</div> -<div class="line">sy ovies lugar e tienpo, por quanto de vos oya,</div> -<div class="line">desea vos mucho ver e conosçer vos querria.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>And you will find from thirty to forty points of resemblance -duly noted in Sr. Puyol y Alonso’s valuable study. But -what does it matter if a more microscopic scrutiny reveals -a hundred parallelisms? Ruiz proceeds as Shakespeare proceeded -after him. He picks up waste scraps of base metal -from a dunghill, and by his wonder-working touch transforms -them into gold. He breathes life into the ghostly -abstractions of the pseudonymous Auvergnat, creates a man -and a woman in the stress of irresistible passion, and evokes -a dramatic atmosphere. You read <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Pamphilus de Amore</cite>: you -find it dull when it is not licentious, and you most often find -it both dull and licentious at the same time. Not a solitary -character, not a single happy line, not one memorable phrase -remains with you to redeem its tedious pruriency. The -Archpriest’s two lovers are unforgettable: they are not -saints—far from it!—but they are human in their weakness, -and in their downfall they are the sympathetic victims of -disaster. And the vitality of the other personage in this -concentrated narrative of illicit love is proved by its persistence -in literature. A feminine Tartufe, with a dangerous -subtlety and perverse enjoyment of immorality for its own -sake, Trotaconventos is the ancestress of Celestina, of -Regnier’s Macette, and of the hideous old nurse in <cite>Romeo -and Juliet</cite>. Turn to the end of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite>, -and observe the predatory figure of Don Furón: he, too, -is unforgettable as the model of the ravenous fine gentleman -who condescended to share Lazarillo’s plate of trotters. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> -What matter if the Archpriest lays hands on a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fableau</em>, -or a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">conte</em>, or a wearisome piece of lubricity ‘veiled in the -obscurity of a learned language’? What matter if he -pilfers from the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de Alixandre</cite>, or steals an idea from -the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Roman de la Rose</cite>? He makes his finds his own by -right of conquest, like Catullus or Virgil before him, like -Shakespeare and Molière after him.</p> - -<p>The sedentary historian, like a housemaid, dearly loves a -red coat, and tells us far more than we care to know of arms -and the men, drums and trumpets, and the frippery of war. -Juan Ruiz gives us something better: a tableau of society -in Spain during the picturesque, tumultuous reigns of -Alfonso XI. and Peter the Cruel. While other writers sought -their material in monastic libraries, he was content with -joyous observation in inns, and booths, and shady places. -He mingled with the general crowd, having his preferences, -but few exclusions. He does not, indeed, seem to have -loved Jews—<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">pueblo de perdiçion</em>—but his heart went out -with a bound to their wives and daughters. For Jewish -and Moorish dancing-girls he wrote countless songs—not -preserved, unfortunately—to be accompanied by Moorish -music. So, also, he composed ditties to be sung by blind -men, by roystering students, by vagrant picaroons, and -other birds of night. He records these artistic exploits -with an air of frank self-satisfaction:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Despues fise muchas cantigas de dança e troteras,</div> -<div class="line">para judias e moras e para entenderas,</div> -<div class="line">para en jnstrumentos de comunales maneras:</div> -<div class="line">el cantar que non sabes, oylo acantaderas.</div> -<div class="line i1">Cantares fis algunos de los que disen los siegos</div> -<div class="line">e para escolares que andan nochernjegos</div> -<div class="line">e para muchos otros por puertas andariegos,</div> -<div class="line">caçurros e de bulrras, non cabrian en dyes priegos.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>Few men have anything to fear from their enemies, but -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> -most are in danger of being made ridiculous by their -admirers. Puymaigre was no blind eulogist, and yet in -an unwary moment he suggests a dangerous comparison -when he quotes the passage describing the emotion of -Doña Endrina’s lover on first meeting her:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Pero tal lugar non era para fablar en amores:</div> -<div class="line">amj luego me venjeron muchos mjedos e tenblores,</div> -<div class="line">los mis pies e las mjs manos non eran de si senores,</div> -<div class="line">perdi seso, perdi fuerça, mudaron se mjs colores.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">And he ventures to place these lines beside the evocation -in the <cite lang="it" xml:lang="it">Vita Nuova</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="it" xml:lang="it"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare</div> -<div class="line">La donna mia quand’ ella altrui saluta,</div> -<div class="line">Ch’ ogni lingua divien tremando muta,</div> -<div class="line">E gli occhi non l’ardiscon di guardare.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The suggested parallel does little credit to Puymaigre’s -undoubted critical instinct. It is, moreover, damaging to -the Archpriest who, in this particular passage, is simply -translating from the First Act of <cite lang="la" xml:lang="la">Pamphilus de Amore</cite> -(sc. iii.):—</p> - -<div lang="la" xml:lang="la"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Quantus adesset ei nunc locus inde loqui!</div> -<div class="line">Sed dubito. Tanti michi nunc venere dolores!</div> -<div class="line">Nec mea vox mecum, nec mea verba manent.</div> -<div class="line">Nec michi sunt vires, trepidantque manusque pedesque.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Comparisons are odious, but, if they must be made, let us -compare like to like. No breath of Dante’s hushed rapture -plays round the libidinous Archpriest. The Spaniard never -stirs in his reader a flicker of mystic ardour; he is of the -world, of the flesh, and sometimes of the devil; his realism -is irrepressible, his view of human nature is cynical, and his -interpretation is pregnant with a constant irony. But he -enjoys life, such as it is, while he can. He gives us to understand -that people and things are what they are because -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span> -they cannot be otherwise, and he makes the most of both -by describing in a spirit of bacchantic pessimism the -ludicrous spectacle of the world. Learning is most excellent, -but the Archpriest finds as much wisdom in a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">proverbio -chico</em> as in the patter of the schools; a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantar de gesta</em> has -its place in the scheme of literature, for it lends itself to -parody; soldiers slash their way to glory, but, though they -fascinate the ordinary timorous literary man, the Archpriest -sees through them, and humorously exhibits them as -sharpers more punctual on pay-day than in the hour of -battle. His whole book, and especially his catalogue—<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">De -las propriedades que las dueñas chicas han</cite>—bespeak an -incurable susceptibility to feminine charm; but he leaves -you under no delusion as to the seductiveness of the women -on the hillsides:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Las orejas mayores que de añal burrico,</div> -<div class="line">el su pescueço negro, ancho, velloso, chico,</div> -<div class="line">las narises muy gordas, luengas, de çarapico,</div> -<div class="line">beueria en pocos djas cavdal de buhon rico.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">He thinks nothing beneath his notice, takes you with -him into convent-kitchens and lets you listen to Trotaconventos -while she rattles off the untranslatable names of -the dainties which mitigate the nuns’ austerities:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Comjnada, alixandria, conel buen diagargante,</div> -<div class="line">el diaçitron abatys, con el fino gengibrante,</div> -<div class="line">mjel rrosado, diaçimjnjo, diantioso va delante,</div> -<div class="line">e la rroseta nouela que deujera desjr ante.</div> -<div class="line i1">adraguea e alfenjque conel estomatricon,</div> -<div class="line">e la garriofilota con dia margariton,</div> -<div class="line">tria sandalix muy fyno con diasanturion,</div> -<div class="line">que es, para doñear, preciado e noble don.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">And, in the same precise way, he satisfies your intelligent -curiosity as to musical instruments:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">araujgo non quiere la viuela de arco,</div> -<div class="line">çiufonja, gujtarra non son de aqueste marco,</div> -<div class="line"><span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span>çitola, odreçillo non amar caguyl hallaço,</div> -<div class="line">mas aman la tauerna e sotar con vellaco.</div> -<div class="line i1">albogues e mandurria caramjllo e çanpolla</div> -<div class="line">non se pagan de araujgo quanto dellos boloña....</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The medley is sometimes incoherent, but even when -most diffuse it never fails to entertain. To us the vivid -rendering of small, characteristic particulars is a source of -delight. The Archpriest threw it off as a matter of course; -but he piqued himself on the boldness of his metrical -innovations, and he had good reason to be proud. Most -of his verses are written in the quatrain of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">mester de -clerecía</em>, or <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">quaderna vía</em>—an adaptation of the French alexandrine -or ‘fourteener’—but he imparts to the measure -a new flexibility, and he attempts rhythmical experiments, -moved by a desire to transplant to Castile the metrical -devices which had already penetrated into Portugal and -Galicia from Northern France and Provence. But the Archpriest -has higher claims to distinction than any based on -executive skill. He lends a distinct personal touch to all -his subjects. He has an intense impression of the visible -world, an imposing faculty of evocation, and what he saw -we are privileged to see in his puissant and realistic transcription. -Some modern Spaniards, with a show of indignation -which seems quaint in countrymen of Cervantes and -Quevedo, reject the notion that humour is a characteristic -quality of the Spanish genius. We must bear these sputterings -of storm with such equanimity as we can, and hope for -finer weather. The fact remains: Juan Ruiz is the earliest -of the great Spanish humourists; he is also the most eminent -Spanish poet of the Middle Ages, and, all things considered, -the most brilliant literary figure in Spanish history till the -coming of Garcilaso de la Vega.</p> - -<p>Those of you who have read <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Carlos VI. en la Rápita</cite>—one -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span> -of the latest volumes in the series of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Episodios Nacionales</cite>—will -call to mind another Juan Ruiz, likewise an Archpriest, -known to his parishioners as ‘Don Juanondón,’ and you may -remember that this Archpriest of Ulldecona quotes his -namesake, the Archpriest of Hita:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Tu, Señora, da me agora</div> -<div class="line">la tu graçia toda ora,</div> -<div class="line">que te sirua toda vja.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>As the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de buen amor</cite> had been in print for some -seventy years before the Pretender made the laughable -fiasco described by Pérez Galdós, it is quite possible that -Don Juanondón had read the first of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Goços de Santa -Maria</cite> in the supplement. But it is not very likely: for, -though the Archpriest’s poems are mentioned in an English -book published nine years before they appeared in Spain,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">5</a> -they never were, and perhaps never will be, popular in the -ordinary sense. Juan Ruiz was far in advance of his age. -He lived and died obscure. No contemporary mentions him -by name, and the only thing that can be construed into a -rather early allusion is found in a poem by Ferrant Manuel -de Lando in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cancionero de Baena</cite> (No. 362):—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Señor Juan Alfonso, pintor de taurique</div> -<div class="line">qual fue Pitas Payas, el de la fablilla.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But this, at the best, is indirect. Santillana merely refers -to the Archpriest incidentally. Argote de Molina, in the -next century, does indeed quote one of the Archpriest’s -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">serranillas</em> (st. 1023-27); but he is misinformed as to the -author, and ascribes the verses to a certain ‘Domingo Abad -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> -de los Romances’ whose name occurs in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Repartimiento -de Sevilla</cite>. Still there is evidence to prove that Juan Ruiz -found a few readers fit to appreciate him. A fragment of -his work exists in Portuguese; the great Chancellor, Pero -López de Ayala, imitates him in the poem generally known -as the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Rimado de Palacio</cite>; Alfonso Martínez de Toledo, -Archpriest of Talavera and a kindred spirit in some respects, -speaks of him by name, and lays him under contribution in -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Reprobación del amor mundano</cite>. The famous pander -who lends her name to the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Celestina</cite> is closely related to -Trotaconventos, and Calixto and Melibea in that great -masterpiece are developed from Don Melón de la Uerta and -Doña Endrina de Calatayud. The Archpriest’s influence -on his successors is therefore undeniable. But, leaving -this aside, and judging him solely by his immediate, positive -achievement, he is not altogether unworthy to be placed -near Chaucer,—the poet to whom he has been so often -compared.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER III<br /><br /> - -<small>THE LITERARY COURT OF JUAN II.</small></h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> reign of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> is one of the longest and most troubled -in the history of Castile. In his second year he succeeded -his father, Enrique <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">el Doliente</em>, at the end of 1406, and -for almost half a century he was the sport of fortune. -Enrique <span class="smcap">III.</span>’s frail body was tenanted by a masterful spirit: -his son was a puppet in the hands of favourites or of -factions. Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s uncle Fernando de Antequera (so called -from his brilliant campaign against the Moors in 1410, -celebrated in the popular <em>romances</em>) acted as regent of Castile -till he was called to the throne of Aragón in 1412, when -the regency was assumed by the Queen-Mother, Catherine -of Lancaster. The generosity of contemporaries and the -gallantry of elderly historians lead them to judge Queen-Mothers -with indulgence; but Catherine is admitted to have -been a grotesque and incapable figurehead, controlled by -Fernán Alonso de Robles, a clever upstart. Declared of -age in 1419, Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> soon fell under the dominion of Álvaro -de Luna, a young Aragonese who had come to court in 1408, -and had therefore known the king from childhood. Raised -to the high post of Constable of Castile, Álvaro de Luna -resolved to crush the seditious nobles, and to make his -master a sovereign in fact as well as in name. But the -king was a weakling who could be bullied out of any resolution. -Factious revolts were met with alternate savagery -and weakness. Opportunities were thrown away. The -victory over the Moors at La Higuera in 1431, and the rout -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> -of the rebel nobles at Olmedo in 1445, failed to strengthen -the royal authority. At a critical moment, when he seemed -in a fair way to triumph, Álvaro de Luna made an irremediable -mistake. In 1447 he promoted the marriage of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> -with Isabel of Portugal: she was ‘the knife with which he -cut his own throat.’ At her suggestion the unstable Juan -took a step which has earned for him a prominent place -among the traitor-kings who have deserted their ministers -in a moment of danger. Álvaro de Luna had fought a -hard fight for thirty years. In 1453 he was suddenly -thrown over, condemned, and beheaded amid the indecent -mockery of his enemies:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Ca si lo ajeno tomé,</div> -<div class="line">lo mío me tomarán;</div> -<div class="line">si maté, non tardaran</div> -<div class="line">de matarme, bien lo sé.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">So even the courtly Marqués de Santillana holds up his -foe to derision, unconscious that his own death was not far -off. In 1454 Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> died, and during the scandalous reign -of Enrique <span class="smcap">IV.</span> it might well seem that the great Constable -had lived in vain. But his policy was destined to be carried -out by ‘the Catholic Kings,’ Ferdinand and Isabel.</p> - -<p>Contrary to reasonable expectation, the court of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> -remained a centre of culture during all the storm of civil -war. Educated by the converted Rabbi Sh’lomoh Hallevi—better -known to orthodox Spaniards as Pablo de Santa -María, Chancellor of Castile,—Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> had something -more than a tincture of artistic taste. So stern a judge as -Pérez de Guzmán, who had no reason to treat him tenderly, -describes him as a wit, an excellent musician, an assiduous -reader, an amateur of literature, a lover and sound critic of -poetry. Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> had in fact all the qualities which are useless -to a king, and none of those which are indispensable. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span> -He himself wrote minor poetry, a luxury in which no -monarch less eminently successful than Frederic the Great -can afford to indulge. From his youth he was surrounded -by such representatives of the old school of poetry as -Alfonso Álvarez de Villasandino. Castile might go to ruin, -but there was always time to hear the compositions of this -persistent mendicant, or those of Juan Alfonso de Baena, -with the replies and rebutters of versifiers like Ferrant -Manuel de Lando and Juan de Guzmán. It was no good -training for either a poet or a king. In the few poems by -Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> which have come down to us there is an occasional -touch of laborious accomplishment: there is no depth of -feeling, no momentary sincerity. Poetry had become the -handmaid of luxury. Poetical tournaments and knightly -jousts were both forms of court-pageantry. Nature was -out of fashion; life was infected by artificiality, and literature -by bookish conceits. ‘Mesure est precioux tesmoing -de san et de courtoisie,’ according to the author of the -thirteenth-century <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Doctrinal</cite>, and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">mesura</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cortesía</cite> predominate -in the courtly verse of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s reign. The -Galician <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">trovadores</em> brought into Castile the bad tradition -which they had borrowed from Provence, and the emphatic -genius of Castile accentuated rather than refined the verbal -audacities of conventional gallantry. Macias o <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Namorado</em>, -the typical Galician <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">trovador</em> who died about 1390, had -dared to introduce the words of Christ Crucified as the tag -of an amatory lyric:—</p> - -<div lang="it" xml:lang="it"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Pois me faleceu ventura</div> -<div class="line">en o tempo de prazer,</div> -<div class="line">non espero aver folgura</div> -<div class="line">mas per sempre entristecer.</div> -<div class="line">Turmentado e con tristura</div> -<div class="line">chamarei ora por mi.</div> -<div class="line i1"><em>Deus meus, eli, eli,</em></div> -<div class="line"><em>eli lama sabac thani.</em></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span></p> - -<p class="noindent">And shortly after the death of Macias another literary force -came into play. As Professor Henry R. Lang observes in -a note to his invaluable <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cancioneiro gallego-castelhano</cite>, ‘the -Italian Renaissance had taught the poet to combine myth -and miracle and to pay homage to the fair lady in the -language of religion as well as in that of feudal life.’ The -conventions of chivalry were combined with the expressions -of sacrilegious passion. So eminent a man as Álvaro de -Luna set a lamentable example of impious preciosity. In -one of his extant poems he belauds his mistress, declares -that the Saviour’s choice would light on her if He were -subject to mortal passions, and defiantly announces his -readiness to contend with God in the lists—to break a lance -with the Almighty—for so incomparable a prize:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Aun se m’antoxa, Senyor,</div> -<div class="line">si esta tema tomáras</div> -<div class="line">que justar e quebrar varas</div> -<div class="line">fiçieras per el su amor.</div> -<div class="line i1">Si fueras mantenedor,</div> -<div class="line">contigo me las pegara,</div> -<div class="line">e non te alçara la vara,</div> -<div class="line">per ser mi competidor.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>This is not an isolated instance of profanity in high places, -for Álvaro de Luna’s repugnant performance was equalled -in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Letanía de Amor</cite> by the grave chronicler Diego de -Valera, and was approached in innumerable copies of verse -by many professed believers. The abundance of versifiers -during the reign of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> is embarrassing. In the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Ilustraciones</cite> to the sixth volume of his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Historia de la literatura -española</cite>, José Amador de los Ríos gives two lists of poets -who flourished at this period, and (allowing for the accidental -inclusion of three names in both lists) he arrives at a total -of two hundred and fifteen. Even so, it seems that the -catalogue is incomplete; but we should thank Ríos for his -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> -good taste, forbearance, or negligence in not making it -exhaustive. It is extremely doubtful whether two hundred -and fifteen poets of superlative distinction can be found in -all the literatures of Europe put together; it is certain that -no such number of distinguished poets has ever existed at -one time in any one country, and many of the entries in -Ríos’s lists are the names of mediocrities, not to say -poetasters. We may exclude them from our breathless -review this afternoon, just as we must pass hurriedly over -the names of minor prose-writers. There is merit in Álvaro -de Luna’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Libro de las virtuosas e claras mugeres</cite> in which the -Constable replies to Boccaccio’s <cite lang="it" xml:lang="it">Corbaccio</cite> and takes up the -cudgels for women; there is uncommon merit in a venomous -and amusing treatise, branding the entire sex, by Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s -chaplain, Alfonso Martínez de Toledo—a work which he -wished to be called (after himself) the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Arcipreste de Talavera</cite>, -but to which a mischievous posterity has attached the title of -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Corbacho</cite> or the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Reprobación del amor mundano</cite>. There is -merit also in the allegorical <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Visión delectable</cite> of Alfonso de la -Torre, and in the animated (though perhaps too imaginative) -narrative of adventures given by Gutierre Díez de Games in -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica del Conde de Buelna, Don Pero Niño</cite>. And no -account of the writers of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s reign would be complete -without some mention of the celebrated Bishop of Ávila, -Alfonso de Madrigal, best known as <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Tostado</cite>. But <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El -Tostado</cite> wrote mostly in Latin, and, apart from this, his -incredible productivity weighs upon him.</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Es muy cierto que escrivió</div> -<div class="line">para cada día tres pliegos</div> -<div class="line">de los días que vivió:</div> -<div class="line">su doctrina assi alumbró</div> -<div class="line">que haze ver á los ciegos.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">We must be satisfied to quote this epitaph written on -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Tostado</cite> by Suero del Águila, and hurry on as we may, -blinder than the blind. When all is said, the importance of -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Tostado</cite> and the rest is purely relative. We need only -concern ourselves with the more significant figures of the -time, and this select company will occupy the time at our -disposal.</p> - -<p>One of the most striking personalities of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s reign -was Enrique de Villena, wrongly known as the Marqués de -Villena. Born in 1384, he owes much of his posthumous -renown to his reputation as a wizard, and to the burning of -part of his library by the king’s confessor, the Dominican -Fray Lope Barrientos, afterwards successively Bishop of -Segovia (1438), Ávila (1442), and Cuenca (1445). Barrientos -has been roughly handled ever since Juan de Mena, -without naming him, first applied the branding-iron in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El -Laberinto de Fortuna</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">O ynclito sabio, auctor muy çiente,</div> -<div class="line">otra é avn otra vegada yo lloro</div> -<div class="line">porque Castilla perdió tal tesoro,</div> -<div class="line">non conoçido delante la gente.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Perdió los tus libros sin ser conoçidos,</div> -<div class="line">e como en esequias te fueron ya luego</div> -<div class="line">vnos metidos al auido fuego,</div> -<div class="line">otros sin orden non bien repartidos.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Barrientos, however, seems to have been made a scapegoat -in this matter. He asserts that he acted on the express -order of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>, and, in any case, we may feel tolerably -sure that he burned as few books as possible, for he kept -what was saved for himself. However this may be, owing -to his supposed dealings with the devil and the alleged -destruction of his library after his death, Villena’s name -meets us at almost every turn in Spanish literature: in -Quevedo’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Visita de los chistes</cite>, in Ruiz de Alarcón’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> -La Cueva de Salamanca</cite>, in Rojas Zorrilla’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Lo que quería ver el -Marqués de Villena</cite>, and in Hartzenbusch’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Redoma -encantada</cite>. These presentations of the imaginary necromancer -are interesting in their way, but we have in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Generaciones -y Semblanzas</cite> a portrait of the real Villena done by -the hand of a master. There we see him—‘short and -podgy, with pink and white cheeks, a huge eater, and -greatly addicted to lady-killing; some said derisively that -he knew a vast deal of the heavens above, and little of the -earth beneath; alien and remote from practical affairs, and -in the management of his household and estate so incapable -and helpless that it was a wonder manifold.’ Yet Pérez de -Guzmán is too keen-eyed to miss Villena’s intellectual gifts. -From him we learn that, at an age when other lads are -dragged reluctantly to school, Villena set himself to study -without a master, and in direct opposition to the wishes of -his grandfather and family, showing ‘such subtle and lofty -talent that he speedily mastered whatever science or art to -which he applied himself, so that it really seemed innate in -him by nature.’ Here we have the man set before us—vaguely -recalling the figure of Gibbon, but a Gibbon who -has left behind him nothing to represent his rare abilities.</p> - -<p>It must be confessed that Villena owes more of his -celebrity to his legend than to his literary work. Perhaps -the nearest parallel to him in our own history is Humphrey, -Duke of Gloucester. Both were fired by the enthusiasm -of the Renaissance; both were patrons of literature; both -were popularly supposed to practise the black art—Villena -in person, and Gloucester through the intermediary of his -wife, Eleanor Cobham. But, while Duke Humphrey was -content to give copies of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio to -the University of Oxford, Villena took an active part in -spreading the light that came from Italy. He was not the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span> -first Spaniard in the field. Francisco Imperial, in his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Dezir -de las siete virtudes</cite>, had already hailed Dante as his guide -and master, and had borrowed phrases from the <cite lang="it" xml:lang="it">Divina -Commedia</cite>. Thus when Dante writes—</p> - -<div lang="it" xml:lang="it"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">O somma luz, che tanto ti levi</div> -<div class="line">dai concetti mortali, alla mia mente</div> -<div class="line">ripresta un poco di quel che parevi—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Imperial transfers these lines from the <cite lang="it" xml:lang="it">Paradiso</cite> to his own -page in this form:—</p> - -<div lang="it" xml:lang="it"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">O suma luz, que tanto te alçaste</div> -<div class="line">del concepto mortal, á mi memoria</div> -<div class="line">represta un poco lo que me mostraste.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>This is rather close translation; but students, more interested -in matter than in form, asked for a complete -rendering. Villena was already at work on the <cite>Æneid</cite>; at -the suggestion of Santillana, he further undertook to translate -the <cite lang="it" xml:lang="it">Divina Commedia</cite> into Castilian prose. His diligence -was equal to his intrepidity. Begun on September 28, 1427, -his translation of Virgil was finished on October 10, 1428, -and before this date he had finished his translation of Dante. -These prose versions are Villena’s most useful contributions -to literature. With the exception of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Arte cisoria</cite>—a -prose pæan on eating which would have attracted Brillat-Savarin, -and which confirms Pérez de Guzmán’s report -concerning the author’s gormandising habits—his extant -original writings are of small value. Pérez de Guzmán, -Mena, and Santillana speak of him with respect as a poet, -and, as Argote de Molina mentions his ‘coplas y canciones de -muy gracioso donayre,’ it is evident that Villena’s verses -were read with pleasure as late as 1575 when the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Conde -Lucanor</cite> was first printed. But they have not reached us, -and perhaps the world is not much the poorer for the loss. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> -Still, we cannot feel at all sure of this. Villena showed -some promise in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Trabajos de Hércules</cite>, and ended by -becoming one of the clumsiest prose writers in the world; -yet Mena exists to remind us that a man who writes detestable -prose may have in him the breath of a true poet.</p> - -<p>Judged by the vulgar test of success, Villena’s career was -a failure, and a failure which involved him in dishonour. -He did not obtain the marquessate of Villena, and, though -inaccurate writers and the general public may insist on -calling him the Marqués de Villena, the fact remains that -he was nothing of the kind. He had set his heart on -becoming Constable of Castile, and this ambition was also -baulked. He winked at the adultery of his wife with -Enrique III. and connived at her obtaining a decree of -nullity on the ground that he was impotent—a statement -ludicrously and notoriously untrue of one whom Pérez de -Guzmán describes as ‘muy inclinado al amor de las mugeres.’ -Enrique <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">el Doliente</cite> rewarded the complaisant husband by -conferring on him the countship of Cangas de Tineo and the -Grand Mastership of the Order of Calatrava; but he was -unable to take possession of his countship, was chased from -the Mastership by the Knights of the Order, and remained -empty-handed and scorned as a pretentious scholar who had -not even known how to secure the wages of sin. Meekly -bowing under the burden of his shame, Villena retired to -his estate of Iniesta or Torralba—two petty morsels of -what had once been a rich patrimony—and there passed -most of his last years working at his translations or miscellaneous -treatises, and dabbling in alchemy. He had once -hoped to reach some of the highest positions in the state; -in his obscurity, his heart leapt up when he beheld a -turkey or a partridge on his table, and he speaks of these -toothsome birds with a glow of epicurean eloquence. But -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span> -his ill luck pursued him even in his pleasures. His gluttony -and sedentary habits brought on repeated attacks of gout, -and he died prematurely at Madrid on December 15, -1434. As a man of letters he is remarkable rather for his -industry than for his performance. But there is a certain -picturesqueness about this enigmatic and rather futile -personage which invests him with a singular interest. It -is not often that a great noble who stands so near the -throne cultivates learning with steadfast zeal. In collecting -manuscripts and texts Villena set an example which was -followed by Santillana, and by Luis de Guzmán, a later and -more fortunate Master of the Order of Calatrava. We cannot -doubt that, in his own undisciplined way, Villena loved -literature and things of the mind, and that by personal -effort and by patronage he helped a good cause which has -never had too many friends.</p> - -<p>A man of stronger fibre, nobler character, and far greater -achievement was Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, the nephew of -the great Chancellor Pero López de Ayala, and the uncle of -Santillana. From a worldly point of view, he, too, may be -said to have wrecked his career; but the charge of obsequiousness -is the last that can be brought against him. He was -not of the stuff of which courtiers are made; his haughty -temper brought him into collision with Álvaro de Luna, -whom he detested; some of his relatives were in arms -against Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>, and this circumstance, together with his -uncompromising spirit, threw suspicion on his personal -loyalty to the throne. Such a man could not fail to make -enemies, and amongst those who intrigued against him we may -probably count that inventive busybody Pedro del Corral, -whose <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica Sarrazyna</cite> he afterwards described bluntly as -a ‘mentira ó trufa paladina.’ After a violent scene with -Álvaro de Luna, Pérez de Guzmán was arrested together -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> -with many of his sympathisers. On his release, though not -much past middle life, he closed the gates of preferment on -himself by withdrawing to his estate of Batres, and thenceforth, -like Villena, he sought in literature some consolation -for his disappointment. He had a most noble passion for -fame, and he won it with his pen, when fate compelled him -to sheathe his sword.</p> - -<p>Any one who takes up the poem entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Loores de los -claros varones de España</cite> and lights upon the unhappy -passage in which Virgil is condemned for tricking out his -wishy-washy stuff with verbose ornament—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">la poca é pobre sustancia</div> -<div class="line">con verbosidad ornando—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">is likely to be prejudiced against Pérez de Guzmán, and is -certain to think poorly of his judgment as a literary critic. -It is not as a literary critic that Pérez de Guzmán excels, -nor is he a poet of any striking distinction; but as a painter -of historical portraits he has rarely been surpassed. In the -first place, he can see; in the second, he writes with a pen, -and not with a stick. He is an excellent judge of character -and motive, and he is no respecter of persons—a greater thing -to say than you might think, for as a rule it is not till long -after kings and statesmen are in their graves that the whole -truth about them is set down. And it is the truthfulness of -the record which makes Pérez de Guzmán’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Generaciones y -Semblanzas</cite> at once so impressive and entertaining. There -is no touch of sentimentalism in his nature; rank and sex -form no claim to his indulgence; he is naturally prone to -crush the mighty and to spare the weak. If a queen is -unseemly in her habits, he notes the fact laconically; if a -Constable of Castile foolishly consults soothsayers, this weakness -is recorded side by side with his good qualities; if an -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> -Archbishop of Toledo favours his relatives in little matters -of ecclesiastical preferment, this amiable family feeling is -set off against other characteristics more congruous to his -position; if an <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Adelantado Mayor</em> has a bright bald head and -pulls the long bow when he drops into anecdotage, these -peculiarities are not forgotten when he comes up for sentence. -There is no rhetoric, no waste: the person concerned -is brought forward at the right moment, described -in a few trenchant words, and discharged with a stain on -his character. The <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Generaciones y Semblanzas</cite> is not the -work of an ‘impersonal’ historian who is most often a -sophist arguing, for the sake of argument, that black is not -so unlike white as the plain man imagines. Pérez de -Guzmán goes with his party, has his prejudices, his likes -and dislikes, and he makes no attempt to dissemble them; -but he is never deliberately unfair. The worst you can say -of him is that he is a hanging judge. He may be: but the -phrase in which he sums up is always memorable for picturesque -vigour.</p> - -<p>He is believed to have died in 1460 at about the age of -eighty-four, and in any case he outlived his nephew Íñigo -López de Mendoza, who is always spoken of as the Marqués -de Santillana, a title conferred on him after the battle of -Olmedo in 1445. In 1414, being then a boy of eighteen, -Santillana first comes into sight at the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">jochs florals</cite> over -which Villena presided when Fernando de Antequera was -crowned King of Aragón; and thenceforward, till his death -in 1458, Santillana is a prominent figure on the stage of -history. His father was Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Lord -High Admiral of Castile; his mother was Leonor de la Vega, -superior to most men of her time, or of any time, in ability, -courage and determination. On both sides, he inherited -position, wealth, and literary traditions, and he utilised to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span> -the utmost his advantages. He was no absent-minded -dreamer: even in practical matters his success was striking. -During his long minority, his mother’s crafty bravery had -protected much of his estate from predatory relatives. -Santillana increased it, timing his political variations with -a perfect opportuneness. Beginning public life as a supporter -of the Infantes of Aragón, he deserted to Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> -in 1429, and, when the property of the Infantes was confiscated -some five years later, he shared in the spoil. -Alienated by Álvaro de Luna’s methods, he veered round -again in 1441, and took the field against Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>; once -more he was reconciled, and his services at Olmedo were -rewarded by a marquessate and further grants of land. -Apparently his nearest approach to a political conviction -was a hatred of Álvaro de Luna in whose ruin he was -actively concerned; but Santillana was always on the safe -side, and, before declaring openly against Luna, he provided -against failure by marrying his eldest son to the Constable’s -niece.</p> - -<p>Baldly told, and without the extenuating pleas which partisanship -can furnish, the story of those profitable manoeuvres -leaves an unfavourable impression, which is deepened by -Santillana’s vindictive exultation over Álvaro de Luna in the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Doctrinal de privados</cite>. But we cannot expect generosity -from a politician who has felt for years that his head was -not safe upon his shoulders. Yet Santillana’s personality -was engaging; he illustrated the old Spanish proverb which -he himself records: ‘Lance never blunted pen, nor pen -lance.’ He made comparatively few enemies while he lived, -and all the world has combined to praise him since his death -in 1458. The slippery intriguer is forgotten; the figure of -the knight who appeared in the lists with <em>Ave Maria</em> on his -shield has grown dim. But as a poet, as a patron of literature, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> -as the friend of Mena, as a type of the lettered noble -during the early Renaissance in Spain, Santillana is remembered -as he deserves to be.</p> - -<p>He had a taste for the dignity as well as for the pomps -of life. If he entertained the King and arranged tourneys, -he was careful to surround himself with men of letters. -His chaplain, Pedro Díaz de Toledo, translated the <em>Phaedo</em>; -his secretary, Diego de Burgos, was a poet who imitated -Santillana, and commemorated him in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Triunfo del -Marqués</cite>. But Santillana was not a scholar, and made no -pretension to be one. He knew no Greek, and he says that -he never learned Latin. This is not mock-modesty, for his -statement is corroborated by his contemporary, Juan de -Lucena. He tried to make good his deficiencies, airs a Latin -quotation now and then, and must have spelled his way -through Horace, for he has left a pleasing version of the ode -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Beatus ille</cite>. Late in life, he is thought to have read part of -Homer in a Spanish translation probably made (through a -Latin rendering) by his son Pedro González de Mendoza, -the ‘Gran Cardenal de España,’ the Tertius Rex who ruled -almost on terms of equality with Ferdinand and Isabel. -Whatever his shortcomings, Santillana’s admiration for -classic authors was complete. He caused translations to -be made of Virgil, Ovid and Seneca, and records his view -that the word ‘sublime’ should be applied solely to ‘those -who wrote their works in Greek or Latin metres.’ His -interest in learning and his wide general culture are beyond -dispute. His library contained the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Roman de la Rose</cite>, the -works of Guillaume de Machault, of Oton de Granson, and of -Alain Chartier whom he singles out for special praise as the -author of <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La Belle dame sans merci</cite> and the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Reveil Matin</cite>—‘por -çierto cosas assaz fermosas é plaçientes de oyr.’ He -appeals to the authority of Raimon Vidal, to Jaufré de -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span> -Foixá’s continuation of Vidal, and to the rules laid down by -the Consistory of the Gay Science; and, if we may believe -the lively <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Coplas de la Panadera</em>, he carried his liking for -all things French so far as to appear on the battlefield -of Olmedo</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">armado como francés.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>He had a still deeper admiration for the great Italian -masters. In the preface to his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Comedieta de Ponza</cite>, which -describes the rout of the allied fleets of Castile and Aragón -by the Genoese in 1435, Boccaccio is one of the interlocutors. -There is a patent resemblance between Santillana’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Triunphete -de Amor</cite> and the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Trionfi</cite> of Petrarch, who is mentioned -in the first quatrain of the poem:—</p> - - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Vi lo que persona humana</div> -<div class="line">tengo que jamás non vió,</div> -<div class="line">nin Petrarcha qu’ escrivió</div> -<div class="line">de triunphal gloria mundana.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But Dante naturally has the foremost place in Santillana’s -library. Boccaccio’s biography of the poet stands on the -shelves with the <cite lang="it" xml:lang="it">Divina Commedia</cite>, the <cite lang="it" xml:lang="it">Canzoni della vita -nuova</cite>, and the <cite lang="it" xml:lang="it">Convivio</cite>. Without Dante we should not have -Santillana’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Sueño</cite>, nor <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Coronación de Mossén Jordi</cite>, nor <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La -Comedieta de Ponza</cite>, nor the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Diálogo de Bias contra Fortuna</cite>: -at any rate, we should not have them in their actual forms. -Nor should we have <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Infierno de los Enamorados</cite>, in which -Santillana invites a dangerous comparison by adapting to -the circumstances of Macías <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">o Namorado</em> the plaint of -Francesca:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">La mayor cuyta que aver</div> -<div class="line">puede ningun amador</div> -<div class="line">es membrarse del plaçer</div> -<div class="line">en el tiempo del dolor.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>It is not, however, as an imitator of Dante that Santillana -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> -interests us. He himself was perhaps most proud of his -attempt to naturalise the sonnet form in Spain; but these -forty-two sonnets, <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">fechos al itálico modo</em> in Petrarch’s manner, -are little more than curious, premature experiments. And, -as I have already suggested, the passion of hate concentrated -in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Doctrinal de privados</cite> is incommunicative at a distance -of some four centuries and a half. Santillana attains real -excellence in a very different vein. His natural lyrism finds -almost magical expression in the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">serranillas</em> of which <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La -Vaquera de la Finojosa</cite> is the most celebrated example, and -in the airy <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">desires</cite> which show his relation to the Portuguese-Galician -school. Indeed he has left us one song—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Por amar non saybamente</div> -<div class="line">mays como louco sirvente—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">which Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo believes to be ‘one of the last -composed in Galician by a Castilian <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">trovador</em>.’ In these -popular or semi-pastoral lays, so apparently artless and so -artfully ironical, Santillana has never been surpassed by any -Spanish poet, though he is closely pressed by the anonymous -writer of the striking <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">serranilla morisca</cite> beginning—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">¡Si ganada es Antequera!</div> -<div class="line">¡Oxalá Granada fuera!</div> -<div class="line">¡Sí me levantara un dia</div> -<div class="line">por mirar bien Antequera!</div> -<div class="line">vy mora con ossadía</div> -<div class="line">passear por la rivera—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">and still more closely by the many-sided Lope de Vega in -the famous barcarolle in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Vaquero de Moraña</cite>.</p> - -<p>More learned, more professional and less spontaneous than -Santillana, his friend Juan de Mena was in his place as -secretary to Juan <span class="smcap">II</span>. We know little of him except that he -was born at Córdoba in 1411, that his youth was passed in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> -poverty, that his studies began late, that he travelled in -Italy, and that, after his introduction at court, he was -a universal favourite till his death in 1456. Universal -favourites are apt to be men of supple character, and it must -have needed some dexterity to stand equally well with -Álvaro de Luna and Santillana. Perhaps a Spaniard is -entitled to be judged by the Spanish code, and Spaniards -seem to regard Mena as a man of independent spirit. But -it is unfortunate that our national standards in such matters -differ so widely: for the question of Mena’s personal -character bears on the ascription to him of certain verses -which no courtier could have written.</p> - -<p>With the disputable exception of Villena, Juan de Mena is -the worst prose-writer in the Spanish language, and no one -can doubt the justice of this verdict who glances at Mena’s -commentary on his own poem <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Coronación</cite>, or at his -abridged version of the <cite>Iliad</cite> as he found it in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Ilias latina</cite> -of Italicus. These lumbering performances are fatal to the -theory that Mena wrote the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica de Don Juan II.</cite>, a good -specimen of clear and fluent prose. The ponderous humour -of the verses which he meant to be light is equally fatal to -the theory that he wrote the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Coplas de la Panadera</cite>, a political -pasquinade—not unlike <em>The Rolliad</em>—ascribed with much -more probability by Argote de Molina to Íñigo Ortiz de -Stúñiga. Till very recently, there was a bad habit of -ascribing to Mena anonymous compositions written during -his life—and even afterwards. But this is at an end, and -we shall hear little more of Mena as the author of the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica de Juan II.</cite>, of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Coplas de la Panadera</cite>, and of -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Celestina</cite>. Henceforward attributions will be based on -some reasonable ground.</p> - -<p>Mena had an almost superstitious reverence for the -classics, and describes the <em>Iliad</em> as ‘a holy and seraphic -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span> -work.’ Unfortunately he is embarrassed by his learning, or -rather by a deliberate pedantry which is even more offensive -now than it was in his day. It takes a poet as great as -Milton to carry off a burden of erudition, and Mena was no -Milton. But he was a poet of high aims, and he produced -a genuinely impressive allegorical poem in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Laberinto de -Fortuna</cite>, more commonly known as <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las Trezientas</cite>. The -explanation of this popular title is simple. The poem in its -original form consisted of nearly three hundred stanzas—297 -to be precise—and another hand has added three more, -no doubt to make the poem correspond exactly to its -current title. Some of you may remember the story of -Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s asking Mena to write sixty-five more stanzas so -that there might be one for every day in the year; and the -poet is said to have died leaving only twenty-four of these -additional stanzas behind him. This is quite a respectable -tradition as traditions go, for it is recorded by the celebrated -commentator Hernán Núñez, who wrote within half -a century of the poet’s death. We cannot, of course, know -what Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> said, or did not say, to Mena; but the twenty-four -stanzas are in existence, and the internal evidence goes -to show that they were written after Mena’s time. They -deal severely with the King—the ‘prepotente señor’ of whom -Mena always speaks, as a court poet must speak, in terms -of effusive compliment. Here, however, the question of -character arises, and, as I have already noted, Spaniards -and foreigners are at variance.</p> - -<p>Thanks to M. Foulché-Delbosc, we are all of us at last -able to read <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Laberinto de Fortuna</cite> in a critical edition, -and to study the history of the text reconstructed for us -by the most indefatigable and exact scholar now working -in the field of Spanish literature. It has been denied -that <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Laberinto de Fortuna</cite> owes anything to the <cite lang="it" xml:lang="it">Divina -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> -Commedia</cite>. The influence of Dante is plain in the adoption -of the seven planetary circles, in the fording of the -stream, in the vision of what was, and is, and is to be. -The <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Laberinto</cite> contains reminiscences of the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Roman de la -Rose</cite>, and passages freely translated from Mena’s fellow-townsman -Lucan. It is derivative, and, though comparatively -short, it is often tedious. But are not most -allegorical poems tedious? Macaulay has been reproached -for saying that few readers are ‘in at the death of the -Blatant Beast’: the fact being that Macaulay’s wonderful -memory failed for once. The Blatant Beast was never -killed. But how many educated men, how many professional -literary critics, can truthfully say that they have read the -whole of the <cite>Faerie Queene</cite>? How many of these few are -prepared to have their knowledge tested? I notice that, -now as always, a significant silence follows these innocent -questions; and, merely pausing to observe that there are -two cantos on Mutability to read after the Blatant Beast -breaks ‘his yron chaine’ in the Sixth Book, I pass on.</p> - -<p>The <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Laberinto</cite>, with its constant over-emphasis, is not to -be compared with the <cite>Faerie Queene</cite>; but it has passages of -stately beauty, it breathes a passionate pride in the glory of -Castile, and, while the poet does all that metrical skill can -do to lessen the monotonous throb of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">versos de arte mayor</em>, -he also strives to endow Spain with a new poetic diction. -Mena thought meanly of the vernacular—<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">el rudo y desierto -romance</em>—as a vehicle of expression, and he was logically -driven to innovate. He failed, partly because he latinised -to excess; yet many of his novelties—<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">diáfano</em> and <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">nítido</em>, for -example—are now part and parcel of the language, and -many more deserved a better fate than death by ridicule. -Like Herrera, who attempted a similar reform in the next -century, Mena was too far in advance of his contemporaries; -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span> -but this is not necessarily a sign of unintelligence. Mena -was too closely wedded to his classical idols to develop into -a great poet; still, at his happiest, he is a poet of real -impressiveness, and his command of exalted rhetoric and -resonant music enable him to represent—better even than -Góngora, a far more splendid artist—the characteristic -tradition of the poetical school of Córdoba.</p> - -<p>I must find time to say a few words about Juan Rodríguez -de la Cámara (also called, after his supposed birthplace in -Galicia, Rodríguez del Padrón), whose few scattered poems -are mostly love-songs, less scandalous than might be expected -from such alarming titles as <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Mandamientos de -Amor</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Siete Gozos de Amor</cite>. Nothing in these amatory -lyrics is so attractive as the legend which has formed round -their author. He is supposed to have served in the household -of Cardinal Juan de Cervantes about the year 1434, to -have travelled in Italy and in the East, to have been page -to Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>, to have become entangled at court in some -perilous amour, to have brought about a breach by his -indiscreet revelations to a talkative friend, to have fled into -solitude, and to have become a Franciscan monk. Some -such story is adumbrated in Rodríguez de la Cámara’s novel -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Siervo libre de Amor</cite>, and the romantic part of it—the -love-episode—is confirmed by the official chronicler of the -Franciscan Order. An anonymous writer of the sixteenth -century goes on to state that Rodríguez de la Cámara went -to France, became the lover of the French queen, and was -killed near Calais in an attempt to escape to England. The -imaginative nature of this postscript discredits the writer’s -assertion that Rodríguez de la Cámara’s mistress at the -Spanish court was Queen Juana, the second wife of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s -son, Enrique <span class="smcap">IV.</span> Rightly or wrongly, Juana of Portugal is -credited with many lovers, but Rodríguez de la Cámara -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span> -was certainly not one of them. As <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Siervo libre de Amor</cite> -was written not later than 1439, the adventures recounted -in it must have occurred—if they ever occurred at all—before -this date; but the future Enrique <span class="smcap">IV.</span> was first married in -1440 (to Blanca of Navarre), and his second marriage (to -Juana of Portugal) did not take place till 1455. A simple -comparison of dates is enough to ensure Juana’s acquittal. -Few people like to see a scandalous story about historical -personages destroyed in this cold-blooded way, and it has -accordingly been suggested that the heroine was Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s -second wife, the Isabel of Portugal who brought Álvaro de -Luna to the scaffold. The substitution is capricious, but it -has a plausible air. Chronology, again, comes to the rescue. -Rodríguez de la Cámara became a monk before 1445, and -Isabel of Portugal did not marry Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> till 1447. The -identity of the lady is even harder to establish than that of -the elusive Portuguese beauty celebrated during the next -century by Bernardim de Ribeiro in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Menina e Moça</cite>.</p> - -<p>There are scores of Spanish books which you may read -more profitably than Rodríguez de la Cámara’s novels. <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Siervo -libre de Amor</cite> and the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Estoria de los dos amadores, Ardanlier -é Liessa</cite>; and better verses than any he ever wrote may be -found in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cancionero</cite> of Juan Alfonso de Baena, who -formed this <em>corpus poeticum</em> at some date previous to the -death of Queen María, Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s first wife, in 1445. But -Rodríguez de la Cámara has the distinction of being the -first courtly poet to put his name to a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em>. One of the -three which he signs, and which were first brought to light -by Professor Rennert, is a recast of a famous <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> on -Count Arnaldos. He was not the only court-poet of his -time who condescended to write in the popular vein. Two -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>, one of them bearing the date 1442, are given in -the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cancionero de Stúñiga</em> above the name of Carvajal who, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> -as he resided at the court of Alfonso <span class="smcap">V.</span> of Aragón in -Naples, is outside the limits of our jurisdiction. But the -best <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>, the work of anonymous poets disdained by -Santillana and more learned writers, will afford matter for -another lecture.</p> - -<hr /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER IV<br /><br /> - -<small>THE <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">ROMANCERO</cite></small></h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero</cite> has been described, in a phrase attributed -to Lope de Vega, as ‘an <em>Iliad</em> without a Homer.’ More -prosaically, it is a collection of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>; and, before going -further, it may be as well to observe that the meaning of -the word <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> has become much restricted in course -of time. Originally used to designate the varieties of speech -derived from Latin, it was applied later only to the body of -written literature in the different vernaculars of Romania, -and then, by another limitation, it was applied solely to -poems written in these languages. Lastly, the meaning of -the word was still further narrowed in Spanish, and a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> -has now come to mean a special form of verse-composition—an -epical-lyric poem arranged primarily in lines of sixteen -syllables with one assonance sustained throughout. There -are occasional variants from the type. Some few <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> -have a refrain; in some of the oldest <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> there is a -change of assonance: but the normal form of the genuine -popular <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> is what I have just described it to be. -There should be no mistake on this point, and yet a -mistake may easily be made. Though the metrical -structure of these popular Spanish ballads had been -demonstrated as far back as 1815 by Grimm in his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Silva -de romances viejos</cite>, so good a scholar as Agustín Durán—to -whom we owe the largest existing collection of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>—has -printed them in such a shape as to give the impression -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> -that they were written in octosyllabics of which only the -even lines (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.) are assonanced. Moreover, he -expounds this theory in his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Discurso preliminar</cite>, and his view -is supported by the high authority of Wolf.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">6</a> Still, it cannot -be maintained. It is undoubtedly true that the later artistic -ballads of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, written -by professional poets like Lope de Vega and Góngora, were -composed in the form which Durán describes. We are not -concerned this afternoon, however, with these brilliant artificial -imitations, but with the authentic, primitive ballads of -the people. These old Spanish <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>, I repeat, are written -normally in lines of sixteen syllables, every line ending in a -uniform assonance. They should be printed so as to make -this clear, and indeed they are so printed by the celebrated -scholar Antonio de Nebrija who, in his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Gramática sobre la -lengua castellana</cite> (1492), quotes three lines from one of the -Lancelot ballads:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Digas tu el ermitaño que hazes la vida santa:</div> -<div class="line">Aquel ciervo del pie blanco donde haze su morada.</div> -<div class="line">Por aqui passo esta noche un hora antes del alva.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>There are other erroneous theories respecting the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> -against which you should be warned at the outset. Sancho -Panza, in his pleasant way, informed the Duchess that these -ballads were ‘too old to lie’; but he gives no particulars as -to their age, and thereby shows his wisdom. Most English -readers who are not specialists take their information on the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span> -subject from Lockhart’s Introduction to his <cite>Ancient Spanish -Ballads</cite>, a volume containing free translations of fifty-three -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>, published in 1823. Lockhart, who drew most of -his material from Depping,<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">7</a> probably knew as much about -the matter as any one of his time in England; but, though -we move slowly in our Spanish studies, we make some progress, -and Lockhart’s opinions on certain points relating to -the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> are no longer tenable. He notes, for example, -that the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cancionero general</cite> contains ‘several pieces which -bear the name of Don Juan Manuel,’ identifies this writer -with the author of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Conde Lucanor</cite>, states that these -pieces ‘are among the most modern in the collection,’ and -naturally concludes that most of the remaining pieces must -have been written long before 1348, the year of Don Juan -Manuel’s death. Lockhart goes on to observe that the -Moors undoubtedly exerted ‘great and remarkable influence -over Spanish thought and feeling—and therefore over -Spanish language and poetry’; and, though he does not -say so in precise terms, he leaves the impression that this -reputed Arabic influence is visible in the Spanish <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>. -These views, widely held in Lockhart’s day, are now -abandoned by all competent scholars; but unfortunately -they still prevail among the general public.</p> - -<p>Milá y Fontanals, who incidentally informs us that Corneille -was the first foreigner to quote a Spanish <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em>,<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">8</a> -states that these theories as to the antiquity and Arabic origin -of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> were first advanced by another foreigner—Pierre-Daniel -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span> -Huet, Bishop of Avranches—towards the -end of the seventeenth century.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">9</a> But they made little -way till 1820, when the theory of Arabic origin was confidently -reiterated by Conde in his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Historia de la dominación -de los árabes en España</cite>. Conde’s scholarship has been -declared inadequate by later Orientalists, and the rest of -us must be content to accept the verdict of these experts -who alone have any right to an opinion on the matter. But -it cannot be disputed that Conde had the knack of presenting -a case plausibly, and of passing off a conjecture -for a fact. Hence he made many converts who perhaps -exaggerated his views. It is just possible—though unlikely—that -there may be some slight relation between an Arabic -<em>zajal</em> and such a Spanish composition as the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">serranilla</em> quoted -in the last lecture:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">¡Sí ganada es Antequera!</div> -<div class="line">¡Oxalá Granada fuera!</div> -<div class="line">¡Sí me levantara un dia</div> -<div class="line">por mirar bien Antequera!</div> -<div class="line">vy mora con ossadía</div> -<div class="line">passear por la rivera.</div> -<div class="line">Sola va, sin compannera,</div> -<div class="line">en garnachas de un contray.</div> -<div class="line">Yo le dixe: ‘<em>Alá çulay</em>.’—</div> -<div class="line">‘<i>Calema</i>,’ me respondiera.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But, in the first place, a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">serranilla</em> is not a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em>; and, in -the second place, a more probable counter-theory derives -the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">serranilla</em> form from the Portuguese-Galician lyrics which -are themselves of French origin. Beyond this very disputable -relation, there is no basis for Conde’s theory. Dozy has -shown conclusively that nothing could be more unlike than -the elaborately learned conventions of Arabic verse and -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span> -the untutored methods of the Spanish <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>, the artless -expression of spontaneous popular poetry. It may be taken -as established that there is no trace of Arabic influence in -the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>, and there is no sound reason for thinking that -any existing <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> is of remote antiquity. So far from -there being many extant specimens dating from before the -time of Don Juan Manuel, there are none. What some -have believed to be the oldest known <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em>—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Alburquerque, Alburquerque, bien mereces ser honrado<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">10</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">refers to an incident which occurred in 1430, almost a -century after Don Juan Manuel’s death; and even if we -take for granted that one of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances fronterizos</em> or -border-ballads—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Cercada tiene á Baeza ese arráez Audalla Mir<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">11</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">was first written as early as 1368, we are still twenty years -after Don Juan Manuel’s time. There may be <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> -which in their original form were written before these two; -but, if so, they are unrecognisable. The authentic <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> -lived only in oral tradition; they were not thought worth -writing down, and they were not printed till late in the -day. The older a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> is, the more unlikely it is to -reach us unchanged. No existing <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em>, in its present -form, can be referred to any period earlier than the fifteenth -century, and <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> of this date are comparatively rare.</p> - -<p>The first to mention this class of composition is Santillana -in his well-known letter to the Constable of Portugal written -shortly before 1450, and he dismisses the popular balladists -with all the disdain of a gentleman who writes at his ease. -‘Contemptible poets are those who without any order, rule -or rhythm make those songs and <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> in which low folk, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span> -and of menial station, take delight.’ A cause must be prospering -before it is denounced in this fashion, and it may -therefore be assumed that many <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> were current when -Santillana delivered judgment. Writing in 1492 and quoting -from the Lancelot ballad already mentioned, Nebrija -speaks of it as ‘aquel romance antiguo’; but ‘old’ has a -very relative meaning, and Nebrija may have thought that -a ballad composed fifty years earlier deserved to be called -‘old.’ At any rate, the oldest <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> no doubt took -their final form between the time of Santillana’s youth and -Nebrija’s, and the introduction of printing into Spain has -saved some of these for us. But—it must be said again -and again—they are comparatively few in number, and no -Spanish ballad is anything like as ancient as our own <em>Judas</em> -ballad which exists in a thirteenth-century manuscript at -Trinity College, Cambridge.</p> - -<p>Santillana slightly overstates his case when he speaks -of those who composed <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> as ‘contemptible poets’ -catering for the rabble. We have seen that Rodrígue de -la Cámara and Carvajal both wrote <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> in the fourth or -fifth decade of the fifteenth century. Santillana cannot have -meant to speak contemptuously of his two contemporaries, -one a poet at the Castilian court of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>, and the other -a poet at the Neapolitan court of Alfonso <span class="smcap">V.</span> of Aragón; he -evidently knew nothing of these artistic <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>, and would -have been pained to hear that educated men countenanced -such stuff. No doubt other educated men besides Rodríguez -de la Cámara and Carvajal wrote in the popular manner; -possibly the Lancelot ballad quoted by Nebrija is the work -of some court-poet: the conditions were changing, and—though -Santillana was perhaps unaware of it—the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> -were rising in esteem. But Santillana is right as regards the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> -earlier period. The primitive writers of popular <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> -were men of humble station, the impoverished representatives -of those who had sung the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantares de gesta</em>. These -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantares de gesta</em> were worked into the substance of histories -and chronicles, and then went out of fashion. The <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">juglares</em> -or singers came down in the world; in the twelfth and -thirteenth centuries they had been welcome at courts and -castles where they chanted long epics; by the fourteenth -century they sang corrupt abridgments of these epics to -less distinguished audiences; by the fifteenth century the -epical songs were broken up. The themes were kept alive -by oral tradition in the shape of shorter lyrical narratives, -and these transformed fragments of the old epics were the -primitive <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> condemned by Santillana.</p> - -<p>The subjects of these popular ballads were historical or -legendary characters like Roderick, Bernardo del Carpio, -the Counts of Castile, Fernán González, the Infantes of -Lara, the Cid and his lieutenant, and other local heroes. -Later on, the nameless poets of the people were tempted -to deal with the sinister stories which crystallised round the -name of Peter the Cruel, the long struggle against the -Moors, episodes famous in the Arthurian legends and the -books of chivalry, exploits recorded in the chronicles of -foreign countries, miscellaneous incidents borrowed from -diverse sources. It was gradually recognised that the -popular instinct had discovered a most effective vehicle of -poetic expression; more educated versifiers followed the lead -of Rodríguez de la Cámara and Carvajal, but with a certain -shamefaced air. The collections of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> published by -Alonso de Fuentes and Lorenzo de Sepúlveda (in 1550 and -1551 respectively) are mainly the work of lettered courtiers -who, like the ‘Cæsarean Knight’—the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Caballero Cesáreo</em> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> -who contributed to the second edition of Sepúlveda’s book—are -conscious of their condescension, and withhold their -names, under the quaint delusion that they are ‘reserved -for greater things.’</p> - -<p>But this bashfulness soon wore off. Before the end of the -sixteenth century famous writers like Lope de Vega and -Góngora proved themselves to be masters of the ballad-form, -and within a comparatively short while there came -into existence the mass of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> which fill the two -volumes of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero general</cite> published in 16OO and -1605. The best of these are brilliant performances; but -they are late, artistic imitations. For genuine old popular -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> we must look in broadsides, or in the collections -issued at Antwerp and Saragossa in the middle of the sixteenth -century by Martín Nucio and Esteban de Nájera -respectively. We may also read them (with a good deal -more) in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera y Flor de romances</cite> edited by Wolf -and Hofmann; and, most conveniently of all, in the amplified -reprint of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite> for which we are indebted -to Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo, the most eminent of living -Spanish scholars. But the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>—not all of them very -ancient—in the amplified <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite> fill three volumes; and, -as it would be impossible to examine them one by one, it -has occurred to me that the only practical plan is to take -Lockhart as a basis, and to comment briefly on the ballads -represented in his volume of translations—which I see some -of you consulting. There may be occasion, also, to point -out some omissions.</p> - -<p>Lockhart begins with a translation of a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> quoted in -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> by Ginés de Pasamonte, after the destruction of -his puppet-show by the scandalised knight:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Las huestes de don Rodrigo desmayaban y huian.<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">12</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span> -The English rendering, though not very exact throughout, -is adequate and spirited enough:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">The hosts of Don Rodrigo were scattered in dismay,</div> -<div class="line">When lost was the eighth battle, nor heart nor hope had they;</div> -<div class="line">He, when he saw that field was lost, and all his hope was flown,</div> -<div class="line">He turned him from his flying host, and took his way alone.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">In a prefatory note to his version, Lockhart says that this -ballad ‘appears to be one of the oldest among the great -number relating to the Moorish conquest of Spain.’ This -is somewhat vague, but the remark might easily lead an -ingenuous reader to think that the ballad was very ancient. -This is not so. There is a thirteenth-century French epic, -entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Anséis de Carthage</cite>,<a name="FNanchor_13_13" id="FNanchor_13_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_13_13" class="fnanchor">13</a> which represents Charlemagne -as establishing in Spain a vassal king named Anséis. Anséis -dishonours Letise, daughter of Ysorés de Conimbre, and -Ysorés takes vengeance by introducing the Arabs into Spain. -Clearly this is another version of the legend concerning the -dishonour of ‘La Cava,’ daughter of Count Julian (otherwise -Illán or Urbán) by Roderick. Anséis is manifestly -Roderick, Letise is ‘La Cava,’ Ysorés is Julian, and Carthage -may be meant for Cartagena. The transmission of this story -to France, and a passage in the chronicle of the Moor Rasis—which -survives only in a Spanish translation made from -a Portuguese version during the fourteenth century by a -certain Maestro Muhammad (who dictated apparently to a -churchman called Gil Pérez)—would point to the existence -of ancient Spanish epics on Roderick’s overthrow. But no -vestige of these epics survives.</p> - -<p>The oldest extant <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> relating to Roderick are -derived from the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica Sarrazyna</cite> of Pedro del Corral, -‘a lewd and presumptuous fellow,’ who trumped up a parcel -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span> -of lies, according to Pérez de Guzmán. Corral’s book is -not all lies: he compiled it from the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite>, the -chronicle of the Moor Rasis, and the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica Troyana</cite>, and -padded it out with inventions of his own. But the point -that interests us is that Corral made his compilation about -the year 1443, and it follows that the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> derived -from it must be of later date. They are much later: the -oldest were not written till the sixteenth century, and therefore -they are not really ancient nor popular. But some of -them have a few memorable lines. For instance, in the -first ballad translated by Lockhart:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Last night I was the King of Spain—to-day no king am I;</div> -<div class="line">Last night fair castles held my train,—to-night where shall I lie?</div> -<div class="line">Last night a hundred pages did serve me on the knee,—</div> -<div class="line">To-night not one I call mine own:—not one pertains to me.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">There is charm, also, in the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> which begins with -the line:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Los vientos eran contrarios, la luna estaba crecida.<a name="FNanchor_14_14" id="FNanchor_14_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_14_14" class="fnanchor">14</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">And as Lockhart omits this, I may quote the opening in -Gibson’s excellent version<a name="FNanchor_15_15" id="FNanchor_15_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_15_15" class="fnanchor">15</a>:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">The winds were sadly moaning, the moon was on the change,</div> -<div class="line">The fishes they were gasping, the skies were wild and strange,</div> -<div class="line">’Twas then that Don Rodrigo beside La Cava slept.</div> -<div class="line">Within a tent of splendour, with golden hangings deckt.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Three hundred cords of silver did hold it firm and free,</div> -<div class="line">Within a hundred maidens stood passing fair to see;</div> -<div class="line">The fifty they were playing with finest harmonie,</div> -<div class="line">The fifty they were singing with sweetest melodie.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">A maid they called Fortuna uprose and thus she spake:</div> -<div class="line">‘If thou sleepest, Don Rodrigo, I pray thee now awake;</div> -<div class="line"><span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span>Thine evil fate is on thee, thy kingdom it doth fall,</div> -<div class="line">Thy people perish, and thy hosts are scattered one and all,</div> -<div class="line">Thy famous towns and cities fall in a single day,</div> -<div class="line">And o’er thy forts and castles another lord bears sway.’</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">The <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> of this series have perhaps met with rather -more success than they deserved on their intrinsic merits. -The second ballad translated by Lockhart—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Despues que el rey don Rodrigo á España perdido habia<a name="FNanchor_16_16" id="FNanchor_16_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_16_16" class="fnanchor">16</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">is quoted by Doña Rodríguez in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>; and the simple -chance that these <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> were lodged in Cervantes’s -memory has made them familiar to everybody. Nor is this -the end of their good fortune, for the first ballad translated -by Lockhart caught the attention of Victor Hugo, who -incorporated a fragment of it in <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La Bataille perdue</cite>.<a name="FNanchor_17_17" id="FNanchor_17_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_17_17" class="fnanchor">17</a> Among -the twenty-five <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> on Roderick in Durán’s collection, -those by Timoneda, Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, and Gabriel Lobo -Lasso de la Vega can, of course, be no older than the -middle or the latter half of the sixteenth century. Others, -though anonymous, can be shown to belong, at the earliest, -to the extreme end of the sixteenth century.</p> - -<p>In a note to the eighth poem in his anthology—<cite>The Escape -of Count Fernan Gonzalez</cite>—Lockhart mentions ‘La Cava,’ and -remarks that ‘no child in Spain was ever christened by that -ominous name after the downfall of the Gothic Kingdom.’ -Sweeping statements of this kind are generally dangerous, -but in this particular case one might safely go further, and -say that no child in Spain, or anywhere else, was ever -christened ‘La Cava’ at any time. ‘Cava’ appears to be an -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span> -abbreviation or variant of the name ‘Alataba,’ and it is first -given as the name of Count Julian’s daughter by the Moor -Rasis, an Arab historian who lived two centuries after the -downfall of the Gothic kingdom, and whose chronicle, as I -have already said, survives only in a fourteenth-century -Spanish translation made through the Portuguese. We cannot -feel sure that the name ‘Cava’ occurred in the original -Arabic; and, even if it did, no testimony given two hundred -years after an event can be decisive. But why does Lockhart -think that ‘Cava’ was an ominous name? Perhaps because -he took it to be the Arabic word for a wanton. This is, -in fact, the explanation given in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Historia verdadera del -rey don Rodrigo y de la pérdida de España</cite>, which purports -to be a translation from the Arabic of Abulcacim Tarif -Abentarique. It is nothing of the kind. Abentarique is -a mythical personage, and his supposititious chronicle was -fabricated at Granada by a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">morisco</em> called Miguel de Luna -who, by the way, was the first to assert that ‘La Cava’s’ real -name was Florinda. These circumstances enable us to -assign a modern date to certain <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> which are popularly -supposed to be ancient. If a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> speaks of Roderick’s -alleged victim as ‘La Cava’ in a derogatory sense, we know -at once that it was written after the publication of Luna’s -forgery in 1589: and accordingly we must reject as a late -invention the notorious ballad beginning—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -De una torre de palacio se salió por un postigo.<a name="FNanchor_18_18" id="FNanchor_18_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_18_18" class="fnanchor">18</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>In Lockhart’s second group of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> the central figure -is Bernardo del Carpio who, says the translator, ‘belongs -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> -exclusively to Spanish History, or rather perhaps to Spanish -Romance.’ The word ‘perhaps’ may be omitted. Bernardo -del Carpio was a fabulous paladin invented by the popular -poets of Castile, who, either through the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chanson de Roland</cite>, -or some similar poem, had heard of Charlemagne’s victories in -the Peninsula. It is not absolutely certain that Charlemagne -ever invaded Spain; still, his expedition is recorded by Arab -historians as well as by Castilian chroniclers, and no doubt -it was commonly believed to be an historical fact. But, as -time went on, the idea that Charlemagne had carried all -before him offended the patriotic sentiment of the Castilian -folk-poets, and this led them to give the story a very different -turn. What happened precisely is not clear, but the explanation -suggested by Milá y Fontanals and Sr. Menéndez y -Pelayo is ingenious and probable. Attracted perhaps by -the French name of Bernardo, the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">juglares</em> seem to have -seized upon the far-off figure of a certain Bernardo (son of -Ramón, Count of Ribagorza), who had headed successful -raids against the Arabs. They removed the scene of his -exploits from Aragón to Castile, transformed him into the -son of the Count de Saldaña and Thiber, Charlemagne’s -sister—or, alternatively, the son of the Count Don Sancho -and Jimena, sister of Alfonso the Chaste—called him -Bernardo del Carpio, and hailed him as the champion of -Castile. The childless Alfonso is represented as inviting -Charlemagne to succeed him when he dies; the mythical -Bernardo protests in the name of Alfonso’s subjects, and -the offer is withdrawn; thereupon Charlemagne invades -Spain, and is defeated at Roncesvalles—not, as in the -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chanson de Roland</cite>, by the Arabs, but—by Spaniards from -the different provinces united under the leadership of -Bernardo del Carpio. The <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite> speaks of Bernardo’s -slaying with his own hand ‘un alto ome de Francia -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span> -que avie nombre Buesso,’ and this was developed later into -a personal combat between Roland and Bernardo del Carpio -who, of course, is the victor. These imaginary exploits -were celebrated in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantares de gesta</cite> of which fragments -are believed to be embedded in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite>, and -these are represented by three <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>. None of the forty-six -ballads in the Bernardo del Carpio series can be regarded -as ancient with the possible exception of—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Con cartas y mensajeros el rey al Carpio envió<a name="FNanchor_19_19" id="FNanchor_19_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_19_19" class="fnanchor">19</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">quoted in the Second Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>. This <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em>, -as Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo thinks, is derived from a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">cantar -de gesta</em> written after the compilation of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite>. -Of the Bernardo <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> printed in Duran’s collection four -are by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, four by Gabriel Lobo Lasso -de la Vega, and three by Lucas Rodríguez. Lockhart’s -four examples are all modern, and his renderings are not -specially successful; but in the original the first of the four—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Con tres mil y mas leoneses deja la ciudad Bernardo<a name="FNanchor_20_20" id="FNanchor_20_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_20_20" class="fnanchor">20</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">is a capital imitation of a popular ballad. It makes its -earliest appearance in the 1604 edition of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero -general</cite>, and that is enough to prove its modernity.</p> - -<p>Another modern ballad, which is also first found in the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero general</cite>, is translated by Lockhart under the -title of <cite>The Maiden Tribute</cite>. Neither the translation nor -the original—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">En consulta estaba un dia con sus grandes y consejo<a name="FNanchor_21_21" id="FNanchor_21_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_21_21" class="fnanchor">21</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span>calls for comment. A similar legend is associated with the -name of Fernán González, the hero of the eighth poem -in Lockhart’s book. Fernán González, Count of Castile, -was an historical personage more remarkable as a political -strategist than as a leader in the field. However, he makes -a gallant figure in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema de Fernán González</cite>, a thirteenth-century -poem written in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">quaderna vía</cite>, which appears to -have been imitated a hundred years later by the French -author of <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Hernaut de Beaulande</cite>. But no extant <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> -on Fernán González is based on the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema</cite>. The ballad -translated by Lockhart—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Preso está Fernán González el gran conde de Castilla<a name="FNanchor_22_22" id="FNanchor_22_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_22_22" class="fnanchor">22</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">comes from the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Estoria del noble caballero Fernán González</cite>, -a popular arrangement of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite> as recast in -1344. The <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> is a good enough piece of work, but -it is more modern than the ballad beginning</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Buen conde Fernán González el rey envia por vos;<a name="FNanchor_23_23" id="FNanchor_23_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_23_23" class="fnanchor">23</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">and this last <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> is less interesting than another ballad -of the same period:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Castellanos y leoneses tienen grandes divisiones.<a name="FNanchor_24_24" id="FNanchor_24_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_24_24" class="fnanchor">24</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Both of these are thought to represent a lost epic which -was worked into the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite> of 1344.</p> - -<p>Lockhart prints translations of two <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> relating to -the Infantes of Lara, one of them being modern,<a name="FNanchor_25_25" id="FNanchor_25_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_25_25" class="fnanchor">25</a> and the -other the famous</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">A cazar va don Rodrigo y aun don Rodrigo de Lara.<a name="FNanchor_26_26" id="FNanchor_26_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_26_26" class="fnanchor">26</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This was quoted by Sancho Panza, and—as M. Foulché-Delbosc -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span> -was the first to point out—it has had the distinction -of being splendidly adapted by Victor Hugo in the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Orientales</cite> -(xxx.) under the fantastic title of <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Romance Mauresque</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Don Rodrigue est à la chasse</div> -<div class="line">Sans épée et sans cuirasse,</div> -<div class="line">Un jour d’été, vers midi,</div> -<div class="line">Sous la feuillée et sur l’herbe</div> -<div class="line">Il s’assied, l’homme superbe,</div> -<div class="line">Don Rodrigue le hardi.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">In this instance we have to do with a genuine old <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> -derived—more or less indirectly—from a lost epic on the -Infantes of Lara written between 1268 and 1344, or perhaps -from a lost recast of this lost epic. And Lockhart might -have chosen other ballads of even more energetic inspiration -which spring from the same source. Among these are—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">A Calatrava la Vieja la combaten castellanos<a name="FNanchor_27_27" id="FNanchor_27_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_27_27" class="fnanchor">27</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">in which Rodrigo de Lara vows vengeance for the insult -offered to his wife by Gonzalo González, the youngest of -the Infantes of Lara; and that genuine masterpiece of -barbaric but poignant pathos in which Gonzalo Gustios kisses -the severed heads of his seven murdered sons:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Pártese el more Alicante víspera de sant Cebrián.<a name="FNanchor_28_28" id="FNanchor_28_28"></a><a href="#Footnote_28_28" class="fnanchor">28</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">And to these Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo would add a third -ballad beginning with the line:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Ya se salen de Castilla castellanos con gran saña.<a name="FNanchor_29_29" id="FNanchor_29_29"></a><a href="#Footnote_29_29" class="fnanchor">29</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But, if a foreigner may be allowed an opinion, this falls far -short of the others in force and fire.</p> - -<p>The next ballad given by Lockhart, entitled <cite>The Wedding -of the Lady Theresa</cite>, is a translation of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">En los reinos de León el Quinto Alfonso reinaba<a name="FNanchor_30_30" id="FNanchor_30_30"></a><a href="#Footnote_30_30" class="fnanchor">30</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span></p> - -<p class="noindent">first printed by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, who may perhaps -have written it. Whatever doubt there may be as to the -authorship, there is none as to the date of this composition: -it is no earlier than the sixteenth century. There would -seem to be some basis of fact for the story that some -Christian princess married some prominent Arab chief; but -there is a confusion between Almanzor and the Toledan -governor Abdallah on the one hand, and a confusion -between Alfonso <span class="smcap">V.</span> of León and his father Bermudo <span class="smcap">II.</span> on -the other hand, not to speak of chronological difficulties and -the like. But we need not try to unravel the tangle, for -there is no authentic old <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> on the Infanta Teresa, -though a poem on the subject—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Casamiento se hacia que á Dios ha desagradado<a name="FNanchor_31_31" id="FNanchor_31_31"></a><a href="#Footnote_31_31" class="fnanchor">31</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">has crept into the collection edited by Wolf and Hofmann, -This is not unimpressive as a piece of poetic narrative; yet -as it is written—not in assonances, but—in perfect rhyme, -it is not a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> at all, according to the definition with -which we began.</p> - -<p>In his choice of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> on the Cid Lockhart has not -been altogether happy. He begins well with a translation -of the admirable</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Cabalga Diego Laínez al buen rey besar la mano.<a name="FNanchor_32_32" id="FNanchor_32_32"></a><a href="#Footnote_32_32" class="fnanchor">32</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This is probably no older than the sixteenth century, yet, -apart from its poetic beauty, it has a special interest as -deriving from a lost <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cantar de Rodrigo</cite> which differed from -the extant <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica rimada</cite>. But the remaining poems in -Lockhart’s group are mostly poor and recent imitations. -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Ximena demands vengeance</cite> is translated from</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Grande rumor se levanta de gritos, armas, y voces.<a name="FNanchor_33_33" id="FNanchor_33_33"></a><a href="#Footnote_33_33" class="fnanchor">33</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span></p> - -<p class="noindent">But this <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> appears for the first time in Escobar’s -collection published as late as 1612. Then, again. <cite>The Cid -and the Five Moorish Kings</cite> is translated from</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Reyes moros en Castilla entran con gran alarido.<a name="FNanchor_34_34" id="FNanchor_34_34"></a><a href="#Footnote_34_34" class="fnanchor">34</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">And this is first given by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda who also -prints the original of the next ballad, <cite>The Cid’s Courtship</cite>—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">De Rodrigo de Vivar muy grande fama corria.<a name="FNanchor_35_35" id="FNanchor_35_35"></a><a href="#Footnote_35_35" class="fnanchor">35</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Upon this follows a translation of a ballad which, says Lockhart, -‘contains some curious traits of rough and antique -manners,’ and ‘is not included in Escobar’s collection.’ The -ballad, which Lockhart entitles <cite>The Cid’s Wedding</cite>, is translated -from</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">A su palacio de Burgos, como buen padrino honrado.<a name="FNanchor_36_36" id="FNanchor_36_36"></a><a href="#Footnote_36_36" class="fnanchor">36</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But there is nothing antique about it; it was written in -Escobar’s own time, and appeared first in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero -general</cite>. Nor is there anything antique in the original of -<cite>The Cid and the Leper</cite>—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Ya se parte don Rodrigo, que de Vivar se apellida.<a name="FNanchor_37_37" id="FNanchor_37_37"></a><a href="#Footnote_37_37" class="fnanchor">37</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This is first printed by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, who is also -the first to give</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Ya se parte de Toledo ese buen Cid afamado,<a name="FNanchor_38_38" id="FNanchor_38_38"></a><a href="#Footnote_38_38" class="fnanchor">38</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">which Lockhart, whose version begins at the eleventh line, -calls <em>Bavieca</em>. These are, of course, no older than the -sixteenth century, and this is also the date of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">A concilio dentro en Roma, á concilio bien llamado,<a name="FNanchor_39_39" id="FNanchor_39_39"></a><a href="#Footnote_39_39" class="fnanchor">39</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span></p> - -<p class="noindent">entitled <cite>The Excommunication of the Cid</cite> in the English -version. There is a note of disrespect in the original which -need cause no surprise, for our Spanish friends, though -incorruptibly orthodox, keep their religion and their politics -more apart than one might think, and at this very period -Charles <span class="smcap">V.</span> had shown unmistakably that he knew how to -put a Pope in his place as regards temporal matters. But -it need scarcely be said that the Spanish contains nothing -equivalent to Lockhart’s—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">The Pope he sitteth above them all, <em>that they may kiss his toe</em>—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">a Protestant interpolation so grotesque as to be wholly -out of keeping in any Spanish poem.</p> - -<p>You will see, then, that most of the Cid ballads translated -by Lockhart are unrepresentative. He might have given -us a version of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Dia era de los reyes, dia era señalado<a name="FNanchor_40_40" id="FNanchor_40_40"></a><a href="#Footnote_40_40" class="fnanchor">40</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">one of three <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em><a name="FNanchor_41_41" id="FNanchor_41_41"></a><a href="#Footnote_41_41" class="fnanchor">41</a> which are taken from the same -source as the first in his group—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Cabalga Diego Laínez al buen rey besar la mano.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But the deficiency has been made good by Gibson who notes -as a proof of the ballad’s modernity—it is no older than the -sixteenth century—the inclusion of a passage from the Lara -legend—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">It was the feast-day of the Kings,</div> -<div class="line i1">A high and holy day,</div> -<div class="line">Venn all the dames and damosels</div> -<div class="line i1">The King for hansel pray.</div> -<div class="line"> <span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span></div> -<div class="line">All save Ximena Gomez,</div> -<div class="line i1">The Count Lozano’s child,</div> -<div class="line">And she has knelt low at his feet,</div> -<div class="line i1">And cries with dolour wild:</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">‘My mother died of sorrow, King,</div> -<div class="line i1">In sorrow still live I;</div> -<div class="line">I see the man who slew my Sire</div> -<div class="line i1">Each day that passes by.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">A horseman on a hunting horse,</div> -<div class="line i1">With hawk in hand rides he;</div> -<div class="line">And in my dove-cot feeds his bird,</div> -<div class="line i1">To show his spite at me....</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">I sent to tell him of my grief,</div> -<div class="line i1">He sent to threaten me,</div> -<div class="line">That he would cut my skirts away,</div> -<div class="line i1">Most shameful for to see!</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">That he would put my maids to scorn,</div> -<div class="line i1">The wedded and to wed,</div> -<div class="line">And underneath my silken gown</div> -<div class="line i1">My little page strike dead!...’</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Of the two hundred and five <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> on the Cid printed -by Madame Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, probably one hundred -and eighty at least may be considered modern, and some we -know to have been written by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, Lucas -Rodríguez, and Juan de la Cueva. But the rest are doubtless -ancient (as <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> go), and it is unfortunate that -Lockhart gives no specimen of the ballads on the siege of -Zamora. For example, the celebrated ballad that begins</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Riberas del Duero arriba cabalgan dos Zamoranos<a name="FNanchor_42_42" id="FNanchor_42_42"></a><a href="#Footnote_42_42" class="fnanchor">42</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">a splendid <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> the opening of which may be quoted -from Gibson’s rendering:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Along the Douro’s bank there ride</div> -<div class="line i1">Two gallant Zamorese</div> -<div class="line"><span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span>On sorrel steeds; their banners green</div> -<div class="line i1">Are fluttering in the breeze.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Their armour is of finest steel,</div> -<div class="line i1">And rich their burnished brands;</div> -<div class="line">They bear their shields before their breasts,</div> -<div class="line i1">Stout lances in their hands.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">They ride their steeds with pointed spurs,</div> -<div class="line i1">And bits of silver fine;</div> -<div class="line">More gallant men were never seen,</div> -<div class="line i1">So bright their arms do shine.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Then follow their challenge to any two knights in Sancho’s -camp (except the King himself and the Cid), its acceptance -by the two Counts, the Cid’s mocking intervention, and the -encounter:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">The Counts arrive; one clad in black,</div> -<div class="line i1">And one in crimson bright;</div> -<div class="line">The opposing ranks each other meet,</div> -<div class="line i1">And furious is the fight.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">The youth has quick unhorsed his man,</div> -<div class="line i1">With sturdy stroke and true;</div> -<div class="line">The Sire has pierced the other’s mail,</div> -<div class="line i1">And sent his lance right through.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">The horseless knight, pale at the sight,</div> -<div class="line i1">Ran hurrying from the fray;</div> -<div class="line">Back to Zamora ride the twain,</div> -<div class="line i1">With glory crowned that day!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">And another <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> worth giving from the Zamora series -is the impressive</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Por aquel postigo viejo que nunca fuera cerrado.<a name="FNanchor_43_43" id="FNanchor_43_43"></a><a href="#Footnote_43_43" class="fnanchor">43</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Fortunately, Lockhart’s omission has been made good by -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span> -Gibson, though of course no translation can do more than -give a hint of the original:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">On through the ancient gateway,</div> -<div class="line i1">That had nor lock nor bar,</div> -<div class="line">I saw a crimson banner come,</div> -<div class="line i1">With three hundred horse of war;</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">I saw them bear a coffin,</div> -<div class="line i1">And black was its array;</div> -<div class="line">And placed within the coffin</div> -<div class="line i1">A noble body lay....</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>These ballads are included in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero del Cid</cite>, and -they are particularly interesting as being the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">débris</em> of a -lost epic on the siege of Zamora which has apparently been -utilised in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica general</cite>; but perhaps a translator -might excuse himself for not dealing with them on the -ground that the Cid only appears incidentally. Indeed in</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Por aquel postigo viejo que nunca fuera cerrado,</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">the Cid does not appear at all. The same excuse might be -given for omitting the well-known</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Doliente estaba, doliente, ese buen rey don Fernando,<a name="FNanchor_44_44" id="FNanchor_44_44"></a><a href="#Footnote_44_44" class="fnanchor">44</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">of which Gibson, however, gives a fairly adequate rendering, -so far as the difference of language allows:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">The King was dying, slowly dying,</div> -<div class="line i1">The good King Ferdinand;</div> -<div class="line">His feet were pointed to the East,</div> -<div class="line i1">A taper in his hand.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Beside his bed, and at the head,</div> -<div class="line i1">His four sons took their place,</div> -<div class="line">The three were children of the Queen,</div> -<div class="line i1">The fourth of bastard race.</div> -<div class="line"> <span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span></div> -<div class="line">The bastard had the better luck,</div> -<div class="line i1">Had rank and noble gains;</div> -<div class="line">Archbishop of Toledo he,</div> -<div class="line i1">And Primate of the Spains....</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">So, again, the Cid does not appear in the often-quoted -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> beginning—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Rey don Sancho, rey don Sancho, no digas que no te aviso.<a name="FNanchor_45_45" id="FNanchor_45_45"></a><a href="#Footnote_45_45" class="fnanchor">45</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Nor does he figure in the still more celebrated ballad which -records Diego Ordóñez’ challenge to the garrison of Zamora -after Sancho’s assassination:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Ya cabalga Diego Ordóñez, del real se habia salido.<a name="FNanchor_46_46" id="FNanchor_46_46"></a><a href="#Footnote_46_46" class="fnanchor">46</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But we may thank Gibson for enabling English readers to -form some idea of both. His version of the Ordóñez ballad -is by no means unhappy:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Don Diego Ordóñez rides away</div> -<div class="line i1">From the royal camp with speed,</div> -<div class="line">Armed head to foot with double mail,</div> -<div class="line i1">And on a coal-black steed.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">He rides to challenge Zamora’s men,</div> -<div class="line i1">His breast with fury filled;</div> -<div class="line">To avenge the King Don Sancho</div> -<div class="line i1">Whom the traitor Dolfos killed.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">He reached in haste Zamora’s gate,</div> -<div class="line i1">And loud his trumpet blew;</div> -<div class="line">And from his mouth like sparks of fire</div> -<div class="line i1">His words in fury flew:</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">‘Zamorans, I do challenge ye,</div> -<div class="line i1">Ye traitors born and bred;</div> -<div class="line">I challenge ye all, both great and small,</div> -<div class="line i1">The living and the dead.</div> -<div class="line"> <span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span></div> -<div class="line">I challenge the men and women,</div> -<div class="line i1">The unborn and the born;</div> -<div class="line">I challenge the wine and waters,</div> -<div class="line i1">The cattle and the corn.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Within your town that traitor lives</div> -<div class="line i1">Our King who basely slew;—</div> -<div class="line">Who harbour traitors in their midst</div> -<div class="line i1">Themselves are traitors too.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">I’m here in arms against ye all</div> -<div class="line i1">The combat to maintain;</div> -<div class="line">Or else with five and one by one,</div> -<div class="line i1">As is the use in Spain!’...</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">To Gibson’s fine instinct we are also indebted for an English -rendering of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">En las almenas de Toro, allí estaba una doncella<a name="FNanchor_47_47" id="FNanchor_47_47"></a><a href="#Footnote_47_47" class="fnanchor">47</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">a ballad of doubtful date which is superbly ‘glossed’ in -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las Almenas de Toro</cite> by Lope de Vega, who uses the old -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> with astonishing felicity. But the most ancient -poem in the whole series of the Cid ballads is a composition, -said to be unconnected with any antecedent epic, and -possibly dating (in its primitive form) from the fourteenth -century:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Hélo, hélo por dó viene el moro por la calzada.<a name="FNanchor_48_48" id="FNanchor_48_48"></a><a href="#Footnote_48_48" class="fnanchor">48</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> has been done into English by Gibson with -considerable success, as you may judge by the opening -stanzas:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">He comes, he comes, the Moorman comes</div> -<div class="line i1">Along the sounding way;</div> -<div class="line">With stirrup short, and pointed spur,</div> -<div class="line i1">He rides his gallant bay....</div> -<div class="line"> <span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span></div> -<div class="line">He looks upon Valencia’s towers,</div> -<div class="line i1">And mutters in his ire:</div> -<div class="line">‘Valencia, O Valencia,</div> -<div class="line i1">Burn thou with evil fire!</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Although the Christian holds thee now,</div> -<div class="line i1">Thou wert the Moor’s before;</div> -<div class="line">And if my lance deceive me not,</div> -<div class="line i1">Thou’lt be the Moor’s once more!’...</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>There is still much to be said concerning the Cid <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> -which Southey dismissed too cavalierly; but my time is -running out, and I must pass on to the next ballads translated -by Lockhart. <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Garci Perez de Vargas</cite> is a rendering -of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Estando sobre Sevilla el rey Fernando el tercero;<a name="FNanchor_49_49" id="FNanchor_49_49"></a><a href="#Footnote_49_49" class="fnanchor">49</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">and <em>The Pounder</em>, which was referred to by Don Quixote -when he proposed to tear up an oak by the roots and use it -as a weapon, is a version of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Jerez, aquesa nombrada, cercada era de cristianos.<a name="FNanchor_50_50" id="FNanchor_50_50"></a><a href="#Footnote_50_50" class="fnanchor">50</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Neither need detain us; both are modern, and the latter -is by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda. Much more curious are the -group of ballads on Peter the Cruel. In the Spanish drama -Peter is represented as the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Rey Justiciero</em>, the autocrat of -democratic sympathies, dealing out summary justice to the -nobles and the wealthy, who grind the poor man’s face. -But this is merely what the sophisticated middle class -supposed to be the democratic point of view. The -democracy, as we see from the anonymous popular -poets, believed Peter to be much worse than he actually -was, and the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> record the deliberate calumnies invented -by the partisans of Peter’s triumphant bastard -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span> -brother, Henry of Trastamara. This is noticeable in the -translation of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Yo me estabá allá en Coimbra que yo me la hube ganado,<a name="FNanchor_51_51" id="FNanchor_51_51"></a><a href="#Footnote_51_51" class="fnanchor">51</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">which Lockhart calls <em>The Murder of the Master</em>. It is true -that Peter had his brother, Don Fadrique, Master of the -Order of Santiago, put to death at Seville in 1358; it is also -true that Fadrique was a tricky and dangerous conspirator, -who had already been detected and pardoned by his brother -more than once. The <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> passes over Fadrique’s plots -in silence, and this is common enough with political hacks; -but it goes on to imply that the crime was suggested to -Peter by his mistress. This is almost certainly false, and -not a vestige of evidence can be produced in favour of it; -but no one is asked to swear to the truth of a song, and the -dramatic power of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em>—which is supposed to be -recited by the murdered man—is undeniable.</p> - -<p>A similar perversion of historical truth is found in <cite>The -Death of Queen Blanche</cite>, which Lockhart translates from</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Doña María de Padilla, no os mostredes triste, no.<a name="FNanchor_52_52" id="FNanchor_52_52"></a><a href="#Footnote_52_52" class="fnanchor">52</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Lockhart, indeed, says: ‘that Pedro was accessory to the -violent death of this young and innocent princess whom he -had married, and immediately after deserted for ever, there -can be no doubt.’ But the matter is by no means so free -from doubt as Lockhart would have us believe. It is true -that Peter’s conduct to Blanche de Bourbon was inhuman, -but the circumstances—and even the place—of her death -are uncertain. Assuming that she was murdered, however, -it is certain that María de Padilla had no share in this crime. -María appears to have been a gentle and compassionate -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> -creature, whose only fault was that she loved Peter too well. -But justice is not greatly cultivated by political partisans, -and the vindictiveness of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> is poetically effective. -Lockhart closes the series with a version (apparently by -Walter Scott) of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Los fieros cuerpos revueltos entre los robustos brazos,<a name="FNanchor_53_53" id="FNanchor_53_53"></a><a href="#Footnote_53_53" class="fnanchor">53</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">and with a disappointing translation of a very striking -ballad, in which an undercurrent of sympathy for Peter is -observable:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">A los pies de don Enrique yace muerto el rey don Pedro.<a name="FNanchor_54_54" id="FNanchor_54_54"></a><a href="#Footnote_54_54" class="fnanchor">54</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Refrains of any kind are exceptional in the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>, but -in this instance a double refrain is artistically used:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Y los de Enrique</div> -<div class="line">Cantan, repican y gritan:</div> -<div class="line">¡Viva Enrique!</div> -<div class="line">Y los de Pedro</div> -<div class="line">Clamorean, doblan, lloran</div> -<div class="line">Su rey muerto.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This is indeed a most brilliant performance, worthy, as -Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo says, of Góngora himself at his best; -but the very brilliance of the versification is enough to -prove that the ballad cannot have been written by a poet of -the people. Still, though it is neither ancient nor popular, -we may be grateful to Lockhart for including it in his -volume.</p> - -<p>He was less happy in deciding to give us <cite>The Lord of -Buitrago</cite>, a version of a ballad beginning</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Si el caballo vos han muerto, subid, rey, en mi caballo.<a name="FNanchor_55_55" id="FNanchor_55_55"></a><a href="#Footnote_55_55" class="fnanchor">55</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This is not of any great merit, nor is it in any sense popular -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> -or ancient: it appears to be the production of Alfonso -Hurtado de Velarde, a Guadalajara dramatist who lived -towards the end of the sixteenth century, and much of its -vogue is due to the fact that it struck the fancy of Vélez de -Guevara who used the first six words as the title of one of -his plays. Lockhart was better advised in choosing <cite>The -King of Aragon</cite>, a translation of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Miraba de Campo-Viejo el rey de Aragón un dia.<a name="FNanchor_56_56" id="FNanchor_56_56"></a><a href="#Footnote_56_56" class="fnanchor">56</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>This is thought by Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo to be, possibly, -the production of some soldier serving at Naples under -Alfonso v. of Aragón, and in any case it is of popular inspiration. -Lorenzo de Sepúlveda’s text contains an allusion to -a page—<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">un pajecico</em>—whom Alfonso is said to have loved -better than himself, and the translator was naturally puzzled -by it. It is precisely by attention to some such detail that -we are often enabled to fix the date of composition; and so -it happens in the present instance. A fuller and better -text is given by Esteban de Nájera, who reads <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">un tal hermano</em> -for the incomprehensible <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">un pajecico</em>. This reading makes the -matter clear. The reference is to the death of Alphonso v.’s -brother Pedro; this occurred in 1438, and the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> was -probably written not long afterwards.</p> - -<p>At this point Lockhart enters upon the series of border-ballads -called <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances fronterizos</em>, and he begins with a -translation of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Reduan, bien se te acuerda que me distes la palabra,<a name="FNanchor_57_57" id="FNanchor_57_57"></a><a href="#Footnote_57_57" class="fnanchor">57</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">quoted by Ginés Pérez de Hita in the first part of his -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Guerras civiles de Granada</cite>, published in 1595 under the -title of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Historia de los bandos de los Zegríes y Abencerrajes</cite>. -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> -Pérez de Hita speaks of it as ancient, and Lockhart is, of -course, not to blame for translating the ballad precisely as -he found it in the text before him. Any translator would -be bound to do the same to-day if he attempted a new -rendering of the poem; but he would doubtless think it -advisable to state in a note the result of the critical analysis -which had scarcely been begun when Lockhart wrote. It -now seems fairly certain that Pérez de Hita ran two <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> -into one, and that the verses from the fourth stanza onwards -in Lockhart—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">They passed the Elvira gate, with banners all displayed—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">are part of a ballad on Boabdil’s expedition against Lucena -in 1483. This martial narrative, describing the gorgeous -squadrons of El Rey Chico as they file past the towers of -the Alhambra packed with applauding Moorish ladies, -reduces to insignificance <cite>The Flight from Granada</cite>, though -the translation is an improvement on Lorenzo de Sepúlveda’s -creaking original:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">En la ciudad de Granada grandes alaridos dan.<a name="FNanchor_58_58" id="FNanchor_58_58"></a><a href="#Footnote_58_58" class="fnanchor">58</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The next in order is <cite>The Death of Don Alonso de Aguilar</cite>, -a rendering of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Estando el rey don Fernando en conquista de Granada.<a name="FNanchor_59_59" id="FNanchor_59_59"></a><a href="#Footnote_59_59" class="fnanchor">59</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This ballad commemorates the death of Alonso de Aguilar, -elder brother of ‘the great Captain’ Gonzalo de Córdoba, -which took place in action at Sierra Bermeja on May 18, -1501. This date is important. A serious chronological -mistake occurs in the opening line of the ballad, which -places Aguilar’s death before the surrender of Granada in -1492; and this points to the conclusion that the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span> -was not written till long after the event, when the exact -details had been forgotten. It is of popular inspiration, no -doubt, but it is clearly not ancient. Still, in default of any -other <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances fronterizos</em>, we receive it gratefully. This -section of Lockhart’s book is certainly the least adequate.<a name="FNanchor_60_60" id="FNanchor_60_60"></a><a href="#Footnote_60_60" class="fnanchor">60</a> -The border-ballads which he gives are most of them -excellent, but unfortunately he gives us far too few of them. -Some of his omissions may be explained. He tells us in -almost so many words that he leaves out a later ballad on -Aguilar’s death:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -¡Río Verde, río Verde, tinto vas en sangre viva!<a name="FNanchor_61_61" id="FNanchor_61_61"></a><a href="#Footnote_61_61" class="fnanchor">61</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">because there was already in existence an ‘exquisite version’ -by the Bishop of Dromore<a name="FNanchor_62_62" id="FNanchor_62_62"></a><a href="#Footnote_62_62" class="fnanchor">62</a>—whom some of you may not -instantly identify with Thomas Percy, the editor of the -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Reliques</cite>. Most probably Lockhart omitted a ballad with -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> -an effective refrain (perhaps borrowed from some Arabic -song)—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Paseábase el ray moro per la ciudad de Granada—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">because it had been translated, though with no very -striking success, by Byron a little while before.<a name="FNanchor_63_63" id="FNanchor_63_63"></a><a href="#Footnote_63_63" class="fnanchor">63</a> Nor can -Lockhart be blamed for omitting the oldest of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances -fronterizos</em>:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Cercada tiene á Baeza ese arráez Audalla Mir.<a name="FNanchor_64_64" id="FNanchor_64_64"></a><a href="#Footnote_64_64" class="fnanchor">64</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>Hidden in Argote de Molina’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Nobleza de Andalucía</cite>,<a name="FNanchor_65_65" id="FNanchor_65_65"></a><a href="#Footnote_65_65" class="fnanchor">65</a> this -ballad was generally overlooked till 1899 when Sr. Menéndez -y Pelayo did us the good service of reprinting it. It -still awaits an English translator who, when he takes it -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span> -in hand, may perhaps have something destructive to say -respecting its alleged date (1368). Such a translator -might also give us an English version of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Moricos, los mis moricos, los que ganáis mi soldada,<a name="FNanchor_66_66" id="FNanchor_66_66"></a><a href="#Footnote_66_66" class="fnanchor">66</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">which is thought to be the next oldest of these <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances -fronterizos</em>. Or he might attempt to render</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Álora la bien cercada, tu que estás á par del río,<a name="FNanchor_67_67" id="FNanchor_67_67"></a><a href="#Footnote_67_67" class="fnanchor">67</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">which commemorates the death of Diego de Ribera during -the siege of Álora in 1434. A passage in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Laberinto -de Fortuna</cite> implies that Ribera’s death was the theme of -many popular songs in the time of Juan de Mena,<a name="FNanchor_68_68" id="FNanchor_68_68"></a><a href="#Footnote_68_68" class="fnanchor">68</a> and -possibly the extant <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> may be taken to represent them. -There is another fine ballad on the historic victory of the -Infante Fernando (the first regent during Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s minority) -at Antequera in 1410:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -De Antequera partió el moro tres horas antes del dia.<a name="FNanchor_69_69" id="FNanchor_69_69"></a><a href="#Footnote_69_69" class="fnanchor">69</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This also calls for translation, for all that we possess is -Gibson’s version of Timoneda’s recast, a copy of verses disfigured -by superfine interpolations:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">His words were mingled with the tears</div> -<div class="line i1">That down his cheeks did roll:</div> -<div class="line">‘Alas! Narcissa of my life,</div> -<div class="line i1">Narcissa of my soul.’</div> -</div></div></div> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span>Nymphs called Narcissa are never met with in popular -primitive poetry; but Gibson (from whose version of Timoneda -I have just quoted) has happily translated some -genuine specimens of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances fronterizos</em>. Thus he has -given us a version of the justly celebrated</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">¡Abenámar, Abenámar, moro de la morería!—<a name="FNanchor_70_70" id="FNanchor_70_70"></a><a href="#Footnote_70_70" class="fnanchor">70</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">in which Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span> questions the Moor, and declares himself, -according to an Arabic poetical convention, the suitor of -Granada:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">‘Abenámar, Abenámar,</div> -<div class="line i1">Moor of Moors, and man of worth,</div> -<div class="line">On the day when thou wert cradled,</div> -<div class="line i1">There were signs in heaven and earth....</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Abenámar, Abenámar,</div> -<div class="line i1">With thy words my heart is won!</div> -<div class="line">Tell me what these castles are,</div> -<div class="line i1">Shining grandly in the sun!’</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">‘That, my lord, is the Alhambra,</div> -<div class="line i1">This the Moorish mosque apart,</div> -<div class="line">And the rest the Alixares</div> -<div class="line i1">Wrought and carved with wondrous art.’...</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Up and spake the good King John,</div> -<div class="line i1">To the Moor he thus replied:</div> -<div class="line">‘Art thou willing, O Granada,</div> -<div class="line i1">I will woo thee for my bride,</div> -<div class="line">Cordova shall be thy dowry,</div> -<div class="line i1">And Sevilla by its side.’</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">‘I’m no widow, good King John,</div> -<div class="line i1">I am still a wedded wife;</div> -<div class="line">And the Moor, who is my husband,</div> -<div class="line i1">Loves me better than his life!’</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Gibson has missed an opportunity in not translating one -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> -of the popular ballads on the precocious Master of the Order -of Calatrava, Rodrigo Girón, who was killed at the siege of -Loja in 1482:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -¡Ay, Dios qué buen caballero el Maestre de Calatrava!<a name="FNanchor_71_71" id="FNanchor_71_71"></a><a href="#Footnote_71_71" class="fnanchor">71</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But he makes amends with a version of a sixteenth-century -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em><a name="FNanchor_72_72" id="FNanchor_72_72"></a><a href="#Footnote_72_72" class="fnanchor">72</a> which he entitles <cite>The Lady and the Lions</cite>: the -story has been versified by Schiller, and has been still more -admirably retold by Browning in <cite>The Glove</cite>. And we have -also from Gibson a version of a rather puzzling <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> -given by Pérez de Hita:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Cercada está Santa Fe, con mucho lienzo encerado.<a name="FNanchor_73_73" id="FNanchor_73_73"></a><a href="#Footnote_73_73" class="fnanchor">73</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">The fact that full rhymes take the place of assonants is -a decisive argument against the antiquity, and also against -the popular origin, of this ballad in which, as Sr. Menéndez -y Pelayo points out, a rather insignificant Garcilaso de la -Vega of the end of the fifteenth century is confused with -a namesake and relative who fell at Baza in 1455, and is -further represented as the hero of a feat of arms—the slaying -of a Moor who insultingly attached the device <em>Ave -Maria</em> to his horse’s tail—which was really performed by -an ancestor of his about a hundred and fifty years earlier. -This later Garcilaso was a favourite of fortune, for, at the -end of the sixteenth century, Gabriel Lobo Lasso de la -Vega wrote a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> ascribing to him Hernando del Pulgar’s -daring exploit—his riding into Granada, fastening -with his dagger a placard inscribed <em>Ave Maria</em> to the door -of the chief mosque, and thus proclaiming his intention of -converting it into a Christian church.</p> - -<p>It is needless to discuss Lockhart’s group of so-called -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> -‘Moorish ballads.’<a name="FNanchor_74_74" id="FNanchor_74_74"></a><a href="#Footnote_74_74" class="fnanchor">74</a> If any one wishes to translate a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> -of this kind, let him try to convey to us the adroitly -suggested orientalism of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Yo me era mora Moraima, morilla de un bel catar:</div> -<div class="line">cristiano vino á mi puerta, cuitada, per me engañar.<a name="FNanchor_75_75" id="FNanchor_75_75"></a><a href="#Footnote_75_75" class="fnanchor">75</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">With scarcely an exception, the ‘Moorish ballads’ show no -trace of Moorish origin, and with very few exceptions, they -are not popular ballads. They are clever, artificial presentations -of the picturesque Moor as suggested in the anonymous -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Historia de Abindarraez</cite>, and elaborated by Pérez de -Hita. We do not put it too high in saying that Pérez de -Hita’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Guerras civiles de Granada</cite>—the earliest historical -novel—is responsible for all the impossible Moors and incredible -Moorish women of poetry and fiction.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i15">Unmask me now these faces,</div> -<div class="line">Unmuffle me these Moorish men, and eke these dancing Graces...</div> -<div class="line">To give ye merry Easter I’ll make my meaning plain,</div> -<div class="line">Mayhap it never struck you, we have Christians here in Spain.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span>But Góngora’s voice was as the voice of one crying in -the wilderness. The tide rose, overflowed the Pyrenees, -floated Mademoiselle de Scudéri’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Almahide</cite> and Madame -de Lafayette’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Zaïde</cite> into fashion, and did not ebb till long -after Washington Irving followed Pérez de Hita’s lead by -ascribing his graceful, fantastic <cite>Chronicle of the Conquest of -Granada</cite> to a non-existent historian whom he chose to call -Fray Antonio Agapida. The Moor of fiction is so much -more attractive than the Moor of history that he has -imposed himself upon the world. Most of us still see him, -with the light of other days around him, as we first met -him in Scott’s <cite>Talisman</cite>, or in Chateaubriand’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Aventures -du dernier Abencérage</cite>. Still the fact remains that he is -a conventional lay-figure, and that a Spanish poem in -which he appears transfigured and glorified is neither -ancient nor popular, but is necessarily the work of some -late Spanish writer who knows no more of Moors than -he can gather from Pérez de Hita’s gorgeously imaginative -pages.</p> - -<p>No serious fault can be found with Lockhart’s selection -of what he calls ‘Romantic Ballads.’ Most of them are -excellent examples, though <cite>The Moor Calaynos</cite>, an abbreviated -rendering of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Ya cabalga Calaynos á la sombra de una oliva,<a name="FNanchor_76_76" id="FNanchor_76_76"></a><a href="#Footnote_76_76" class="fnanchor">76</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">is no longer ‘generally believed to be among the most -ancient’ ballads. It was certainly widely known, as -Lockhart says, for tags from it have become proverbs; but -it mentions Prester John and the Sultan of Babylon, and -these personages are unknown to genuine old popular -poetry. According to Milá y Fontanals and Sr. Menéndez -y Pelayo, the Calaínos ballad is one of the latest in the -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span> -Charlemagne cycle, and is derived from a Provençal version -of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Fierabras</em>. On the other hand, the original of <cite>The Escape -of Gayferos</cite>—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Estábase la condesa en su estrado asentada<a name="FNanchor_77_77" id="FNanchor_77_77"></a><a href="#Footnote_77_77" class="fnanchor">77</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">is an authentic old popular <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> derived, it is believed, -more or less directly from the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Roman de Berthe</cite>, while the -much later <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Melisendra</em> ballad—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -El cuerpo preso en Sansueña y en Paris cautiva el alma<a name="FNanchor_78_78" id="FNanchor_78_78"></a><a href="#Footnote_78_78" class="fnanchor">78</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">owes most of its celebrity to the fact that it is quoted by -Ginés de Pasamonte when he acts as showman of the -puppets in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>. Again, <cite>The Lady Alda’s Dream</cite>—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -En Paris está doña Alda la esposa de don Roldan<a name="FNanchor_79_79" id="FNanchor_79_79"></a><a href="#Footnote_79_79" class="fnanchor">79</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">is an ancient <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> of intensely pathetic beauty suggested -by the famous passage in the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Chanson de Roland</cite> describing -Charlemagne’s announcement of Roland’s death to his -betrothed Alde, Oliver’s sister:—</p> - -<div lang="fr" xml:lang="fr"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -‘Soer, chere amie, d’hume mort me demandes...’</div> -<div class="line">Alde respunt: ‘Cist moz mei est estranges.</div> -<div class="line">Ne placet Deu ne ses seinz ne ses angles</div> -<div class="line">Après Rollant que jo vive remaigne!’</div> -<div class="line">Pert la culur, chiet as piez Carlemagne,</div> -<div class="line">Sempres est morte. Deus ait mercit de l’anme!</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Another famous ballad in the Charlemagne cycle, translated -by Lockhart under the title of <cite>The Admiral Guarinos</cite>—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Mala la vistes, franceses, la caza de Roncesvalles<a name="FNanchor_80_80" id="FNanchor_80_80"></a><a href="#Footnote_80_80" class="fnanchor">80</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">is also universally known from its being quoted in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>. -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span> - Its origin is not clear, but it seems to be related -to <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ogier le Danois</cite>, and it has certainly lived long and -travelled far if, as Georg Adolf Erman reports, it was sung -in Russian in Siberia as recently as 1828. A more special -interest attaches to the fine elfin ballad—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -A cazar va el caballero, á cazar como solía<a name="FNanchor_81_81" id="FNanchor_81_81"></a><a href="#Footnote_81_81" class="fnanchor">81</a>—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">which Lockhart entitles <cite>The Lady of the Tree</cite>. It is, as he -says, ‘one of the few old Spanish ballads in which mention -is made of the Fairies,’ and the seven years’ enchantment -reminded him of ‘those Oriental fictions, the influence of -which has stamped so many indelible traces on the imaginative -literature of Spain.’ The theory of Oriental influence -is not brought forward so often nowadays, and is challenged -in what was thought to be its impregnable stronghold. The -melancholy Kelt has taken the place of the slippery Oriental; -but theories come and go, and we can only hope that our -grandchildren will smile as indulgently at our Kelts as we -smile at our grandfathers’ Arabs.</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Hélo, hélo por do viene el infante vengador<a name="FNanchor_82_82" id="FNanchor_82_82"></a><a href="#Footnote_82_82" class="fnanchor">82</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">is the original of <cite>The Avenging Childe</cite>, a superb ballad which -is better represented in Gibson’s version. Compare, for -instance, the following translation with Lockhart’s:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">’Tis a right good spear, with a point so sharp, the toughest plough-share might pierce,</div> -<div class="line">For seven times o’er was it tempered fine, in the blood of a dragon fierce,</div> -<div class="line">And seven times o’er was it whetted keen, till it shone with a deadly glance,</div> -<div class="line">For its steel was wrought in the finest forge, in the realm of mighty France.</div> -<div class="line"><span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span>Its shaft was made of the Aragon wood, as straight as the straightest stalk,</div> -<div class="line">And he polished the steel, as he galloped along, on the wings of his hunting hawk;</div> -<div class="line">‘Don Quadros, thou traitor vile, beware! I’ll slay thee where thou dost stand,</div> -<div class="line">At the judgment seat, by the Emperor’s side, with the rod of power in his hand.’</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This is more faithful, and consequently more vivid; and the -retention of the Emperor, whom Lockhart (for metrical -purposes) reduces to a King, gives the English reader a -useful hint that the ballad belongs to the Charlemagne series. -But its source is obscure, and its symbolism is as perplexing as -symbolism is apt to be.</p> - -<p>All who have read <cite>Birds of Passage</cite>—that is to say, -everybody who reads anything—will</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">remember the black wharves and the slips,</div> -<div class="line i1">And the sea-tides tossing free;</div> -<div class="line">And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,</div> -<div class="line">And the beauty and mystery of the ships</div> -<div class="line i1">And the magic of the sea.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">These lines are recalled by <em>Count Arnaldos</em>, Lockhart’s translation -of the enchanting <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> which Longfellow has -incorporated in <cite>The Seaside and the Fireside</cite><a name="FNanchor_83_83" id="FNanchor_83_83"></a><a href="#Footnote_83_83" class="fnanchor">83</a>:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"><span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span>¡Quien hubiese tal ventura sobre las aguas del mar,</div> -<div class="line">como hubo el Conde Arnaldos la mañana de san Juan!<a name="FNanchor_84_84" id="FNanchor_84_84"></a><a href="#Footnote_84_84" class="fnanchor">84</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Probably nine out of every ten readers would turn to the <cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Buch -der Lieder</cite> for the loveliest lyric on the witchery of song:—</p> - -<div lang="de" xml:lang="de"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet</div> -<div class="line">Dort oben wunderbar,</div> -<div class="line">Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet,</div> -<div class="line">Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line i1">Sie kämmt es mit goldenem Kamme,</div> -<div class="line">Und singt ein Lied dabei;</div> -<div class="line">Das hat eine wundersame,</div> -<div class="line">Gewaltige Melodei....</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line i1">Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen</div> -<div class="line">Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn!</div> -<div class="line">Und das hat mit ihrem Singen</div> -<div class="line">Die Lore-Ley gethan.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">They may be right, but, if the tenth reader preferred -<span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Conde Arnaldos</cite>, I should not think him wrong. Though -Heine speaks of</p> - -<div lang="de" xml:lang="de"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">this seems to be a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">façon de parler</em>, for the Lorelei legend -was invented by Clemens Brentano barely twenty years -before Heine wrote his famous ballad. However this may -be, in producing his effect of mystic weirdness the German -artist does not eclipse the anonymous Spanish singer who -lived four centuries earlier. This is a bold thing to say; -yet nobody who reads <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Conde Arnaldos</cite> will think it much -too bold.</p> - -<p>Passing by a pleasing song (not in the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> form),<a name="FNanchor_85_85" id="FNanchor_85_85"></a><a href="#Footnote_85_85" class="fnanchor">85</a> -we come to the incomplete <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Julianesa</cite> ballad which Lockhart -printed, so he tells us, chiefly because it contained an -allusion to the pretty Spanish custom of picking flowers -on St. John’s Day:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">¡Arriba, canes, arriba! ¡que rabia mala os mate!<a name="FNanchor_86_86" id="FNanchor_86_86"></a><a href="#Footnote_86_86" class="fnanchor">86</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But, so far from being (like its immediate predecessor in -Lockhart’s book) an artistic performance, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Julianesa</cite> -ballad is one of the most primitive in the Gayferos group. -Its robust inspiration is in striking contrast to the too dulcet -<cite>Song of the Galley</cite>,<a name="FNanchor_87_87" id="FNanchor_87_87"></a><a href="#Footnote_87_87" class="fnanchor">87</a> which is followed by <cite>The Wandering -Knight’s Song</cite>, a capital version of a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> famous all the -world over owing to its quotation by Don Quixote at the -inn:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Mis arreos son las armas, mi descanso es pelear.<a name="FNanchor_88_88" id="FNanchor_88_88"></a><a href="#Footnote_88_88" class="fnanchor">88</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="pagenum2"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>We need say nothing of the <cite>Serenade</cite>,<a name="FNanchor_89_89" id="FNanchor_89_89"></a><a href="#Footnote_89_89" class="fnanchor">89</a> <cite>The Captive Knight -and the Blackbird</cite>,<a name="FNanchor_90_90" id="FNanchor_90_90"></a><a href="#Footnote_90_90" class="fnanchor">90</a> <em>Valladolid</em>,<a name="FNanchor_91_91" id="FNanchor_91_91"></a><a href="#Footnote_91_91" class="fnanchor">91</a> and <cite>Dragut the Corsair</cite>.<a name="FNanchor_92_92" id="FNanchor_92_92"></a><a href="#Footnote_92_92" class="fnanchor">92</a> -We should gladly exchange these translations of late and -mediocre originals for versions of</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Fonte-frida, fonte-frida, fonte-frida y con amor;<a name="FNanchor_93_93" id="FNanchor_93_93"></a><a href="#Footnote_93_93" class="fnanchor">93</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">or of one of the few but interesting ballads belonging to the -Breton cycle, such as the old <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> on Lancelot from -which Antonio de Nebrija quotes—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Tres hijuelos habia el rey, tres hijuelos, que no mas;<a name="FNanchor_94_94" id="FNanchor_94_94"></a><a href="#Footnote_94_94" class="fnanchor">94</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">or of the curious <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> glossed by Gil Vicente, Cristóbal -de Castillejo, and Jorge de Montemôr—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -La bella mal maridada, de las lindas que yo ví;<a name="FNanchor_95_95" id="FNanchor_95_95"></a><a href="#Footnote_95_95" class="fnanchor">95</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">or of the well-known ballad which seems to have strayed out -of the series of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances fronterizos</em>—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Mi padre era de Ronda, y mi madre de Antequera.<a name="FNanchor_96_96" id="FNanchor_96_96"></a><a href="#Footnote_96_96" class="fnanchor">96</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Fortunately these have been translated by Gibson. But we -must not part from Lockhart on bad terms, for he ends with -the ballad of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Count Alarcos and the Infante Solisa</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line"> -Retraída está la Infanta bien así como solía.<a name="FNanchor_97_97" id="FNanchor_97_97"></a><a href="#Footnote_97_97" class="fnanchor">97</a></div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em>, which is often ascribed to a certain Pedro -de Riaño, is certainly not older than the sixteenth century, -and is rather an artistic than a popular poem; but it is -unquestionably an impressive composition remarkable for -concentrated and pathetic beauty.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span></p> - -<p>Though I have far outrun my allotted time, I have merely -brushed the fringe of the subject; still, perhaps enough has -been said to stir your interest, and to set you reading the -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero</em> under the sagacious guidance of Sr. Menéndez -y Pelayo. That will occupy you for many a long day. To -those who have not the time to read everything, but who -wish to read the very best of the best, I cannot be wrong in -recommending the exquisite selection of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> published -by M. Foulché-Delbosc a few months ago.<a name="FNanchor_98_98" id="FNanchor_98_98"></a><a href="#Footnote_98_98" class="fnanchor">98</a></p> - -<hr /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"> </a></span></p> -<h2>CHAPTER V<br /><br /> - -<small>THE LIFE OF CERVANTES</small></h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Some</span> men live their romances, and some men write them. -It was given to Cervantes to do both, and, as his art was -not of the impersonal order, it is scarcely possible to read -his work without a desire to know more of the rich and -imposing individuality which informs it. Posthumous legends -are apt to form round men of the heroic type who have -been neglected while alive, and posterity seems to enjoy -this cheap form of atonement. Cervantes is a case in point. -But the researches of the last few years have brought much -new material to light, and have dissipated a cloud of myths -concerning him: we are not yet able to see him as he -was at every stage of his chequered career, but we are nearer -him than we ever were before. We are passing out of the -fogs of fable, and are learning that, in Cervantes’s case, facts -are as strange as fiction—and far more interesting.</p> - -<p>It is a foible with the biographers of great men to furnish -their heroes with a handsome equipment of ancestors, and -Cervantes’s descent has been traced back to the end of the -tenth century by these amateur genealogists. We may -admire their industry, and reject their conclusions. It is -quite possible that Cervantes was of good family, but we -cannot go further back than two generations. His grandfather, -Juan de Cervantes, appears to have been a country -lawyer who died, without attaining distinction or fortune, -about the middle of the sixteenth century. Juan’s son was -Rodrigo de Cervantes who married Leonor de Cortinas: and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> -the great novelist was the fourth of their seven children. -Rodrigo de Cervantes was a lowly precursor of Sangrado—a -simple apothecary-surgeon, of inferior professional status, -seldom settled long in one place, earning a precarious living -by cupping and blistering. His son Miguel was born at -Alcalá de Henares—possibly, as his name suggests, on -St. Michael’s Day (September 29)—and he was baptized -there on Sunday, October 9, 1547, in the church of Santa -María la Mayor. There was a tradition that Cervantes -matriculated at Alcalá, and his name was discovered in the -university registers by an investigator who looked for it -with the eye of faith. This is one of many pleasing, pious -legends. Rodrigo de Cervantes was not in a position to -send his sons to universities. A poor, helpless, sanguine -man, he wandered in quest of patients and fortune from -Alcalá to Valladolid, from Valladolid to Madrid, from Madrid -to Seville, and it has been conjectured that Miguel de -Cervantes Saavedra spent some time in the Jesuit school -at Seville. The dog Berganza, in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Coloquio de los Perros</cite>, -recalls his edification at ‘seeing the loving-kindness, the -discretion, the solicitude and the skill with which those -saintly fathers and masters taught these lads, so that the -tender shoots of their youth should not be twisted, nor -take a wrong bend in the path of virtue which, together -with the humane letters, they continually pointed out to -them.’ But it is evident that Cervantes can have had little -formal schooling. He was educated in the university of -practical experience, and picked up his learning as he could.</p> - -<p>He made the most of his casual opportunities. Obviously -the man who wrote <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> must have read the books -of chivalry, the leading poets, the chronicles, dramatic -romances like the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Celestina</cite>, picaresque novels like <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Lazarillo -de Tormes</cite>, pastoral tales like the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Diana</cite>, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">cancioneros</cite>, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span> -and countless broadsides containing popular ballads; and -he must have read them at this time, for his maturer -years were spent in campaigning, or in the discharge of -petty, exacting duties. In his early youth, too, he made -acquaintance with the theatre, witnessing the performances -of the enterprising Lope de Rueda, actor, manager and -playwright, the first man in Spain to set up a travelling -booth, and bid for public support. The impression was -ineffaceable: from Cervantes’s account of his experience, -given half a century later, it may be gathered that he -listened and watched with the uncritical rapture of a clever, -ardent lad, and that his ambition to become a successful -dramatist was born there and then. In the meantime, while -following his father in his futile journeys, he received a -liberal education. Jogging along the high-road, lodging in -wayside inns, strolling in market-places, he met men and -women of all ranks, from nobles to peasants, and thus -began to hoard his literary capital.</p> - -<p>Like most young men of literary ambition, Cervantes -began by versifying, and, as he never grew old in heart, he -versified as long as he lived. A sonnet, written between -1560 and 1568, has come to light recently, and is interesting -solely as the earliest extant work of Cervantes. By 1566 -he was settled in Madrid, and two years later he wrote a -series of elegiacs on the death of the Queen, Isabel de -Valois: these were published in a volume edited by Juan -López de Hoyos, a Madrid schoolmaster, who refers to -Cervantes as his ‘dear and beloved pupil.’ As the pupil -was twenty before López de Hoyos’s school was founded, -the meaning of the phrase is obscure. Perhaps Cervantes -had been a pupil under López de Hoyos elsewhere: perhaps -he was an usher in López de Hoyos’s new school: frankly, -we know nothing of his circumstances. He makes his formal -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> -entry into literature, and then vanishes out of sight, and -apparently out of Spain. What happened to him at this -time is obscure. We know on his own statement that he -was once <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">camarero</cite> to Cardinal Giulio Acquaviva; we know -that Acquaviva, not yet a Cardinal, was in Madrid during -the winter of 1568, and that he started for Rome towards -the end of the year; and we know from documentary -evidence that Cervantes was in Rome at the end of the -following year. How he got there, how and when he -entered Acquaviva’s service, or when and why he left it—these, -as Sir Thomas Browne would say, are all ‘matters -of probable conjecture.’</p> - -<p>While Cervantes was in Rome, a league was forming by -Spain, Venice and the Holy See against the Sultan Selim: -war was in sight, and every high-spirited young Spaniard -in Italy must have felt that his place was in the ranks. It -has been thought that Cervantes served as a supernumerary -before he joined Acquaviva’s household; but we do not -reach solid ground till 1571 when Cervantes is discovered -as a soldier in a company commanded by Diego de Urbina, -‘a famous captain of Guadalajara,’ as the Captive in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don -Quixote</cite> called him thirty-four years later. Urbina’s company -belonged to the celebrated <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">tercio</em> of Miguel de Moncada, and -in September 1571 it was embarked at Messina on the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Marquesa</em>, -one of the galleys under the command of Don John -of Austria. At dawn on Sunday, October 7, Don John’s -armada lay off the Curzolarian Islands when two sail were -sighted on the horizon, and soon afterwards the Turkish -fleet followed. Cervantes was ill with fever, but refused to -listen to his comrades who begged him to stay below: death -in the service of God and the King, he said, was preferable -to remaining under cover. The <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Marquesa</em> was in the hottest -of the fight at Lepanto, and when the battle was won -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> -Cervantes had received three wounds, two in the chest, and -one in the left hand. Like most old soldiers, he loved to -fight his battles over again, and, to judge from his writings, -he was at least as proud of having been at Lepanto as of -creating Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.</p> - -<p>He was in hospital for seven months at Messina, received -an increase of pay, and returned to duty in April 1572. -This throws light upon a personal matter. Current likenesses -of Cervantes, all imaginary and most of them mere -variants of the portrait contrived in the eighteenth century -by William Kent, usually represent him as having lost an -arm. This is manifestly wrong: a one-armed private would -have been discharged as not worth his pay and rations. -Cervantes was appointed to Manuel Ponce de León’s company -in the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">tercio</em> of Lope de Figueroa—the vehement -martinet who appears in Calderón’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Alcalde de Zalamea</cite>—and -took part in three campaigns; he was present at the -fiasco of Navarino in 1572, at the occupation of Tunis in -1573, and at the attempted relief of the Goletta in 1574. -He had already done garrison duty in Genoa and Sardinia, -and was now stationed successively at Palermo and Naples. -It was clear that there was to be no more fighting for a -while, and, as there was no opening for Cervantes in Italy, -he determined to seek promotion in Spain. Don John of -Austria recommended him for a company in one of the -regiments then being raised for Italy, and laid stress upon -his ‘merits and services,’ and a similar recommendation was -made by the Duke of Sesa, Viceroy of Sicily. These -flattering credentials and testimonials were destined to -cause much embarrassment and suffering to the bearer; but -they encouraged him to make for Spain with a confident -heart.</p> - -<p>His optimism was to be put to the proof. On September -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> -26, 1575, the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Sol</em>, with Cervantes and his brother Rodrigo on -board, was separated from the rest of the Spanish squadron -in the neighbourhood of Les Saintes Maries near Marseilles, -and was captured by Moorish pirates. The desperate -resistance of the Spaniards was unavailing; they were overcome -by superior numbers and were carried off to Algiers. -What follows would seem extravagant in a romance of -adventures, but the details are supported by irrefragable -evidence. As Algiers was at this time the centre of the -slave-trade, the prisoners cannot have felt much doubt as -to what was in store for them. Cervantes’s first owner was -a certain Dali Mami, a Greek renegade, and captain of a -galley. He read the recommendatory letters from Don -John of Austria and the Duke of Sessa, and (not unnaturally) -jumped at the conclusion that he had drawn a prize: -his slave might not be of great use so far as manual labour -was concerned, but any one who was personally acquainted -with two such personages as Don John and the Duke must -presumably be a man of consequence, and would assuredly -be worth a heavy ransom. The first result of this fictitious -importance was that Cervantes was put in irons, and chains; -and, when these were at last removed, he was carefully -watched.</p> - -<p>Cervantes found means to baffle his sentries. His first -attempt to escape was made in 1576: it was an ignominious -failure. He and his fellow-prisoners set out on foot to -walk to Orán, the nearest Spanish outpost; their Moorish -guide played them false, and there was nothing for it but -to go back to Algiers. In 1577 Rodrigo de Cervantes was -ransomed—he was reckoned cheaper than his brother—and -he undertook to send a vessel to carry off Miguel -and his friends. Meanwhile Cervantes enlisted the sympathies -of a Spanish renegade, a gardener from Navarre -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> -named Juan; between them they dug out a cave in a -garden near the sea, and smuggled into it one by one -fourteen Christian slaves who were secretly fed during -several months with the help of another renegade from -Melilla, a scoundrel known as <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Dorador</em>. It is easier to -say that the scheme was a bad one than to suggest anything -better: it was within an ace of succeeding. The -vessel sent by Rodrigo de Cervantes drew near the shore -on September 28, and was on the point of embarking those -hidden in the cave when a Moorish fishing-boat passed by -and scared the crew, who stood out to sea again. A second -attempt at a rescue was made, but it was too late. The -plot had been revealed by <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Dorador</em> to Hassan Pasha, -the Dey of Algiers, and, when some of the crew landed to -convey the fugitives on board, the garden was surrounded -by Hassan’s troops. The entire band of Christians was -captured, and Cervantes at once avowed himself the sole -organiser of the conspiracy. Brought bound before Hassan, -he adhered to his statement that his comrades were innocent, -and that he took the entire responsibility for the plot. The -gardener was hanged; after some hesitation, Hassan decided -to spare Cervantes’s life, and finally bought him from Dali -Mami for five hundred crowns.</p> - -<p>It is difficult to account for this act of relative mercy in -a man who is described in <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</em> as the murderer of -the human race, a hæmatomaniac who delighted in murder -for murder’s sake, one who hanged, impaled, tortured and -mutilated his prisoners every day. It may be that he -was genuinely struck by Cervantes’s unflinching courage; -it may be that he expected an immense ransom for a -man who was plainly the leader of the captives. What is -certain is that Cervantes was now Hassan’s slave; though -imprisoned in irons, he soon showed that his heroic spirit -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> -was unbroken. He sent a letter to Martín de Córdoba, the -governor of Orán, asking for aid to enable himself and three -other captives to escape; the messenger seemed likely -to fulfil his mission, but was arrested close to Orán, sent -back, and impaled. For writing the letter Cervantes was -sentenced to two thousand blows, but the sentence was -remitted, and it would almost seem as though Cervantes -completely forgot the incident, for in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> he goes -out of his way to record that <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">un tal Saavedra</em>—a certain -Saavedra, Something-or-Other Saavedra (who can be nobody -but himself)—was never struck by Hassan, and was never -threatened by Hassan with a blow. This may appear perplexing, -but as the writer goes on to say that Hassan never -addressed a harsh word to this Saavedra, it is plain that the -whole passage is an idealistic arabesque; the discrepancy -between the gloss and the facts shows the danger of seeking -exact biographical data in any imaginative work, however -heavily freighted with personal reminiscences.</p> - -<p>Hassan remitted the sentence, and, remarking that ‘so -long as he had the maimed Spaniard in custody, his Christians, -ships and the entire city were safe,’ he redoubled his -vigilance. For two years the prisoner made no move, but -plainly he was not resigned nor disheartened, for he conceived -the idea of inducing the Christian population of -Algiers to rise and capture the city. It was no mad, -impossible project; a similar rising had been successful at -Tunis in 1535, and there were over twenty thousand Christians -in Algiers. Once more Cervantes was betrayed, and -once more he escaped death. A less ambitious scheme also -miscarried. In 1579 he took into his confidence a Spanish -renegade and two Valencian traders, and persuaded the -Valencians to provide an armed vessel to rescue him and -some sixty other Christian slaves; but before the plan could -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span> -be carried out it was revealed to Hassan by a Dominican -monk, Juan Blanco de Paz. Very little is known of Blanco -de Paz, except that he came from Montemolín near Llerena, -and that he gave himself out as being a commissary and -familiar of the Inquisition. Why he should turn informer -at all, is a mystery: why he should single out Cervantes -as the special object of his hatred is no less a mystery. -The Valencian merchants got wind of his treachery, and, -dreading lest they might be implicated, begged Cervantes -to make his escape on a ship which was about to start for -Spain. To accept this proposal would have been to desert -his friends and to imperil their lives: Cervantes rejected it, -assuring the alarmed Valencians that he would not reveal -anything to compromise them, even if he were tortured. He -was as good as his word. Brought into Hassan’s presence -with his hands tied behind him and the hangman’s rope -round his neck, he was threatened with instant death unless -he gave up the names of his accomplices. But he was -undaunted and immovable, asserting that the plot had been -planned by himself and four others who had got away, and -that no one else had any active share in it. Perhaps there -was a certain economy of truth in this statement, but it -served its immediate purpose: though Cervantes was placed -under stricter guard, Hassan spared the other sixty slaves -involved.</p> - -<p>This was Cervantes’s last attempt to escape. His family -were doing what they could to procure his release. They -were miserably poor, and poverty often drives honest people -into strange courses. To excite pity, and so obtain a -concession which would help towards ransoming her son, -Cervantes’s mother passed herself off as a widow, though -her husband was still alive, a superfluous old man, now -grown incurably deaf, and with fewer patients than ever. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span> -By means of such dubious expedients some two hundred -and fifty ducats were collected and entrusted to Fray Juan -Gil and Fray Antón de la Bella, two monks engaged in -ransoming the Christian slaves at Algiers. The sum was -insufficient. Hassan curtly told Fray Juan Gil that all his -slaves were gentlemen, that he should not part with any -of them for less than five hundred ducats, and that for -Jerónimo de Palafox (apparently an Aragonese of some -position) he should ask a ransom of a thousand ducats. -Fray Juan Gil was specially anxious to release Palafox, and -made an offer of five hundred ducats; but Hassan would -not abate his terms. The Dey and the monk haggled from -spring till autumn. Hassan then went out of office, and -made ready to leave for Constantinople to give an account -of his stewardship. His slaves were already embarked on -September 19, 1580, when Fray Juan Gil, seeing that there -was no hope of obtaining Palafox’s release by payment of -five hundred ducats, ransomed Cervantes for that sum. It -is disconcerting to think that, if the Trinitarian friar had -been able to raise another five hundred ducats, we might -never have had <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>. Palafox would have been set -at liberty, while Cervantes went up the Dardanelles to meet -a violent death in a last attempt at flight.</p> - -<p>He stepped ashore a free man after five years of slavery, -but his trials in Algiers were not ended. The enigmatic -villain of the drama, Juan Blanco de Paz, had been busy -trumping up false charges to be lodged against Cervantes -in Spain. It was a base and despicable act duly denounced -by the biographers; but we have reason to be grateful to -Blanco de Paz, for Cervantes met the charges by summoning -eleven witnesses to character who testified before Fray Juan -Gil. Their evidence proves that Cervantes was recognised -as a man of singular courage, kindliness, piety and virtue; -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span> -that his authority among his fellow-prisoners had excited -the malicious jealousy of Blanco de Paz who endeavoured -to corrupt some of the witnesses; and—ludicrous detail!—that -the informer had been rewarded for his infamy with a -ducat and a jar of butter. This testimony, recorded by a -notary, is confirmed by the independent evidence of Fray -Juan Gil himself, and by Doctor Antonio de Sosa, a prisoner -of considerable importance who answered the twenty-five -interrogatories in writing. The enquiry makes us acquainted -with all the circumstances of Cervantes’s captivity, and shows -that he was universally regarded as an heroic leader by -those best able to judge.</p> - -<p>His vindication being complete, he left Algiers for Denia -on October 24, and reached Madrid at some date previous -to December 18. His position was lamentable. He was -in his thirty-fourth year, and had to begin life again. -Perhaps if Don John had lived, Cervantes might have -returned to the army; but Don John was dead, and his -memory was not cherished at court. Cervantes had no -degree, no profession, no trade, no craft except that of -sonneteering: his life had been spent in the service of the -King, and he endeavoured to obtain some small official post. -Accordingly he made for Portugal, recently annexed by -Philip <span class="smcap">II.</span>, tried to find an opening, and was sent as King’s -messenger to Orán with instructions to call at Mostaganem -with despatches from the Alcalde. The mission was speedily -executed, and Cervantes found himself adrift. He settled -in Madrid, made acquaintance with some prominent authors -of the day, and, in default of more lucrative employment, -betook himself to literature. He was always ready to -furnish a friend with a eulogistic sonnet on that friend’s -immortal masterpiece, and thus acquired a certain reputation -as a facile, fluent versifier. But sonnets are expensive -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span> -luxuries, and Cervantes wanted bread. He earned it by -writing for the stage: to this period no doubt we must -assign the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Numancia</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Tratos de Argel</cite>, as well as many -other pieces which have not survived. Cervantes was like -the players in <cite>Hamlet</cite>. Seneca was not too heavy, nor -Plautus too light for him: he was ready to supply ‘tragedy, -comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, -tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, -scene individable, or poem unlimited.’ It was a hard -struggle to keep the wolf from the door, but perhaps this -was the happiest period of Cervantes’s life. He was on -friendly terms with poets like Pedro de Padilla and Juan -Rufo Gutiérrez; managers did not pay him lavishly for his -plays, but at least they were set upon the stage, and the -applause of the pit was to him the sweetest music in the -world. Moreover, following the example of his friend Luis -Gálvez de Montalvo, he was engaged upon a prose pastoral, -and, with his optimistic nature, he easily persuaded himself -that this romance would make his reputation—and perhaps -his fortune. He was now nearing the fatal age of forty, and -it was high time to put away the follies of youth. Breaking -off a fugitive amour with a certain Ana Franca (more probably -Francisca) de Rojas, he married a girl of nineteen, -Catalina de Palacios Salazar y Vozmediano, daughter of a -widow owning a moderate estate at Esquivias, a small town -near Toledo, then famous for its wine, as Cervantes is careful -to inform us. Doubtless his courtship was like Othello’s.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i5">I spake of most disastrous chances,</div> -<div class="line">Of moving accidents by flood and field,</div> -<div class="line">Of hair-breadth ‘scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach,</div> -<div class="line">Of being taken by the insolent foe</div> -<div class="line">And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence</div> -<div class="line">And portance in my travels’ history.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span>This to hear would Catalina seriously incline, yet there is -reason to think that the members of her family were less -susceptible, and regarded Cervantes as an undesirable suitor. -He undoubtedly was, from a mundane point of view; but -the marriage took place on December 12, 1584, and next -spring the First Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Galatea</cite> (which had been licensed -in the previous February) was published. It is perhaps not -without significance that the volume was issued at Alcalá -de Henares: it would have been more natural and probably -more advantageous to publish the book at Madrid where -Cervantes resided, but his name carried no weight with the -booksellers of the capital, and no doubt he was glad enough -to strike a bargain with his fellow-townsman Blas de Robles. -Robles behaved handsomely, for he paid the author, then -unknown outside a small literary circle, a fee of 1336 <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">reales</em>—say -£30, equal (we are told) to nearly £150 nowadays. -Perhaps some modern novelists have received even less -for their first work. With this small capital the newly-married -couple set up house in Madrid: the bride had -indeed a small dowry including forty-five chickens, but -the dowry was not made over to her till twenty months -later. The marriage does not seem to have been unhappy, -as marriages go; but, owing to Cervantes’s wandering -existence, the pair saw little of each other till the last ten -or twelve years of their married life.</p> - -<p>By the death of his father on June 13, 1585, Cervantes -became the head of the family, and the position was no -sinecure. His sister Luisa had entered the convent of -Barefooted Carmelites at Alcalá de Henares twenty years -before this date, and his brother Rodrigo had been promoted -to a commission in the army for his signal gallantry at the -Azores. But Cervantes’s mother and his sisters, Andrea -and Magdalena, were unprovided for, and looked to him -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> -for help. He resumed writing for the stage, and is found -witnessing a legal document at the request of Inés Osorio, -wife of the theatrical manager Jerónimo Velázquez, with -whose name that of Lope de Vega is unpleasantly associated. -Now, if not earlier,—as a complimentary allusion in the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite> might suggest—Cervantes must have met that -marvellous youth who was shortly to become the most -popular dramatist of the age. Meanwhile Cervantes’s affairs -were going ill. According to his own statement he wrote -from twenty to thirty plays between 1582 and 1587; but -these plays cannot have brought him much money, for -there are proofs that some of his family sold outright to -a pawnbroker certain articles which Cervantes had left in -pledge two years before. Clearly he was hard pressed. -He eked out his income by accepting other work unconnected -with literature, executed business commissions as -far away as Seville, and looked around for permanent -employment. He found it as commissary to the Invincible -Armada which was then fitting out, and in the autumn of -1587 he took up his new duties in Andalusia. This amounts -to a confession of defeat. If a man of exceptional literary -genius can thrive on literature, he does not abandon it for -a less agreeable occupation. It is a fine thing to write -masterpieces, but in order to write them you must contrive -to live. Cervantes’s masterpieces lay in the future, and in -the meantime he felt the pinch of hunger.</p> - -<p>He appears to have obtained his appointment through -the influence of a judge in the High Court of Seville, Diego -de Valdivia, a namesake of the affable captain in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Licenciado -Vidriera</cite>; and, after a few months’ probation, his -appointment was confirmed anew in January 1588. He -had already discovered that there were serious inconveniences -attaching to his post, for he had incurred excommunication -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> -for an irregular seizure of wheat at Écija. It -would be tedious to follow him in his professional visits to -the outlying districts of Andalusia. Everything comes to -an end at last—even the equipment of the Invincible -Armada: when the fleet sailed to meet the enemy Cervantes -cheered it on to victory with an enthusiastic ode, and in a -second ode he deplored the great catastrophe. He continued -in the public service as commissary to the galleys, -collecting provisions at a salary of twelve <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">reales</em> a day, -making Seville his centre, and lodging in the house of -Tomás Gutiérrez. Weary of the sordid life, he applied in -1590 for a post in America, but failed to obtain it. At the -end of the petition, Doctor Núñez Morquecho wrote: ‘Let -him seek some employment hereabouts.’ Blessings on -Doctor Núñez Morquecho, the conscientious official! If -he had granted the petitioner’s request, Cervantes might -have been more prosperous, but he would not have written -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>. He was forced to remain where he was, -engulfed in arid and vexatious routine.</p> - -<p>Still one would imagine that he must have discharged -his duties efficiently, for he was one of four commissaries -specially commended to the King in January 1592 by the -new Purveyor-General Pedro de Isunza. Meanwhile his -condition grew rather worse than better: his poverty was -extreme. The financial administration was thoroughly disorganised, -and in 1591 Cervantes had not yet received -his salary for 1588. He seems (not unnaturally) to have -lost interest in his work, and to have become responsible -for the indiscreet proceedings of a subordinate at -Teba. Henceforward he was in constant trouble with the -authorities. In August 1592 his accounts were found to be -irregular, and his five sureties were compelled to pay the -balance; he was imprisoned at Castro del Río in September -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span> -for alleged illegal perquisitioning at Écija, but was released -on appeal. Now and then he was tempted to return to -literature. He signed a contract at Seville early in September -1592 undertaking to furnish the manager, Rodrigo Osorio, -with six plays at fifty ducats apiece: the conditions of the -agreement were that Osorio was to produce each play within -twenty days of its being delivered to him, and that -Cervantes was to receive nothing unless the play was ‘one -of the best that had been acted in Spain.’ The imprisonment -at Castro del Río a fortnight later interfered with this -project: no more is heard of it, and Cervantes resumed his -work as commissary. Two points of personal interest are -to be noted in the ensuing years: in the autumn of 1593 -Cervantes lost his mother, and in the autumn of 1594 he visited -Baza, where (as Sr. Rodríguez Marín has shown recently -in an open letter addressed to me<a name="FNanchor_99_99" id="FNanchor_99_99"></a><a href="#Footnote_99_99" class="fnanchor">99</a>) his old enemy Blanco -de Paz was residing. As the population of Baza amounted -only to 1537 persons at the time, the two men may easily -have met: the encounter would have been worth witnessing, -for Cervantes was a master of pointed expression.</p> - -<p>He passed on his dreary round to Málaga and Ronda, -returning to his headquarters at Seville, where, most likely, -he wrote the poem in honour of St. Hyacinth which won -the first prize at Saragossa on May 7, 1595. As the prize -consisted of three silver spoons, it did not greatly relieve -his financial embarrassments. These rapidly grew worse. -Cervantes had deposited public moneys with a Portuguese -banker in Seville; the banker failed and fled, and, as -Cervantes was unable to refund the amount, he was suspended. -There is a blank in his history from September -1595 to January 1597, when the money was recovered from -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> -the bankrupt’s estate. Cervantes, however, was not restored -to his post. This is not surprising; for, though most of us -regard him with an affection as real as can be felt for any -one who has been in his grave nearly three hundred years, -even our partiality stops short of calling him a model official. -He was not cast in the official mould. Cervantes, collecting -oil and wrangling over corn in Andalusia, is like Samson -grinding in the prison house at Gaza. Misfortune pursued -him. The treasury accountants called upon him to furnish -sureties that he would attend the Exchequer Court at -Madrid within twenty days of receiving a summons dated -September 6, 1597. Unable to find bail, he was imprisoned -till the beginning of December, when he was released with -instructions to present himself at Madrid within thirty days. -He does not appear to have left Seville, and he neglected a -similar summons in February 1599. This may seem like -contempt of court, but no doubt the real explanation is that -he had not the money to pay for the journey.</p> - -<p>On July 2, 1600, Rodrigo de Cervantes, then an ensign -serving under the Archduke Albert in Flanders, was killed -in action; but Miguel de Cervantes probably did not hear -of this till long afterwards. He now vanishes from sight, -for there is another blank in his record from May 1601 to -February 1603. We may assume that he lived in extreme -poverty at Seville, and when next heard of—at Valladolid in -1603—his circumstances had not greatly improved. His -sister Andrea was employed as needlewoman by the -Marqués de Villafranca, and her little bill is made out in -Cervantes’s handwriting: clearly every member of the -family contributed to the household expenses, and every -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">maravedí</em> was welcome. Presumably Cervantes had come to -Valladolid in obedience to a peremptory <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">mandamus</em> from the -Exchequer Court. A brief enquiry must have convinced -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span> -the registrars that, with the best will in the world, he was -not in a position to make good the sum which (as they -alleged) was due to the treasury, and they left him in peace -for three years with a cloud over him. He had touched -bottom. He had valiantly endured the buffets of fortune, -and was now about to enter into his reward.</p> - -<p>His mind to him a kingdom was, and during the years of -his disgrace in Seville he had lived, unhindered by squalid -circumstance, in a pleasaunce of reminiscence and imagination. -All other doors being closed to him, he returned to -the house of literature, took pen and paper, gave literary -form to his experiences and imaginings, and, when drawing -on to sixty, produced the masterpiece which has made his -name immortal. It may well be, as he himself hints, that -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was begun in Seville jail: perhaps it was finished -there. At any rate there was little to be added to it when -the author reached Valladolid in 1603—little beyond the -preface and burlesque preliminary verses. By the summer -of 1604 Cervantes had found a publisher, and it had leaked -out that the book contained some caustic references to -distinguished contemporaries. This may account for Lope -de Vega’s opinion, expressed in August 1604 (six months -before the work was published), that ‘no poet is as bad as -Cervantes, nor so silly as to praise <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>.’ This was -not precisely a happy forecast. <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> appeared early -in 1605, was hailed with delight, and received the dubious -compliment of being pirated in Lisbon. Cervantes was the -man of the moment, in the first flush of his popularity, when -chance played him an unpleasant trick. On the night -of June 27, 1605, a Navarrese gallant named Gaspar de -Ezpeleta was wounded while in the neighbourhood of the -Calle del Rastro, called for aid at the door of No. 11 where -Cervantes lodged, was helped into the house, and died there -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> -two days later. The inmates were arrested on suspicion, -examined by the magistrate, and released on July 1. The -minutes of the examination were unpublished till recent -years, and these furtive tactics gravely injured the memory -of Cervantes, for they suggested the idea that the examination -revealed something to his discredit. It reveals that Cervantes’s -natural daughter, Isabel de Saavedra (whose mother, -Ana Franca de Rojas, had died in 1599 or earlier), was now -residing with her father; it proves that Cervantes was still -poor, and that calumnious gossip was current in Valladolid; -but there is not a tittle of evidence to show that any -member of the Cervantes family ever heard of Ezpeleta till -he came by his death.</p> - -<p>Cervantes had made for himself a great reputation, but -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> did not apparently enrich him: otherwise he -would not have asked his publisher for an advance of 450 -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">reales</em>, as we know that he did at some date previous to -November 23, 1607. However, we must renounce the pretension -to understand Cervantes’s financial affairs. His -daughter Isabel, who was unmarried in 1605, reappears in -1608 as the widow of Diego Sanz del Aguila, and as the -mother of a daughter: in 1608 she married a certain Luis -de Molina, and there are complicated statements respecting -a house in the Red de San Luis from which it is impossible -to gather whether the house belonged to Isabel, to her -daughter, or to her father. We cannot wonder that Cervantes -was the despair of the Treasury officials: these -officials did, indeed, make a last attempt to extract an -explanation from him on November 6 of this very year of -1608, and thenceforward left him in peace.</p> - -<p>He settled in Madrid to pass his serene old age. An -atmosphere of devotion began to reign in the house in the -Calle de la Magdalena where he lived with his wife and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span> -his sisters, Andrea and Magdalena. In 1609 he was among -the first to join the newly founded Confraternity of the -Slaves of the Most Blessed Sacrament; in the same year his -wife received the habit of the Tertiaries of St. Francis, -as also did Andrea who died four months later (October 9); -in 1610 his wife and his surviving sister Magdalena both -became professed Tertiaries of St. Francis. It would appear -that Cervantes had been aided by the generosity of the -Conde de Lemos, and he could not hide his deep chagrin -at not being invited to join the household when Lemos was -nominated to the viceroyalty of Naples in 1610. The new -viceroy chose better than he knew. Cervantes applied -himself more closely to literature which he had neglected -(so far as publication goes) for the last five years, and, after -the death of his sister Magdalena in 1611, the results of -his renewed activity were visible. In 1612, when he -became a member of the Academia Selvaje (where we -hear of his lending a wretched pair of spectacles to Lope de -Vega), he finished his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Novelas Exemplares</cite> which appeared -next year. He published his serio-comic poem, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Viage -del Parnaso</cite>, in 1614; in 1615 he issued a volume containing -eight plays and eight interludes, and also published the -Second Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>. It is curious that so many -things which must have seemed misfortunes to Cervantes -have proved to be a gain to us. In 1614 an apocryphal <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don -Quixote</cite> was published at Tarragona by Alonso Fernández -de Avellaneda of whom nothing has been discovered, and -this spurious sequel contained a preface filled with insolent -personalities. If Cervantes had received any one of the -appointments in Spanish America for which he petitioned, -we should not have had the first <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>; if he had -gone to Naples with Lemos we should never have had the -second; if it had not been for Avellaneda’s insults, we -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> -might have had only an unfinished sequel. Cervantes’s life -was now drawing to a close, but his industry was prodigious. -Apart from fugitive verses he was engaged on <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Trabajos -de Persiles y Sigismunda</cite>, on a play entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Engaño á los -ojos</cite>, the long-promised continuation of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite>, and two -works which he proposed to call <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las Semanas del Jardín</cite> and -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El famoso Bernardo</cite>. All are lost to us except <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Persiles y -Sigismunda</cite> which appeared posthumously in 1617.</p> - -<p>We catch interesting glimpses of Cervantes in the last -phase. He has left a verbal portrait of himself as he -looked when he was sixty-six, and it is the only authentic -portrait of him in existence. He was ‘of aquiline features, -with chestnut hair, smooth and unclouded brow, bright -eyes, and a nose arched, though well proportioned, silver -beard, once golden twenty years ago, long moustache, small -mouth, teeth of no consequence, since he had only six and -these in ill condition and worse placed, inasmuch as they -do not correspond to one another; stature about the -average, neither tall nor short, ruddy complexion, fair -rather than dark, slightly stooped in the shoulders, and -not very active on his feet.’ Two years later Noel Brûlart -de Sillery came to Madrid on a special mission from the -French Court, and his suite were intensely curious to hear -what they could of Cervantes; they learned that he was -‘old, a soldier, a gentleman, and poor.’ At this time, his -health must have begun to fail: it was undoubtedly failing -fast while he wrote <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Persiles y Sigismunda</cite>. He was apparently -dependent on the bounty of Lemos and of Bernardo de -Sandoval, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo. The hand -of death was on him when he wrote to the Cardinal on -March 26, 1616, a letter expressing his gratitude for a -recent benefaction. On April 2 he was professed as a -Tertiary of St. Francis, and the profession took place at -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> -the house in the Calle de León to which he had removed -in 1611 or earlier. He was never to leave it again alive: -on April 18 he received Extreme Unction; on April 19 he -wrote the celebrated dedication of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Persiles y Sigismunda</cite> to -Lemos; on April 23 he died, and on April 24 he was buried -in the convent of the Trinitarian nuns in the Calle del -Humilladero—the street which now bears the name of his -great rival Lope. His wife outlived him by ten years, and -his daughter by thirty-six; we hear no more of his granddaughter -after 1608. Presumably she died in infancy: if -so, the family became extinct upon the death of Isabel -de Saavedra in 1652.</p> - -<p>Cervantes was no bloodless ascetic, no incarnation of -dreary righteousness: we do him wrong, if we present him -in that crude, intolerable light. With some defects of -character and with some lapses of conduct, he is a more -interesting and more attractive personality than if he were—what -perhaps no one has ever been—a bundle of almost -impossible perfections. He was even as we are, but far -nobler—braver, more resigned to disappointment, more -patient with the folly which springs eternal in each of us. -This inexhaustible sympathy, even more than his splendid -genius, is the secret of his conquering charm. He is one of -ourselves, only incomparably greater.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">His life was gentle, and the elements</div> -<div class="line">So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up</div> -<div class="line">And say to all the world, ‘This was a man.’</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But it is not for us to write his epitaph. He needs no -marble sepulchre, and he has none, for the precise spot -where he rests is unknown. He has built himself a lordlier -and more imperishable monument than we could fashion -for him—a monument which will endure so long as humour, -wisdom, and romance enchant mankind.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER VI<br /><br /> - -<small>THE WORKS OF CERVANTES</small></h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">The</span> best and wisest of men have their delusions—especially -with respect to themselves and their capabilities—and -Cervantes was not free from such natural infirmities. He -made his first appearance in literature with a sonnet -addressed to Philip <span class="smcap">II.</span>’s third wife, Isabel de Valois, and as -this poem is not included in any Spanish edition of his works, -I make no apology for quoting it (in an English version by -Norman MacColl which has not yet been published).</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Most Gracious Queen, within whose breast prevail</div> -<div class="line i1">What thoughts to mortals by God’s grace do come,</div> -<div class="line i1">Oh general refuge of Christendom,</div> -<div class="line">Whose fame for piety can never fail.</div> -<div class="line">Oh happy armour! with that well-meshed mail</div> -<div class="line i1">Great Philip clothed himself, our sovereign,</div> -<div class="line i1">Illustrious King of the broad lands of Spain,</div> -<div class="line">Who fortune and the world holds in his baile.</div> -<div class="line">What genius would adventure to proclaim</div> -<div class="line i1">The good that thine example teaches us;</div> -<div class="line i2">If thou wert summoned to the realms of day,</div> -<div class="line">Who in thy mortal state put’st us to shame?</div> -<div class="line i1">Better it is to feel and mutter ‘hush,’</div> -<div class="line i2">Than what is difficult to say, aloud to say.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This is not a masterpiece in little, nor even a marvel of -adroitness; but it is highly interesting as the earliest extant -effort of one who was destined to become a master, and, -moreover, it supplies us with his favourite poetical formulæ. -In his description of the Queen as the</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1"><span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span>general refuge of Christendom,</div> -<div class="line">Whose fame for piety can never fail;</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">in his allusion to the</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Illustrious King of the broad lands of Spain,</div> -<div class="line">Who fortune and the world holds in his baile;</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Cervantes strikes the characteristic notes of devotion, -patriotism, and loyalty to his sovereign. Though he vastly -enlarged the circle of his themes later on, he was sufficiently -representative of his own time and country to introduce -these three motives into his subsequent writings whenever -a plausible occasion offered. This is particularly notable in -his fugitive verses. Sainte-Beuve says that nearly all men -are born poets, but that, as a rule, the poet in us dies young. -It was not so with Cervantes—so far as impulse was concerned. -From youth to old age he was a persistent versifier. -As we have seen, he first appeared in print with elegiacs on -the death of Isabel de Valois; as a slave in Algiers he dedicated -sonnets to Bartolomeo Ruffino, and from Algiers also -he appealed for help to Mateo Vázquez in perhaps the most -spirited and sincere of his poetical compositions; he was not -long free from slavery when he supplied Juan Rufo Gutiérrez -with a resounding patriotic sonnet, and Pedro de Padilla -with devotional poems. As he began, so he continued. He -has made merry at the practice of issuing books with -eulogistic prefatory poems; but he observed the custom in -his own <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite>, and he was indefatigable in furnishing such -verses to his friends. All subjects came alike to him. He -would as soon praise the quips and quillets of López Maldonado -as lament the death of the famous admiral Santa Cruz, and -he celebrated with equal promptitude a tragic epic on the -lovers of Teruel and a technical treatise on kidney diseases. -It must, I think, be allowed that Cervantes was readily -stirred into song.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>At the end of his career, in his mock-heroic <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Viage del -Parnaso</cite>, he cast a backward glance at his varied achievement -in literature, and, with his usual good judgment, -admitted wistfully that nature had denied him the gift of -poetry. As the phrase stands, and baldly interpreted, it -would seem that excessive modesty had led Cervantes to -underestimate his powers. He was certainly endowed with -imagination, and with a beautifying vision; but, though he -had the poet’s dream, he had not the faculty of verbal magic. -It was not given to him to wed immortal thoughts to -immortal music, and this no doubt is what he means us to -understand by his ingenuous confession. His verdict is -eminently just. Cervantes has occasional happy passages, -even a few admirable moments, but no lofty or sustained -inspiration. He recognised the fact with that transparent -candour which has endeared him to mankind, not dreaming -that uncritical admirers in future generations would seek to -crown him with the laurel to which he formally resigned all -claim. Yet we read appreciations of him as a ‘great’ poet, -and we can only marvel at such misuse of words. If Cervantes -be a ‘great’ poet, what adjective is left to describe -Garcilaso, Luis de León, Lope de Vega, Góngora and -Calderón?</p> - -<p>A sense of measure, of relative values, is the soul of -criticism, and we may be appreciative without condescending -to idolatry, or even to flattery. Cervantes was a rapid, -facile versifier, and at rare intervals his verses are touched -with poetry; but, for the most part, they are imitative, and -no imitation, however brilliant, is a title to lasting fame. -Imitation in itself is no bad sign in a beginner; it is a -healthier symptom than the adoption of methods which are -wilfully eccentric; but it is a provisional device, to be used -solely as a means of attaining one’s originality. It cannot -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span> -be said that Cervantes ever acquired a personal manner in -verse: if he had, there would be far less division of opinion -as to whether he is, or is not, the author of such and such -poems. He finally acquired a personal manner in prose, but -only after an arduous probation.</p> - -<p>There are few traces of originality in his earliest prose -work, the First Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Galatea</cite>, the pastoral which -Cervantes never found time to finish during more than -thirty years. I do not think we need suppose that we have -lost a masterpiece, though no doubt it would be profoundly -interesting to see Cervantes trying to pour new wine into -old bottles. The sole interest of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite>, as we have it, -is that it is the first essay in fiction of a great creator who -has mistaken his road. There does appear to have existed, -long before the composition of the Homeric poems, a primitive -pastoral which was popular in character. So historians tell -us, and no doubt they are right. But the extant pastoral -poetry of Sicily is the latest manifestation of Greek genius, -an artistic revolt against the banal conventions of civilisation, -an attempt to express a longing for a freer life in -a purer air. In other words it is an artificial product. The -Virgilian eclogues are still more remote from reality than -the idyls of Theocritus: as imitations are bound to be. -Artificiality is even more pronounced in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Arcadia</cite> of -Sannazaro who ‘prosified’ the Virgilian eclogue during the -late Renaissance: what else do you expect in an imitation -of an imitation? Neither in Sannazaro, nor in his disciple -Cervantes, is there a glimpse of real shepherds, nor even of -the Theocritean shepherds,—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Such as sat listening round Apollo’s pipe,</div> -<div class="line">When the great deity, for earth too ripe,</div> -<div class="line">Let his divinity o’erflowing die</div> -<div class="line">In music, through the vales of Thessaly.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>What we find in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite> is the imitation by Cervantes of -Sannazaro’s prose imitation of Virgil’s imitation of Theocritus. -To us who wish for nothing better than to read Cervantes -himself, his ambition to write like somebody else seems -misplaced, not to say grotesque. But then, for most of us, -Sannazaro has only a relative importance: to Cervantes, -Sannazaro was almost Virgil’s peer.</p> - -<p>Everything connected with the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite> is imitative—the -impulse to write it, the matter, and the manner. The -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite> is no spontaneous product of the author’s fancy; it -owes its existence to Sannazaro’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Arcadia</cite>, and to the early -Spanish imitations of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Arcadia</cite> recorded in Professor -Rennert’s exhaustive monograph. We shall not be far -wrong in thinking that it might never have struggled into -print, had not Cervantes been encouraged by the example of -his friend Luis Gálvez de Montalvo, who had made a hit -with <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Pastor de Fílida</cite>. So, too, as regards the matter of -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite>. The sixth book is a frank adaptation of the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Arcadia</cite>; there are further reminiscences of Sannazaro’s -pastoral in both the verse and the prose of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite>; -other allusions are worked in without much regard to their -appropriateness; León Hebreo is not too lofty, nor Alonso -Pérez too lowly, to escape Cervantes’s depredations. Lastly, -the manner is no less imitative: construction, arrangement, -distribution, diction are all according to precedent. Martínez -Marina, indeed, held the odd view that there was something -new in the style of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite>, and that Cervantes and -Mariana were the first to move down the steep slope that -leads to <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">culteranismo</em>. During the hundred years that -Martínez Marina’s theory has been before the world it has -made no converts, and therefore it needs no refutation. -But, though the theory is mistaken, some of the facts -advanced to support it are indubitable: the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite> is -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span> -deliberately latinised in imitation of Sannazaro who sought -to reproduce the sustained and sonorous melody of the -Ciceronian period. So intent is Cervantes upon the model -that his own personality is overwhelmed. He probably -never wrote with more scrupulous care than when at work -on the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite>, yet all his pains and all his elaborate finish -are so much labour lost. Briefly, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite> is little more -than the echo of an echo, and the individual quality of -Cervantes’s voice is lost amid the reverberations of exotic -music.</p> - -<p>The sixteenth-century prose-pastoral was a barren product, -rooted in a false convention. It was not natural, and -it was not artistic: it failed to reproduce the beauty of the -old ideal, and it failed to create a modern ideal. It satisfies -no canon, and to attempt to make a case for it is to argue -for argument’s sake. Had Cervantes continued to work -this vein, he would never have found his true path, and -must have remained an imitator till the end; and it is a -mere chance that he did not return to the pastoral and -complete the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite>. It was far too often in his thoughts. -As his butt Feliciano de Silva would have said, his reason -saw ‘the unreason of the reason with which the reason is -afflicted’ when given up to the composition of pastorals; -and yet the pastoral romance had a fascination for him. -Fortunately, he was saved from a fatal error by the fact -that, for nearly twenty years after the publication of the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite>, he was kept against his will in touch with the -realities of life: realities often grim, squalid, fantastic, cruel -and absurd, but preferable to the pointless philanderings of -imaginary swains and nymphs in a pasteboard Arcadia. The -surly taxpayers from whom Cervantes had to wring contributions, -the clergy who excommunicated and imprisoned -him, the alcaldes and jacks-in-office who made his life a -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> -burden, the cheating landlords and strumpets whom he met -in miserable inns—these people were not the crown and -flower of the human race, but they were not intangible -abstractions, nor even persistent bores; they were plain -men and women, creatures of flesh and blood, subject to -all the passions of humanity, and using vigorous, natural -speech instead of euphemisms and preciosities. It was by -contact with these rugged folk that Cervantes amassed his -wealth of observation, and slowly learned his trade. This -was precisely what he needed. After his return from -Algiers, and till his marriage, circumstances had thrown -him into a literary clique, well-read and well-meaning, but -with no vital knowledge of the past and no intellectual -interest in the present. The destiny which drove Cervantes -to collect provisions and taxes in the villages of the south -saved him from the Byzantinism of the capital, and placed -him once more in direct relation with nature—especially -human nature. This was his salvation as an author. And -eighteen years later he produced the First Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don -Quixote</cite>.</p> - -<p>It would be interesting to know the exact stages of composition -of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>, but that is hopeless. We cannot -be sure as to when Cervantes began the book, but we may -hazard a conjecture. Bernardo de la Vega’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Pastor de Iberia</cite>, -one of the books in Don Quixote’s library, was published -in 1591, and this goes to prove that the sixth chapter was -written after this date—probably a good deal later, for this -pastoral was a failure, and therefore not likely to come at -once into the hands of a busy, roving tax-gatherer. You -all remember the incident of Sancho Panza’s being tossed -in a blanket, and there is a very similar episode in the Third -Book of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Guzmán de Alfarache</cite>. Is there any relation between -the two? Is it a case of unconscious reminiscence, or is it -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span> -simple coincidence? It would be absurd to suppose that -Cervantes deliberately took such a trifling incident from a -book published six years before his own. Where Cervantes -is imitative is in the dedication of the First Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don -Quixote</cite>, which is pieced together from Herrera’s dedication -of his edition of Garcilaso to the Marqués de Ayamonte, -and from Francisco de Medina’s prologue to the same -edition. If the tossing of Sancho Panza were suggested -by <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Guzmán de Alfarache</cite>, it would follow that the seventeenth -chapter of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was written in 1599, or later, -and a remark dropped by Ginés de Pasamonte seems to -show that Cervantes had read Mateo Alemán’s book without -any excessive admiration. But the point is scarcely worth -labouring. My own impression is that <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was -progressing, but was not yet finished, in 1602.</p> - -<p>Consider the facts a moment! So far as external evidence -goes we have no information concerning Cervantes from May -1601 to February 1603, but I suggest that he was in Seville -during 1602. We know that Lope de Vega was constantly -in Seville from 1600 to 1604, and we know that Cervantes -wrote a complimentary sonnet for the edition of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Dragontea</cite> -issued by Lope in 1602. The inference is that -Cervantes and Lope were on friendly terms at this date, -and it is therefore incredible that Cervantes had written—or -even contemplated writing—the sharp attack on Lope -in the forty-seventh chapter of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>. During the -course of 1602 differences arose to separate the two men, -and thenceforward Cervantes felt free to treat Lope as an -ordinary mortal, an author who invited trenchant criticism. -This would lead us to suppose that <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was not -actually finished till just before Cervantes’s departure to -Valladolid at the beginning of 1603, and it would also -explain how Lope de Vega became acquainted with the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> -contents of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> before it was actually published. -Cervantes is pleasantly chatty and confidential in print -respecting the books upon which he is at work; he is not -likely to have been more reserved in private conversation -with a friend. And it is intrinsically probable that at this -difficult period of his life Cervantes may have made many -confidences to Lope concerning his projects.</p> - -<p>At first sight it may seem odd that we hear nothing of -Cervantes’s mingling in the literary circles of Seville; it -may seem still more strange, if we take into consideration -the fact that several of the poets whom he had praised in the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite> were then living in Seville. But there is nothing -strange about it, if we look at men and things from a contemporary -point of view. The plain truth is that at this -time Cervantes was a nobody in the eyes of educated people -at Seville. His steps had been persistently dogged by -failure. He had failed as a dramatist, and as a writer of -romance; he had been discharged from the public service -under a cloud, and his imprisonment would not recommend -him to the Philistines. Highly respectable literary persons -closed their doors to him, and in these circumstances Lope’s -companionship would be most welcome. From these small -details we may fairly infer that <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was not finished -till the very end of 1602, and that the final touches were -not given till Cervantes went to Valladolid in 1603, a perfectly -insignificant figure in the eyes of literary men and -literary patrons. He was still nothing but a seedy elderly -hack when <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was licensed in September 1604. -The book stole into the market at the beginning of 1605, -with no great expectation of success on the part of the -publisher who had it printed in a commonplace, careless -fashion, and left it to take its chance on his counter at the -price of eight and a half <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">reales</em>. We all know the result. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span> -From the outset <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was immensely popular, and -from that day to this the author’s reputation has steadily -increased—till now he ranks as one of the great immortals. -The history of literature shows no more enduring triumph.</p> - -<p>Cervantes himself tells us that <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> is, ‘from -beginning to end, an attack upon the books of chivalry,’ -and no doubt he means this assertion to be taken literally. -But, as I have said elsewhere, the statement must -be interpreted rationally in the light of other facts. It is -quite true that books of chivalry had been a public pest, that -grave scholars and theologians thundered against them, and -that legislation was invoked to prevent their introduction -into the blameless American colonies. The mystic Malón -de Chaide, writing in 1588, declared that these extravagances -were as dangerous as a knife in a madman’s hand; -but Malón de Chaide lived sequestered from the world, and -was evidently not aware that public taste had changed -since he was young. It is a significant fact that no romance -of chivalry was printed at Madrid during the reign of -Philip <span class="smcap">II.</span>, and the natural conclusion is that such publications -were then popular only in country districts. The -previous twenty years of Cervantes’s life had been passed -in the provinces, and one might be tempted to imagine -that he was unaware of what was happening elsewhere. -This would be an error: the fact that he mentions his own -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Rinconete y Cortadillo</cite> in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> proves that he knew -there was a demand for picaresque stories, and that he was -prepared to satisfy it. The probability is that Cervantes, -who lived much in the past, had intended to write a short travesty -of a chivalresque novel, and that his original intention -remained present in his mind long after he had exceeded -it in practice. If any one chooses to insist that Cervantes -gave the romances of chivalry their death-blow, we are not -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span> -concerned to deny it; if he had done nothing more, it -would have been an inglorious victory, for they were -already at the last extremity: but in truth, though he -himself may have been unconscious of it, in writing <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don -Quixote</cite> Cervantes signalised the triumph of the modern -spirit over mediævalism.</p> - -<p>He had set out impelled by the spirit of burlesque, and -perhaps had met in his wanderings on the King’s commission -some quaint belated personage who seemed a survival -from a picturesque, idealistic age, and who invited good-natured -caricature. With some such intention, Cervantes -began a tale, which, so far as he could foresee, would be no -longer than some of his <cite>Exemplary Novels</cite> (of which one, at -least, was already written); but the experiment was a new -one, and the author himself was at the mercy of accidents. -He saw little more than the possibilities of his central idea: -a country gentleman who had become a monomaniac by -incessant pondering over fabulous deeds, and who was led -into ridiculous situations by attempting to imitate the -imaginary exploits of his mythical heroes. Cervantes sets -forth light-heartedly; pictures his gaunt hero arguing with -Master Nicolás, the village barber, over the relative merits -of Palmerín and Amadís; and finally presents him aflame -with an enthusiasm which drives him to furbish up his -great-grandfather’s armour, to go out to right every kind of -wrong, and to win everlasting renown (as well as the empire -of Trebizond). Parodies, burlesque allusions, humorous -parallels crowd upon the writer, and his pen flies trippingly -along till he reaches the third chapter. At this point -Cervantes perceives the subject broadening out, and the -landlord accordingly impresses on Don Quixote the necessity -of providing himself with a squire.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>It is a momentous passage: there and then the image of -Sancho Panza first flashed into the author’s mind, but not -with any definition of outline. Cervantes does not venture -to introduce Sancho Panza in person till near the end of the -seventh chapter, and he is visibly ill at ease over his new -creation. It is quite plain that, at this stage, Cervantes -knew very little about Sancho Panza, and his first remark is -that the squire was an honest man (if any poor man can be -called honest), ‘but with very little sense in his pate.’ This -is not the Sancho who has survived: honesty is not the most -pre-eminent quality of the squire, and if anybody thinks -Sancho Panza a born fool he must have a high standard of -ability. In the ninth chapter Cervantes goes out of his way -to describe Sancho Panza as a long-legged man: obviously, -up to this point, he had never seen the squire at close -quarters, and was as yet not nearly so well acquainted with -him as you and I are. He was soon to know him more -intimately. Perceiving his mistake, he hustled the long-legged -scarecrow out of sight, observed the real Sancho -with minute fidelity, and created the most richly humorous -character in modern literature. The only possible rival to -Sancho Panza is Sir John Falstaff; but Falstaff is emphatically -English, whereas Sancho Panza is a citizen of the -world, stamped with the seal of universality.</p> - -<p>It can scarcely be doubted that <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> contains -many allusions to contemporaries and contemporary events. -We can catch the point of his jests at Lope de Vega’s fondness -for a classical reference, or at a geographical blunder -made by the learned Mariana; but probably many an allusion -of the same kind escapes us in Cervantes’s pages. The same -may be said of Shakespeare, and hence both Cervantes and -Shakespeare have been much exposed to the attentions of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> -commentators. In a celebrated passage of <cite>A Midsummer-Night’s -Dream</cite> Oberon addresses Puck:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i6">Thou rememberest</div> -<div class="line">Since once I sat upon a promontory,</div> -<div class="line">And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back</div> -<div class="line">Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath</div> -<div class="line">That the rude sea grew civil at her song</div> -<div class="line">And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,</div> -<div class="line">To hear the sea-maid’s music.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">An ordinary reader would be content to admire the lines -as they stand, but a commentator is an extraordinary -reader, who feels compelled to justify his existence by -identifying the mermaid with Mary Queen of Scots, the -dolphin with her first husband the Dauphin of France, and -the certain stars with Mary’s English partisans. In precisely -the same way Don Quixote has been identified with the -Duke of Lerma, Sancho Panza with Pedro Franqueza, and -the three ass-colts—promised by the knight to the squire -as some compensation for the loss of Dapple—have been -flatteringly recognised as the three Princes of Savoy, -Philip, Victor Amadeus, and Emmanuel Philibert. These -identifications seem quite as likely to be correct in the one -case as in the other. We need not discuss them. But if -<cite>A Midsummer-Night’s Dream</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> were really -intended as a couple of political pasquinades, they must be -classed as complete failures: the idea that Cervantes and -Shakespeare were a pair of party pamphleteers is a piece of -grotesque perversity.</p> - -<p>Apart from the matter of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>, the diversity of its -manner is arresting. Even those who most admire the -elaborate diction of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite> are compelled to admit its -monotony. The variety of incident in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> corresponds -to a variety of style which is a new thing in Spanish -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> -literature. Still there are examples of deliberate imitation, -not only in the travesties of the romances of chivalry, but -in such passages as Don Quixote’s famous declamation on -the happier Age of Gold:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>Happy the age, happy the time, to which the ancients gave the -name of golden, not because in that fortunate age the gold so -coveted in this our iron one was gained without labour, but -because they that lived in it knew not the two words ‘mine’ and -‘thine.’ In that blessed age all things were in common; to win -the daily food no toil was needed from any man but to stretch out -his hand and pluck it from the mighty oaks that stood there -generously inviting him with their sweet ripe fruit. The crystal -streams and rippling brooks yielded their clear and grateful waters -in splendid profusion. The busy and wise bees set up their -commonwealth in the clefts of the rocks and the hollows of the -trees, offering without usance to every hand the abundant produce -of their fragrant toil.... Fraud, deceit, or malice had not as -yet tainted truth and sincerity. Justice held her own, untroubled -and unassailed by the attempts of favour and interest, which so -greatly damage, corrupt, and encompass her about....</p></blockquote> - -<p class="noindent">And so forth. It is a fine piece of embroidered rhetoric, -which is fairly entitled to the place it holds in most anthologies -of Spanish prose. But it is not specially characteristic -of Cervantes: it is a brilliant passage introduced to prove -that the writer could, if he chose, rival Antonio de Guevara -as a virtuoso in what is thought the grand style. Nor is -Cervantes himself in the points and conceits which abound -in Marcela’s address to Ambrosio and the assembled friends -of the dead shepherd Chrysostom:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>By that natural understanding which God has given me I know -that everything beautiful attracts love, but I cannot see how, by -reason of being loved, that which is loved for its beauty is bound -to love that which loves it.... As there is an infinity of beautiful -objects there must be an infinity of inclinations, and true love -(so I have heard it said) is indivisible, and must be voluntary and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span> -uncompelled.... I was born free, and that I might live in freedom -I chose the solitude of the fields; in the trees of the mountains I -find society, the clear waters of the brooks are my mirrors, and to -the trees and waters I make known my thoughts and charms. I -am a fire afar off, a sword laid aside.... Let him who calls me -wild beast and basilisk leave me alone as a thing noxious and evil.</p></blockquote> - -<p>To the mind of an English reader, this passage recalls -the recondite preciosity of Juliet:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Hath Romeo slain himself? say thou but ‘I,’</div> -<div class="line">And that bare vowel, ‘I,’ shall poison more</div> -<div class="line">Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:</div> -<div class="line">I am not I, if there be such an I,</div> -<div class="line">Or those eyes shut, that make thee answer ‘I.’</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">These exhibitions of verbal ingenuity are a blemish in the -early chapters of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> and in <cite>Romeo and Juliet</cite>. At -this stage of their development both Cervantes and Shakespeare -were struggling to disengage their genius from the -clutch of contemporary affectation, and both succeeded. As -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> progresses the parody of the books of chivalry -becomes less insistent, the style grows more supple and -adaptable, reaches a high level of restrained eloquence in -the knight’s speeches, is forcible and familiar in expressing -the squire’s artful simplicity, is invariably appropriate in -the mouths of men differing so widely from each other as -Vivaldo and the Barber, Ginés de Pasamonte and Cardenio, -Don Fernando and the left-handed landlord, the Captive -and the village priest. The dramatic fitness of the dialogue -in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>, its intense life and speedy movement are -striking innovations in the development of the Spanish -novel, and give the book its abiding air of modernity. -Cervantes had discovered the great secret that truth is a -more essential element of artistic beauty than all the -academic elegance in the world.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>But the immediate triumph of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was not due—or, -at least, was not mainly due—to strictly artistic qualities. -These make an irresistible appeal to us, who belong to a -more analytic and sophisticated generation. To contemporary -readers the charm of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> lay in its amalgamation -of imaginative and realistic elements, in its accumulated -episodes, in its infinite sympathy, and its pervasive humour. -There was no question then as to whether <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was -a well of symbolic doctrine. The canvas was crowded with -types familiar to every one who had eyes to see his companions -on the dusty highways of Spain. The wenches who -served Don Quixote with stockfish and black bread; the -lad Andrés, flayed in the grove of oaks by Juan Haldudo -the Rich, of Quintanar; the goatherds seated round the -fire on which the pot of salted goat was simmering; -the three lively needle-makers from the Colt of Córdoba; -the midnight procession escorting the dead body from -Baeza to Segovia, and chanting dirges on the road; the -dozen galley-slaves tramping on, strung together like beads -on an iron chain—all these are observed and presented with -masterly precision of detail. But the really triumphant -creations of the book are, of course, Don Quixote and -Sancho Panza—the impassioned idealist and the incarnation -of gross common-sense. They were instantly accepted as -great representative figures; the adventures of the fearless -Manchegan madman and his timorous practical squire were -speedily reprinted in the capital and the provinces; and -within six months a writer in Valladolid assumed as a -matter of course that his correspondent in the Portuguese -Indies must have made the acquaintance of Don Quixote -and Sancho Panza.</p> - -<p>One of the most attractive characteristics of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> -is its maturity; it may not have taken more than three or -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span> -four years to write, but it embodies the experience of a -lifetime, and it breathes an air of urbanity and leisure. -Cervantes was not an exceptionally rapid writer, and—if -he thought about the matter at all—probably knew that -masterpieces are seldom produced in a hurry. His great -rival Lope de Vega easily surpassed him in brilliant facility: -Cervantes’s mind was weightier, less fleet but more precise. -In the closing sentences of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> he had half promised -a continuation, and no doubt it occupied his thoughts for -many years. He had set himself a most formidable task—the -task of equalling himself at his best—and he may well -have shrunk from it, for he was risking his hard-won reputation -on a doubtful hazard. He was in no haste to put his -fortune to the touch. He sank into a pregnant silence, -pondered over the technique of his great design, and, with -the exception of an occasional sonnet, published nothing -for eight years. At last in 1613 he issued his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Novelas -Exemplares</cite>, twelve short stories, the composition of which -was spread over a long space of time. One of these, -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Rinconete y Cortadillo</cite>, is mentioned in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>, and -must therefore date from 1602 or earlier; a companion -story, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Coloquio de los Perros</cite>, is assigned to 1608; and -the remaining ten are plausibly believed to have been -written between these dates. The two tales just mentioned -are the gems of the collection, but <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Gitanilla</cite> and -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Celoso extremeño</cite> are scarcely less striking, and certainly -seven out of the dozen are models of realistic art. Cervantes -was never troubled by mock-modesty, and ingenuously asserts -that he was ‘the first to attempt novels in the Castilian tongue, -for the many which wander about in print in Spanish are all -translated from foreign languages, while these are my own, -neither imitated nor stolen.’ There were earlier collections -of stories (from one of which—Eslava’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Noches de Invierno</cite>—Shakespeare -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span> -contrived to borrow the plot of <cite>The Tempest</cite>), -but they are eclipsed by the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Novelas Exemplares</cite>. These, in -their turn, are overshadowed by <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>, but they would -suffice to make the reputation of any novelist by their fine -invention and engaging fusion of truth with fantasy. The -harshest of native critics yielded to the spell, and the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Novelas Exemplares</cite> were skilfully exploited by John Fletcher -and by Middleton and Rowley in England, as well as by -Hardy in France.</p> - -<p>Cervantes had now so unquestionably succeeded in prose -that he was tempted to bid for fame as a poet. He mistrusted -his own powers, and, as the event proved, with -reason. His <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Viage del Parnaso</cite>, published in 1614, commemorated -the most prominent versifiers of the day in a -spirit of mingled appreciation and satirical criticism. It is -very doubtful whether there have been so many great poets -in the history of the world as Cervantes descried among his -Spanish contemporaries, and his compliments are too effusive -and too universal to be effective. A noble amateur, a -potential patron, is lauded as extravagantly as though he -were the equal of Lope or Góngora, and the occasional -excursions into satire are mostly pointless. There are -more wit, and pungency, and concentrated force in any -two pages of <cite>English Bards and Scotch Reviewers</cite> than in -all the cantos of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Viage del Parnaso</cite> put together. It -cannot be merely owing to temperamental differences that -Byron succeeds where Cervantes fails. There are splenetic -passages in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Viage</cite> relating to such writers as Bernardo -de la Vega and the author of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Pícara Justina</cite>, but they -miss their mark. The simple truth is—not that Cervantes -was willing to wound and yet afraid to strike, but—that he -had no complete mastery of his instrument.</p> - -<p>His instinct was right; he moves uneasily in the fetters -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> -of verse, and only becomes himself in the prose appendix -to the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Viage</cite> which (as the internal evidence discloses) -was written side by side with the Second Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don -Quixote</cite>. His true vehicle was prose, but he was reluctant -to abide by the limitations of his genius, and while the -sequel to <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was maturing, he produced a volume -of plays containing eight formal full-dress dramas and eight -sparkling interludes. By sympathy and by training Cervantes -belonged to the older school of dramatists, and his -attempts to rival Lope de Vega on Lope’s own ground are -mostly embarrassed and, in some cases, curiously maladroit; -yet he displays a happy malicious humour in the less -ambitious interludes, and, when he betakes himself to prose, -he captivates by the spontaneous wit and nimble gaiety of -his dialogue. These thumbnail sketches, like the kit-cats of -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Novelas Exemplares</cite>, may be regarded as so many studies -for the Second Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>, at which Cervantes was -still working.</p> - -<p>This tardy sequel, which followed the First Part at an -interval of ten years, might never have seen the light but -for the publication of Avellaneda’s apocryphal <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> -with its blustering and malignant preface. Cervantes’s -gentle spirit survived unembittered by a heavy burden of -trials and humiliations; but the proud humility with which -(in the preface to his Second Part) he meets Avellaneda’s -attack shows how profoundly he resented it. It would have -been well had he preserved this attitude in the text. He -was taken by surprise and, goaded out of patience, flung his -other work aside, and brought <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> to a hurried -close. Was Avellaneda’s insolent intrusion a blessing in -disguise, or was it disastrous in effect? It is true that but -for Avellaneda we might have lost the true sequel as we -have lost the Second Part of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite>, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Semanas del -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span> -Jardin</cite>, and the rest. It is no less true that, but for Avellaneda, -the sequel might have been even better than it -actually is. Cervantes had steadily refused to be hurried -over his masterpiece, and, so long as he followed his own -bent, his work is almost flawless. But Avellaneda suddenly -forced him to quicken his step, and in the last chapters -Cervantes manifestly writes in furious haste. His art suffers -in consequence. His bland amenity deserts him; his eyes -wander restlessly from Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to -Avellaneda, whom he belabours out of season. He allows -himself to be out-generalled, recasting his plan because his -foe had stolen it—as though the plan and not the execution -were the main essential! He advances, halts, and harks -back, uncertain as to his object; he introduces irrelevant -personalities and at least one cynical trait unworthy of him. -Obviously he is anxious to have the book off his hands, so as -to bring confusion on Avellaneda.</p> - -<p>That these are blemishes it would be futile to deny; but -how insignificant they are beside the positive qualities of the -Second Part! Unlike some of his admirers, Cervantes was -not above profiting by criticism. He tells us that objection -had been taken to the intercalated stories of the First Part, -and to some scenes of exuberant fun bordering on horse-play. -These faults are avoided in the sequel, which broadens out -till it assumes a truly epical grandeur. The development -of the two central characters is at once more logical and -more poetic; Don Quixote awakens less laughter, and more -thought, while Sancho Panza’s store of apophthegms and -immemorial wisdom is more inexhaustible and apposite than -ever. Lastly, the new personages, from the Duchess downwards -to Doctor Pedro Recio de Agüero—the ill-omened -physician of Barataria—are marvels of realistic portraiture. -The presentation of the crazy knight and the droll squire -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> -expands into a splendid pageant of society. And, as one -reads the less elaborate passages, one acquires the conviction -that the very dust of Cervantes’s writings is gold. -The Second Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> was the last of his works -that he saw in print. His career was over, and it closed in -splendour. His battle was fought and won, and he died, as -befits a hero, with the trumpets of victory ringing in his ears.</p> - -<p>His labyrinthine romance, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Trabajos de Persiles y -Sigismunda</cite>, appeared in 1617. Even had this posthumous -work been, as Cervantes half hoped, ‘the best book of its -kind,’ it could scarcely have added to his glory. Though -distinctly not the best book of its kind, the great name on -its title-page procured it a respectful reception, and it was -repeatedly reprinted within a short time of its publication. -But it was soon lost in the vast shadow of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>: no -one need feel guilty because he has not read it. The world, -leaving scholars and professional critics to estimate the -writer’s indebtedness to Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, -has steadily refused to be interested in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Persiles y Sigismunda</cite>; -and in the long run the world delivers a just judgment. -It is often led astray by gossip, by influence, by -publishers’ tricks, by authors who press their own wares on -you with all the effrontery of a cheap-jack at a fair; but the -world finds out the truth at last. An author’s genius may -be manifest in most or all of his works; but it is wont to be -conspicuous in one above the rest. Shakespeare wrote -<cite>Hamlet</cite>: one <cite>Hamlet</cite>. Cervantes wrote <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>—two -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixotes</cite>: a feat unparalleled in the history of literature. -The one is the foremost of dramatists, and the other the -foremost of romancers: and it is to a single masterpiece that -each owes the greater part of his transcendent fame.</p> - -<hr /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER VII<br /><br /> - -<small>LOPE DE VEGA</small></h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Cervantes</span> is unquestionably the most glorious figure in -the annals of Spanish literature, but his very universality -makes him less representative of his race. A far more -typical local genius is his great rival Lope Félix de Vega -Carpio who, for nearly half a century, reigned supreme on -the stage at which Cervantes often cast longing eyes. My -task would be much easier if I could feel sure that all of -you were acquainted with the best and most recent biography -of Lope which we owe to a distinguished American -scholar, Professor Hugo Albert Rennert. I should then be -able to indulge in the luxury of pure literary criticism. As -it is, I must attempt to picture to you the prodigious personality -of one who has enriched us with an immense library -illustrating a new form of dramatic art.</p> - -<p>Lope Félix de Vega Carpio, as he signed himself, was -born at Madrid on November 25, 1562, just three hundred -and forty-five years ago to-day.<a name="FNanchor_100_100" id="FNanchor_100_100"></a><a href="#Footnote_100_100" class="fnanchor">100</a> There is some slight -reason to think that his parents—Félix de Vega Carpio and -Francisca Hernández Flores—came from the village of Vega -in the valley of Carriedo at the foot of the Asturian hills. -The historic name of Carpio does not accord well with the -modest occupation of Lope’s father who appears to have -been a basket-maker; but every respectable Spanish family -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span> -is more or less noble, and, though Lope was given to displaying -a splendidly emblazoned escutcheon in some of -his works—a foible which brought down on him the banter -of Cervantes and of Góngora—he made no secret of his -father’s lowly station. Long afterwards, when Lope de -Vega was in the noon of his popularity, Cervantes described -him as a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">monstruo de naturaleza</em>—a portent of nature—and, -if we are to believe the legends that float down to us, he -must have been a disconcerting wonder as a child—dictating -verses before he could write, learning Latin when he was -five. A few years later we hear of him as an accomplished -dancer and fencer, as an adventurous little truant from the -Theatine school at which he was educated, and as a juvenile -dramatist. One of his plays belonging to this early period -survives, but as a re-cast. It would have been interesting -to read the piece in its original form: its title—<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Verdadero -Amante</cite> (The True Lover)—suggests some precocity in a -boy of twelve. At an age when most lads are spinning -tops Lope was already imagining dramatic situations and -impassioned love-scenes.</p> - -<p>He appears to have been page to Jerónimo Manrique de -Lara, Bishop of Ávila, who helped him to complete his -studies at the University of Alcalá de Henares. Lope -never forgot a personal kindness, and in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Dragontea</cite> -he acknowledges his debt to his benefactor whose intention -was clearly excellent; but it is doubtful if Lope -gained much by his stay at Alcalá except the horrid farrago -of undigested learning which disfigures so much of his -non-dramatic work, and is so rightly ridiculed by Cervantes. -His undergraduate days were scarcely over when he made -the acquaintance of Elena Osorio, daughter of a theatrical -manager named Jerónimo Velázquez, whom he has celebrated -as Filis in his early <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em>. He fought under -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> -Santa Cruz at the Azores in 1582, and next year became -secretary to the Marqués de las Navas. He is one of -the many poets lauded by Cervantes in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Canto de -Calíope</cite>, and, though Cervantes bestows his praise indiscriminatingly, -it may be inferred that Lope enjoyed a -certain reputation when the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Galatea</cite> was published in 1585. -He was then twenty-three, and was no doubt already a -practised playwright: his acquaintance with Velázquez -would probably open the theatres to him, and enable him -to get a hearing on the stage. So far this intimacy was -valuable to Lope, but it finally came near to wrecking his -career. Elena Osorio was not apparently a model of constancy, -and Lope was a passionate, jealous, headstrong youth -with a sharp pen. On December 29, 1587, he was arrested -at the theatre for libelling his fickle flame and her father, -and on February 7, 1588, he was exiled from Madrid for -eight years, and from Castile for two. The court seems -to have anticipated that Lope might not think fit to obey -its order, for it provided that if he returned to Madrid -before the fixed limit of time he was to be sent to the -galleys, and that if he entered Castile he was to be executed.</p> - -<p>The judges evidently knew their man. He went through -the form of retreating to Valencia, but he had no intention -of hiding his talent under a bushel in the provinces. His -next step was astounding in its insolence: he returned to -Madrid, and thence eloped with Isabel de Urbina y Cortinas, -daughter of a king-at-arms. The police were at once -in hot pursuit, but failed to overtake the culprit. He -parted from the lady, was married to her by proxy on -May 10, 1588, and nineteen days later was out of range -on the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">San Juan</cite>, one of the vessels of the Invincible Armada. -Lope took part in the famous expedition of the ‘sad Intelligencing -Tyrant’ when, as Milton puts it, ‘the very maw -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span> -of Hell was ransacked, and made to give up her concealed -destruction, ere she could vent it in that terrible and -damned blast.’ Returning from this disastrous adventure, -during which he found time to write the greater part of -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Hermosura de Angélica</cite>, an epic consisting of eleven -thousand lines, Lope settled at Valencia, and joined the -household of the fifth Duke of Alba. It was the custom -of the time for a poor Spanish gentleman, who would have -been disgraced by the adoption of a trade or business, to -serve as secretary to some rich noble: the duties were -various, indefinite and not always dignified, but they -involved no social degradation. Lope’s versatile talents -were thus utilised in succession by the Marqués de Malpica -and the Marqués de Sarriá, afterwards Conde de Lemos -(the son-in-law of Lerma, and in later years the patron of -Cervantes).</p> - -<p>His introduction to aristocratic society enlarged Lope’s -sphere of observation: it did nothing to improve his morals, -which were not naturally austere. During this period he -was writing incessantly for the stage, and the Spanish -stage was not then a school of asceticism. His wife died -about the year 1595, and the last restraint was gone. Lope -was straightway entangled in a series of scandalous amours. -He was prosecuted for criminal conversation with Antonia -Trillo de Armenta in 1596, and in 1597 began a love-affair -with Micaela de Luján, the Camila Lucinda of his sonnets, -and the mother of his brilliant children, Lope Félix del -Carpio y Luján and Marcela, who inherited no small share -of her father’s improvising genius. It is impossible to -palliate Lope’s misconduct, and the persistent effort to keep -it from public knowledge has damaged him more than the -attacks of all his enemies; but it is fair to remember that -he lived in the most corrupt circles of a corrupt age, that -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> -he suffered such temptations as few men undergo, and -that he repeatedly strove to extricate himself from the -mesh of circumstance.</p> - -<p>In 1598 he published his patriotic epic, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Dragontea</cite>, as -well as a pastoral novel entitled the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Arcadia</cite>, and in this -same year he married Juana de Guardo, daughter of a -wealthy but frugal man who had made a fortune by selling -pork. Shakespeare was the son of a butcher, but the fact -was not thrown in his teeth: Lope was less fortunate, and -his second marriage was the subject of a derisive sonnet -by Góngora. So far as can be judged, Lope’s marriage -with Juana de Guardo was one of affection, and the reflections -cast upon him were absolutely unjust. But the stage -had him in its grip, and he could not break with his past, -try as he might. He strove without ceasing to make a -reputation in other fields of literature: a poem on St. Isidore, -the patron-saint of Madrid, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Hermosura de Angélica</cite> with -a mass of supplementary sonnets, the prose romance entitled -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Peregrino en su patria</cite>, the epic <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Jerusalén conquistada</cite> -written in emulation of Tasso—these diverse works were -produced in rapid succession between 1599 and 1609. -Meanwhile Lope had been enrolled as a Familiar of the -Holy Office, but the vague terror attaching to this sinister -post did not prevent an attack being made on his life in -1611. He may have enlisted in the ranks of the Inquisition -from mixed motives; yet we cannot doubt that he was passing -through a pietistic phase at this time, for between 1609 -and 1611 he joined three religious confraternities. This -was no blind, no hypocritical attempt to affect a virtue -which he had not. He was even too regardless of appearances -all his life long.</p> - -<p>The death of his son Carlos Félix was quickly followed -by the death of his wife, and his devotional mood deepened. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> -He now made an irreparable mistake by entering holy -orders. No man was less fitted to be a minister of religion, -and his private correspondence discloses no sign of a -religious spirit, or of anything resembling a religious vocation: -on the contrary, it reveals him as frequenting loose -company, and cracking unseemly jokes at a most solemn -moment. The pendulum had already begun to swing before -his ordination, and for some years afterwards he was prominent -as an unscrupulous libertine. No one as successful -as Lope could fail to make many enemies: he had now -delivered himself into their hands, and assuredly they -did not spare him. In the Preface to the Second Part of -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> Cervantes, though he does not mention Lope -de Vega by name, indulges in an unmistakable allusion -to him as a Familiar of the Inquisition notorious for his -‘virtuous occupation.’ Yes! a ‘virtuous occupation’ which -was an intolerable public scandal. From 1605 onwards Lope -had been on intimate terms with the Duke of Sesa, and -his correspondence with the Duke is his condemnation. -But his conscience was not dead. Among his letters to -Sesa many are stained with tears of shame and of remorse. -They reveal him in every mood. He protests against being -made the intermediary of the Duke’s vulgar gallantries; he -forms resolutions to amend, yet falls, and falls again.</p> - -<p>In his fifty-fifth year he conceived an insane passion for -Marta de Nevares Santoyo. On the details of this lamentable -intrigue nothing need be said here. Once more -Samson was in the hands of the Philistines. Led on by -Góngora, they showed him no mercy, but he survived their -onset. His plays were acted on every stage in Spain; the -people who flocked to the theatre were spell-bound by his -dramatic creations, his dexterity, grace and wit; his name -was used as a synonym for matchless excellence; and he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span> -strengthened his position with the more learned public by -a mass of non-dramatic work. He seldom reaches such -a height as in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Pastores de Belén</cite>—a perfect gem of -devotion and of art—but the adaptability of his talent is -amazing in prose and verse dealing with subjects as diverse -as the triumphs of faith in Japan and the fate of Mary -Queen of Scots. The short stories in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Filomena</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Circe</cite> -represent him at his weakest, but the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Dorotea</cite>, a work that -had lain by him for many years, is an absorbing fragment of -autobiography which exhibits Lope as a master of graceful -and colloquial diction.</p> - -<p>In one of his agonies of repentance he exclaimed: ‘A -curse on all unhallowed love!’ But the punishment of his -own transgressions was long delayed. Marta, indeed, died -blind and mad; but Lope still had his children, and, with all -his faults, he was a fond and devoted father. We may well -imagine that none of his own innumerable triumphs thrilled -him with a more rapturous delight than the success of his -son Lope Félix at the poetic jousts in honour of St. Isidore. -Strengthened by the domestic happiness which he now -enjoyed, Lope underwent a striking change. He wrote -more copiously than ever for the stage, but yielded no -longer to its temptations; his stormy passions lay behind -him—part of a past which all were eager to forget. In -1628 he became chaplain to the congregation of St. Peter, -and was a model of pious zeal. It was an astonishing metamorphosis, -and there may have been an unconscious histrionic -touch in Lope’s rendering of a virtuous <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">rôle</em>. But the transformation -was no mere pose. Lope was too frank to be -a Pharisee, and too human to be a saint; but whatever -he did, he did with all his might, and he became a hardworking -priest, punctual in the discharge of his sacred office. -Towards the close he occupied an unexampled pre-eminence. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span> -Urban <span class="smcap">VIII.</span> conferred on him a papal order; though not a -favourite at court, he was invited by Olivares to exercise his -ingenious fantasy for the entertainment of Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span>, who -was assuming the airs and graces of a patron of the drama. -With the crowd Lope’s popularity knew no bounds. Visitors -hovered about to catch a glimpse of him as he threaded his -way through the streets: his fellow-townsmen gloried in -his glory. There is nothing in history comparable to his -position.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Blessings and prayers, a nobler retinue</div> -<div class="line">Than sceptred king or laurelled conqueror knows,</div> -<div class="line">Followed this wondrous potentate.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">No man of letters has ever received such visible proofs of -his own celebrity, and none has retained it so long. For -something like half a century Lope had contrived to fascinate -his countrymen, but even he began to grow old at last. -Yet the change was not so much in him as in the rising -generation.</p> - -<p>The swelling tide of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">culteranismo</em> was invading the stage; -the fatal protection of Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span> was beginning to undermine -the national theatre. Lope had always opposed the new -fashion of preciosity, and he could not, or would not, supply -the demand at court for a spectacular drama. One could -scarcely expect him to help in demolishing the work of his -lifetime. In his youth, and even in middle age, he looked -down upon his plays as being almost outside the pale of -literature. He lived long enough to revise his opinion, -though perhaps to the last he would have refused to admit -that his plays were worth all his epics put together. He -lived long enough to revise his opinion, and a little too long -for his happiness. His latest plays did not hit the public -taste: his successor was already hailed in the person of the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span> -courtly Calderón whom he himself had first praised. To -his artistic mortifications were added poignant domestic -sorrows. He had dissuaded his son, Lope Félix, from -adopting literature as a profession: the youth joined the -navy, went on a cruise to South America, and was there</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i3">summoned to the deep.</div> -<div class="line">He, he and all his mates, to keep</div> -<div class="line">An incommunicable sleep.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">The drowning of his son in 1634 was a grievous blow to -Lope, but a more cruel stroke awaited him. The flight of -his favourite daughter, Antonia Clara, from her home filled -him with an unspeakable despair. He could endure no -more. With the simple, confiding faith that never left him, -he believed that his sins had brought upon him the vengeance -of heaven, and he sought to make tardy atonement by the -severest penance, lashing himself till the walls of his room -were flecked with blood. But the end was at hand. On -August 23, 1635, Lope wrote his last two poems, fell ill, -and on August 27 his soul was required of him.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">The extravagant and erring spirit hies</div> -<div class="line">To his confine.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Headed by the Duke of Sesa, the vast funeral procession -turned aside so as to pass before the convent of the Barefooted -Trinitarians where Lope’s gifted daughter Marcela -had taken the vows in 1621. From the cloister window the -nun watched the multitude on its way to the Church of -St. Sebastian in the Calle de Atocha; there, to the mournful -music of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Dies irae</cite>, Lope was interred beneath the high -altar. His eloquent lips were silent; his untiring hand and -his unquiet heart were still: his passionate pilgrimage was -over. It might have been thought that all that was mortal -of him was at peace for ever, and that the final resting-place -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span> -of one so famous could not be forgotten. But, as if to show -that all is vanity, it was otherwise decreed by the mocking -fates. Early in the nineteenth century it became necessary -to remove Lope’s coffin from the vault in which it lay, and -no care was taken to ensure its subsequent identification. -Hence he, whose renown once filled the world, now sleeps -unrecognised amid the humble and the obscure.</p> - -<p>It has been granted us to know Lope de Vega better than -we know most of our contemporaries. He lived in the -merciless light of publicity; his slightest slip was noted -by vigilant eyes and rancorous pens; and he has himself -recorded the weaknesses which any other man would have -studiously concealed. Yet, gross as were his sins, his -individual charm is irresistible. Ruiz de Alarcón taxed -him with being envious, and from the huge mass of his -confidential correspondence, a few detached phrases are -picked out to support this charge. None of us is as frank -as Lope; yet it seems highly probable that, if a selection -were made from the private letters written in this city -to-day and this selection were published in the newspapers -to-morrow, a certain number of personal difficulties might -follow. But let us test Ruiz de Alarcón’s charge. Of -whom should Lope be envious? Not of Ruiz de Alarcón -himself, undoubtedly a remarkable dramatist, but never -popular as Lope was. Not of Tirso de Molina, another -great dramatist, but a personal friend of Lope’s. Not of -Cervantes, who had abandoned the stage long before he -succeeded so greatly in romance. Not of Góngora, of whose -poetic principles Lope disapproved, but to whom he paid -sedulous court. Not of Calderón, who was nearly forty years -younger than himself, and whom he first presented to the -public. The accusation has no more solid base than a few -choleric words dropped in haste.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span>The truth is that Lope is open to precisely the opposite -charge of culpable complaisance. His genius, like that of -Cervantes, was creative, not critical; his praise is fulsome, -indiscriminating, and therefore ineffective. He was a most -loyal friend, and to him all his geese are swans. His <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Laurel -de Apolo</cite> is an exercise in adulation of no more critical -value than Cervantes’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Canto de Calíope</cite>. Famous writers, -once in port, are inclined to ‘nurse’ their fame by conciliating -their rivals. Lope’s constant successes provided -him with so many foes that it would have been folly to -increase their number by attacking rising men. Like most -other contemporaries he detested Ruiz de Alarcón; but -Ruiz de Alarcón could take very good care of himself in a -wrangle, and perhaps a man is not universally detested -without some good reason. Apart from any question of -tactics, Lope was naturally generous. There is a credible -story that he dashed off the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Orfeo</cite> to launch Pérez de -Montalbán, who published it under his own name, and thus -started on a prosperous, feverish career.</p> - -<p>Lope was a sad sinner, but any attempt to represent him -as an unamiable man is ridiculous. It is certain that he -received large sums of money, and that he died poor: his -purse was open to all comers. He lived frugally, loving -nothing better than a romp with his children in the garden of -his little house in the Calle de Francos. His pleasures and -tastes were simple: careless remarks that drop from him -reveal him to us. Typical Spaniard as he was, he disliked -bull-fights, but he loved angling, and was a most enthusiastic -gardener. He had, as he tells us in his pleasant way, half -a dozen pictures and a few books; but the only extravagance -which he allowed himself was the occasional purchase of -flowers rare in Spain. He had a passion for the tulip—at -that time a novelty in Europe—and, by dedicating to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> -Manoel Soeiro his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Luscinda perseguida</cite> (an early play, not -printed till 1621), he handsomely expressed his thanks for -a present of choice Dutch bulbs. But, even if such positive -testimony were wanting, we should confidently guess Lope’s -tastes from his poems, redolent of buds and blossoms, of -gardens and of glades, of sweet perfumes and subtle aromas. -In reading him, we think inevitably of <cite>The Flower’s Name</cite>: -you remember the lines, but I may be allowed to quote -them:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">This flower she stopped at, finger on lip,</div> -<div class="line i1">Stooped over, in doubt, as settling its claim;</div> -<div class="line">Till she gave me, with pride to make no slip,</div> -<div class="line i1">Its soft meandering Spanish name;</div> -<div class="line">What a name! was it love or praise?</div> -<div class="line i1">Speech half-asleep, or song half-awake?</div> -<div class="line">I must learn Spanish, one of these days,</div> -<div class="line i1">Only for that slow sweet name’s sake.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">It is very probable that Browning was not deeply read in the -masterpieces of Spanish literature, and that he knew comparatively -little of Lope; but in these verses we have (as it -were) Lope rendered into English: they are Lope all over.</p> - -<p>No competent judge questions Lope de Vega’s right to -rank as a great poet, but scarcely any great poet—except -perhaps Wordsworth—is so unequal. The huge epics upon -which he laboured so long, filing and polishing every line, -are now forgotten by all but specialists, and (even among -these elect) who can pretend that he reads the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Jerusalén -conquistada</cite> solely for pleasure? On the other hand, no -unprejudiced critic denies the beauty of Lope’s best sonnets -and lyrics, nor the natural grace of his prose in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Dorotea</cite>, -and in his unguarded correspondence. Had he written -nothing else, he would be considered a charming poet, and -wonderfully versatile man of letters. But these performances; -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span> -astonishing as they are, may be regarded as the -mere diversions of exuberant genius.</p> - -<p>It is, of course, to his dramatic works that Lope de Vega -owes his splendid pre-eminence in the history of literature. -He was much more than a great dramatist: in a very real -sense he was the founder of the national theatre in Spain. -It cannot be denied that he had innumerable predecessors—men -who employed the dramatic form with more or less -skill; and he himself joined with Cervantes in acclaiming -the metal-beater Lope de Rueda as the patriarch of the -Spanish stage. But even the joint and several authority of -Cervantes and Lope do not suffice in questions of literary -history. No doubt Lope de Rueda is a figure of historical -importance, and no doubt his actual achievement is considerable -in its way. There is, however, nothing that can -be called ‘national’ in Rueda’s formal plays, which are -mostly adaptations from the Italian, and the bluff hilarity of -his clever interludes is primitive. The later practitioners in -the Senecan drama are of less significance than Miguel -Sánchez and than Juan de la Cueva, both of whom foreshadow -the new developments which Lope de Vega was -to introduce. So far as the drama is concerned Miguel -Sánchez is represented to posterity by two plays only, and -it is therefore difficult to estimate the extent of his influence -on the Spanish drama. Cueva’s innovating tendency is -manifest in his choice of themes and his treatment of them: -he strikes out a new line by selecting a representative -historic subject, develops it regardless of the unities, and -occasionally strikes the note of modernity by approximating -to the comedy of manners—the cloak-and-sword play. -Withal, Cueva is more remarkable as an intrepid explorer -than as a finished craftsman, and he inevitably has the -uncertain touch of an early experimenter.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span>Lope de Vega is on a higher plane as an executant, and -is moreover a great original inventor. In its final form the -Spanish theatre is his work, and whatever he may once -have said of Lope de Rueda, he finally claimed the honour -which undoubtedly belongs to him. Anticipating Tennyson, -he pointedly remarks in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Égloga á Claudio</cite> that</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Most can raise the flowers now,</div> -<div class="line i1">For all have got the seed.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">The passage is well worth quoting. ‘Though I have departed -from the rigidity of Terence, and though I am far from -questioning the credit due to the three or four great -geniuses who have guarded the infancy of the drama, yet to -me’—he proudly continues—‘to me the art of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedia</em> -owes its beginnings. To whom, Claudio, do we owe so -many pictures of love and jealousy, so many stirring passages -of eloquence, so copious a supply of all the figures within the -power of rhetoric to invent? The mass of to-day’s productions -is mere imitation of what art created yesterday. I it -was who first struck the path and made it practicable so that -all now use it easily. I it was who set the example now -followed and copied in every direction. ‘I it was who first -struck the path—I it was who first set the example.’ It is a -daring thing to say, but it can be maintained.</p> - -<p>One of the chief difficulties in dealing with Lope, or in -persuading others to deal with him, is his prodigious copiousness. -But it is not insuperable. For our immediate purpose -we may neglect his non-dramatic writings—in every sense -a great load taken off, for they alone fill twenty-one quarto -volumes. There remain his plays, and their number is -astounding. We shall never know precisely how many plays -Lope wrote, for only a small part of what was acted has -survived, and his own statements are not altogether clear. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span> -Roughly speaking, he seems to have written 220 plays up to -the end of 1603, and from this date we can follow him as he -gallops along: the total rises to 483 in 1609, 800 in 1618, -900 in 1620, 1070 in 1625, and 1500 in 1632. Four years -afterwards Pérez de Montalbán published a volume of -eulogies on the master by various hands—something like -<em>Jonsonus Virbius</em>, to which Ford, Waller and others contributed -posthumous panegyrics on Ben Jonson in 1638; -and in this <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Fama Póstuma</cite> Pérez de Montalbán asserts that -Lope wrote 1800 plays and more than 400 <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> and -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">entremeses</em>. Consider a moment what these figures mean: -they mean that Lope never wrote less than thirty-four plays -a year, that he usually wrote fifty, that the yearly average -rose to sixty as he grew older, and that in the last three -years of his life it increased to over a hundred—say, two -plays a week. Devout persons are sometimes prone to -exaggerate the number of miracles performed by their -favourite saint, and, if Pérez de Montalbán’s statements -were not corroborated by Lope, we might be inclined to -suspect him of some such form of pious fraud. As it is, -we have no ground for thinking that Pérez de Montalbán -was guilty of any deliberate exaggeration: most probably -he set down what he heard from Lope, as well as he -remembered it. But perhaps Lope’s calculations were -wrong. If anything like 1800 of Lope’s plays survived, -nobody would have the courage to attack them. Most have -perished, and we must judge Lope by the comparatively few -that have escaped destruction—431 plays and 50 <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em>.</p> - -<p>This may seem very much as though we were shown a -few stones from the Coliseum, and invited on the strength of -them to form an idea of Rome. It is no doubt but too likely -that among the 1369 lost plays there may have been some -real masterpieces (in literature the best does not always -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span> -survive); but it is inconceivable that only the failures have -been saved, and, as the collected pieces range from a play -written when Lope was twelve to another written shortly -before his death, we have the privilege of observing every -phase of his stupendous exploit. That is to say: we may -have the privilege if we have the leisure. The student who -sits down to the paltry remnant that has reached us will, if he -reads Lope de Vega’s plays without interruption for seven -hours a day, be over six months before he reaches the end -of his delightful task. I say it in all seriousness—a delightful -task—but it would be idle to pretend that there -are no tracts of barren ground. A large proportion of -Lope’s dramatic work is brilliant improvisation, and is not of -stuff that endures; but there are veins of pure ore in his -dross, and in moments of inspiration he ranks with the -greatest dramatists in the world.</p> - -<p>He has himself endeavoured to state his dramatic theory -in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo</cite>, and the -contrast with his practice is amusing. He opens with a -profession of faith in Aristotle’s rules, of which he knew -nothing beyond what he could gather from the pedantic -schoolmen of the Renaissance, but goes on to confess that -he disregards these sacred precepts because the public -which pays cares nothing for them, and must be addressed -in the foolish fashion that its folly demands. The only -approach to a dramatic principle in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Arte nuevo</cite> is a -matter-of-course approval of unity of action, the necessity -of which has never been doubted by any playwright who -knew his business. The rest of the unities go by the board, -and the aspiring dramatist is solemnly exhorted to invent -a clever plot, to maintain the interest steadily throughout, -and to postpone the climax as long as possible so as to -humour the public which loves to be kept on tenterhooks -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span> -till the last moment. ‘Invent a clever plot and maintain -the interest steadily throughout’—it is easily said, but how -to do it? Lope proceeds to give his views as to the metres -most appropriate for certain situations and emotions: laments -are best expressed in <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">décimas</em>, the sonnet suits suspense, the -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> (or, still better, the octave) is the vehicle of narrative, -tercets are to be used in weighty passages, and <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">redondillas</em> -in love-scenes. And Lope ends by admitting that only six -of the 483 plays which he had composed up to 1609 were in -accordance with the rules of art.</p> - -<p>How familiar it sounds—this wailing over ‘the rules of -art’! Just so Ben Jonson lamented that Shakespeare -‘wanted art’—that is, he paid no heed to the pseudo-Aristotelian -precepts concerning dramatic composition. Nor did -Lope: and it is precisely by neglecting to follow blind -leaders of the blind, and by giving free play to their -individual genius that Shakespeare and Lope de Vega have -become immortal. Rules may serve for men of simple -talent; but an original mind attains independence by intelligently -breaking them, and thus arrives at inventing a new -and living form of art. It is in this sense that we call Lope -the founder of the Spanish theatre. His transforming touch -is magical. Invested with the splendour of his imagination, -the merest shred of fact, as in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Estrella de Sevilla</cite>, is -converted into a romantic drama, living, natural, real, arresting -as an experience suffered by oneself. And, with all -Lope’s rapidity of workmanship, his finest effects are not -the result of rare and happy accident: they are deliberately -and delicately calculated. We know from the testimony -of Ricardo de Turia in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Norte de la poesía española</cite> that -Lope was an assiduous frequenter of the theatre; that, long -after his reputation was established, he would sit absorbed, -listening to whatever play was being given; and that he -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span> -took careful note of every successful scene or situation. He -was never above learning from others; but they could teach -him little: he was the master of them all.</p> - -<p>It is frequently alleged against him that his copiousness -was an artistic blunder, and that he would have acted more -wisely in the interest of his fame, if he had concentrated his -magnificent powers on a smaller number of plays, and perfected -them. In other words, he would have done more, if -he had done less. This may be true; Virgil wrote ten lines -a day, and they endure for ever: Lope wrote three thousand -lines a day, and most of them have perished. But we must -take genius as we find it, and be thankful to accept it on its -own conditions. It is far from clear to me that Lope chose -unwisely. He had not only a reputation to make, but a -mission to fulfil. For the work that he was born to do—the -creation of a national theatre—copiousness was an -essential need. Continuous production, as Chorley puts it, -is a vital requisite to ‘the existence of the drama in its true -form, as acted poetry.’ This, however, is beyond the power -of a few normal men of genius. Schiller and Goethe combined -failed to create a national theatre at Weimar: no one -but Lope could have succeeded in creating a national theatre -at Madrid. At precisely the right moment Spain happily -produced a most abnormal writer who could throw off -admirable plays—many of them imperfect, but many of them -masterpieces—in such profusion as twenty ordinary men -of genius could not equal. Luzán declares that Lope so -accustomed the Spanish public to constant novelty that no -piece could be repeated after two performances. This is -not quite exact. But assuming it to be true, you may say -that Lope spoilt the public, as well as his own work. Well, -that is as it may be: in our time, at all events, the plays -that run for a thousand nights are not always the best.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span>Lope was equal to the demand made by exacting audiences, -and he remained equal to it for an unexampled length of -time. The most hostile critic must grant that Lope was -the greatest inventor in the history of the drama. And he -excelled in every kind. In tragedy he has given us such -works as <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las Paces de los Reyes</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Fianza satisfecha</cite>, -and he would doubtless have given more had not the public -rebelled against a too mournful presentation of life. Chorley, -whom it is impossible to avoid quoting when Lope is under -discussion, points to the significant fact that so great a -tragedy as <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Estrella de Sevilla</cite> is not included among Lope’s -dramatic works, nor in the two great miscellaneous collections -of Spanish plays—the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Escogidas</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Diferentes</cite>, as they -are called. It exists only as a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">suelta</em>. Great in tragedy, Lope -is greater—or, at least, is more frequently great—in contemporary -comedy, in the realisation of character: <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El perro -del hortelano</cite>, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La batalla del honor</cite>, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los melindres de Belisa</cite>, -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las flores de Don Juan</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Esclava de su galán</cite> are there -to prove it. There are obvious flaws in Lope’s pieces, but -we can never feel quite sure that the flaws which irritate us -most are not interpolations. He seems to have revised only -the twelve volumes of his plays (Parts <span class="smcap">IX.-XX.</span>) published -between 1617 and 1625 inclusive, and two posthumous -volumes; a large proportion of his work is so mishandled -in the pirated editions that, as he avers, one line from his -pen is smothered by a hundred lines from the pen of some -unscrupulous actor or needy theatrical hanger-on.</p> - -<p>The marvel is that such bungling has not been able to -destroy the beauty of his conception altogether. Dramatic -conception, and the faculty of distilling from no far-fetched -situation all that it contains, are Lope’s distinctive qualities. -He is less successful in maintaining a constant level of verbal -charm; he can caress the ear with an exquisite rhythmical -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span> -cadence, but he hears the impresario calling, sets spurs to -Pegasus, and stumbles. The Nemesis of haste pursues him, -and, as has often been remarked, some of his last acts are -weak. <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La batalla del honor</cite> is a case in point: a splendid -play spoiled by a weak ending. But this undeniable defect -is not peculiar to Lope de Vega: it is noticeable in <cite>Julius -Cæsar</cite>, the last act of which reveals Shakespeare pressed for -time, and tacking his scenes rapidly together so as to put -the play punctually in rehearsal. Let us be honest, and use -the same scales and weights for every one: we shall find -the greatest works by the greatest men frequently come -short of absolute perfection at some point. Lope fails with -the rest, and, if he fails oftener, that is because he writes -more. Is it surprising that he should sometimes feel the -strain upon him? He had not only to invent plots by the -score, and create character by the hundred: he had also to -satisfy a vigilant and fastidious public by the variety of his -metrical craftsmanship, and in this respect he has neither -equal nor second.</p> - -<p>We must accept Lope as Heaven made him with his -inevitable imperfections and his incomparable endowment. -He has the Spanish desire to shine, to be conspicuous, to -please, and he condescends to please at almost any cost. -Yet he has an artistic conscience of his own, endangers his -supremacy by flouting the tribe of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">cultos</em>, and pours equal -scorn on the pageant-plays—the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedias del vulgo</em> which -were so soon to become the fashion in court-circles. Lope -needed no scene-painters to make good his deficiencies. -In <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Ay verdades que en amor</cite>, he laughs at the pieces</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">en que la carpintería</div> -<div class="line">suple concetos y trazas.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">And well he might, for his alert presentation would convert -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span> -a barn into a palace. In the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedia</em> which he invented—using -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedia</em> in much the same sense as Dante uses -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">commedia</em>—his scope is unlimited: he stages all ranks of -human society from kings to rustic clowns, and is by turns -tragic, serious, diverting, pathetic, or gay. He has the -unique power of creating the daintiest heroines in the -world—beautiful, appealing, tender and brave. He has -the secret of communicating emotion, of inventing dialogue, -always appropriate, and he is ever prompt to enliven it -with a delicate humour, humane and debonair. He has -not merely enriched Spain: in some degree not yet precisely -known—for the history of comparative literature is in its -infancy—he has contributed to almost every theatre in -Europe.</p> - -<p>Two or three illustrations must suffice. Rotrou, as the -handbooks tell us, has borrowed four—perhaps five—plays -from Lope: we may now say five and perhaps six, for in -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cosroès</cite> Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las Mudanzas de la fortuna y sucesos de don -Beltrán de Aragón</cite> is combined with a Latin play by Louis -Cellot. Every one remembers that Corneille borrowed <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don -Sanche d’Aragon</cite> and the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Suite du Menteur</cite> from Lope. There -are traces of Lope in Molière: in <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Femmes savantes</cite>, in -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’École des maris</cite>, in <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’École des Femmes</cite>, in <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Médecin -malgré lui</cite>—and perhaps in <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Tartufe</cite>. And, even in the -present incomplete state of our knowledge, it would be -possible to draw up a long list of foreign debtors from -Boisrobert and D’Ouville to Lesage. Of Lope’s Spanish -imitators this is not the time to speak. He did not found -a school, but every Spanish dramatist of the best period -marches under Lope’s flag. There are still some who, in a -spirit of chicane, would withhold from him the glory of being -the architect of the Spanish theatre. So be it: but even -they acknowledge that he found it brick, and left it marble.</p> - -<hr /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span></p> -<h2>CHAPTER VIII<br /><br /> - -<small>CALDERÓN</small></h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">For</span> some time before Lope de Vega’s death, it was evident -that Calderón would succeed him as dictator of the stage. -There was no serious competitor in sight. Tirso de Molina -was becoming rusty; Vélez de Guevara and Ruiz de Alarcón, -both on the wrong side of fifty when Lope died, had given -the measure of what they could do, and Ruiz de Alarcón’s -art was too individual to be popular. No possible rival to -Calderón was to be found among the younger men. His path -lay smooth before him. He developed the national drama -which Lope had created; he accentuated its characteristics, -but introduced no radical innovation. He found the most -difficult part of the work already done; he inherited a vast -intellectual estate, and it is the general opinion that the -patronage of Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span> helped him to exploit it profitably. -This point may stand over for the moment. Here and now, -it is enough to say that Calderón’s career, so far as we can -trace it, was one of uninterrupted success. Unfortunately, -at present, we can only sketch his biography in outline. -Within a year of his death, a short life of him was published -by his admirer and editor, Juan de Vera Tassis y Villarroel; -but, as Vera Tassis was thirty or forty years younger than -Calderón, he naturally knew nothing of the dramatist’s early -circumstances. He begins badly with a blunder as to the -date of Calderón’s birth, shows himself untrustworthy in -matters of fact, and indulges too freely in flatulent panegyric. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span> -For the present we are condemned to make bricks -with only a few wisps of straw; but if, as seems likely, -Dr. Pérez Pastor is as fortunate with Calderón as he was -with Cervantes, many a blank will be filled in before long.</p> - -<p>Pedro Calderón de la Barca was born at Madrid on -January 17, 1600. He became an orphan at an early age. -His mother, who was of Flemish origin, died in 1610; his -father, who was Secretary of the Council of the Treasury, -seems to have offended his first wife’s family by marrying -again, was excluded from administering a chaplaincy in -their gift, and died in 1615. Calderón was educated at -the Jesuit college in Madrid, and later studied theology at -the University of Salamanca with a view to holding the -family living; but he gave up his idea of entering the -Church, and took to literature. It has been said that he -collaborated with Rojas Zorrilla and Belmonte in writing -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El mejor amigo el muerto</cite>, and he is specifically named as -being the author of the Third Act. On the other hand, -it is asserted that <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El mejor amigo el muerto</cite> was played on -Christmas Eve, 1610, and, if this be so, we must abandon the -ascription, for Calderón was then a boy of ten, while Rojas -Zorrilla was only three years old. We may also hesitate -to accept the unsupported statement of Vera Tassis that -Calderón wrote <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Carro del Cielo</cite> at the age of thirteen. -Such ‘fond legends of their infancy’ accumulate round all -great men. So far as can be gathered, Calderón first came -before the public in 1620-22 at the literary <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fêtes</em> held at -Madrid in honour of St. Isidore, the patron saint of the -city; and on the latter occasion Lope de Vega, who was -usually florid in compliment, welcomed the new-comer as -one who ‘in his youth has gained the laurels which time, as -a rule, only grants together with grey hair.’ From the date -of these first triumphs onward, Calderón never went back.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span>In 1621, four years before reaching his legal majority, -he was granted letters-patent to administer his estate. Vera -Tassis asserts that Calderón entered the army in 1625, and -that he served in Milan and Flanders. If so, his service -must have been very short, for he was at Madrid on September -11, 1625, and was still residing in that city on -April 16, 1626. We find him again at Madrid, and in a -scrape, in January 1629. His brother, Diego, had been -stabbed by the actor Pedro de Villegas, who took sanctuary -in the convent of the Trinitarian nuns; Calderón and his -backers determined to seize the culprit, broke into the -cloister, handled the nuns roughly, dragged off their veils, -and used strong language to them. Such conduct is very -unlike all that we know of Calderón; but this was the -current version of his proceedings, and the rumour fluttered -the dovecots of the devout. The alleged misdeeds of -Calderón and his friends were denounced by the fashionable -preacher, Hortensio Félix Paravicino, in a sermon -delivered before Philip <span class="smcap">IV</span>. on January 11, 1629. Calderon -retaliated by making a sarcastic reference in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Príncipe -constante</cite> to the popular ranter’s habit of spouting unintelligible -jargon:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i4">Una oración se fragua</div> -<div class="line">funebre, que es un sermón de Berberia.</div> -<div class="line">Panegírico es que digo al agua,</div> -<div class="line">y era emponomio Horténsico me quejo.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But ‘the king of preachers and the preacher of kings,’ -though ready enough to attack others, was not disposed -to share this privilege: and he had Philip’s ear. Calderón -was arrested. As the jibe does not appear in the text of -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Príncipe constante</cite>, possibly the author was released on -the understanding that the offensive passage should be -omitted from any printed edition; but it is just as likely -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span> -that Calderón, who had not a shade of rancour in his -nature, voluntarily struck out the lines when the play was -published after Paravicino’s death, which occurred in 1633.</p> - -<p>The escapade does not appear to have damaged him in any -way, and his fame grew rapidly. The chronology of his plays -is not yet determined, but it is certain that his activity at this -period was remarkable. It seems probable that he collaborated -with Pérez de Montalbán and Antonio Coello in -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Privilegio de las mugeres</cite> during the visit of the Prince -of Wales (afterwards Charles I.) and Buckingham to Madrid -in 1623; <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Sitio de Bredá</cite> was no doubt written soon after -the surrender on June 8, 1625; <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Dama duende</cite> is not later -than 1629, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Cena de Baltasar</cite> was performed at Seville in -1632, in which year also <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Banda y la flor</cite> was produced -and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Astrólogo fingido</cite> was printed; <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Amor, honor y poder</cite> -with <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Devoción de la Cruz</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Un Castigo en tres venganzas</cite> -were issued in a pirated edition in 1634. Two years later -Philip <span class="smcap">IV</span>. was so enchanted with <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los tres mayores prodigios</cite> -(a poor piece given at the Buen Retiro) that he resolved -to admit Calderón to the Order of Santiago. The official -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">pretensión</em> was granted on July 3, 1636, and the robe was -bestowed on April 8, 1637. In 1636 twelve of Calderón’s -plays were issued by his brother José, who published twelve -more in 1637. These two volumes raised the writer’s reputation -immensely, and well they might; for, besides <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Dama -duende</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Devoción de la Cruz</cite> (already mentioned), the -first volume contained, amongst other plays, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Vida es -sueño</cite>, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Casa con dos puertas</cite>, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Purgatorio de San Patricio</cite>, -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Peor está que estaba</cite>, and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Príncipe constante</cite>; while the -second volume, besides <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Astrólogo fingido</cite> (already mentioned) -contained <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Galán fantasma</cite>, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Médico de su honra</cite>, -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Hombre pobre todo es trazas</cite>, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Á secreto agravio secreta venganza</cite>, -and the typical show-piece <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El mayor encanto amor</cite>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span>Apart from the popular esteem which he thoroughly -deserved, Calderón was evidently a special favourite with -Olivares, who never stinted Philip in the matter of toys -and amusements, and levied a sort of blackmail (for this -purpose) on those whom he nominated to high office. Great -preparations were made for a gorgeous production of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El -mayor encanto amor</cite> at the Buen Retiro in 1639. The -Viceroy of Naples was induced to make arrangements for a -lavish display by the ingenious stage-machinist, Cosme Lotti. -A floating stage was provided lit up with three thousand -lanterns; seated in gondolas, the King and his suite listened -to the performance; and the evening closed with a banquet. -These freakish shows were frequent. In February 1640 -we hear of a stormy scene at a rehearsal, which ended in -Calderón’s being wounded. It is commonly said that he was -at work on his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Certamen de amor y celos</cite> when the Catalan -revolt broke out in 1640, and that he finished it off hurriedly -by a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tour de force</em> so as to be able to take the field. This -is a picturesque tale, but, like most other picturesque tales, -it seems to be somewhat doubtful. On May 28, 1640, -before the rebellion began, Calderón enrolled himself in -a troop of cuirassiers raised by Olivares, the Captain-General -of the Spanish cavalry; and he did not actually take his -place in the ranks till September 29. He proved an efficient -soldier, was employed on a special mission, and received -promotion. His health, as often happens with those destined -to live long, was never robust, and forced him to -resign on November 15, 1642. In 1645 he was granted -a military pension of thirty <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">escudos</em> a month: it was not -paid punctually, and he was more than once obliged to -dun the Treasury for arrears.</p> - -<p>He had now reached an age when men begin to lose their -relatives and friends. In June 1645 his brother José was -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span> -killed in action at Camarasa; his brother Diego died at -Madrid on November 20, 1647. Calderón’s life was generally -most correct, but he had his frailties, and his commerce with -the stage exposed him to the occasions of sin. We do not -know who was the mother of his son, Pedro José, but it -may be assumed that she was an actress. She died about -1648-50, soon after the birth of the boy, who passed as -Calderón’s nephew. In 1648 Calderón was dangerously ill, -and in December 1650 he alleged his increasing age and -waning strength as a reason for quitting the King’s service; -he announced his intention of taking orders, and petitioned -that his pension might, nevertheless, be continued. He -had already been received as a Tertiary of St. Francis, and -accepted the nomination to the living (founded by his grandmother -in 1612) which he had thought of taking when he -went to Salamanca University, some thirty years earlier. -He was ordained in 1651, and seems to have been an -exemplary priest.</p> - -<p>An attempt was made to utilise his talents in a new -direction. He was requested to write a chronicle of the -Franciscan Tertiaries, undertook the task in 1651, but was -compelled to abandon it in 1653 owing to his ‘many occupations.’ -In a letter of this period addressed to the Patriarch -of the Indies, Alfonso Pérez de Guzmán, Calderón declares -that he had meant to cease writing for the stage when he -took orders, and that he had yielded to the personal request -of the Prime Minister, Luis de Haro, who had begged him to -continue for the King’s sake. In the same letter Calderón -states that he had been censured for writing <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em>, that a -favour conferred on him had been revoked owing to the -objection of somebody unknown—<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">no sé quién</em>—that poetry -was incompatible with the priesthood, and he ends by asking -the Primate for a definite ruling: ‘the thing is either wrong -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span> -or right; if right, let there be no more difficulties; and, if -wrong, let no one order me to do it.’ The drift of this -alembicated letter is clear. The favour revoked was no -doubt a chaplaincy at Toledo, and Calderón politely gave -the Primate to understand that he should supply no -more <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> till he received an equivalent for the post of -which he had been deprived. His hint was taken; he was -appointed ‘chaplain of the Reyes Nuevos’ at Toledo in -1653, and his scruples were quieted. For the rest of his -life he wrote most of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> given at Madrid, and he -readily supplied show-pieces to be performed at the palace -of the Buen Retiro. Some idea of the importance attached -to these performances may be gathered from the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Avisos</cite> of -Barrionuevo, who tells us that—while the enemy was at the -gate, while there was not a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">real</em> in the Treasury, while the -King was compelled to dine on eggs, while a capon ‘stinking -like dead dogs’ was served to the Infanta, and while the -court buffoon Manuelillo de Gante paid for the Queen’s -dessert,—there was always money to meet the bills of the -stage-machinist Juan Antonio Forneli, to maintain a staff -of from twenty-four to seventy actresses, and to import -from Genoa hogsheads of costly jasmine-oil for stage-purposes.</p> - -<p>Apart from the composition of <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> and <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedias palaciegas</em>, -Calderón’s life was henceforth uneventful. His position in -Spain was firmly established, but foreigners were sometimes -recalcitrant. The French traveller Bertaut thought little of -one of Calderón’s plays which he saw in 1659, and thought -even less of the author whom he visited later in the day:—‘From -his talk, I saw that he did not know much, though -he is quite white-haired. We argued a little concerning -the rules of the drama which they do not know at all, and -which they make game of in that country.’ This seems to -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> -have been the average French view.<a name="FNanchor_101_101" id="FNanchor_101_101"></a><a href="#Footnote_101_101" class="fnanchor">101</a> Chapelain, writing -to Carrel de Sainte-Garde on April 29, 1662, says that he -had read an abridgment of a play by Calderón:—‘par où -j’ay connu au moins que si les vers sont bons, son dessein -est très mauvais, et sa conduite ridicule.’ What else could -a champion of the unities think?</p> - -<p>Though a priest beyond reproach, Calderón was not left -in peace by busybodies and heresy-hunters. His <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">auto</em> concerning -the conversion of the eccentric Christina of Sweden -was forbidden in 1656. Another <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">auto</em>, entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las órdenes -militares ó Pruebas del segundo Adán</cite>, gave rise to no objection -when acted before the King on June 8, 1662; but it was -‘delated’ to the Inquisition, the stage-copies were seized, -and permission to perform it was refused. There can have -been no heresy in this <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">auto</em>, for the prohibition was withdrawn -nine years later. On February 18, 1663, Calderón became -chaplain to Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span> (a post which carried with it no -stipend), and in this same year he joined the Congregation -of St. Peter, of which he was appointed Superior in 1666. -He continued writing <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedias palaciegas</em> during the next -reign: <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Fieras afemina amor</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Estatua de Prometeo</cite> were -produced in honour of the Queen-Mother’s birthday in 1675 -and 1679 respectively; and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El segundo Escipión</cite> was played -on November 6, 1677, to commemorate the coming of age -of Charles <span class="smcap">II</span>. On August 24, 1679, an Order in Council -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span> -was issued granting Calderón a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">ración de cámara en especie</em> -on account of his services, great age, and poverty; this is -perplexing, for his will (made twenty-one months later) -shows that he was very comfortably off.</p> - -<p>There is a disquieting sentence in the preface to the -fifth volume of Calderón’s plays: Vera Tassis says that -the dramatist tried to draw up a list of pieces falsely -ascribed to him, and adds that ‘his infirm condition did -not allow of his forming a clear judgment about them.’ -What does Vera Tassis mean? Are we to understand that -Calderón’s intellect was slightly clouded towards the end, -that he could not distinguish his own plays from those of -other writers, and that perhaps he had become possessed -with the notion (not uncommon in the aged) that he would -die in want? Surely not. The financial statements of -petitioners are often obscure. Calderón’s memory may -naturally have begun to fail when he was close on eighty, -but in other respects his mind was vigorous. His <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Hado -y divisa de Leonido y Marfisa</cite>, composed to celebrate the -wedding of Charles <span class="smcap">II.</span> with Marie-Louise de Bourbon, was -given at the Buen Retiro on March 3, 1680; it was produced -later for the general public at the Príncipe and Cruz -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">corrales</em>, and altogether was played twenty-one times—a -great ‘run’ for those days. For over thirty years Calderón -had been commissioned to write the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> for Madrid, and -in 1681 he set to work as usual, but while engaged on <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El -Cordero de Isaías</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La divina Filotea</cite>, his strength failed -him. He could only finish one of these two <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em>, and left -the other to be completed by Melchor Fernández de León. -He signed his will on May 20, took to his bed and added -a codicil on May 23, bequeathing his manuscripts to Juan -Mateo Lozano, the parish priest of St. Michael’s at Madrid, -who wrote the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Aprobación</cite> to the volume of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Autos Sacramentales, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> -alegóricos y historiales</cite> published in 1677. Calderón -died on Whitsunday, May 25, 1681.</p> - -<p>Almost all that we hear of him is eminently to his credit. -Vera Tassis, who knew him intimately,—though perhaps -less intimately than he implies,—dwells affectionately on -Calderón’s open-handed charity, his modesty and courtesy, -his kindliness in speaking of contemporaries, his gentleness -and patience towards envious calumniators. Calderón was -a gentleman as well as a great man of letters—a rare combination. -Like Lope de Vega, he was apparently not -inclined to rank his plays as literature, and, unlike Lope, -he does not seem to have changed his opinion on this point. -In his letter to the Patriarch of the Indies he speaks -slightingly of poetry as a foible pardonable enough in an -idle courtier, but one which he regarded with contempt as -soon as he took orders; and his disdain for his own work is -commemorated in a ponderous epitaph, written by those who -knew him best:—</p> - -<p class="center"> -<span class="smcap lowercase">CAMŒNIS OLIM DELICIARUM AMÆNISSIMUM FLUMEN<br /> -QUÆ SUMMO PLAUSU VIVENS SCRIPSIT,<br /> -MORIENS PRÆSCRIBENDO DESPEXIT.</span><br /> -</p> - -<p>He was never sufficiently interested in his secular plays -to collect them, though he complained of being grossly -misrepresented in the pirated editions which were current. -According to Vera Tassis, he corrected <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las Armas de la -hermosura</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Señora y la Criada</cite> for the forty-sixth -volume of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Escogidas</cite> printed in 1679; but he did no -more towards protecting his reputation, though at the very -end of his life he began an edition of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em>, the sacred -subjects of these investing them in his eyes with more -importance than could possibly attach to any secular drama. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> -It is by the merest accident that we have an authorised -list of the titles of his secular plays. He drew it up, ten -months before he died, at the urgent request of the Almirante-Duque -de Veraguas (a descendant of Columbus), -and it was included in the preface to the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Obelisco fúnebre, -pirámide funesto</cite>, published by Gaspar Agustín de Lara in -1784. Calderón’s plays were printed by Vera Tassis who—though, -as Lara is careful to inform us, he had not access -to the original manuscripts in Lozano’s keeping—was a fairly -competent editor, as editors went in those days. It is not -rash to say that to this happy hazard Calderón owes no small -part of his international renown. For a long while, he was -the only great Spanish dramatist whose works were readily -accessible. Students who wished to read Lope de Vega—if -there were any such—could not find an edition of his plays; -Tirso de Molina was still further out of reach. Circumstances -combined to concentrate attention on Calderón at -the expense of his brethren. With the best will in the -world, you cannot act authors whose plays are not available; -but Calderón could be found at any bookseller’s, and a few -of his plays, together with two or three of Moreto’s, were -acted even during the latter half of the eighteenth century -when French influence was dominant on the Spanish stage.</p> - -<p>Calderón thus survived in Spain; and, owing to this -survival, he came to be regarded by the evangelists of the -Romantic movement abroad as the leading representative of -the Spanish drama. Some of these depreciated Lope de Vega, -with no more knowledge of him than they could gather from -two or three plays picked up at random. German writers -made themselves remarkable by their vehement dogmatism. -Friedrich von Schlegel declared that, whereas Shakespeare -had merely described the enigma of life, Calderón had -solved it, thus proving himself to be, ‘in all conditions and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> -circumstances, the most Christian, and therefore the most -romantic, of dramatic poets.’ August von Schlegel was as -dithyrambic as his brother. Dismissing Lope’s plays as -containing interesting situations and ‘inimitable jokes,’—Schlegel, -<cite>On Jokes</cite>, is one of the many unwritten masterpieces, -‘for which the whole world longs,’—he turns to -Calderón, hails him as that ‘blessed man,’ and in a rhetorical -transport proclaims him to be ‘the last summit of romantic -poetry.’ Nobody writes in this vein now, and the loss is -endurable. We are no longer stirred on reading that -Calderón’s ‘tears reflect the view of heaven, like dewdrops -on a flower in the sun’: such imagery leaves us cold. But -the rhetoric of the Schlegels, Tieck, and others was most -effective at the time.</p> - -<p>It was noised abroad that the Germans had discovered -the supreme dramatic genius of the world; the great names -of Goethe and Shelley were quoted as being worshippers of -the new sun in the poetic heavens; the superstition spread -to England, and would seem to have infected a group of -brilliant young men at Cambridge—Trench, FitzGerald, and -Tennyson. <cite>In The Palace of Art</cite>, as first published, Calderón -was introduced with some unexpected companions:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Cervantes, the bright face of Calderon,</div> -<div class="line i1">Robed David touching holy strings,</div> -<div class="line">The Halicarnasseän, and alone,</div> -<div class="line i1">Alfred the flower of kings,</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Isaïah with fierce Ezekiel,</div> -<div class="line i1">Swarth Moses by the Coptic sea,</div> -<div class="line">Plato, Petrarca, Livy and Raphaël,</div> -<div class="line i1">And eastern Confutzee.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">This motley company was dispersed later. In the revised -version of <cite>The Palace of Art Calderón</cite> finds no place, and -the omission causes no more surprise than the omission of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span> -‘eastern Confutzee.’ He is admired as a splendid poet -and a great dramatist, but we no longer see him, as Tennyson -saw him in 1833, on a sublime and solitary pinnacle of -glory—‘a poetical Melchisedec, without spiritual father, -without spiritual mother, with nothing round him to explain -or account for the circumstances of his greatness.’ As -Trench says, there are no such appearances in literature, -and Calderón has ceased to be a mystery or a miracle. Yet -it was not unnatural that those who took the Schlegels for -guides should see him in this light. The fact that the -works of other Spanish dramatists were not easily obtainable -necessarily gave an exaggerated idea of Calderón’s originality -and importance, for it was next to impossible to compare -him with his rivals. We are now more favourably -situated. We know—what our grandfathers could not -know—that Friedrich von Schlegel was as wrong as wrong -can be when he assured the world that Calderón was too -rich to borrow. In literature no one is too rich to borrow, -and Calderón’s indebtedness to his predecessors is great. -To give but one instance out of many: the Second Act of -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Cabellos de Absalón</cite> is taken bodily from the Third Act -of Tirso de Molina’s sombre and sinister tragedy, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Venganza -de Tamar</cite>.</p> - -<p>This was no offence against the prevailing code of morality -in literary matters. Most Spanish dramatists of this period -borrowed freely. Lope de Vega, indeed, had such wealth -of invention that he was never tempted in this way: so, -too, he seldom collaborated. So far from being a help, -this division of labour was almost an impediment to him, -for he could write a hundred lines in the time that it took -him to consult his collaborator. But Lope was unique. -Manuel de Guerra, in his celebrated <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Aprobación</cite> to the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Verdadera Quinta Parte</cite> of Calderón’s plays, calls him a -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span> -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">monstruo de ingenio</em>. The words recall the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">monstruo de -naturaleza</em>, the phrase applied by Cervantes to Lope, but -there is a marked difference between the two men—a -difference perhaps implied in the two expressions. Lope -was possessed by an irresistible instinct which impelled him -to constant, and often careless, creation; Calderón creates -less lavishly, treats existing themes without scruple, and his -recasts are sometimes completely successful. His devotees -never allow us to forget, for instance, that in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Alcalde de -Zalamea</cite> he has transformed one of Lope’s dashing improvisations -into a most powerful drama, and they cite as a -parallel case the <cite>Electra</cite> of Euripides and the <cite>Electra</cite> of -Sophocles. Just so, when Calderón receives a prize at the -poetical jousts held at Madrid in 1620-22, the extreme -Calderonians are reminded of ‘the boy Sophocles dancing -at the festival after the battle of Salamis.’ Why drag in -Sophocles? There are degrees. It is quite true that -Calderón has made an admirable play out of Lope’s sketch; -but it is also true that the dramatic conception of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Alcalde -de Zalamea</cite> is due to Lope, and not to Calderón.</p> - -<p>Any other dramatist in Calderón’s place would have been -compelled to accept the conventions which Lope de Vega -had imposed upon the Spanish stage—conventional presentations -of loyalty and honour. Calderón devoted his magnificent -gifts to elaborating these conventions into something -like a code. His readiness in borrowing may be taken to -mean that he was not, in the largest sense, an inventor, and -the substance of his plays shows that he was rarely interested -in the presentation of character. But he had the -keenest theatrical sense, and once he is provided with a -theme he can extract from it an intense dramatic interest. -Moreover, he equals Lope in the cleverness with which he -works up a complicated plot, and surpasses Lope in the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> -adroitness with which he employs the mechanical resources -of the stage. In addition to these minor talents, he has the -gift of impressive and ornate diction. It is a little unfortunate -that many who read him in translations begin -with <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Vida es sueño</cite>, a fine symbolic play disfigured by -the introduction of so incredible a character as Rosaura, -declaiming gongoresque speeches altogether out of place. -Calderón is liable to these momentary aberrations; yet, at -his best, he is almost unsurpassable. Read, for example, -the majestic speech of the Demon in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Mágico prodigioso</cite> -which Trench very justifiably compares with Milton. The -address to Cyprian loses next to nothing of its splendour in -Shelley’s version:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i12">Chastised, I know</div> -<div class="line">The depth to which ambition falls; too mad</div> -<div class="line">Was the attempt, and yet more mad were now</div> -<div class="line">Repentance of the irrevocable deed:—</div> -<div class="line">Therefore I chose this ruin with the glory</div> -<div class="line">Of not to be subdued, before the shame</div> -<div class="line">Of reconciling me with him who reigns</div> -<div class="line">By coward cession.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>It was once the fashion to praise Calderón chiefly as a -philosophic dramatist, and it may be that to this philosophic -quality his plays owe much of the vogue which they once -enjoyed—and which, in a much less degree, they still enjoy—in -Germany. As it happens, only two of Calderón’s plays -can be classified as philosophic—<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Vida es sueño</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">En -esta vida todo es verdad y todo es mentira</cite>—and, with respect -to the latter, a question arises as to its originality. French -writers have maintained that <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">En esta vida</cite> is taken from -Corneille’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Héraclius</cite>, while Spaniards argue that Corneille’s -play is taken from Calderón’s. On <em>a priori</em> grounds we -should be tempted to admit the Spanish contention, for -Corneille was—I do not wish to put the point too strongly—more -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> -given to borrowing from Spain than to lending -to contemporary Spanish playwrights. But there is the -awkward fact that <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Héraclius</cite> dates from 1647, whereas <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">En -esta vida</cite> was not printed till 1664. This is not decisive, -for we have seen that Calderón was not interested enough -in his secular plays to print them, and we gather incidentally -that <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">En esta vida</cite> was being rehearsed at Madrid by -Diego Osorio’s company in February 1659. How much -earlier it was written, we cannot say at present. The idea -that Calderón borrowed from the French cannot be scouted -as impossible, for Corneille’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Cid</cite> was adapted by Diamante -in 1658.<a name="FNanchor_102_102" id="FNanchor_102_102"></a><a href="#Footnote_102_102" class="fnanchor">102</a> Perhaps both Calderón and Corneille drew upon -Mira de Amescua’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Rueda de la fortuna</cite>—a play which, as we -know from Lope de Vega’s letter belittling <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>, was -written in 1604, or earlier. But, whichever explanation -we accept, Calderón’s originality is compromised. With -all respect to the eminent authorities who have debated -this question of priority, we may be allowed to think that -they have shown unnecessary heat over a rather unimportant -matter. Neither <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Héraclius</cite> nor <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">En esta vida</cite> is a masterpiece, -and Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo holds that <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">En esta vida</cite> contains -only one striking situation—the tenth scene in the First -Act, when both Heraclio and Leonido claim to be the sons -of Mauricio, and Astolfo refuses to state which of the two -is mistaken:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Que es uno dellos diré;</div> -<div class="line">pero cuál es dellos, no.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>This amounts to saying that Calderón’s play is no great -marvel, for very few serious pieces are ever produced on the -stage unless the first act is good. The hastiest of impresarios, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> -the laziest dramatic censor—even they read as far -as the end of the First Act. But, if we give up <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">En esta -vida</cite>, Calderón is deprived of half his title to rank as a -‘philosophic’ dramatist. We still have <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Vida es sueño</cite>, -a noble and (apparently) original play disfigured, as I have -said, by verbal affectations, such as the opening couplet on the</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Hipogrifo<a name="FNanchor_103_103" id="FNanchor_103_103"></a><a href="#Footnote_103_103" class="fnanchor">103</a> violento</div> -<div class="line">que corriste pareja con el viento,</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">which is almost invariably quoted against the author. So, -too, whenever <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Vida es sueño</cite> is mentioned, we are almost -invariably told that, as though to prove that life is indeed -a dream, ‘a Queen of Sweden expired in the theatre of -Stockholm during its performance.’ This picturesque story -does not seem to be true, and, at any rate, it adds no more -to the interest of the play than the verbal blemishes take -from it. The weak spot in the piece is the sudden collapse -of Segismundo when sent back to the dungeon, but otherwise -the conception is admirable in dignity and force.</p> - -<p>Many critics find these qualities in Calderón’s tragedies, -and I perceive them in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Amar después de la muerte</cite>. The -scene in which Garcés describes how he murdered Doña -Clara, and is interrupted by Don Álvaro with—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i7">¿Fue</div> -<div class="line">Como ésta la puñalada?—</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span>is, as Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo says, worthy of Shakespeare; -and it long ago reminded Trench of the scene in <cite>Cymbeline</cite> -where Iachimo’s confession—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i7">Whereupon—</div> -<div class="line">Methinks, I see him now—</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">is interrupted by Posthumus with—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i5">Ay, so thou dost,</div> -<div class="line">Italian fiend!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But, for some reason, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Amar después de la muerte</cite> is not among -the most celebrated of Calderón’s tragic plays, and it is -certainly not the most typical—not nearly so typical as -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Á secreto agravio secreta venganza</cite>, and two or three others. -Here the note of genuine passion is almost always faint, and -is sometimes wanting altogether. Othello murders Desdemona -in a divine despair because he believes her guilty, and -because he loves her: Calderón’s jealous heroes, with the -exception of the Tetrarch in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Mayor monstruo los celos</cite>, -commit murder as a social duty. In <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Á secreto agravio -secreta venganza</cite> Don Lope de Almeida, with his interminable -soliloquies, ceases to be human, and becomes the -incarnation of (what we now think to be) a silly conventional -code of honour. Doña Leonor in this play is not so -completely innocent in thought as Doña Mencía in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Médico -de su honra</cite>; but Don Lope de Almeida murders the one, -and Don Gutierre Alfonso Solís murders the other, with -the same cold-blooded deliberation shown in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Pintor de -su deshonra</cite> by Don Juan de Roca, who has some apparent -justification for killing Doña Serafina.</p> - -<p>With all the skill spent on their construction, these -tragedies do not move us deeply, and they would fail to -interest, if it were not that they embody the accepted ideas -concerning the point of honour in Spain during the seventeenth -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span> -century. It is most difficult for us to see things as a -Spaniard then saw them. He began by assuming that any -personal insult could only be washed away by the blood of -the offender: a man is killed in fair fight in a duel, but the -survivors of the slain must slay the slayer. Modern Europe, -as Chorley wrote more than half a century ago, has nothing -like this, ‘except the terrible Corsican <em>vendetta</em>.’ And, as -stated by the same great authority—the greatest we have -ever had on all relating to the Spanish stage—‘beneath the -unbounded devotion which the Castilian professed to the -sex, lay a conviction of their absolute and universal frailty.’ -In Spanish eyes ‘no woman’s purity,’ Chorley continues, ‘was -safe but in absolute seclusion from men:—guilt was implied -and honour lost in every case where the risk of either was -possible,—nay, even had accident thrown into a temptation -a lady whose innocence was proved to her master, the -appearance of crime to the world’s eye must be washed -out in her blood.’ It has often been said that, in Calderón, -‘honour’ is what destiny is in the Greek drama.</p> - -<p>This code of honour seems to many of us immoral -nonsense, and it is difficult to suppose that Friedrich von -Schlegel had <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Médico de su honra</cite> in mind when he -declared Calderón to be ‘in all conditions and circumstances -the most Christian ... of dramatic poets.’ It is -hard to imagine anything more unchristian than the conduct -of Don Gutierre Alfonso Solís which is held up for -approval; but no doubt it was approved by contemporary -playgoers. In this glorification of punctilio Calderón is -thoroughly representative. He reproduces the conventional -ideas which obtained for a certain time, in certain complicated -conditions, in a certain latitude and longitude. -This local verisimilitude, which contributed to his immediate -success, now constitutes a limitation. The dramatist may be -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span> -true to life, in so far as he presents temporary aspects of it -with fidelity; he is not true to universal nature, and therefore -he makes no permanent appeal. This, or something -like it, has been said a thousand times, and, I think, with -good reason. Still, it leaves Calderón where he was as -the spokesman of his age.</p> - -<p>He is no less representative in his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedias de capa y espada</cite>—his -plays of intrigue, which are really dramatic presentations -of ordinary contemporary manners in the vein of high -comedy. Opponents of the Spanish national theatre have -charged him with inventing this typical form of dramatic -art, as though it were a misdemeanour. There is no sense -in belittling so characteristic a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">genre</em>, and no ground for -ascribing the invention of cloak-and-sword plays to Calderón. -They were being written by Lope de Vega before Calderón -was born, and were still further elaborated by Tirso de -Molina. Lope’s redundant genius adapts itself easily enough -to the narrow bounds of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedia de capa y espada</em>, but -he instinctively prefers a more spacious field. The very -artificiality of such plays must have been an attraction to -Calderón. All plays of this class are much alike. There -are always a gallant and a lady engaged in a love-affair; -a grim father or petulant brother, who may be a loose -liver but is a rigid moralist where his own women-folk are -concerned; a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">gracioso</em> or buffoon, who comes on the scene -when things begin to look dangerous. The material is the -same in all cases; the playwright’s dexterity is shown in the -variety of his arrangement, the ingenious novelty of the -plot, the polite mirth of the dialogue, the apt introduction of -episodes which revive or diversify the interest, and prolong -it by leaving the personages at cross-purposes till the last -moment. Calderón is a master of all the devices that help -to make a good play of this kind. Character-drawing -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> -would be almost out of place, and, as character-drawing -is Calderón’s weak point, one of his chief difficulties is -removed. He is free to concentrate his skill on polishing -witty ‘points,’ on contriving striking situations, and preparing -deft surprises at which he himself smiles good-humouredly. -The whole play is based on an idealistic -convention, and Calderón displays a startling cleverness in -conforming to the complicated rules of the game.</p> - -<p>He fails at the point where the convention is weakest. -His <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">graciosos</em> or drolls are too laboriously comic to be -amusing. He has abundant wit, and the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">discreteo</em> of the -lover and the lady is often brilliant. But there is some -foundation for the taunt that he is interested only in fine -gentlemen and <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">précieuses</em>. He had not lived in courts -and palaces for nothing. The racy, rough humour of the -illiterate clearly repelled his fastidious temper, and the -fun of his <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">graciosos</em> is unreal. This is what might be anticipated. -It takes one cast in the mould of Shakespeare, -or Cervantes, or Lope, to sympathise with all conditions of -men. Calderón fails in another point, and the failure is -certainly very strange in a man of his meticulous refinement -and social opportunities. With few exceptions, the -women in his most famous plays are unattractive. A -Spanish critic puts it strongly when he calls the women -on Calderón’s stage <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">hombrunas</em> or mannish. No foreign -critic would be brave enough to say this, but it is not an -unfair description. A man’s idea of a womanly woman is -often quaint: he sees her as something between a white-robed -angel and a perfect imbecile. That is not Calderón’s -way. Doña Mencía in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Médico de su honra</cite> and Doña -Leonor in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Á secreto agravio secreta venganza</cite> are distinctly -formidable, and, even in the cloak-and-sword plays, there -is something masculine in the academic preciosity of the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span> -lively heroines. It is manifest that Calderón has no deep -knowledge of feminine character, that his interest in it -is assumed for stage purposes, and that his chief preoccupation -is—not to portray idiosyncrasies, nor even types -of womanhood, but—to make physical beauty the theme -of his eloquent, poetic flights. In this he succeeds admirably, -though his flights are apt to be too long. You probably -know Suppico de Moraes’ story of Calderón’s acting before -Philip <span class="smcap">IV</span>. in an improvisation at the Buen Retiro, the poet -taking the part of Adam, and Vélez de Guevara that of -God the Father. Once started, Calderón declaimed and -declaimed, and, when he came to an end at last, Vélez de -Guevara took up the dialogue with the remark: ‘I repent -me of creating so garrulous an Adam!’ Most probably the -tale is an invention,<a name="FNanchor_104_104" id="FNanchor_104_104"></a><a href="#Footnote_104_104" class="fnanchor">104</a> but it is not without point, for Philip -and the rest would have been a match for Job, if they -had never been bored with the favourite’s tirades. Like -most Spaniards, Calderón is too copious; but in lyrical -splendour he is unsurpassed by any Spanish poet, and is surpassed -by few poets in any language. Had he added more -frequent touches of nature to his idealised presentations, he -would rank with the greatest dramatists in the world.</p> - -<p>As it is, he ranks only just below the greatest, and in one -dramatic form peculiar to Spain, he is, by common consent, -supreme. Everybody quotes Shelley’s phrase about ‘the -light and odour of the starry <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em>’; but scarcely anybody -reads the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em>, and I rather doubt if Shelley read them. It -is suggested that he took an <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">auto</em> to mean an ordinary play, -and this seems likely enough, for that is what an <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">auto</em> did -mean at one time. But an <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">auto sacramental</em> in Calderón’s -time was a one-act piece (performed in the open air on -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> -the Feast of Corpus Christi) in which the Eucharistic -mystery was presented symbolically. We can imagine this -being done successfully two or three times, but not oftener. -The difficulty was extreme, and as a new <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">auto</em>—usually two -new <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em>—had to be provided every year, authors had -recourse to the strangest devices. There are <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> in which -Christ is symbolised by Charlemagne (surrounded by his -twelve peers), or by Jason, or Ulysses; there are <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> in -which an attempt is made to evade the conditions by introducing -saints famous for their devotion to the Eucharist. -Such pieces are illegitimate: they are not really <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos sacramentales</em>, -but <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedias devotas</em>.</p> - -<p>Calderón treats the subject within the rigid limits of the -convention,—as a doctrinal abstraction,—and he treats it in -a spirit of the most reverential art. He does not fail even -in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Valle de la Zarzuela</cite>, where he hampers himself by -connecting the theme with one of Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span>’s hunting-expeditions. -He tells us with a certain dignified pride that -his <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> had been played before the King and Council for -more than thirty years, and he apologises for occasional -repetitions by saying that these are not so noticeable at a -distance of twenty years as when they occur between the -covers of a book. But no apology is needed. Calderón -dealt with his abstruse theme more than seventy times—not -always with equal success, but never quite unsuccessfully, -and never repeating himself unduly. This is surely one -of the most dexterous exploits in literature, and Calderón -appears to have done it with consummate ease. His reflective -genius, steeped in dogma, was far more interested -in the mysteries of faith than in the passions of humanity, -far more interested in devout symbolism than in realistic -characterisation. His figures are pale abstractions? Yes: -but he compels us to accept them by virtue of his sublime -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> -allegory, his majestic vision of the world invisible, and the -adorable loveliness of his lyrism.</p> - -<p>His <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> endured for over a century. As late as 1760 -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Cubo de la Almudena</cite> was played on Corpus Christi at -the Teatro del Príncipe in Madrid, while <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Semilla y la -cizaña</cite> was played at the Teatro de la Cruz. The <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> -were obviously dying; they were no longer given in the -open air before the King and Court, and the devout multitude; -they were shorn of their pomp, and played indoors -before an indifferent audience amid irreverent remarks. -On one occasion, according to Clavijo, after the actor who -played the part of Satan had declaimed a passage effectively, -an admirer in the pit raised a cheer for the devil:—<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">¡Viva el -demonio!</em> There is evidence to prove that the public performance -of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos sacramentales</em> was often the occasion -of disorderly and scandalous scenes. Clavijo has been -blamed for his articles in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Pensador matritense</cite>, advocating -their suppression, and perhaps his motives were not so pure -as he pretends. Yet he was certainly right in suggesting -that the day for <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em> was over. They were prohibited on -June 9, 1765. But they must soon have died in any case, -for the supply had ceased, and later writers like Antonio -de Zamora were mostly content to retouch Calderón’s <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos</em>.<a name="FNanchor_105_105" id="FNanchor_105_105"></a><a href="#Footnote_105_105" class="fnanchor">105</a> -Zamora and Bancés Candamo were not the men to keep -up the high tradition, and the attitude of the public had -completely changed.</p> - -<p>The fact that his <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">autos sacramentales</em> are little read in -Spain, and are scarcely read at all out of Spain, is most -unfortunate for Calderón, for his noblest achievement -remains comparatively unknown. His reputation abroad -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span> -is based on his secular plays which represent but one side -of his delightful genius, and that side is not his strongest. -The works of Lope de Vega and of Tirso de Molina have -become available once more, and this circumstance has -necessarily affected the critical estimate of Calderón as a -dramatist. Paul Verlaine, indeed, persisted in placing -him above Shakespeare, but Verlaine was the last of the -Old Guard. Calderón is relatively less important than -he was thought to be before Chorley’s famous campaign in -<cite>The Athenæum</cite>: all now agree with Chorley that Calderón -is inferior to Lope de Vega in creative faculty and humour, -and inferior to Tirso de Molina in depth and variety of -conception. But, when every deduction is made, Calderón -is still one of the most stately figures in Spanish literature. -Naturally a great lyric poet, his deliberate art won him a -pre-eminent position among poets who used the dramatic -form, and he lives as the typical representative of the -devout, gallant, loyal, artificial society in which he moved. -He is not, as once was thought, the synthesis of the -Spanish genius, but no one incarnates more completely -one aspect of that genius. Who illustrates better than -the author of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Principe constante</cite> what Heiberg wrote of -Spanish poets generally just ninety years ago:—‘Habet -itaque poësis hispanica animam gothicam in corpore romano, -quod orientali vestimento induitur; verum in intimo corde -Christiana fides regnat, et per omnes se venas diffundit’? -The same thought recurs in <cite>The Nightingale in the Study</cite>:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">A bird is singing in my brain</div> -<div class="line i1">And bubbling o’er with mingled fancies,</div> -<div class="line">Gay, tragic, rapt, right heart of Spain</div> -<div class="line i1">Fed with the sap of old romances.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">I ask no ampler skies than those</div> -<div class="line i1">His magic music rears above me,</div> -<div class="line"><span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span>No falser friends, no truer foes,—</div> -<div class="line i1">And does not Doña Clara love me?</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Cloaked shapes, a twanging of guitars,</div> -<div class="line i1">A rush of feet, and rapiers clashing,</div> -<div class="line">Then silence deep with breathless stars,</div> -<div class="line i1">And overhead a white hand flashing.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">O music of all moods and climes,</div> -<div class="line i1">Vengeful, forgiving, sensuous, saintly,</div> -<div class="line">Where still, between the Christian chimes,</div> -<div class="line i1">The Moorish cymbal tinkles faintly!</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">O life borne lightly in the hand,</div> -<div class="line i1">For friend or foe with grace Castilian!</div> -<div class="line">O valley safe in Fancy’s land,</div> -<div class="line i1">Not tramped to mud yet by the million!</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Bird of to-day, thy songs are stale</div> -<div class="line i1">To his, my singer of all weathers,</div> -<div class="line">My Calderon, my nightingale,</div> -<div class="line i1">My Arab soul in Spanish feathers!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>To most of us, as to Lowell, the Spain of romance is the -Spain revealed to us by Calderón. Though not the greatest -of Spanish authors, nor even the greatest of Spanish dramatists, -he is perhaps the happiest in temperament, the most -brilliant in colouring. He gives us a magnificent pageant -in which the pride of patriotism and the charm of gallantry -are blended with the dignity of art and ‘the fair humanities -of old religion.’ And unquestionably he has imposed his -enchanting vision upon the world.</p> -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span></p> -<h2>CHAPTER IX<br /><br /> - -<small>THE DRAMATIC SCHOOL OF CALDERÓN</small></h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Lope de Vega</span>, as I have tried to persuade you in a previous -lecture, may fairly be regarded as the real founder of the -national theatre in Spain. His victory was complete, and -the old-fashioned Senecan drama was everywhere supplanted -by the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedia nueva</em> in which the ‘unities’ were neglected. -Playwrights who could no longer get their pieces produced -took great pains to prove that Lope ought to have failed, -and dwelt upon the enormity of his anachronisms and -geographical blunders. These groans of the defeated are -always with us. Just as the pedant clamours for Shakespeare’s -head on a charger, because he chose to place a -seaport in Bohemia, so Andrés Rey de Artieda, in his -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Discursos, epístolas y epigramas</cite>, published under the pseudonym -of Artemidoro in 1605, is indignant at the triumph -of ignorant incapacity:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i2">Galeras vi una vez ir per el yermo,</div> -<div class="line">y correr seis caballos per la posta,</div> -<div class="line">de la isla del Gozo hasta Palermo.</div> -<div class="line i2">Poner dentro Vizcaya á Famagosta,</div> -<div class="line">y junto de los Alpes, Persia y Media,</div> -<div class="line">y Alemaña pintar, larga y angosta.</div> -<div class="line i2">Como estas cosas representa Heredia,</div> -<div class="line">á pedimiento de un amigo suyo,</div> -<div class="line">que en seis horas compone una comedia.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The meaning of this little outburst is quite simple: it -means that Rey de Artieda was no longer popular at -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span> -Valencia, and that he and his fellows had had to make way -on the Valencian stage for such followers of Lope de Vega -as Francisco Tárrega, Gaspar de Aguilar, Guillén de Castro -and Miguel Beneyto—all members of the Valencian <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Academia -de los nocturnos</cite>, in which they were known respectively as -‘Miedo,’ ‘Sombra,’ ‘Secreto’ and ‘Sosiego.’</p> - -<p>A very similar denunciation of the new school was published -by a much greater writer in the same year. Cervantes -ridiculed the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">comedia nueva</em> as a pack of nonsense without -either head or tail—<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">conocidos disparates y cosas que no llevan -pies ni cabeza</em>; yet he dolefully admits that ‘the public -hears them with pleasure, and esteems and approves them -as good, though they are far from being anything of the -sort.’ The long diatribe put into the mouth of the canon -in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> is the plaint of a beaten man who calls for -a literary dictatorship, or some such desperate remedy, to -save him from Lope and the revolution. Whether Cervantes -changed his views on the merits of the question, or whether -he merely bowed to circumstances, we cannot say. But -he tacitly recanted in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Rufián dichoso</cite>, and even defended -the new methods as improvements on the old:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Los tiempos mudan las cosas</div> -<div class="line">y perfeccionan las artes ...</div> -<div class="line">Muy poco importa al oyente</div> -<div class="line">que yo en un punto me pase</div> -<div class="line">desde Alemania á Guinea,</div> -<div class="line">sin del teatro mudarme.</div> -<div class="line">El pensamiento es ligero,</div> -<div class="line">bien pueden acompañarme</div> -<div class="line">con él, do quiera que fuere,</div> -<div class="line">sin perderme, ni cansarse.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">Passing from theory to practice, Cervantes appeared as a -very unsuccessful imitator of Lope de Vega in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Casa de -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span> -los Celos ó las Selvas de Ardenio</cite>. The dictatorship for which -he asked had come, but the dictator was Lope.</p> - -<p>All Spanish dramatists of this period came under Lope’s -influence. He was even more supreme in Madrid than in -Valencia, and other provincial centres. He set the fashion -to men as considerable as Vélez de Guevara, Mira de -Amescua, Tirso de Molina, and Calderón himself. Lope -and Ruiz de Alarcón were at daggers drawn; but these -were personal quarrels, and, original as was Alarcón’s talent, -the torch of Lope flickers over some of his best scenes. -These men were much more than imitators. If Lope ever -had a devoted follower, it was the unfortunate Juan Pérez -de Montalbán; but even Pérez de Montalbán was not a -servile imitator, and it was precisely his effort to develop -originality that affected his reason. Lope’s influence was -general; he founded a national drama, but he founded -nothing which we can justly call a school—a word which -implies a certain exclusiveness and rigidity of doctrine -foreign to Lope’s nature. So far was he from founding a -school that, towards the end of his life, he was voted rather -antiquated, and this view was still more widely held during -Calderón’s supremacy. In the autograph of Lope’s unpublished -play, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Quien más no puede</cite>, there is a note by -Cristóbal Gómez, who writes—‘This is a very good play, -but not suitable for these times, though suitable in the -past; for it contains many <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">endechas</em> and many things which -would not be endured nowadays; the plot is good, and -should be versified in the prevailing fashion.’ This is dated -April 19, 1669, less than forty years after Lope’s death; he -was beginning to be forgotten by almost all, except the -playwrights who stole from him.</p> - -<p>Calderón, on the other hand, did found a school. For -one thing, his conventionality and mannerisms are infinitely -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span> -easier to imitate than Lope’s broad effects. ‘Spanish -Comedy,’ as Mr. George Meredith says, ‘is generally in -sharp outline, as of skeletons; in quick movement, as of -marionettes. The Comedy might be performed by a troupe -of the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">corps de ballet</em>; and in the recollection of the reading -it resolves to an animated shuffle of feet.’ Whatever we -may think of this as a judgment on Spanish comedy as a -whole, it describes fairly enough the dramatic work produced -by many of Calderón’s followers: with them, if not -with their master, art degenerates into artifice—a clever -trick. Calderón himself seems to have grown tired of the -praises lavished on his ingenuity. He knew perfectly that -neatness of construction was not the best part of his work, -and, in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">No hay burlas con el amor</cite>, he laughs at himself and -his more uncritical admirers:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">¿Es comedia de don Pedro</div> -<div class="line">Calderón, donde ha de haber</div> -<div class="line">por fuerza amante escondido,</div> -<div class="line">ó rebozada muger?</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>Unfortunately these stage devices—these concealed lovers, -these muffled mistresses, these houses with two doors, these -walls with invisible cupboards, these compromising letters -wrongly addressed—were precisely what appealed to the -unthinking section of the public, and they were also -the characteristics most easily reproduced by imitators in -search of a short cut to success. Other circumstances -combined to make Calderón the head of a dramatic school. -Except in invention and in brilliant facility the dramatists -of Lope’s time were not greatly inferior to the master. In -certain qualities Tirso de Molina and Ruiz de Alarcón -are superior to him: Tirso in force and in malicious humour, -Ruiz de Alarcón in depth and in artistic finish. There is -no such approach to equality between Calderón and the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span> -men of his group. No strikingly original dramatic genius -appeared during his long life, extending over three literary -generations. He himself had made no new departure, no -radical innovation; he took over the dramatic form as Lope -had left it, and, by focussing its common traits, he established -a series of conventions—a conventional conception of loyalty, -honour, love and jealousy. The stars in their courses -fought for him. He was equally popular at court and with -the multitude, pleasing the upper rabble by his glittering -intrigue and dexterous <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">discreteo</em>, pleasing the lower rabble -by his melodramatic incident and the mechanical humour -of his <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">graciosos</em>, pleasing both high and low by his lofty -Catholicism and passionate devotion to the throne. Though -not in any real sense more Spanish than Lope de Vega, -Calderón seems to be more intensely national, for he reduced -the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">españolismo</em> of his age to a formula. Out of the plays of -Lope and of Tirso, he evolved a hard-and-fast method of -dramatic presentation. He came at a time when it was -impossible to do more. All that could be done by those -who came after him was to emphasise the convention which, -by dint of constant repetition, he had converted into something -like an imperative theory.</p> - -<p>It follows, as the night the day, that the monotony which -has been remarked in Calderón’s plays is still more pronounced -in those of his followers. The incidents vary, but -the conception of passion and of social obligation is identical. -The dramatists of Calderón’s school adopt his method of -presenting the conventional emotions of loyalty, devotion, -and punctilio as to the point of honour; and, having enclosed -themselves within these narrow bounds, they are almost -necessarily driven to exaggeration. This tendency is found -in so powerful a writer as Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, of -whom we know scarcely anything except that he was born -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span> -at Toledo in 1607, and that he was on friendly terms with -both the devout José de Valdivielso and the waggish -Jerónimo de Cáncer—who in his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Vejamen</cite>, written in 1649, -gives a comical picture of the dignified dramatist tearing -along in an undignified hurry. In 1644 Rojas Zorrilla was -proposed as a candidate for the Order of Santiago, but the -nomination was objected to on the ground that he was of -mixed Moorish and Jewish descent, and that some of his -ancestors two or three generations earlier had been weavers -and carpenters. These allegations were evidently not -proved, for Rojas Zorrilla became a Knight of the Order -of Santiago on October 19, 1645. The autograph of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La -Ascensión del Cristo, nuestro bien</cite> states that this piece was -written when the author was fifty-five: this brings us down -to 1662. Rojas Zorrilla then disappears: the date of his -death is unknown. The first volume of his plays was -published in 1640, the second in 1645. In the preface to -the second volume he makes the same complaint as Lope de -Vega and Calderón—namely, that plays were fathered upon -him with which he had nothing to do—and he promises -a third volume which, however, was not issued.</p> - -<p>It has been denied that Rojas Zorrilla belongs to Calderón’s -school, and no doubt he was much more than an obsequious -pupil. Yet he was clearly affiliated to the school. He -belonged to the same social class as Calderón; he was seven -years younger, and must have begun writing for the stage -just when it became evident that Calderón was destined to -succeed Lope de Vega in popular esteem; and, moreover, he -actually collaborated later with Calderón in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Monstruo de -la fortuna</cite>. It is hard to believe that Calderón, at the -height of his reputation, would condescend to collaborate -with a junior whose ideals differed from his own. No such -difference existed: as might be expected from a disciple, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> -Rojas Zorrilla is rather more Calderonian than Calderón. -Out of Spain he is usually mentioned as the author of -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Traición busca el castigo</cite>, the source of Vanbrugh’s <cite>False -Friend</cite> and Lesage’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Traître puni</cite>; but, if he had written -nothing better than <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Traición busca el castigo</cite>, he would -not rise above the rank and file of Spanish playwrights. His -most remarkable work is <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">García del Castañar</cite>, a famous -piece not included in either volume of the plays issued by -Rojas Zorrilla himself. The natural explanation would be -that it was written after 1645, and this is possible. Yet it -cannot be confidently assumed. As we have already seen, -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Estrella de Sevilla</cite> is not contained in the collections of -Lope’s plays. Plays were not included or omitted solely on -their merits, but for other reasons: because they were likely -to please ‘star’ actors, or because they had failed to please -a particular audience.</p> - -<p>The story of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">García del Castañar</cite> is so typical that it is -worth telling. García is the son of a noble who had been compromised -in the political plots which were frequent during -the regency of the Infante Don Juan Manuel. He takes -refuge at El Castañar near Toledo, lives there as a farmer, -marries Blanca de la Cerda (who, though unaware of the -fact, is related to the royal house), and looks forward to the -time when, through the influence of his friend the Count -de Orgaz, he may be recalled. News reaches him that an -expedition is being fitted out against the Moors, and he -subscribes so largely that his contribution attracts the -attention of Alfonso <span class="smcap">XI.</span>, who makes inquiries about him. -The Count de Orgaz takes this opportunity to commend -García to the King’s favour, but dwells on his proud and -solitary nature which unfits him for a courtier’s life. -Alfonso <span class="smcap">XI.</span> determines to visit García in disguise. Orgaz -informs García of the King’s intention and adds that, as -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span> -Alfonso <i>XI.</i> habitually wears the red ribbon of a knightly -order, there will be no difficulty in distinguishing him from -the members of his suite. Four visitors duly arrive at -El Castañar, passing themselves off as hunters who have lost -their way, and, as one of the four is decorated as described -by Orgaz, García takes him to be the King. In reality he is -Don Mendo, a courtier of loose morals. Unrecognised, -Alfonso <span class="smcap">XI.</span> converses with García, telling him of the King’s -satisfaction with his gift, and holding out to him the prospect -of a brilliant career at court: García, however, is not -tempted, and declares his intention of remaining in happy -obscurity. The hunting-party leaves Castañar; but Don -Mendo, enamoured of Doña Blanca, returns next day under -the impression that García will be absent. Entering the -house by stealth, he is discovered by García who, believing -him to be the King, spares his life. Don Mendo does not -suspect García’s misapprehension, and retires, supposing that -the rustic was awed by the sight of a noble. But the stain -on García’s honour can only be washed away with blood. -In default of the real culprit, he resolves to kill his blameless -wife, who takes flight, and is placed by Orgaz under the -protection of the Queen. García is summoned to court, is -presented to the King, perceives that the foiled seducer was -not his sovereign, slays Don Mendo in the royal ante-chamber, -returns to the presence with his dagger dripping -blood, and, after defending his action as the only course open -to a man of honour, closes his eloquent tirade by declaring -that, even if it should cost him his life, he can allow no one—save -his anointed King—to insult him with impunity:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Que esto soy, y éste es mi agravio,</div> -<div class="line">éste el ofensor injusto,</div> -<div class="line">éste el brazo que le ha muerto,</div> -<div class="line">éste divida el verdugo;</div> -<div class="line"> <span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span></div> -<div class="line">pero en tanto que mi cuello</div> -<div class="line">esté en mis hombros robusto,</div> -<div class="line">no he de permitir me agravie</div> -<div class="line">del Rey abajo, ninguno.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p><cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Del Rey abajo, ninguno</cite>—‘None, under the rank of King’—is -the alternative title of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">García del Castañar</cite>, and these -four energetic words sum up the exaltation of monarchical -sentiment which is the leading motive of the play. Buckle, -writing of Spain, says in his sweeping way that ‘whatever -the King came in contact with, was in some degree hallowed -by his touch,’ and that ‘no one might marry a mistress -whom he had deserted.’ This is not quite accurate. We -know that, at the very time of which we are speaking, the -notorious ‘Calderona’—the mother of Don Juan de Austria—married -an actor named Tomás Rojas, and that she -returned to her husband and the stage after her <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">liaison</em> with -Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span> was ended. Still, it is true that reverence for the -person of the sovereign was a real and common sentiment -among Spaniards. Clarendon speaks of ‘their submissive -reverence to their princes being a vital part of their religion,’ -and records the horrified amazement of Olivares on observing -Buckingham’s familiarity with the Prince of Wales—‘a -crime monstrous to the Spaniard.’ This reverential feeling, -like every other emotion, found dramatic expression in the -work of Lope de Vega. It is the leading theme in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La -Estrella de Sevilla</cite>, and Lope has even been accused of almost -blasphemous adulation by those who only know this -celebrated play in the popular recast made at the end of -the eighteenth century by Cándido María Trigueros, and -entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Sancho Ortiz de las Roelas</cite>. The charge is based on -a well-known passage:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">¡La espada sacastes vos,</div> -<div class="line">y al Rey quisisteis herir</div> -<div class="line"><span class="pagenum3"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span>¿El Rey no pudo mentir?</div> -<div class="line">No, que es imagen de Dios.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But it is not Lope who says that the King is the image of -God. These lines are interpolated by Trigueros, who felt no -particular loyalty to anybody, and overdid his part when he -endeavoured to put himself in Lope’s position. What was -an occasional motive in Lope’s work reappears frequently -and in a more emphatic form in Calderón’s work. The -sentiment of loyalty is expressed with something like -fanaticism in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Banda y la flor</cite> and in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Guárdate del agua -mansa</cite>; and with something unpleasantly like profanity in -the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">auto sacramental</em> entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Indulto general</cite> where the -lamentable Charles <span class="smcap">II.</span> seems to be placed almost on the -same level as the Saviour.</p> - -<p>Rojas Zorrilla’s glorification of the King in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">García del -Castañar</cite> is inspired by Calderón’s example, and he follows -the chief in other ways less defensible. Splendid as -Calderón’s diction often is, it lapses into gongorism too -easily. Rojas Zorrilla’s natural mode of expression is direct -and energetic; his dialogue is both natural and brilliant in -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Diego de Noche</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Lo que son mugeres</cite>; he knew the -difference between a good style and a bad one, and he -pauses now and then to satirise Góngora and the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">cultos</em>. -But he must be in the fashion, and as Calderón has dabbled -in <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">culteranismo</em>, he will do the same. And he bursts into -gongorism with all the crude exaggeration of one who is -deliberately sinning against the light. His little flings at -the Gongorists are few and feeble as in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Sin honra no hay -amistad</cite>, where he describes the darkened sky:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Está hecho un Góngora el cielo,</div> -<div class="line">más obscuro que su libro.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">But a few pages later, in the second volume of his collected -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span> -plays, he rivals the most extravagant of Góngora’s imitators -when he describes the composition and dissolution of the -horse in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Encantos de Medea</cite>:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Era de tres elementos</div> -<div class="line">compuesto el bruto gallardo,</div> -<div class="line">de fuego, de nieve, y aire; ...</div> -<div class="line">fuese el aire á los palacios</div> -<div class="line">de su región, salió el fuego,</div> -<div class="line">nieve, aire y fuego, quedando</div> -<div class="line">agua lo que antes fue nieve,</div> -<div class="line">lo que fue antes fuego, rayo;</div> -<div class="line">exhalación lo que aire,</div> -<div class="line">nada lo que fue caballo.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>This is what Ben Jonson would call ‘clotted nonsense,’ -and you find the same bombast in another play of Rojas -Zorrilla’s—and an excellent play it is—entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">No hay ser -padre, siendo Rey</cite>, upon which Rotrou’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Venceslas</cite> is based. -In such faults of taste Rojas Zorrilla leaves Calderón far -behind. You have seen him at his strongest in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">García del -Castañar</cite>: you will find him at his weakest—and it is -execrably bad—if you turn to the thirty-second volume of -the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Comedias Escogidas</cite>, and read <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Vida en el atahud</cite>. Here -St. Boniface goes to Tarsus and is decapitated: in the -ordinary course, you expect the curtain to fall at this point. -But Rojas Zorrilla prepares a surprise for you. The trunk -of the saint is presented on the stage, the martyr holding -his head in his hand; and the head addresses Milene and -Aglaes in such a startling way that both become Christians. -It seems very likely that, if Ludovico Enio had not been -converted by the sight of the skeleton in Calderón’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Purgatorio -de San Patricio</cite>, Milene and Aglaes would not have -been confronted with the severed head, talking, in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Vida -en el atahud</cite>.</p> - -<p>Like Calderón, though in a lesser degree, Rojas Zorrilla -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span> -is not above utilising the material provided by his predecessors: -even in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">García del Castañar</cite> there are reminiscences -of Lope de Vega’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Peribáñez y el Comendador de -Ocaña</cite>, of Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Villano en su rincón</cite>, of Vélez de -Guevara’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Luna de la Sierra</cite>, and of Tirso de Molina’s -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Celoso prudente</cite>. But, if he has all Calderón’s defects, -he has many of his great qualities. Few cloak-and-sword -plays are better worth reading than <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Donde hay agravios, no -hay celos</cite>, or than <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Sin honra no hay amistad</cite>, or than <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">No hay -amigo para amigo</cite> (the source of Lesage’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Point d’honneur</cite>). -Rojas Zorrilla has perhaps less verbal wit than Calderón, -but he has much more humour, and he shows it in such -pieces as <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Entre bobos anda el juego</cite>, from which the younger -Corneille took his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Bertrand de Cigarral</cite>, and Scarron -his <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Dom Japhet d’Arménie</cite>. Scarron, indeed, picked up a -frugal living on the crumbs which fell from Rojas Zorrilla’s -table. He took his <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Jodelet ou le Maître valet</cite> from <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Donde -hay agravios no hay celos</cite>, and his <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Écolier de Salamanque</cite> -from <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Obligados y ofendidos</cite>, a piece which also supplied the -younger Corneille and Boisrobert respectively with <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les -Illustres Ennemis</cite> and <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les Généreux Ennemis</cite>. But observe -that, in Rojas Zorrilla’s case as in Calderón’s, the foreign -adapters use only the light comedies. The rapturous -monarchical sentiment of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">García del Castañar</cite> no doubt -seemed too hysterical for the court of Louis <span class="smcap">XIV.</span>, and -hence the author’s most striking play remained unknown -in Northern Europe. You may say that he forced the note, -as Spaniards often do, and that he has no one but himself -to thank. Perhaps: Rojas Zorrilla adopts a convention, -and every convention tends to become more and more -unreal. Possibly the first man who signed himself somebody -else’s obedient servant meant what he wrote: you and -I mean nothing by it. But conventions are convenient, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span> -and, though nobody can have had much respect for Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span> -towards the end of his reign, the monarchical sentiment was -latent in the people. Moreover, the scene of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">García del -Castañar</cite> is laid in the early part of the fourteenth century. -When all is said, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">García del Castañar</cite> has an air of—what -we may call—local truth, a nobility of conception, and a -concentrated eloquence which go to make it a play in a -thousand.</p> - -<p>Nothing is easier to forget than a play which has little -more than cleverness to recommend it, and many of the -pieces written by Calderón’s followers are clever to the last -degree of tiresomeness. There is cleverness of a kind in -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Conde de Sex ó Dar la vida por su dama</cite>, and, if there -were any solid basis for the ascription of it to Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span>, -we should have to say that it was a very creditable performance -for a king. But then kings in modern times have -not greatly distinguished themselves in literature. You -remember Boileau’s remark to Louis <span class="smcap">XIV.</span>:—‘Votre Majesté -peut tout ce qu’Elle veut faire: Elle a voulu faire de -mauvais vers; Elle y a réussi.’ However, if <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Conde de -Sex</cite> would do credit to a royal amateur, it would be a rather -mediocre performance for a professional playwright like -Antonio Coello, to whom also it is attributed. Coello was -already known as a promising dramatist when Pérez de -Montalbán wrote <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Para todos</cite> in 1632, but we can scarcely -say that his early promise was fulfilled. The air of courts -does not encourage independence, and Coello, apparently -distrustful of his powers, collaborated in several pieces with -fellow-courtiers like Calderón, Vélez de Guevara and Rojas -Zorrilla—notably with the two latter in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">También la afrenta -es veneno</cite>, which dramatises the malodorous story of Leonor -Telles (wife of Fernando <span class="smcap">I.</span> of Portugal) and her first -husband, João Lourenço da Cunha, <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">el de los cuernos de oro</em>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span>Shortly before he died in 1652 Coello had his reward by -being made a member of the royal household, but he would -now be forgotten were it not that he is said to be the real -author of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Empeños de seis horas</cite> (<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Lo que pasa en una -noche</cite>), which is printed in the eighth volume of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Escogidas</cite> -as a play of Calderón’s. Assuming that the ascription -of it to Coello is correct, he becomes of some interest to us -in England, for the play was adapted by Samuel Tuke -under the title of <cite>The Adventures of Five Hours</cite>. This piece -of Tuke’s made a great hit in London when it was printed -in 1662; four years later Samuel Pepys confided to his diary -that ‘when all is done, it is the best play that ever I read -in all my life,’ and when he saw it acted a few days afterwards, -he effusively declared that <cite>Othello</cite> seemed ‘a mean -thing’ beside it. There is a tendency to make the Spanish -author—for Tuke adds little of his own—pay for Pepys’s -extravagance. <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Empeños de seis horas</cite> is nothing like a -masterpiece, but it is a capital light comedy—neatly constructed, -witty, brisk and entertaining. It is, indeed, so -much better than anything else which bears Coello’s name -that there is some hesitation to believe he wrote it. However, -he has the combined authority of Barrera and Schaeffer -in his favour, though neither of these oracles gives any -reason to support the ascription.</p> - -<p>As a writer of high comedy Coello had many rivals in -Spain—men slightly his seniors, like Antonio Hurtado de -Mendoza, who became known in England through Fanshawe’s -translations, and who must also have been known in -France, since his play <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Marido hace mujer</cite> was laid under -contribution by Molière in <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’École des maris</cite>; men like his -contemporary Álvaro Cubillo de Aragón, whose <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Señor de -Buenas Noches</cite> was turned to account by the younger -Corneille in <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La Comtesse d’Orgueil</cite>; men like his junior, -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span> -Fernando de Zárate y Castronovo, the author of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Presumida -y la hermosa</cite>, in which Molière found a hint for <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Les -Femmes savantes</cite>. But the most successful writer in this -vein was Agustín Moreto y Cavaña, who was born in 1618, -just as Calderón was leaving Salamanca University to seek -his fortune as a dramatist at Madrid. To judge by his more -characteristic plays we should guess Moreto to have been -the happiest of men, and the gayest; but late in life he -gave an opening to writers of ‘hypothetical biography,’ and -they took it. For instance, when he was over forty he -became devout, took orders, and made a will directing that -he should be buried in the Pradillo del Carmen at Toledo—a -place which has been identified as the burial-ground of -criminals who had been executed. This identification gave -rise to the theory that he must have had some ghastly crime -upon his conscience, and, as particulars are generally forthcoming -in such cases, some charitable persons leapt to the -conclusion that Moreto was the undetected assassin of Lope’s -friend, Baltasar Elisio de Medinilla.</p> - -<p>One is always reluctant to spoil a good story, but luck is -against me this afternoon. A few moments ago I mentioned -the ‘Calderona,’ and stated that she returned to the stage -after her rupture with Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span>: that destroys the usual -picturesque story of her throwing herself in an agony of -abjection at Philip’s feet, and going straightway into a -convent to do penance for the rest of her life. I am afraid -that I must also destroy this agreeable legend about Moreto’s -being a murderer. It is unfortunate for Moreto, for many -who have no strong taste for literature are often induced -to take interest in a man of letters if he can be proved -guilty of some crime: they will spell out a little Old -French because they have heard that Villon was a cracksman. -Well, we must tell the truth, and take the consequences. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span> -The identification of the Pradillo del Carmen -turns out to be wrong. The Pradillo del Carmen was the -cemetery used for those who died in the hospital to which -Moreto was chaplain, and to which he bequeathed his -fortune: the Pradillo del Carmen has nothing to do with -the burial-place for criminals, though it lies close by. -Moreto evidently wished not to be separated in death from -the poor people amongst whom he had laboured; but, as it -happens, his directions were not carried out, for when he -died on December 28, 1669, he was buried in the church -of St. John the Baptist at Toledo. And this is not the -only weak point in the story. Medinilla was killed in 1620 -when Moreto was two years old, and few assassins, however -precocious, begin operations at that tender age. Lastly, -it would seem that Medinilla was perhaps not murdered at -all, but was killed in fair fight by Jerónimo de Andrade y -Rivadeneyra. These prosaic facts compel me to present -Moreto to you—not as an interesting cut-throat, not as a -morose and sinister murderer, crushed by his dreadful -secret, but—as a man of the most genial disposition, noble -character, and singularly virtuous life.</p> - -<p>He was all this, and he was also one of the cleverest -craftsmen who ever worked for the Spanish stage. But -nature does not shower all her gifts on any one man, and -she was niggardly to Moreto in the matter of invention. -He made no secret of the fact that he took whatever he -wanted from his predecessors. His friend Jerónimo de -Cáncer represents him as saying:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Que estoy minando imagina</div> -<div class="line">cuando tu de mí te quejas;</div> -<div class="line">que en estas comedias viejas</div> -<div class="line">he hallado una brava mina.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p class="noindent">He did, indeed, find a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">brava mina</em> in the old plays, and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span> -especially in Lope de Vega’s. From Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Gran Duque -de Moscovia</cite> he takes <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Príncipe perseguido</cite>; from Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El -Prodigio de Etiopia</cite> he takes <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Adúltera penitente</cite>; from -Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Testimonio vengado</cite> he takes <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Como se vengan los -nobles</cite>; from Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las Pobrezas de Rinaldo</cite> he takes <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El -Mejor Par de los doce</cite>; from Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">De cuando acá nos vino</cite> -... he takes <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">De fuera vendrá quien de casa nos echará</cite>; from -Lope’s delightful play <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Mayor imposible</cite> he constructs the -still more delightful <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">No puede ser</cite>, from which John Crowne, -at the suggestion of Charles <i>II.</i>, took his <cite>Sir Courtly Nice, or, -It cannot be</cite>, and from which Ludvig Holberg, the celebrated -Danish dramatist, took his <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Jean de France</cite>. Moreto was -scarcely less indebted to Lope’s contemporaries than to -Lope himself. From Vélez de Guevara’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Capitán prodigioso -y Príncipe de Transilvania</cite> he took <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Príncipe prodigioso</cite>; -from Guillén de Castro’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las Maravillas de Babilonia</cite> -he took <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El bruto de Babilonia</cite>, and from Castro’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los hermanos -enemigos</cite> he took <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Hasta el fin nadie es dichoso</cite>; from Tirso de -Molina’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Villana de Vallecas</cite> he took <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La ocasion hace al -ladrón</cite>; and from a novel of Castillo Solórzano’s he took the -entire plot of <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La Confusion de un jardín</cite>. This is a fairly -long list, but it does not include all Moreto’s debts.</p> - -<p>He has his failures, of course. <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El ricohombre de Alcalá</cite> -looks anæmic beside its original. <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Infanzón de Illescas</cite>, -which is ascribed to both Lope and Tirso; and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Caer para -levantar</cite> is a wooden arrangement of Mira de Amescua’s -striking play, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Esclavo del demonio</cite>. If you can filch to -no better purpose than this, then decidedly honesty is the -best policy. Perhaps Moreto came to this conclusion himself -in some passing mood, and it must have been at some -such hour that he wrote <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Parecido en la Corte</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Trampa -adelante</cite>, both abounding in individual humour. But such -moods are not frequent with him. If you choose to say -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span> -that Moreto was a systematic plagiarist, it is hard for me to -deny it. Every playwright of this period plagiarised and -pilfered, more or less, from Calderón downwards: we must -accept this as a fact—a fact as to which there was seldom -any concealment. Just as Moreto was drawing towards the -end of his career as dramatist, a most intrepid plagiarist -arose in the person of Matos Fragoso, of whom I shall have -a word to say presently. But Matos Fragoso was sly, and a -bungler: Moreto was frank, and a master of the gentle art -of conveyance. He pilfers in all directions; but he manipulates -the stolen goods almost out of recognition, usually -adding much to their value. And this implies the possession -of remarkable talent. In literature, as in politics, if -he can only contrive to succeed, a man is pardoned for -proceedings which in other callings might lead to jail: and -Moreto’s success is triumphant. The germ of his play, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El -lindo Don Diego</cite>, is found in Guillén de Castro’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Narciso -de su opinión</cite>; but for Castro’s rough sketch Moreto substitutes -a finished, final portrait of the insufferable, the -fatuous snob who pays court to a countess, is as elated as -a brewer when he marries her and fancies himself an aristocrat, -but wakes up with a start to the reality of things on -discovering that the supposed countess is the sharp little -servant Beatriz who has seen through him all along, and has -exhibited him in his true character as a born fool. Don -Diego is always with us—in England now, as in Spain three -centuries ago—and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El lindo Don Diego</cite> might have been -written yesterday.</p> - -<p>Still better is <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El desdén con el desdén</cite>, a piece which shows -to perfection Moreto’s unparalleled tact in making a mosaic -a beautiful thing. Diana, the young girl who knows no -more of the world than of the moon, but who imagines men -to be odious wretches from what she had read of them—Diana -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span> -is taken from Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Vengadora de las mugeres</cite>; the -behaviour of her various suitors is suggested by Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">De -corsario á corsario</cite>; the quick-witted maid is from Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los -Milagros del desprecio</cite>; the trick by which the Conde de -Urgel traps Diana is borrowed from Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Hermosa fea</cite>. -Not one of the chief traits in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El desdén con el desdén</cite> is -original; but out of these fragments a play has been constructed -far superior to the plays from which the component -parts are derived. The plot never flags and is always -plausible, the characters are full of life and interest, and the -dialogue sparkles with mischievous gaiety. All this is -Moreto’s, and it is a victory of intellectual address. It -clearly impressed Molière, who set out to do by Moreto -what Moreto had done by others: the result is <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Princesse -d’Élide</cite>, one of Molière’s worst failures. Gozzi renewed the -attempt, and failed likewise in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Principessa filosofa</cite>. <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El -desdén con el desdén</cite> outlives these imitations as well as -others from skilful hands in England and in Sweden, and -surely it deserves to live as an example of what marvellous -deftness can do in contriving from scattered materials a -charming and essentially original work of art.</p> - -<p>Compared with Moreto, Juan Matos Fragoso is, as I have -said, a bungler. In <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">A lo que obliga un agravio</cite>, which is from -Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los dos bandoleros</cite>, he fails, though he has the -collaboration of Sebastián de Villaviciosa. He fails by himself -in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Venganza en el despeño</cite>, which is taken from Lope’s -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Príncipe despeñado</cite>. There is some reason to think that -he tried to pass himself off as the author of Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El -Desprecio agradecido</cite>. This play is given in the thirty-ninth -volume of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Escogidas</cite> with Matos Fragoso’s name attached -to it, and, as Matos Fragoso edited this particular volume, -it seems to follow that he lent himself to a mean form of -fraud. However, there is no gainsaying his popularity, and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> -he may be read with real pleasure—as in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Sabio en el -rincón</cite>, which is from Lope’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Villano en su rincón</cite>—when he -hits on a good original, and gives us next to nothing of -his own. A better dramatist, and a far more reputable -man, was Antonio de Solís, who was born ten years after -Calderón; but Solís’s reputation really depends on his -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Historia de la conquista de Méjico</cite>, which appeared in 1684, -two years before his death. He was naturally a prose-writer -who took to the drama because it was the fashion. -And that play-writing was a fashionable craze may be -gathered from the fact that Spain produced over five -hundred dramatists during the reigns of Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span> and -Charles <span class="smcap">II.</span> So the historians of dramatic literature tell -us, but perhaps even they have not thought it necessary -to read all this mass of plays with minute attention. Here -and there a name floats down to us, not always flatteringly; -Juan de Zabaleta, for instance, is remembered chiefly -through Cáncer’s epigram on his ugliness and on his -failure:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i3">Al suceder la tragedia</div> -<div class="line">del silbo, si se repara,</div> -<div class="line">ver su comedia era cara,</div> -<div class="line">ver su cara era comedia.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>This is not the kind of immortality that any one desires, -but this—or something not much better—is the only kind -of immortality that most of the five hundred are likely -to attain. The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth its -poppy on the crowd, and the long line closes with Bancés -Candamo, who died in 1704. He was the favourite court-dramatist -as Calderón had been before him. To say that -Bancés Candamo occupied the place once filled by Calderón -is to show how greatly the Spanish theatre had degenerated. -No doubt it must have perished in any case, for institutions -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span> -die as certainly as men. But its end was hastened by two -most influential personages—one a man of genius, and the -other a fribble—who had the welfare of the stage at heart. -By reducing dramatic composition to a formula, Calderón -arrested any possible development; by lavish expenditure -on decorations, Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span> imposed his taste for spectacle -upon the public. The public gets what it deserves: when -the stage-carpenter comes in, the dramatist goes out. Compelled -to write pieces which would suit the elaborate scenery -provided at the Buen Retiro, Calderón was the first to suffer. -He and Philip,<a name="FNanchor_106_106" id="FNanchor_106_106"></a><a href="#Footnote_106_106" class="fnanchor">106</a> between them, dealt the Spanish drama -its death-blow. It lingered on in senile decay for fifty -years, and with Bancés Candamo it died. It was high -time for it to be gone: for nothing is more lamentable -than the progressive degradation of what has once been a -great and living force.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHAPTER X<br /><br /> - -<small>MODERN SPANISH NOVELISTS</small></h2> - - -<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">If</span> asked to indicate the most interesting development in -Spanish literature during the last century, I should point—not -to the drama and poetry of the Romantic movement, -but—to the renaissance of fiction. As the passion for -narrative ‘springs eternal in the human breast,’ Cervantes -was sure to have a train of successors who would attempt -to carry on his great tradition. But, in the history of art, -a short, glorious summer is usually followed by a long, -blighting winter. The eighteenth century was an age of -barrenness in Spain, so far as concerns romance. No doubt -Torres Villaroel’s autobiography contains so much fiction that -it may fairly be described as a picaresque novel, and you -might easily be worse employed than in reading it. Nature -intended the author to be a man of letters and a wit; -poverty compelled him to become an incapable professor of -mathematics, and a diffuse buffoon. With the single exception -of Isla, no Spanish novelist of this time finds readers -now, and Isla’s main object is utilitarian. The amusement -in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Fray Gerundio</cite> is incidental, and art has a very secondary -place. Spain appears to have remained unaffected by the -great schools of novelists in England and France: instead of -being influenced by these writers, she influenced them. -After lending to Lesage, she lent to Marivaux; she lent -also to Fielding and Sterne, not to mention Smollett; but -she herself was living on her capital. She has no contemporary -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span> -novelists to place beside Ramón de la Cruz, González -del Castillo, and the younger Moratín, all of whom found -expression for their talent in the dramatic form. Not till -about the middle of the last century does any notable -novelist come</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">From tawny Spain, lost in the world’s debate.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>While the War of Independence was in progress men were -otherwise engaged than in novel-reading, and in Ferdinand -<span class="smcap">VII.</span>’s reign literature was apt to be a perilous trade. -The banishment or flight of almost every Spaniard of liberal -opinions or intellectual distinction had one result which -might have been foreseen, if there had been a clear-sighted -man in the reactionary party. It brought to an end the -period of cut-and-dry classical domination. The exiles -returned with new ideals in literature as well as in politics. -There was a restless ferment of the libertarian, romantic -spirit. Interest revived in the old national romantic drama -which had fallen out of fashion, and had been known -chiefly in recasts of a few stock pieces. Quaint signs of -change are discernible in unexpected quarters. When the -termagant Carlota, the Queen’s sister, snatched a state-paper -out of Calomarde’s hands and boxed his ears soundly, -the crafty minister put the affront aside by wittily quoting -the title of one of Calderón’s plays: ‘<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las manos blancas no -ofenden</cite>.’ Fifteen years earlier he would probably have -quoted from some wretched playwright like Comella. -French books were still eagerly read, but they were not -‘classical’ works. Chateaubriand and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre -became available in translations. Joaquín Telesforo -de Trueba y Cosío, a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">montañés</em> residing in London, came -under the spell of Walter Scott, and had the courage to -write two historical romances in English: I have read many -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span> -worse novels than <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Gomez Arias</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">The Castilians</cite>, and every -day I see novels written in much worse English. The -shadow of Scott was projected far and wide over Spain, and -those who read <cite>The Bride of Lammermoor</cite> usually went on -to read <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Notre-Dame de Paris</cite>. If Scott had never written -historical novels, and if Ferdinand <span class="smcap">VII.</span> had not made many -excellent Spaniards feel that they were safer anywhere -than in Spain, we should not have had Espronceda’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Sancho -Saldaña ó El Castellano de Cuéllar</cite>, nor Martínez de la Rosa’s -Doña Isabel de Solís, nor perhaps even Enrique Gil’s much -more engaging story, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Señor de Bembibre</cite>, which appeared -in 1844. The first two are unsuccessful imitations of Scott, -and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Señor de Bembibre</cite> is charged with reminiscences of -<cite>The Bride of Lammermoor</cite>.</p> - -<p>It is one of life’s little ironies that the first writer of this -period to give us a genuinely Spanish story was not a writer -of pure Spanish origin. Fernán Caballero, as she chose to -call herself,—and as it is most convenient to call her, for she -was married thrice, and therefore used four different legal -signatures, apart from her pseudonym,—was the daughter -of Johann Nikolas Böhl von Faber, who settled in Spain -and did useful journeyman’s work in literature. Born and -partly educated abroad, with a German father and a -Spanish mother, it is not surprising that she had the gift -of tongues, and that one or two of her early stories should -have been originally written in French or in German. Yet -nothing could be less French or German than <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Gaviota</cite>, -which appeared four years after <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Señor de Bembibre</cite> in a -Spanish version said (apparently on good authority) to be by -Joaquín de Mora. But, though Mora may be responsible for -the style, nobody has ever supposed that he was responsible -for the matter, and any such theory would be absurd, considering -that Fernán Caballero wrote many similar tales long -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span> -after Mora’s death. In <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Gaviota</cite>, in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Familia de Albareda</cite>, -in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cuadros de costumbres</cite>, and the rest—transcriptions of -the simplest provincial customs, long since extirpated from -the soil in which they seemed to be irradicably implanted—there -is for us nowadays an historical interest; but there is -nothing historical about them: they are records of personal -observation. Fortunately for herself Fernán Caballero, who -had no elaborate learning, did not attempt any reconstruction -of the past, and was mostly content to note what she -saw around her. In this sense she may be considered as -a pioneer in realism. The title would probably not have -pleased her, owing to the connotation of the word ‘realism’; -but nevertheless she belongs to the realistic school, and she -expressly admits that she describes instead of inventing. -To prevent any possible misapprehension, it should be said -at once that her realism is gentle, peaceful and demure. -She had some small pretensions of her own, felt a mistaken -vocation to do good works among the heathen, and to be -a trumpeter of orthodoxy. Each of us is convinced, of -course, that orthodoxy is his doxy, and that heterodoxy is -other people’s doxy; but Fernán Caballero’s insistence -has a self-righteous note which may easily grow tiresome. -There are some who find pleasure in her exhortations—especially -amongst those who regard them as expositions -of obsolete doctrine; but very few of us have reached this -stage of cynicism.</p> - -<p>These moralisings are the unessential and disfiguring -element in Fernán Caballero’s unconscious art. It is something -to be able to tell a story with intelligence and point, -and this she does constantly. And, besides the power of -narration, she has the characteristic Spanish faculty of undimmed -sight. When she limits herself to what she has -actually seen (and, to be just, her expeditions afield are -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span> -rare), she is always alert, always attractive by virtue of her -delicate, feminine perception. Many phases of life are -unknown to her; from other phases she deliberately turns -away; hence her picture is necessarily incomplete. But -she sympathises with what she knows, and the figures on -her narrow stage are rendered with dainty adroitness. -There is no great variety in her tableau of that mild Human -Comedy which, with its frugal joys and meek sorrows, it -was her office to describe; but it has the note of sincerity. -Her methods are as realistic as those used in later romances -professing to be based on ‘human documents’—a phrase -now worn threadbare, but not yet invented when she began -to write. She reverted by instinct to realism of the national -type,—realism which was fully developed centuries before -the French variety was dreamed of,—and it was in the -realistic field that her successors won triumphs greater than -her own.</p> - -<p>Some ten or twelve years after the appearance of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La -Gaviota</cite>, Antonio de Trueba leapt into popularity with a succession -of stories all of which might have been called—as -one volume was called—<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cuentos de color de rosa</cite>. In the -past my inability to appreciate Trueba as he is appreciated -in his native province of Vizcaya has brought me into -trouble. Each of us has his limitations, and, fresh from -reading Trueba once more, I stand before you impenitent, -persuaded that, if he flickers up into infantile prettiness, -he sputters out in insipid optimism. We cannot all be -Biscayans, and must take the consequences. In the circumstances -I do not propose to deal with Trueba,—who, -like the rest of us, appears to have had a tolerably good -conceit of himself,—nor to spend much time in discussing -the more brilliant Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. Alarcón -seems likely to be remembered better by <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Sombrero de -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span> -tres picos</cite>—a lively expansion in prose of a well-known -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em>—than by any of his later books. All literatures -have their disappointing personalities: men who at the -outset seemed capable of doing anything, who insist on -doing everything, and who end by doing next to nothing. -Nobody who knows the meaning of words would say that -the author of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Sombrero de tres picos</cite> did next to nothing, -but much more was expected of him. Whether there was, -or was not, any reasonable ground for these high hopes is -another question. The ‘Might-Have-Been’ is always vanity. -Save in such rare cases as that of Cervantes, who published -the First Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite> when he was fifty-eight (the -age at which Alarcón died in 1891), imaginative writers have -generally done their best work earlier in their careers. But, -however this may be, our expectations were not fulfilled -in Alarcón’s case. A few short stories represent him to -posterity: like M. Bourget, he ‘found salvation,’ lost much -of his art, and, in his more elaborate novels, became tedious. -Fortunately, about ten years before the publication of -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Sombrero de tres picos</cite>, a new talent had revealed itself -to those who had eyes to see; and, as always happens -everywhere, these were not many.</p> - -<p>While Trueba was writing the rose-coloured tales which -endeared him to the general public, José María de Pereda -was growing up to manhood in the north of Spain.<a name="FNanchor_107_107" id="FNanchor_107_107"></a><a href="#Footnote_107_107" class="fnanchor">107</a> Though -the verdict of the capital still counts for much, it would -not be true nowadays to say that the rest of Spain accepts -without question the dictation of Madrid in matters of -literary taste and fashion; but it was true enough of all -the provinces—with the possible exception of Cataluña—in -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span> -the late fifties and early sixties, when Pereda began -to write for a Santander newspaper, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Abeja montañesa</cite>. -Though he was over thirty, he had then no wide experience -of life; he had been reared in a simple, old-fashioned circle -where everybody stood fast in the ancient ways, and where -there was no literary chatter. He seems to have had the -usual traditional stock of knowledge flogged into him in -the old familiar way by the irascible pedagogue whose -portrait he has drawn not too kindly. From Santander -Pereda went to Madrid, studied there a short while, joyfully -returned home, and, till his health failed, scarcely -ever left Polanco again, except during the short period -when he was sent as a deputy to the Cortes. He hated -the life of the capital, and remained till the end of his -days an incorrigibly faithful <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">montañesuco</em>.</p> - -<p>It is necessary to bear these circumstances in mind, for -they help us to understand Pereda’s attitude. Hostile -critics never tired of charging him with provincialism, but -‘provincialism’ is not the right word. The man was a -born aristocrat, with no enthusiasm for novelties in abstract -speculation, no liking for political and social theories which -involved a rupture with the past; but his mind was not -irreceptive, and, if his outlook is circumscribed, what he -does see is conveyed with a pitiless lucidity. This power -of imparting a concentrated impression is noticeable in the -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Escenas montañesas</cite> which appeared in 1864 with an introductory -notice by Trueba, then in the flush of success. It -is an amusing spectacle, this of the lamb standing as sponsor -to the lion; and, with a timorous bleat, the lamb disengages -its responsibility as far as decency allows. The book was -praised by Mesonero Romanos—to whom Pereda subsequently -dedicated <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Gonzalo González de la Gonzalera</cite>; -but with few exceptions outside Santander, where local -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span> -partiality rather than æsthetic taste led to a more favourable -judgment, all Spain agreed with Trueba’s implied view that -Pereda’s temperate realism was a morose caricature. The -hastiest commonplaces of criticism are the most readily -accepted, and Pereda was henceforth provided with a -reputation which it took him about a dozen years to live -down. He lived it down, but not by compromising with -his censors. He remained unchanged in all but the mastery -of his art which gradually increased till <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Bocetos al temple</cite> -was recognised as a work of something like genius.</p> - -<p>It is a striking volume, but the distinguishing traits of -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Bocetos al temple</cite> are precisely those which characterise -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Escenas montañesas</cite>. Pereda has developed in the sense that -his touch is more confident, but his point of view is the -same as before. Take, for example, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Mujer del César</cite>, -the first story in the book: the moral simply is that it is -not enough to be beyond reproach, but that one must also -seem to be so. You may call this trite or old-fashioned in -its simplicity, but it is not ‘provincial.’ What is true is -that the atmosphere of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Bocetos al temple</cite> is ‘regional.’ The -writer is not so childish as to suppose that Madrid is peopled -with demons, and the country hill-side with angels. Pereda -had no larger an acquaintance with angels than you or I -have, and his personages are pleasingly human in their -blended strength and weakness; but he had convinced -himself that the constant virtues of the antique world are -hard to cultivate in overgrown centres of population, and -that the best of men is likely to suffer from the contagion -of city life. To this thesis he returned again and again: -in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Pedro Sánchez</cite>, in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Sabor de la Tierruca</cite>, in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Peñas arriba</cite>, -he argues his point with the pertinacity of conviction. -There is nothing provincial in the thesis, and it is good -for those of us who are condemned to live in fussy cities -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span> -to know that we, too, seem as narrow-minded as any fisherman -or agricultural labourer. Can anything be more -laughably provincial than the Cockney, or the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">boulevardier</em>, -who conceives that London, or New York, or Paris is the -centre of the universe, that the inhabitants of these places -are foremost in the files of time? Nobody is more provincial -than an ordinary dweller in one of these large, straggling, -squalid villages. Pereda is not afflicted with megalomania; -he is not impressed by numbers; he does not ‘think in -continents.’ He believes all this to be the bounce of -degenerate vulgarians, and leaves us with a disquieting -feeling that he may not be very far wrong.</p> - -<p>He is not one of those who look forward to a new heaven -and a new earth next week. If you expect to find in him -the qualities which you find in Rousseau, or in any other -wonder-child of the earthquake and the tempest, you will -assuredly be disappointed. But, if we take him for what -he is—a satirical observer of character, an artist whose -instantaneous presentation of character and of the visible -world has a singular relief and saliency—we shall be compelled -to assign him a very high place among the realists -of Spain. No one who has once met with the frivolous -and vindictive Marquesa de Azulejo, with the foppish -Vizconde del Cierzo, with the futile Condesa de la Rocaverde, -or with Lucas Gómez, the purveyor of patchouli literature, -can ever forget them. In this particular of making his -secondary figures memorable, Pereda somewhat resembles -Dickens, and both use—perhaps abuse—caricature as a -weapon. But the element of caricature is more riotous in -Dickens than in Pereda, and the acumen in Pereda is more -contemptuous than in Dickens. Pereda is in Spanish -literature what Narváez was in Spanish politics: he ‘uses -the stick, and hits hard.’ Cervantes sees through and -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span> -through you, notes every silly foible, and yet loves you as -though you were the most perfect of mortals, and he the -dullest fellow in the world. Pereda has something of -Cervantes’s seriousness without his constant amenity. He -is nearer to Quevedo’s intolerant spirit. Exasperated by -absurdity and pretence, he reverses the apostolic precept: -so far from suffering fools gladly, he gladly makes fools -suffer. The collection entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Tipos trashumantes</cite> contains -admirable examples of his dexterity in malicious portraiture—the -political quack in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Excelentísimo Señor</cite> who, like -the rest of us Spaniards (says Pereda dryly), is able to do -anything and everything; the scrofulous barber in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Un Artista</cite>, -whose father was killed in the <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">opéra-comique</em> revolution of -’54, who condescends to visit Santander professionally in -the summer, and familiarly refers to Pérez Galdós by his -Christian name; the hopeless booby in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Un Sabio</cite>, who has -addled his poor brain by drinking German philosophy badly -corked by Sanz del Río, and who abandons the belief in -which he was brought up for spiritualistic antics which -enable him to commune with the departed souls of Confucius -and Sancho Panza. These performances are models -of cruel irony.</p> - -<p><cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Bocetos al temple</cite> was the first of Pereda’s books to attract -the public, and it may be recommended to any one who -wishes to judge the writer’s talent in its first phase. Pereda -did greater things afterwards, but nothing more characteristic. -It was always a source of weakness to his art that -he had a didactic intention—an itch to prove that he is -right, and that his opponents are wrong, often criminally -wrong—and this tendency became more pronounced in -some of his later books. Such novels as <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Buey suelto</cite>, -and the still more admirable <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">De tal palo, tal astilla</cite>, have -an individual interest of their own, but we are never allowed -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span> -the privilege of forgetting that the one is a refutation of -Balzac’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Petites misères de la vie conjugale</cite>, and the other a -refutation of Pérez Galdós’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Doña Perfecta</cite>. To Pereda the -problem seems perfectly simple. You have been discouraged -from matrimony by Balzac, who has told you that the life -of a married man is a canker of trials and disappointments—small, -but so numerous that at last they amount to a -tragedy, and so cumulative that the doomed creature feels -himself a complete failure both as a husband and a father. -Pereda seeks to encourage you by exhibiting the other side -of the medal. Gedeón is a bachelor, a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">buey suelto</em>: he has -freedom, but it is the desolate freedom of the stray steer—or -rather of the wild ass. He is worried to death by the -nagging and quarrelling of his maid-servants; he gets rid of -them, and is plundered by men-servants; he is miserable in -a boarding-house, he is neglected in an hôtel; he has no -family ties, is profoundly uncomfortable, goes from bad to -worse, and finally expiates by marrying his mistress shortly -before his death. The picture of well-to-do discomfort is -powerful, but, as a refutation of Balzac, it is not convincing. -So, again, in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">De tal palo, tal astilla</cite>. Fernando encounters -the pious Águeda; his suit fails, he commits suicide, and she -finds rest in religion, the only consoling agent. This is all -far too simple. Are we to believe that every bachelor is a -selfish dolt, or that only atheists commit suicide? Pereda, -no doubt, lived to learn differently, but meanwhile his insistence -on his own views had spoiled two works of art.</p> - -<p>Something of this polemical strain runs through all his -romances, and, after the fall of the republic and the restoration -of the Bourbons, his conservatism may have contributed -to make him popular in the late seventies and the early -eighties. But we are twenty or thirty years removed from -the passions of that period, and Pereda’s work stands the -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span> -crucial test of time. He is not specially skilful in construction, -and digresses into irrelevant episodes; but he -can usually tell his tale forcibly, and, when he warms to it, -with grim conciseness; he is seldom declamatory, is a -master of diction untainted by gallicisms, and records with -caustic humour every relevant detail in whatever passes -before his eyes. He is the chronicler of a Spain, reactionary -and picturesque, which is fast disappearing, and will soon -have vanished altogether. If the generations of the future -feel any curiosity as to a social system which has passed -away, they will turn to Pereda for a description of it just -before its dissolution. He paints it with the desperate -force of one who feels that he is on the losing side. His -interpretation may be—it very often is—imperfect and -savagely unjust; but its vigour is imposing, and, if his -world contains rather too many degraded types, it is also -rich in noble figures like Don Román Pérez de la Llosía -in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Gonzalo González de la Gonzalera</cite>, and in profiles of -humble illiterates who, in the eyes of their artistic creator, -did more real service to their country than many far better -known to fame.</p> - -<p>One is tempted to dwell upon Pereda’s achievement—first, -because his novels are thronged with lifelike personages; -and second, because they proved that Spain, -though separated from the rest of Europe in sentiment -and belief, was not intellectually dead. While Pereda was -writing <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Pedro Sánchez</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Sotileza</cite>, the world north of the -Pyrenees was wrangling over naturalism in romance as -though it were a new discovery. The critics of London -and Paris were clearly unaware that naturalism had been -practised for years past in Spain by novelists who thus -revived an ancient national tradition. Pereda is still little -read out of Spain, and, though attempts to translate him -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span> -have been made, he is perhaps too emphatically Spanish -to bear the operation. Spaniards themselves need some -aids to read him with comfort, and the glossary at the end -of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Sotileza</cite> has been a very present help to many of us in -time of trouble. A writer who indulges in dialectical -peculiarities or in technical expressions to such an extent -may be presumed to have counted the cost: and the cost -is that he remains comparatively unknown beyond his own -frontier. He cannot be reproached with making an illegitimate -bid for popularity, nor accused of defection from the -cause of realism. Pereda was not indifferent to fame, but -he did not go far to seek it. Like the Shunamite woman, -he chose to dwell among his own people, to picture their -existence passed in contented industry, to exalt their ideals, -and to value their applause more than that of the outside -world.</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Fu vera gloria? Ai posteri</div> -<div class="line i2">L’ardua sentenza.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>A perfect contrast in every way was Juan Valera, whose -ductile talent had concerned itself with many matters before -it found an outlet in fiction. Pereda was stubbornly regional -and fanatically orthodox: Valera was a cosmopolitan -strayed out of Andalusia, a careless Gallio, observing with -serene amusement the fussiness of mankind over to be, or -not to be. Pereda tends to tragic or melodramatic pessimism: -Valera is a bland and disinterested spectator, to -whom life is a brilliant, diverting comedy. He had lived -much, reflected long, and seen through most people and -most things before committing himself to the delineation -of character. To the end of his life he never learned -the trick of construction, but he was a born master -of style and had an unsurpassed power of ingratiation. -He had scarcely come up from Córdoba when he became -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span> -‘Juanito’ to all his acquaintances in Madrid, and his personal -charm accompanied him into literature. Macaulay -says somewhere that if Southey wrote nonsense, he would -still be read with pleasure. This is true also of Valera, -who, unlike Southey, never borders on nonsense. Though -he has no prejudices to embarrass him, he has a rare dramatic -sympathy with every mental attitude, and this keen, intelligent -comprehension lends to all his creative work a savour -of universality which makes him—of all modern Spanish -novelists—the most acceptable abroad. Yet, despite his -sceptical cosmopolitanism, which is by no means Spanish, -Valera is an authentic Spaniard of the best age in his fusion -of urbanity and authoritative insight. This politely incredulous -man of the world is profoundly interested in -mysticism, and still more in its practical manifestations. -Nothing human is alien to him, and nothing is too transcendental -to escape criticism.</p> - -<p>In this frame of mind, habitual with him, he sat down to -write <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Pepita Jiménez</cite>. The story is the simplest imaginable. -Pepita, a young widow, is on the point of marrying Don -Pedro de Vargas, when she meets his son Luis, a young -seminarist with exaggerated ideas of his own spiritual gifts. -Luis is a complete clerical prig, who disdains such everyday -work as preaching the gospel in his own country, and -vapours about being martyred by pagans. As he has not -a vestige of religious vocation, the end is easily foretold. -At some cost to her own character Pepita pricks the bubble, -and all the young man’s aspirations melt into the air; he -is made to perceive that his pretensions to sanctity are silly, -marries the heroine who was to have been his stepmother, -and subsides into a worthy, commonplace husband. In his -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Religio Poetae</cite> Patmore praises <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Pepita Jiménez</cite> as an example -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> -of ‘that complete synthesis of gravity of matter and gaiety -of manner which is the glittering crown of art, and which, -out of Spanish literature, is to be found only in Shakespeare, -and even in him in a far less obvious degree.’ Patmore has -almost always something striking to say, and even his critical -paradoxes are interesting. We have no means of knowing -how far his Spanish studies went, but we may guess that his -acquaintance with Spanish literature was perhaps not very -wide, and not very deep. As regards Pepita Jiménez his -verdict is conspicuously right: it is conspicuously wrong -with respect to Spanish literature as a whole. The perfect -blending of which he speaks is as rare in Spain as elsewhere. -In Valera it is the result of deliberate artistic method; his -gravity is a necessity of the situation; his gaiety is rooted in -his sceptical politeness. In his critical work his politeness -is decidedly overdone; he praises and lauds in terms which -would seem excessive if applied to Dante or Milton. He -knows the stuff of which most authors are made, presumes -on their proverbial vanity, and flatters so violently that he -oversteps the limits of good-breeding. Some of you may -remember the dignified rebuke of these tactics by Sr. Cuervo. -But in his novels Valera strikes no attitude of impertinent -or sublime condescension. He analyses his characters with -a subtle and admirably patient delicacy.</p> - -<p>A hostile critic might perhaps urge that Valera’s novels -are too much alike; that Doña Luz is cast in the same mould -as Pepita Jiménez, that Enrique is a double of Luis, and so -forth. There is some truth in this. Valera does repeat the -situations which interest him most, but so does every -novelist; his treatment differs in each case, and is logically -consistent with each character. There is more force in the -objection that he overcharges his books with episodical -arabesques which, though masterly <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tours de force</em>, retard the -development of the story. Now that we have them, we -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span> -should be sorry to lose the brilliant passages in which the -quintessence of the great Spanish mystics is distilled; but it -is plainly an error of judgment to assign them to Pepita. -However, this objection applies less to <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Doña Luz</cite> than to -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Pepita Jiménez</cite>, and it applies not at all to <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Comendador -Mendoza</cite>—doubtless a transfigured piece of autobiography, -both poignant and gracious in its evocation of a far-off -passion. And in his shorter stories Valera often attains -a magical effect of disquieting irony. Most authors write -far too much, either from necessity or from vanity, and -Valera, who was too acute to be vain, wasted his energies in -too many directions and on too many subjects. Still he has -improvised comparatively little in the shape of fiction, and, -even in extreme old age, when the calamity of blindness -had overtaken him, he surprised and enchanted his admirers -with more than one arresting volume. Speaking broadly, -the characteristics of the best Spanish art are force and -truth, and in these respects Valera holds his own. Yet -he is more complicated and elaborate than Spaniards are -wont to be. His work is penetrated with subtleties and -reticences; his force is scrupulously measured, and his truth -is conveyed by implication and innuendo, never by emphasis -nor crude insistency. Compared with his exquisite adjustment -of word to thought, the methods of other writers seem -coarse and brutal. You may refuse to recognise him as a -great novelist, if you choose; but it is impossible to deny -that he was a consummate literary artist.</p> - -<p>At this point I should prefer to bring my review to a -close. The authors of whom we have been speaking belong -to history. So, too, does Leopoldo Alas, the author of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La -Regenta</cite>, an analytical novel which will be read long after his -pungent criticisms are forgotten, though as a critic he did -excellent work. It is a more delicate matter to judge contemporaries. -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span> -You will not expect me to compile a list of -names as arid and interminable as an auctioneer’s catalogue. -How many important novelists are there in France, or -England, or Russia? Not more than two or three in each, -and we shall be putting it fairly high if we assume that -Spain has as many notable novelists as these three countries -put together. Passing by a crowd of illustrious obscurities, -we meet with Benito Pérez Galdós, and with innumerable -examples of his diffuse talent. Copiousness has always been -more highly esteemed in Spain than elsewhere, and in this -particular Pérez Galdós should satisfy the exacting standard -of his countrymen. But to some of us copiousness is no -great recommendation. There are forty volumes in the -series of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Episodios Nacionales</cite>, and who knows how many -more in the series of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Novelas Españolas Contemporáneas</cite>? -Frankly there is a distasteful air of commercialism in this -huge and punctual production. It would seem as though in -Spain, as in England, literature is in danger of becoming a -business, and of ceasing to be an art. This is not the way -in which masterpieces have been written hitherto; but -masterpieces are rare, and there is no recipe for producing -them.</p> - -<p>If there had been, we may feel sure that Pérez Galdós -would have hit upon it, for his acumen and perseverance -are undoubted. Not one of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Episodios Nacionales</cite> is a -great book, but also not one is wanting in great literary -qualities—the faculty of historical reconstruction, the evaluation -of the personal factor in great events, and the gift of -picturesque detail. If the power of concentration were -added to his profuse equipment, Pérez Galdós would be -an admirable master. Even as it is, to any one who wishes -to obtain—and in the most agreeable way—a just idea of -the political and social evolution of Spain from the time of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span> -Charles <span class="smcap">IV.</span> to the time of the Republic, the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Episodios -Nacionales</cite> may be heartily commended. And, in these -crowded pages, some figures stand out with remarkable -saliency—as, for instance, the guerrilla priest in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Carlos VI. -en la Rápita</cite>, a volume which shows the author to be -unwearied as he draws near the end of his long task, and -as vivid as ever in historical narrative. He is, moreover, -an astute observer of the present, far-seeing in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Fortunata y -Jacinta</cite> and humoristic in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Doctor Centeno</cite>. You perhaps -remember the description of the cigar which Felipe smoked, -the account of the banquet presided over by the solemn -and amiable Don Florencio—Don Florencio with alarming -eyebrows, so thick and dark that they looked like strips of -black velvet. These peculiarities are hit off in Dickens’s -best manner, and yet with a certain neutral touch. Not -that Pérez Galdós is habitually neutral: he is an old-fashioned -Liberal with a thesis to prove—the admirable -thesis that liberty is the best thing in the world. But this -is not an obviously Spanish idea. The modernity of Pérez -Galdós is exotic in Spain. He gives us an interesting view -of Spanish society in all its aspects. Still,—let us never -forget it,—the picture is painted not by a native, but by -a colonial, hand. Born in the Canary Islands, Pérez Galdós -lives in Spain, but is not of it; he dwells a little apart from -the high road of its secular life. And this lends a peculiar -value to his presentation; for what it loses in force, it gains -in objectivity.</p> - -<p>A foreign influence is unquestionably visible in the novels -of both Armando Palacio Valdés and the Condesa Pardo Bazán—perhaps -the most gifted authoress now before the public. -The existence of this foreign element is denied by partisans, -but it would not be disputed by the writers themselves. -Was not the Condesa Pardo Bazán the standard-bearer of -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span> -French naturalism in Spain during the early nineties? We -are apt to forget it, for what she then called ‘the palpitating -question’ palpitates no more. Who can read the Condesa -Pardo Bazán’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Madre Naturaleza</cite> without being reminded of -Zola, or Palacio Valdés’s <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Hermana San Sulpicio</cite> without -being reminded of the Goncourts? Yet in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Hermana San -Sulpicio</cite>, where Gloria is the very type of the sparkling -Andalusian, and in the still more charming <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Marta y María</cite> -which appeared some years earlier, there is a genuine -original talent which fades out in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Espuma</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Fe</cite>. -In these last two books Palacio Valdés does moderately well -what half a dozen French novelists had done better. One -vaguely feels that Palacio Valdés is losing his way, but he -finds it again in the Spanish atmosphere of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Majos de -Cádiz</cite> where we see Andalusia once more through Asturian -spectacles. As to the Condesa Pardo Bazán, she has unfortunately -diffused her energies in all directions. No one can -succeed in everything—as a poet, a romancer, an essayist, -a critic, a lecturer, and a politician. Yet the Condesa Pardo -Bazán is all this, and more. We would gladly exchange all -her miscellaneous writings for another novel like <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Pazos -de Ulloa</cite>, where the peasant is displayed in a light which -must have pained Pereda. Is Galicia so different from the -Mountain? But extremes meet at last. Dr. Máximo Juncal -in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Madre Naturaleza</cite> thinks with Pereda that townsfolk -are beyond salvation: only—and the difference is capital—he -would leave nature to work her will without the restraints -of traditional ethics. Clearly all women are not hampered -by timidity and conservative instincts! But Palacio Valdés -may be read for the constant, acrid keenness of his appreciation -of character, and the Condesa Pardo Bazán for her -vigorous portraiture of the Galician peasantry, and her art -as a landscape painter.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span>We have the measure of what they can do, and they are -at least as well known out of Spain as they deserve. A more -enigmatic personality is Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. It is the -charm of most modern Spanish novelists that they are -intensely local. Pérez Galdós is an exception; but Valera -is at his best in Andalusia, Pereda in Cantabria, Palacio -Valdés in Asturias, and the Condesa Pardo Bazán in Galicia. -Blasco Ibáñez is a Valencian; he knows the orchard of Spain -as Mr. Hardy knows Dorsetshire, and he is most himself in -the Valencian surroundings of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Flor de Mayo</cite>, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Barraca</cite>, -and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cañas y barro</cite>. But his allegiance is divided between -literature and politics. Not content with propagating his -ideas in the columns of his newspaper, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Pueblo</cite>, he propagates -them under cover of fiction. He is the novelist of the -social revolution, and the revolution is needed everywhere. -The scene of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Catedral</cite> is laid in Toledo, the scene of -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Intruso</cite> in Bilbao, and in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Horda</cite> we have the proletariate -of Madrid in squalid truthfulness. Each of these is a <em lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">roman -à thèse</em>, or, if you prefer it, an incitement to rebellion. Blasco -Ibáñez is the apostle of combat, he knows the strength of -the established system, and his revolutionary heroes die -defeated by the organised forces of social and ecclesiastical -conservatism. But he is fundamentally optimistic, convinced -that the final victory of the revolution is assured if the -struggle be maintained. We may not sympathise with his -views, and may doubt whether they will prevail; but the -gospel of constancy in labour needs preaching in Spain, and -Blasco Ibáñez preaches it with impressive (and sometimes -rather incorrect) eloquence. His latest story, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Maja -desnuda</cite>, is more in the French manner, but it is no mere -imitation; it is original in treatment, a record of gradual -disillusion, a painful, cruel, true account of the intense -wretchedness of a pair who once were lovers. Blasco Ibáñez -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span> -has given us three or four admirable novels, and he is still -young enough to reconsider his theories, and to grow in -strength and sanity.</p> - -<p>He is not alone. In <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Paradox</cite>, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Rey</cite>, and in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los últimos -románticos</cite> Pío Baroja introduces a fresh and reckless note -of social satire, while novelty of thought and style characterise -Martínez Ruiz in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Las confesiones de un pequeño filósofo</cite> -and Valle-Inclán in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Flor de Santidad</cite> and <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Sonata de otoño</cite>. -These are the immediate hopes of the future. But prophecy -is a vain thing: the future lies on the knees of -the gods.</p> - -<hr /> - -<h2>FOOTNOTES:</h2> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">1</span></a> ‘Nierva’ in Eugenio de Ochoa, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Rimas inéditas</cite> (Paris, 1851), p. 305.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">2</span></a> The Archpriest’s poems are preserved in three ancient manuscripts -known respectively as the Gayoso, Toledo, and Salamanca MSS. (1) The -Gayoso MS. was finished on Thursday, July 23, 1389; it formerly belonged -to Benito Martínez Gayoso, came into the possession of Tomás Antonio -Sánchez on May 12, 1787, and is now in the library of the Royal Spanish -Academy at Madrid. (2) The Toledo MS., which belongs to the same -period, has been transferred from the library of Toledo Cathedral to the -Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid. (3) The Salamanca MS., formerly in the -library of the Colegio Mayor de San Bartolomé at Salamanca, is now in -the Royal Library at Madrid: though somewhat later in date than the -Gayoso and Toledo MSS., it is more carefully written, and the text is less -incomplete.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">3</span></a> In a contribution to the <cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Jahrbücher der Literatur</cite> (Wien, 1831-2), -vols. iv., pp. 234-264; lvi., pp. 239-266; lvii., pp. 169-200; lviii., pp. 220-268; -lix., pp. 25-50. See the reprint in Ferdinand Wolf, <cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Studien zur -Geschichte der spanischen und portugiesischen Nationalliteratur</cite> (Berlin, -1859).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">4</span></a> - -<div lang="la" xml:lang="la"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Interpone tuis interdum gaudia curis,</div> -<div class="line">Ut possis animo quemvis sufferre laborem.—<i>Disticha</i>, iii. 6.</div> -</div></div></div></div></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">5</span></a> In <cite>Letters from an English Traveller in Spain, in 1778, on the origin -and progress of Poetry in that Kingdom</cite> (London, 1781). This work was -published anonymously by John Talbot Dillon, who acknowledges his -‘particular obligations’ to the works of Luis José Velázquez, López de -Sedano, and Sarmiento.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">6</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero General, ó Colección de romances castellanos anteriores al -siglo XVIII. recogidos, ordenados, clasificados y anotados por Don -Agustín Durán</cite> (Madrid, 1849-1851). This collection forms vol. x. and -vol. xvi. of the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Biblioteca de Autores Españoles</cite>.</p> - -<p><cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera y Flor de romances publicada con una introducción y notas por -D. Fernando José Wolf y D. Conrado Hofmann</cite> (Berlin, 1856).</p> - -<p>Throughout the present lecture the references to the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite> are to -the second enlarged edition issued by Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo at Madrid in -1899-1900.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">7</span></a> <cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Sammlung der besten, alten Spanischen Historischen, Ritter- und Maurischen -Romanzen. Geordnet und mit Anmerkungen und einer Einleitung -versehen von Ch. B. Depping</cite> (Altenburg und Leipzig, 1817).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">8</span></a> In the <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Avertissement</cite> to <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Cid</cite> (editions of 1648-56), Corneille quotes -two ballads from the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero general</cite>:</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">(<i>a</i>) Delante el rey de León Doña Jimena una tarde...</div> -<div class="line">(<i>b</i>) Á Jimena y á Rodrigo prendió el rey palabra y mano.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>They are given in Durán, Nos. 735 and 739.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">9</span></a> <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Traitté de l’origine des romans</cite>, preceding Segrais’ <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Zayde, Histoire -Espagnole</cite> (Paris, 1671), p. 51.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">10</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite> (Apéndices), No. 17.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">11</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i> (Apéndices), No. 18.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">12</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 5; Durán, No. 599.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_13_13" id="Footnote_13_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_13_13"><span class="label">13</span></a> <cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Anseis von Karthago.</cite> <cite lang="de" xml:lang="de">Herausgegeben von Johann Alton</cite>, 194ste Publication -des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart. (Tübingen, 1892.)</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_14_14" id="Footnote_14_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_14_14"><span class="label">14</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 5<i>a</i>; Durán, No. 602.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_15_15" id="Footnote_15_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_15_15"><span class="label">15</span></a> James Young Gibson, <cite>The Cid Ballads, and other Poems and Translations -from Spanish and German</cite> (London, 1887).</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_16_16" id="Footnote_16_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_16_16"><span class="label">16</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 7; Durán, No. 606.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_17_17" id="Footnote_17_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_17_17"><span class="label">17</span></a> <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Orientales</cite>, <span class="smcap">XVI.</span> Victor Hugo may probably have heard of this <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em>, -and of the Lara <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> mentioned on pp. 91-92, through his elder brother -Abel, who gave prose translations of both ballads in his <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Romances historiques</cite> -(Paris, 1822), pp. 11-12, 135-137.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_18_18" id="Footnote_18_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_18_18"><span class="label">18</span></a> Durán, No. 586. Durán points out the absurd impropriety of the line:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Sabrás, mi florida Cava, que de ayer acá, no vivo.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p> -The ending of this <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> is far better known than the beginning:— -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Si dicen quien de los dos la mayor culpa ha tenido,</div> -<div class="line">digan los hombres ‘La Cava,’ y las mujeres ‘Rodrigo.’</div> -</div></div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_19_19" id="Footnote_19_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_19_19"><span class="label">19</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 13<i>a</i>; Durán, No. 654.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_20_20" id="Footnote_20_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_20_20"><span class="label">20</span></a> Durán, No. 646. <cite>The Complaint of the Count of Saldaña</cite>, as Lockhart -entitles it, is from Durán, No. 625:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Bañando está las prisiones con lágrimas que derrama.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p><cite>The Funeral of the Count of Saldaña</cite> is from Durán, No. 657:— -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Hincado está de rodillas ese valiente Bernardo.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p> -<cite>Bernardo and Alphonso</cite> is from Durán, No. 655:— -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Con solos diez de los suyos ante el Rey, Bernardo llega.</div> -</div></div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_21_21" id="Footnote_21_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_21_21"><span class="label">21</span></a> Durán, No. 617.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_22_22" id="Footnote_22_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_22_22"><span class="label">22</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 15; Durán, No. 700.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_23_23" id="Footnote_23_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_23_23"><span class="label">23</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 17; Durán, No. 704.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_24_24" id="Footnote_24_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_24_24"><span class="label">24</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 16; Durán, No. 703.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_25_25" id="Footnote_25_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_25_25"><span class="label">25</span></a> Durán, No. 686. -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">No se puede llamar rey quien usa tal villanía.</div> -</div></div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_26_26" id="Footnote_26_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_26_26"><span class="label">26</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 26; Durán, No. 691.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_27_27" id="Footnote_27_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_27_27"><span class="label">27</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 19; Durán, No. 665.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_28_28" id="Footnote_28_28"></a><a href="#FNanchor_28_28"><span class="label">28</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 24.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_29_29" id="Footnote_29_29"></a><a href="#FNanchor_29_29"><span class="label">29</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 25.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_30_30" id="Footnote_30_30"></a><a href="#FNanchor_30_30"><span class="label">30</span></a> Durán, No. 721.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_31_31" id="Footnote_31_31"></a><a href="#FNanchor_31_31"><span class="label">31</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 27.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_32_32" id="Footnote_32_32"></a><a href="#FNanchor_32_32"><span class="label">32</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 29; Durán, No. 731.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_33_33" id="Footnote_33_33"></a><a href="#FNanchor_33_33"><span class="label">33</span></a> Durán, No. 732.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_34_34" id="Footnote_34_34"></a><a href="#FNanchor_34_34"><span class="label">34</span></a> Durán, No. 737.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_35_35" id="Footnote_35_35"></a><a href="#FNanchor_35_35"><span class="label">35</span></a> Durán, No. 738.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_36_36" id="Footnote_36_36"></a><a href="#FNanchor_36_36"><span class="label">36</span></a> Durán, No. 740.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_37_37" id="Footnote_37_37"></a><a href="#FNanchor_37_37"><span class="label">37</span></a> Durán, No. 742.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_38_38" id="Footnote_38_38"></a><a href="#FNanchor_38_38"><span class="label">38</span></a> Durán, No. 886. Lockhart begins at the line— -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">El rey aguardara al Cid como á bueno y leal vasallo.</div> -</div></div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_39_39" id="Footnote_39_39"></a><a href="#FNanchor_39_39"><span class="label">39</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 34; Durán, No. 756.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_40_40" id="Footnote_40_40"></a><a href="#FNanchor_40_40"><span class="label">40</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 30<i>b</i>; Durán, No. 733.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_41_41" id="Footnote_41_41"></a><a href="#FNanchor_41_41"><span class="label">41</span></a> The other two are (<i>a</i>) <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 30:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Cada dia que amanece veo quien mató á mi padre.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>(b) <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 61<i>a</i>, and Duran, No. 922:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">En Burgos está el buen rey don Alonso el Deseado.</div> -</div></div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_42_42" id="Footnote_42_42"></a><a href="#FNanchor_42_42"><span class="label">42</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 42<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">a</cite>; Durán, No. 775.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_43_43" id="Footnote_43_43"></a><a href="#FNanchor_43_43"><span class="label">43</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 50; Durán, No. 1897.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_44_44" id="Footnote_44_44"></a><a href="#FNanchor_44_44"><span class="label">44</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 35; Durán, No. 762.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_45_45" id="Footnote_45_45"></a><a href="#FNanchor_45_45"><span class="label">45</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 45; Durán, No. 777.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_46_46" id="Footnote_46_46"></a><a href="#FNanchor_46_46"><span class="label">46</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 47; Durán, No. 791.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_47_47" id="Footnote_47_47"></a><a href="#FNanchor_47_47"><span class="label">47</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 54; Durán, No. 816.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_48_48" id="Footnote_48_48"></a><a href="#FNanchor_48_48"><span class="label">48</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 55; Durán No. 858.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_49_49" id="Footnote_49_49"></a><a href="#FNanchor_49_49"><span class="label">49</span></a> Durán, No. 935.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_50_50" id="Footnote_50_50"></a><a href="#FNanchor_50_50"><span class="label">50</span></a> Durán, No. 933.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_51_51" id="Footnote_51_51"></a><a href="#FNanchor_51_51"><span class="label">51</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 65; Durán, No. 966.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_52_52" id="Footnote_52_52"></a><a href="#FNanchor_52_52"><span class="label">52</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 68; Durán, No. 972.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_53_53" id="Footnote_53_53"></a><a href="#FNanchor_53_53"><span class="label">53</span></a> Durán, No. 978.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_54_54" id="Footnote_54_54"></a><a href="#FNanchor_54_54"><span class="label">54</span></a> Durán, No. 979.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_55_55" id="Footnote_55_55"></a><a href="#FNanchor_55_55"><span class="label">55</span></a> Durán, No. 981.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_56_56" id="Footnote_56_56"></a><a href="#FNanchor_56_56"><span class="label">56</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 101<i>a</i>; Durán, No. 1227.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_57_57" id="Footnote_57_57"></a><a href="#FNanchor_57_57"><span class="label">57</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 72; Durán, No. 1046.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_58_58" id="Footnote_58_58"></a><a href="#FNanchor_58_58"><span class="label">58</span></a> Durán, No. 1082.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_59_59" id="Footnote_59_59"></a><a href="#FNanchor_59_59"><span class="label">59</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 95; Durán, No. 1088.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_60_60" id="Footnote_60_60"></a><a href="#FNanchor_60_60"><span class="label">60</span></a> <cite>The Departure of King Sebastian</cite>, referring to the expedition of 1578, is -obviously modern; the original is to be found in Durán, No. 1245:— -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Una bella lusitana, dama ilustre y de valía.</div> -</div></div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_61_61" id="Footnote_61_61"></a><a href="#FNanchor_61_61"><span class="label">61</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 96<i>a</i>; Durán, 1086.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_62_62" id="Footnote_62_62"></a><a href="#FNanchor_62_62"><span class="label">62</span></a> <cite>Reliques of Ancient English Poetry</cite> (London, 1765), vol. i., pp. 319-323. -Percy’s version begins as follows:— -</p> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Gentle river, gentle river,</div> -<div class="line i1">Lo, thy streams are stained with gore,</div> -<div class="line">Many a brave and noble captain</div> -<div class="line i1">Floats along thy willow’d shore.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">All beside thy limpid waters,</div> -<div class="line i1">All beside thy sands so bright,</div> -<div class="line">Moorish chiefs and Christian warriors</div> -<div class="line i1">Join’d in fierce and mortal fight.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Lords, and dukes, and noble princes</div> -<div class="line i1">On thy fatal banks were slain;</div> -<div class="line">Fatal banks that gave to slaughter</div> -<div class="line i1">All the pride and flower of Spain.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p> -Percy also gives an adaptation of Durán, No. 53:— -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Por la calle de su dama paseando se halla Zaide.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p> -In a preliminary note he says:—‘The Spanish editor pretends (how truly -I know not) that they are translations from the Arabic or Morisco language. -Indeed the plain, unadorned nature of the verse, and the native simplicity -of language and sentiment, which runs through these poems, prove that they -are ancient; or, at least, that they were written before the Castillians began -to form themselves on the model of the Tuscan poets, and had imported -from Italy that fondness for conceit and refinement which has for these two -centuries past so miserably infected the Spanish poetry, and rendered it so -unnatural, affected, and obscure.’</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_63_63" id="Footnote_63_63"></a><a href="#FNanchor_63_63"><span class="label">63</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 85a; Durán, No. 1064. Byron’s adaptation is entitled -<i>A Very Mournful Ballad on the Siege and Conquest of Alhama, which, in -the Arabic language is to the following purport</i>:— -</p> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">The Moorish king rides up and down,</div> -<div class="line">Through Granada’s royal town;</div> -<div class="line">From Elvira’s gates to those</div> -<div class="line">Of Bivarambla on he goes.</div> -<div class="line i2">Woe is me, Alhama!</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Letters to the monarch tell,</div> -<div class="line">How Alhama’s city fell:</div> -<div class="line">In the fire the scroll he threw,</div> -<div class="line">And the messenger he slew.</div> -<div class="line i2">Woe is me, Alhama! etc.</div> -</div></div></div> -<p> -Ginés Pérez de Hita states that this ballad was originally written in -Arabic, and that the inhabitants of Granada were forbidden to sing it. -Possibly the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romance</em> was suggested by some Arabic song on the loss of -Alhama.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_64_64" id="Footnote_64_64"></a><a href="#FNanchor_64_64"><span class="label">64</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite> (Apéndices), No. 18.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_65_65" id="Footnote_65_65"></a><a href="#FNanchor_65_65"><span class="label">65</span></a> Published at Sevillo in 1588, and reprinted at Jaén in 1867.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_66_66" id="Footnote_66_66"></a><a href="#FNanchor_66_66"><span class="label">66</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 71; Durán, No. 1039.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_67_67" id="Footnote_67_67"></a><a href="#FNanchor_67_67"><span class="label">67</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 79; Durán, No. 1073.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_68_68" id="Footnote_68_68"></a><a href="#FNanchor_68_68"><span class="label">68</span></a> See M. R. Foulché-Delbosc’s edition (Macon, 1904), p. 189. -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line i1">Aquel que tu vees con la saetada,</div> -<div class="line">que nunca mas faze mudança del gesto,</div> -<div class="line">mas, por virtud de morir tan onesto,</div> -<div class="line">dexa su sangre tan bien derramada</div> -<div class="line">sobre la villa no poco cantada,</div> -<div class="line">el adelantado Diego de Ribera</div> -<div class="line">es el que fizo la vuestra frontera</div> -<div class="line">tender las sus faldas mas contra Granada.</div> -</div></div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_69_69" id="Footnote_69_69"></a><a href="#FNanchor_69_69"><span class="label">69</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 74; Durán, No. 1043.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_70_70" id="Footnote_70_70"></a><a href="#FNanchor_70_70"><span class="label">70</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 78<i>a</i>; Durán, No. 1038.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_71_71" id="Footnote_71_71"></a><a href="#FNanchor_71_71"><span class="label">71</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 88; Durán, No. 1102.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_72_72" id="Footnote_72_72"></a><a href="#FNanchor_72_72"><span class="label">72</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 134; Durán, No. 1131.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_73_73" id="Footnote_73_73"></a><a href="#FNanchor_73_73"><span class="label">73</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 93; Durán, No. 1121.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_74_74" id="Footnote_74_74"></a><a href="#FNanchor_74_74"><span class="label">74</span></a> The original of <cite>The Bull-fight of Gazul</cite> is Durán, No. 45:—</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Estando toda la corte de Almanzor, rey de Granada.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p> -It appears first in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero general</cite>: so also does the original of <cite>The -Zegri’s Bride</cite>, Durán, No. 188. -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Lisaro que fue en Granada cabeza de los Cegríes.</div> -</div></div></div></div> -<p> -<cite>The Bridal of Andalla</cite> represents Durán, No. 128:— -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Ponte á las rejas azules, deja la manga que labras.</div> -</div></div></div></div> -<p> -The verses entitled <cite>Zara’s Earrings</cite> are altogether out of place in this -section. The orientalism is Lockhart’s own; there is n<i>o</i> mention of ‘Zara,’ -‘Muça,’ ‘Granada,’ ‘Albuharez’ daughter,’ and ‘Tunis’ in the original, -which will be found in Durán, N<i>o</i>. 1803. -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">¡La niña morena, que yendo á la fuente</div> -<div class="line">perdió sus zarcillos, gran pena merece!</div> -</div></div></div></div> -<p> -<cite>The Lamentation for Celin</cite> represents a poem first printed in the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero -general</cite>, and given in Durán, No. 126.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_75_75" id="Footnote_75_75"></a><a href="#FNanchor_75_75"><span class="label">75</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 132; Durán, No. 3.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_76_76" id="Footnote_76_76"></a><a href="#FNanchor_76_76"><span class="label">76</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 193; Durán, No. 373.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_77_77" id="Footnote_77_77"></a><a href="#FNanchor_77_77"><span class="label">77</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 171; Durán, No. 374.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_78_78" id="Footnote_78_78"></a><a href="#FNanchor_78_78"><span class="label">78</span></a> Durán, No. 379.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_79_79" id="Footnote_79_79"></a><a href="#FNanchor_79_79"><span class="label">79</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 184; Durán, No. 400.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_80_80" id="Footnote_80_80"></a><a href="#FNanchor_80_80"><span class="label">80</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 186; Durán, No. 402.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_81_81" id="Footnote_81_81"></a><a href="#FNanchor_81_81"><span class="label">81</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 151; Durán, No. 295.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_82_82" id="Footnote_82_82"></a><a href="#FNanchor_82_82"><span class="label">82</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 150; Durán, No. 294.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_83_83" id="Footnote_83_83"></a><a href="#FNanchor_83_83"><span class="label">83</span></a> -</p> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me</div> -<div class="line i1">As I gaze upon the sea!</div> -<div class="line">All the old romantic legends,</div> -<div class="line i1">All my dreams, come back to me.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Sails of silk and ropes of sandal,</div> -<div class="line i1">Such as gleam in ancient lore;</div> -<div class="line">And the singing of the sailors,</div> -<div class="line i1">And the answer from the shore!</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Most of all, the Spanish ballad</div> -<div class="line i1">Haunts me oft, and tarries long,</div> -<div class="line">Of the noble Count Arnaldos</div> -<div class="line i1">And the sailor’s mystic song.</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Like the long waves on a sea-beach,</div> -<div class="line i1">Where the sand as silver shines,</div> -<div class="line">With a soft, monotonous cadence</div> -<div class="line i1">Flow its unrhymed lyric lines;—</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Telling how the Count Arnaldos,</div> -<div class="line i1">With his hawk upon his hand,</div> -<div class="line">Saw a fair and stately galley,</div> -<div class="line i1">Steering onward to the land;—</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">How he heard the ancient helmsman</div> -<div class="line i1">Chant a song so wild and clear,</div> -<div class="line">That the sailing sea-bird slowly</div> -<div class="line i1">Poised upon the mast to hear,</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">Till his soul was full of longing,</div> -<div class="line i1">And he cried with impulse strong,—</div> -<div class="line">‘Helmsman! for the love of heaven,</div> -<div class="line i1">Teach me, too, that wondrous song!’</div> -<div class="line"> </div> -<div class="line">‘Wouldst thou,’ so the helmsman answered,</div> -<div class="line i1">‘Learn the secret of the sea?</div> -<div class="line">Only those who brave its dangers</div> -<div class="line i1">Comprehend its mystery!’</div> -</div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_84_84" id="Footnote_84_84"></a><a href="#FNanchor_84_84"><span class="label">84</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 153; Durán, No. 286.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_85_85" id="Footnote_85_85"></a><a href="#FNanchor_85_85"><span class="label">85</span></a> Depping, <span class="smcap">IV.</span>, No. 19, p. 418:—<br /> -</p> - -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">À coger el trebol, Damas!</div> -<div class="line">La mañana de san Juan,</div> -<div class="line">À coger el trebol, Damas!</div> -<div class="line">Que despues no avrà lugar.</div> -</div></div></div></div> -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_86_86" id="Footnote_86_86"></a><a href="#FNanchor_86_86"><span class="label">86</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 124; Durán, No. 8.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_87_87" id="Footnote_87_87"></a><a href="#FNanchor_87_87"><span class="label">87</span></a> Durán, No. 1808.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_88_88" id="Footnote_88_88"></a><a href="#FNanchor_88_88"><span class="label">88</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 125; Durán, No. 300.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_89_89" id="Footnote_89_89"></a><a href="#FNanchor_89_89"><span class="label">89</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero general</cite> (Madrid, 1604), p. 407<i>v</i>.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_90_90" id="Footnote_90_90"></a><a href="#FNanchor_90_90"><span class="label">90</span></a> Durán, No. 1454.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_91_91" id="Footnote_91_91"></a><a href="#FNanchor_91_91"><span class="label">91</span></a> Durán, No. 292.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_92_92" id="Footnote_92_92"></a><a href="#FNanchor_92_92"><span class="label">92</span></a> <i>Ibid.</i>, No. 274.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_93_93" id="Footnote_93_93"></a><a href="#FNanchor_93_93"><span class="label">93</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 116; Durán, No. 1446.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_94_94" id="Footnote_94_94"></a><a href="#FNanchor_94_94"><span class="label">94</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 147; Durán, No. 351.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_95_95" id="Footnote_95_95"></a><a href="#FNanchor_95_95"><span class="label">95</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 142; Durán, No. 1459.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_96_96" id="Footnote_96_96"></a><a href="#FNanchor_96_96"><span class="label">96</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 131; Durán, No. 255.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_97_97" id="Footnote_97_97"></a><a href="#FNanchor_97_97"><span class="label">97</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera</cite>, No. 163; Durán, No. 365.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_98_98" id="Footnote_98_98"></a><a href="#FNanchor_98_98"><span class="label">98</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">XV. Romances</cite>. (Ordenólos R. Foulché-Delbosc.) Barcelona [1907].</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_99_99" id="Footnote_99_99"></a><a href="#FNanchor_99_99"><span class="label">99</span></a> <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Lunes de El Imparcial</cite> (9 de Julio de 1906): ‘<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El peor enemigo de -Cervantes.</cite>’</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_100_100" id="Footnote_100_100"></a><a href="#FNanchor_100_100"><span class="label">100</span></a> The present lecture was first delivered at the University of Pennsylvania, -Philadelphia, on November 25, 1907.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_101_101" id="Footnote_101_101"></a><a href="#FNanchor_101_101"><span class="label">101</span></a> Yet Quinault had already adapted <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El galán fantasma</cite> under the title of -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Fantôme amoureux</cite>, which is the source of Sir William Lower’s <cite>Amorous -Fantasme</cite> (1660), and there are other French imitations by Quinault, -Scarron, and Thomas Corneille. Calderón was popular in Italy. As early -as 1654, Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi (afterwards Clement <span class="smcap">IX.</span>) based on <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">No -siempre lo peor es cierto</cite> the libretto of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Dal male il bene</cite>, which was set to -music by Antonio Maria Abbatini and Marco Marazzoli. In 1656 <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El mayor -monstruo los celos</cite> was arranged for the Italian stage by Giacinto Andrea -Cicognini, who afterwards produced many other adaptations of Calderón’s -plays: see an interesting and learned article by Dr. Arturo Farinelli in -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cultura Española</cite> (Madrid, February 1907), pp. 123-127.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_102_102" id="Footnote_102_102"></a><a href="#FNanchor_102_102"><span class="label">102</span></a> If Calderón be really the author of the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">sainete</em> entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Labrador -Gentilhombre</cite> printed at the end of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Hado y divisa de Leonido y Marfisa</cite>, he -had evidently read Molière’s <cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Bourgeois gentilhomme</cite>. But the authorship -of this <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">sainete</em> is uncertain.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_103_103" id="Footnote_103_103"></a><a href="#FNanchor_103_103"><span class="label">103</span></a> Most Spaniards who ridicule Calderón for using <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">hipogrifo</em> accentuate -the word wrongly in speech and writing. <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">Hipógrifo</em> is a mistake; the word -is not a <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">palabra esdrújula</em>, as may be seen from Lope de Vega’s use of it in -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Gatomaquia</cite> (silva vii.):— -</p> -<div lang="es" xml:lang="es"> -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="line">Que vemos en Orlando el hipogrifo,</div> -<div class="line">monstruo compuesto de caballo y grifo.</div> -</div></div></div></div> -<p> -Calderón himself gives it as a palabra llana in his <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">auto</em> entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La lepra de -Constantino</cite>. For other examples, see Rufino José Cuervo, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Apuntaciones -críticas sobre el lenguaje bogotano con frecuente referencia al de los países de -Hispano-América</cite>. Quinta edición (Paris, 1907), pp. 11-12.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_104_104" id="Footnote_104_104"></a><a href="#FNanchor_104_104"><span class="label">104</span></a> Pedro Jozé Suppico de Moraes, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Collecção politica de apothegmas, ou ditos -agudos, e sentenciosos</cite> (Coimbra, 1761), Parte 1., pp. 337-338.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_105_105" id="Footnote_105_105"></a><a href="#FNanchor_105_105"><span class="label">105</span></a> Zamora’s arrangement of Calderón’s <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">auto</em> entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El pleito matrimonial</cite> -was played at the Príncipe theatre in Madrid on the Feast of Corpus Christi, -1762.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_106_106" id="Footnote_106_106"></a><a href="#FNanchor_106_106"><span class="label">106</span></a> Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span> is usually described as a man of artistic tastes, but the evidence -does not altogether support this view. For instance, on February 18, 1637, -at a poetical improvisation in the Buen Retiro, Philip set Calderón and Vélez -de Guevara the following subjects:—(1) ‘Why is Jupiter always painted -with a fair beard?’ (2) ‘Why are the waiting-women at Court called -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">mondongas</em>, though they do not sell <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">mondongo</em> (black-pudding)?’ Time did -not improve Philip. Some twenty years later, according to Barrionuevo, -Philip arranged that women only should attend a certain performance at the -theatre, and gave instructions that they should leave off their <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">guardain-fantes</em> -on this occasion. His idea was to be present with the Queen, and -(from a spot where he could see without being observed) watch the effect -when a hundred mice were suddenly let out of mice-traps in the <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">casuela</em> and -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">patio</em>—‘which, if it takes place, will be worth seeing, and a diversion for -Their Majesties.’ Owing (apparently) to remonstrances which reached him, -Philip was compelled to abandon the project, but his intention gives the -measure of his refinement. See an instructive article, entitled <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Los Jardines -del Buen Retiro</cite>, by Sr. D. Rodrigo Amador de los Rios in <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La España -Moderna</cite> (January 1905); and the <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Arisos de D. Jerónimo to de Barrionuevo</cite> -(1654-1658) edited by Sr. D. Antonio Paz y Mélia (Madrid, 892-93), vol. ii, -p. 308.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_107_107" id="Footnote_107_107"></a><a href="#FNanchor_107_107"><span class="label">107</span></a> It may be worth noting that the date of Pereda’s birth is wrongly given -in all the books of reference, and he himself was mistaken on the point. He -was born on February 6, 1833, and not—as he thought—on February 7, 1834.</p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span></p> - -<h2>INDEX</h2> - - -<ul class="IX"><li> -Abad de los Romances (Domingo), <a href="#Page_53">53</a>-54.</li><li> -Abarbanel (Judas), 147.</li><li> -Abbatini (Antonio Maria), <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Abindarraez y Jarifa, Historia de</cite>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li><li> -Abentarique (Abulcacim Tarif), <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li><li> -Achilles Tatius, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li><li> -Accursius, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li><li> -Acquaviva (Giulio), <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li><li> -Æsop, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li><li> -Águila (Suero del), <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li><li> -Aguilar (Alonso de), <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li><li> -—— (Gaspar de), <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li><li> -Alarcón (Juan Ruiz de). <i>See</i> Ruiz de Alarcón.</li><li> -—— (Pedro Antonio de), <a href="#Page_235">235</a>-236.</li><li> -Alas (Leopoldo), <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li><li> -Albornoz (Gil de), <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li><li> -Alcalá Galiano (Antonio Maria de), <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li><li> -Alemán (Mateo), <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li><li> -Alfonso <span class="smcap">V.</span> (of Aragón), <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li><li> -—— <span class="smcap">V.</span> (of León), <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li><li> -—— <span class="smcap">VI.</span> (of Castile), <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.</li><li> -—— <span class="smcap">X.</span> [the Learned], (of Castile), <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li><li> -—— <span class="smcap">XI.</span> (of Castile), <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Alixandre, Libro de</cite>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li><li> -Al-Kadir. <i>See</i> Yahya Al-Kadir.</li><li> -Almanzor, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li><li> -<cite>Almería, Rhymed Latin Chronicle of</cite>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li><li> -Al-muktadir, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li><li> -Al-mustain, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>.</li><li> -Al-mutamen, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>.</li><li> -Alton (Johann), 85 <i>n</i>.</li><li> -Álvarez de Villasandino (Alfonso), <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Amore, De.</cite> <i>See</i> Pamphilus Maurilianus.</li><li> -Andrade y Rivadeneyra (Jerónimo de), <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Anséis de Carthage</cite>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Apolonio, Libro de</cite>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li><li> -Argote de Molina (Gonzalo), <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li><li> -—— y Góngora (Luis). <i>See</i> Góngora y Argote (Luis).</li><li> -<cite>Athenæum, The</cite>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li><li> -Avellaneda (Alonso Fernández de). <i>See</i> Fernández de Avellaneda (Alonso).</li><li> -Ayala (Pero López de). <i>See</i> López de Ayala (Pero).</li><li> -Ayamonte (Marqués de), <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -Bakna (Juan Alfonso de), <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li><li> -Balzac (Honoré de), <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</li><li> -Bancés Candamo (Francisco Antonio de), <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</li><li> -Baroja (Pío), <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li><li> -Barrera y Leirado (Cayetano Alberto de la), <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li><li> -Barrientos (Lope), <a href="#Page_60">60</a>.</li><li> -Barrionuevo (Jerónimo de), <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -Bella (Antonio de la), <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li><li> -Bello (Andrés), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li> -Belmonte Bermúdes (Luis de), <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li><li> -Beneyto (Miguel), <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li><li> -<cite>Beowulf</cite>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li><li> -Berceo (Gonzalo de), <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li><li> -Bertaut (François), <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Berthe, Roman de</cite>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</li><li> -Blanca, wife of Enrique <span class="smcap">IV.</span>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li><li> -Blanche de Bourbon, wife of Peter the Cruel, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li><li> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span> -Blanco de Paz (Juan), <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li><li> -Blasco Ibáñez (Vicente), <a href="#Page_250">250</a>-251.</li><li> -Boabdil [= Abu Abd Allah Muhammad], <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li><li> -Boccaccio, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li><li> -Bodel (Jean), <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li><li> -Böhl von Faber (Johan Nikolas), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li><li> -Boileau-Despréaux (Nicolas), <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li><li> -Boisrobert (François Le Métel de), <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li><li> -Bourget (Paul), <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li><li> -Brentano (Clemens), <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li><li> -Brillat-Savarin (Anthelme), <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.</li><li> -Browne (Sir Thomas), <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li><li> -Browning (Robert), <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li><li> -Brûlart de Sillery (Noel), <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li><li> -Buckle (Henry Thomas), <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</li><li> -Burgos (Diego de), <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li><li> -Byron (George Gordon, Lord), <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -Caballero (Fernán), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>-235.</li><li> -Calderón de la Barca (Diego), <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (José), <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Pedro), <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>;<ul><li class="li padl3"> -biography of, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>-193;</li><li class="li padl3"> -works of, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>-209; <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li></ul></li><li> -—— —— (Pedro), son of the dramatist, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li><li> -Calderona (María), <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li><li> -Calomarde (Francisco Tadeo), <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li> -Cáncer y Velasco (Jerónimo de), <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cancionero de Stúñiga</cite>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li><li> -—— <i>general</i>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li><li> -Carlota, wife of Francisco de Paula de Borbón, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li> -Carpio y Luján (Lope Félix del), <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Marcela del), <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li><li> -Carvajal, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li><li> -Castillejo (Cristóbal de), <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li><li> -Castillo Solórzano (Alonso de), <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li><li> -Castro y Bellvis (Guillén de), <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li><li> -Catherine of Lancaster, wife of Enrique <span class="smcap">III.</span>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li><li> -Cava (La), <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>-88.</li><li> -<cite lang="la" xml:lang="es">Celestina, La</cite>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li><li> -Cellot (Louis), <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li><li> -Cervantes (Cardinal Juan de), <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li><li> -—— (Juan de), grandfather of the novelist, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>.</li><li> -—— Saavedra (Andrea de), <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Luisa de), <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Magdalena de), <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Miguel de), <a href="#Page_1">1</a>, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>;<ul><li class="li padl3"> -life of, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>-141;</li><li class="li padl3"> -as a poet, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>-145;</li><li class="li padl3"> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">La Galatea</cite>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>-147;</li><li class="li padl3"> -First Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>-158;</li><li class="li padl3"> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Novelas Exemplares</cite>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>-159;</li><li class="li padl3"> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Viage del Parnaso</cite>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>-160;</li><li class="li padl3"> -plays, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li><li class="li padl3"> -Second Part of <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Don Quixote</cite>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>-162;</li><li class="li padl3"> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Persiles y Sigismunda</cite>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li></ul></li><li> -—— —— (Rodrigo de), father of the novelist, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Rodrigo de), brother of the novelist, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li><li> -Chapelain (Jean), <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li><li> -Charlemagne, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li><li> -Charles <span class="smcap">II.</span>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li><li> -—— <span class="smcap">V.</span>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>.</li><li> -Chartier (Alain), <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li><li> -Chaucer (Geoffrey), <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li><li> -Chateaubriand (François-René de), <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li> -Chorley (John Rutter), <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li><li> -Christina, Queen of Sweden, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li><li> -Cicognini (Giacinto Andrea), <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cid, Poema del</cite>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>-21.</li><li> -—— <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Romancero del</cite>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li><li> -—— The. <i>See</i> Díaz de Bivar (Rodrigo).</li><li> -Clavijo y Fajardo (José), <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li><li> -Clement <span class="smcap">IX.</span>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -Coello (Antonio), <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>-223.</li><li> -Comella (Luciano Francisco), <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li> -Conde (José Antonio), <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li><li> -Córdoba (Gonzalo de), <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li><li> -—— (Martín de), <a href="#Page_127">127</a>.</li><li> -Corneille (Pierre), <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li><li> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span> -Corneille (Thomas), <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li><li> -Cornu (Jules), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li> -Corral (Pedro del), <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li><li> -Cortinas (Leonor de), <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica de Castilla</cite>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li><li> -—— <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">de Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span></cite>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li><li> -—— <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">de Veinte Reyes</cite>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li><li> -—— <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">general</cite> (First), <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Second [1344]), <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li><li> -—— <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">rimada</cite>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>-23, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li><li> -—— <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Troyana</cite>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li><li> -Crowne (John), <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li><li> -Cruz y Cano (Ramón de la), <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li> -Cubillo de Aragón (Álvaro), <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li><li> -Cuervo (Rufino José), <a href="#Page_200">200</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li><li> -Cueva (Juan de la), <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li><li> -Cunha (João Lourenço da), <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Dali Mami</span>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li><li> -Damas-Hinard (Jean-Joseph-Stanislas-Albert), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li> -Dante, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li><li> -Depping (Georg Bernard), <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> <i>n</i>.</li><li> -Désirée, Queen of Sweden, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li><li> -Diamante (Juan Bautista), <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Diana, La</cite>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li><li> -Díaz de Bivar (Rodrigo or Ruy),<ul><li> -biography of, <a href="#Page_1">1</a>-11;</li><li> -epics on, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>-23;</li><li> -plays and poems on, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>-24;</li><li> -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> on, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>-101.</li></ul></li><li> -—— de Toledo (Pedro), <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li><li> -Dickens (Charles), <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>.</li><li> -Díez de Games (Gutierre), <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li><li> -Dillon (John Talbot), <a href="#Page_53">53</a> <i>n</i>.</li><li> -Dionysius Cato, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li><li> -Dolfos (Bellido), <a href="#Page_4">4</a>.</li><li> -D’Ouville (Antoine Le Métel, sieur), <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li><li> -Dozy (Reinhart Pieter Anne), <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li><li> -Ducamin (Jean), <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li><li> -Dunham (Samuel Astley), <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li><li> -Durán (Agustín), <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a> <i>n.</i>, 100 n., <a href="#Page_101">101</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a> <i>n.</i><br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Emmanuel Philibert</span>, Prince of Savoy, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.</li><li> -Enrique <span class="smcap">III.</span>, <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">El Doliente</cite>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li><li> -—— <span class="smcap">IV.</span>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Eremite qui s’enyvra</cite> (<i>L’</i>), <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Eremyte que le diable conchia du coc et de la geline</cite> (<i>L’</i>), <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li><li> -Erman (Georg Adolf), <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</li><li> -Escobar (Juan de), <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</li><li> -Eslava (Antonio de), <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</li><li> -Espronceda (José de), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li><li> -Euripides, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li><li> -Ezpeleta (Gaspar de), <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Fadrique</span>, brother of Peter the Cruel, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li><li> -<cite>Faerie Queene, The</cite>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li><li> -Fáñez Minaya (Alvar), <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li><li> -Fanshawe (Richard), <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li><li> -Farinelli (Arturo), <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -Ferdinand, Saint, <a href="#Page_11">11</a>.</li><li> -—— <span class="smcap">VII.</span>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li><li> -Fernández (Pedro), <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li><li> -—— de Avellaneda (Alonso), <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li><li> -—— de León (Melchor), <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li><li> -—— de Moratín (Leandro), <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li> -Fernando de Antequera, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Fernán González, Estoria del noble caballero</cite>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li><li> -—— —— <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Poema de</cite>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li><li> -Fielding (Henry), <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li> -Figueroa (Lope de), <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li><li> -FitzGerald (Edward), <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li><li> -Fletcher (John), <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Floire et Blanchefleur</cite>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li><li> -Ford (John), <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li><li> -Forneli (Juan Antonio), <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li><li> -Foulché-Delbosc (Raymond), <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>-92, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>.</li><li> -Franqueza (Pedro), <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.</li><li> -Frederic <span class="smcap">II.</span>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li><li> -Frere (John Hookham), <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li> -Fuentes (Alonso de), <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Gálvez de Montalvo</span> (Luis), <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li><li> -Gante (Manuelillo de), <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li><li> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span> -García (Sancho), <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li><li> -Garci-Fernández, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Garin le Lohérain</cite>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li><li> -Gautier de Coinci, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li><li> -Gibson (James Young), <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li><li> -Gil (Enrique), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li><li> -—— (Juan), <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li><li> -Girón (Rodrigo), <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li><li> -Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von), <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li><li> -Gómez (Cristóbal), <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li><li> -—— de Quevedo y Villegas (Francisco), <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li><li> -Goncourt (Edmond and Jules de), <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li><li> -Góngora y Argote (Luis), <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li><li> -González (Fernán), <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;<ul><li> -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> on, 87-91.</li></ul></li><li> -—— del Castillo (Juan Ignacio), <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li> -—— de Mendoza (Pedro), <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li><li> -Gormaz (Gómez de), <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li><li> -Gozzi (Carlo), <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</li><li> -Granson (Oton de), <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li><li> -Grimm (Jacob), <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li><li> -Guardo (Juana de), <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.</li><li> -Guerra (Manuel de), <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li><li> -Guevara (Antonio de), <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li><li> -—— (Luis Vélez de). <i>See</i> Vélez de Guevara (Luis).</li><li> -Guillaume de Machault, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li><li> -Gutiérrez (Tomás), <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li><li> -Guzmán (Juan de), <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li><li> -—— (Luis de), <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Hallevi</span> (Sh’lomoh). <i>See</i> Santa María (Pablo de).</li><li> -Haro (Luis de), <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li><li> -Hartmann von Aue, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li><li> -Hartzenbusch (Juan Eugenio), <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li><li> -Hassan Pasha, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li><li> -Heiberg (Johan Ludvig), <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li><li> -Heine (Heinrich), <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li><li> -Heliodorus, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li><li> -Heredia (José María de), <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li><li> -Hernández Flores (Francisca), <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Hernaut de Beaulande</cite>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li><li> -Herrera (Fernando de), <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li><li> -Hervieux (Léopold), <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li><li> -Hofmann (Conrad), <a href="#Page_78">78</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li><li> -Heyne (Gotthold), <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li><li> -Hita, Archpriest of. <i>See</i> Ruiz (Juan).</li><li> -Holberg (Ludvig), <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li><li> -Huet (Pierre-Daniel), <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li><li> -Hugo (Abel), <a href="#Page_87">87</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -—— (Victor), <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>.</li><li> -Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li><li> -Huntington (Archer Milton), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li> -Hurtado de Mendoza (Antonio), <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Diego), <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li><li> -—— de Velarde (Alfonso), <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Ibn-Bassam</span>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li><li> -Ibn-Jehaf, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li><li> -Illán. <i>See</i> Julian.</li><li> -Imperial (Francisco), <a href="#Page_62">62</a>.</li><li> -Irving (Washington), <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li><li> -Isabel <span class="smcap">I.</span>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li><li> -—— wife of Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li><li> -—— de Valois, wife of Philip <span class="smcap">II.</span>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li><li> -Isla (José Francisco de), <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li> -Isunza (Pedro de), <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li><li> -Italicus, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Jacobs</span> (Joseph), <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li><li> -Janer (Florencio), <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li><li> -Jaufré de Foixá, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li><li> -Jeanroy (Alfred), <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li><li> -Jerónimo (Bishop), <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li><li> -Jimena, sister of Alfonso the Chaste, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li><li> -—— wife of the Cid, <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li><li> -Jiménez de Rada (Rodrigo),</li><li> -John of Austria, son of Charles <span class="smcap">V.</span>, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li><li> -Jonson (Ben), <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</li><li> -Jove-Llanos (Gaspar de), <a href="#Page_30">30</a>.</li><li> -Juan <span class="smcap">II.</span>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li><li> -—— de Austria, son of Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</li><li> -—— Manuel, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li><li> -Juana, wife of Enrique <span class="smcap">IV.</span>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li><li> -<i>Judas</i>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li><li> -Julian (Count), <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Karesme et de Charnage</cite> (<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Bataille de</cite>), <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li><li> -Kent (William), <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li><li> -Konrad, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Lafayette</span> (Madame de), <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li><li> -La Fontaine (Jean de), <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li><li> -Lainez (Diego), <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li><li> -Lando (Ferrant Manuel de), <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>.</li><li> -Lang (Henry R.), <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li><li> -Lara, Infantes of, 83, 87, 91-92.</li><li> -—— (Gaspar Agustín de), <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li><li> -Lasso de la Vega (Gabriel Lobo), <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li><li> -Layamon, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Lazarillo de Tormes</cite>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li><li> -Leconte de Lisle (Charles-Marie), <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li><li> -Legrand d’Aussy (Pierre-Jean-Baptiste), <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li><li> -Lemos (Conde de), <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li><li> -León Hebreo. <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">See</em> Abarbanel (Judas).</li><li> -Lerma, Duke of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li><li> -Lesage (Alain-René), <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li> -Lidforss (Volter Edvard), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li> -Lockhart (John Gibson), <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">n.</em>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li><li> -Longfellow (Henry Wadsworth), <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li><li> -López de Ayala (Pero), <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>.</li><li> -—— de Hoyos (Juan), <a href="#Page_122">122</a>.</li><li> -—— de Mendoza (Íñigo). <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">See</em> Santillana (Marqués de).</li><li> -—— de Sedano (Juan Joseph), <a href="#Page_53">53</a> <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">n.</em></li><li> -Lotti (Cosme), <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li><li> -Lowell (James Russell), <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li><li> -Lower (William), <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li><li> -Lozano (Juan Mateo), <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li><li> -Lucena (Juan de), <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li><li> -Luján (Micaela de), <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li><li> -Luna (Álvaro de), <a href="#Page_5">5</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li><li> -—— (Miguel de), <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li><li> -Luzán (Ignacio de), <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Macaulay</span> (Thomas Babington, Lord), <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li><li> -MacColl (Norman), <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li><li> -Macías, <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">o Namorado</em>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>.</li><li> -Madrigal (Alfonso de), <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">el Tostado</em>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li><li> -Maldonado (López), <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li><li> -Malón de Chaide (Pedro), <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li><li> -Malpica (Marqués de), <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li><li> -Manrique de Lara (Jerónimo), <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">María Egipciacqua, Vida de Santa</cite>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li><li> -Mariana, wife of Philip <span class="smcap">IV.</span>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li><li> -—— (Juan de), <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</li><li> -Marie de France, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li><li> -Marie-Louise de Bourbon, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li><li> -Marivaux (Pierre de), <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li> -Marazzoli (Marco), <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li><li> -Martínez de la Rosa (Francisco de Paula), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li><li> -—— de Toledo (Alfonso), <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li><li> -—— Gayoso (Benito), <a href="#Page_27">27</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -—— Marina (Francisco), <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li><li> -—— Ruiz (J.), <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li><li> -Masdeu (Juan Francisco de), <a href="#Page_2">2</a>.</li><li> -Matos Fragoso (Juan de), <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>-229.</li><li> -Medina (Francisco de), <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li><li> -Medinilla (Baltasar Elisio de), <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li><li> -Mena (Juan de), <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>-74, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li><li> -Mendoza (Antonio Hurtado de). <i>See</i> Hurtado de Mendoza (Antonio).</li><li> -Menéndez Pidal (Ramón), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li><li> -Menéndez y Pelayo (Marcelino), <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_119">119</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li><li> -Meredith (George), <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li><li> -Mesonero Romanos (Ramón de), <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li><li> -Michaëlis de Vasconcellos (Carolina), <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li><li> -Middleton (Thomas), <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</li><li> -Milá y Fontanals (Manuel), <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li><li> -Milton (John), <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li><li> -Mira de Amescua (Antonio), <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li><li> -Molière, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</li><li> -Molina (Luis de), <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li><li> -Moncada (Miguel de), <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li><li> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> -Montalbán (Juan Pérez de). <i>See</i> Pérez de Montalbán (Juan).</li><li> -Montemôr (Jorge de), <a href="#Page_118">118</a>. <i>See</i> also <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Diana, La</cite>.</li><li> -Mora (Joaquín de), <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li><li> -Moratín (Leandro Fernández de). <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">See</em> Fernández de Moratín (Leandro).</li><li> -Moreto y Cavaña (Agustín), <a href="#Page_224">224</a>-228.</li><li> -Muhammad, El Maestro, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li><li> -Muñoz (Félez), <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Nájera</span> (Esteban de), <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li><li> -Navas (Marqués de las), <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li><li> -Nebrija (Antonio de), <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li><li> -Nevares Santoyo (Marta de), <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>.</li><li> -Nucio (Martín), <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li><li> -Núñez de Toledo (Hernán), <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li><li> -—— Morquecho (Doctor), <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Ocampo</span> (Florián de), <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li><li> -Ochoa y Ronna (Eugenio de), <a href="#Page_2">2</a> <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">n</em>.</li><li> -Olivares (Conde de), <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</li><li> -Ormsby (John), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li><li> -Ortiz de Stúñiga (Íñigo), <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li><li> -Osorio (Diego), <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li><li> -—— (Elena), <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li><li> -—— (Inés), <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Padilla</span> (María de), <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li><li> -—— (Pedro de), <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li><li> -Palacio Valdés (Armando), 248-249, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li><li> -Palacios Salazar y Vozmediano (Catalina de), <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li><li> -Palafox (Jerónimo de), <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li><li> -Pamphilus Maurilianus, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Panadera, Coplas de la</cite>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li><li> -Paratinén (Alfonso), <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li><li> -Paravicino y Arteaga (Hortensio Félix), <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li><li> -Pardo Bazán (Condesa de), <a href="#Page_248">248</a>-249, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li><li> -Paris (Gaston), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>.</li><li> -Patmore (Coventry Kersey Dighton), <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li><li> -Paz y Mélia (Antonio), <a href="#Page_230">230</a> <i>n</i>.</li><li> -Pedro, brother of Alfonso <span class="smcap">V.</span> of Aragón, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>.</li><li> -Pepys (Samuel), <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li><li> -Per Abbat, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>, <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.</li><li> -Percy (Thomas), <a href="#Page_106">106</a>.</li><li> -Pereda (José María de), 236-243, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li><li> -Pérez (Alonso), <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li><li> -—— (Gil), <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li><li> -—— de Guzmán (Alfonso), <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Fernán), <a href="#Page_2">2</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>-66, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li><li> -—— de Hita (Ginés), <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li><li> -—— de Montalbán (Juan), <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li><li> -—— Galdós (Benito), 53, 240, 247-248, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li><li> -—— Pastor (Cristóbal), <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li><li> -Peter <span class="smcap">I.</span> of Castile (the Cruel), <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>;<ul><li> -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> on, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>-103.</li></ul></li><li> -Petrarch, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li><li> -Phaedrus, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li><li> -Philip <span class="smcap">II.</span>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li><li> -—— <span class="smcap">IV.</span>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</li><li> -—— Prince of Savoy, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.</li><li> -Pindarus Thebanus. <i>See</i> Italicus.</li><li> -Pius <span class="smcap">V.</span>, <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li><li> -Pomponius, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li><li> -Ponce de León (Luis), <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Manuel), <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Primavera y Flor de romances</cite>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -Pulgar (Hernando del), <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li><li> -Puymaigre (Count Théodore de), <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li><li> -Puyol y Alonso (Julio), <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Quevedo y Villegas</span> (Francisco Gómez de). <i>See</i> Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas (Francisco).</li><li> -Quinault (Philippe), <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -Quintana (Manuel José), <a href="#Page_14">14</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span> -<span class="smcap">Rabelais</span> (François), <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li><li> -Rasis, The Moor [=Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Musa, <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">al-Razi</em>], <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>.</li><li> -Regnier (Maturin), <a href="#Page_48">48</a>.</li><li> -Renan (Ernest), <a href="#Page_10">10</a>.</li><li> -Rennert (Hugo Albert), <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>.</li><li> -Restori (Antonio), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li> -Rey de Artieda (Andrés), <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Reyes Magos, Misterio de los</cite>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li><li> -Riaño (Pedro de), <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li><li> -Ribeiro (Bernardim de), <a href="#Page_75">75</a>.</li><li> -Ribera (Diego de), <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li><li> -Ríos (José Amador de los), <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li><li> -—— (Rodrigo Amador de los), <a href="#Page_230">230</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -Ritson (Joseph), <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li><li> -Robles (Blas de), <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li><li> -—— (Fernán Alonso de), <a href="#Page_55">55</a>.</li><li> -Roderick, <a href="#Page_12">12</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>;<ul><li> -<em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> on, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>-88.</li></ul></li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Rodrigo, Cantar de</cite>. See <cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Crónica rimada</cite>.</li><li> -Rodríguez (Lucas), <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>.</li><li> -—— de la Cámara (Juan), 74-76, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li><li> -—— del Padrón (Juan). <i>See</i> Rodríguez de la Cámara (Juan).</li><li> -—— Marín (Francisco), <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li><li> -Rojas (Ana Franca de), <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li><li> -—— (Tomás), <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</li><li> -—— Zorrilla (Francisco de), <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>-222, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Roland, Chanson de</cite>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li><li> -<cite>Rolliad, The</cite>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Roman de la Rose, Le</cite>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li><li> -Romana (Marqués de la), <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li><li> -Rospigliosi (Giulio). <i>See</i> Clement <span class="smcap">IX.</span></li><li> -Rotrou (Jean de), <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</li><li> -Rowley (William), <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Ruderici Campidocti, Gesta</cite>, <a href="#Page_9">9</a>, <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.</li><li> -Rueda (Lope de), <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li><li> -Ruffino (Bartolomeo), <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li><li> -Ruiz (Juan), <a href="#Page_25">25</a>-54.</li><li> -—— de Alarcón (Juan), <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li><li> -—— de Ulibarri (Juan), <a href="#Page_13">13</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Saavedra</span> (Isabel de), daughter of Cervantes, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li><li> -Sainte-Beuve (Charles-Augustin), <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li><li> -Saint-Pierre (Bernardin de), <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li> -Saldaña (Conde de), <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -Sánchez (Miguel), <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li><li> -—— (Tomás Antonio), <a href="#Page_14">14</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li><li> -Sancho <span class="smcap">II.</span>, <a href="#Page_4">4</a>, <a href="#Page_5">5</a>.</li><li> -—— (Conde Don), <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li><li> -Sandoval y Rojas (Bernardo de), <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li><li> -Sannazaro (Jacopo), <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li><li> -Santa Cruz (Marqués de), <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li><li> -—— María (Pablo de), <a href="#Page_56">56</a>.</li><li> -Santillana (Marqués de), <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>-70, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li><li> -Sanz del Águila (Diego), <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li><li> -—— del Río (Julián), <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li><li> -Sarmiento (Martín), <a href="#Page_53">53</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -Sarriá (Marqués de). <i>See</i> Lemos.</li><li> -Scarron (Paul), <a href="#Page_191">191</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li><li> -Schack (Adolf Friedrich).</li><li> -Schæffer (Adolf), <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li><li> -Schiller (Johann Friedrich), <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li><li> -Schlegel (August Wilhelm von), <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li><li> -—— (Friedrich von), <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li><li> -Scott (Walter), <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li><li> -Scudéri (Madelène de), <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li><li> -Segrais (Jean Regnauld, sieur de), <a href="#Page_80">80</a> <i>n</i>.</li><li> -Sepúlveda (Lorenzo de), <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li><li> -Sesa (Fifth Duke of), <a href="#Page_124">124</a>.</li><li> -—— (Sixth Duke of), <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li><li> -Shakespeare (William), <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>.</li><li> -Shelley (Percy Bysshe), <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li><li> -Silva (Feliciano de), <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li><li> -Smollett (Tobias George), <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li> -Soeiro (Manoel), <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li><li> -Solís y Ribadeneyra (Antonio de), <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li><li> -Sophocles, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li><li> -Sosa (Antonio de), <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li><li> -Southey (Robert), <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li><li> -Sterne (Laurence), <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li> -<i>Strengleikar</i>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>.</li><li> -Suppico de Moraes (Pedro Jozé), <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span> -<span class="smcap">Tárrega</span> (Francisco), <a href="#Page_211">211</a>.</li><li> -Tennyson (Alfred, Lord), <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li><li> -Thiber, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li><li> -Timoneda (Juan de), <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>.</li><li> -Tirso de Molina [<i>i.e.</i> Gabriel Téllez], <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>.</li><li> -Torre (Alfonso de la), <a href="#Page_59">59</a>.</li><li> -Torres (Francisco de), <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li><li> -—— Villaroel (Diego), <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li><li> -Trench (Richard Chenevix), <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>.</li><li> -<cite lang="es" xml:lang="es">Tres Reyes dorient, Libro dels</cite>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.</li><li> -Trigueros (Cándido María), <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.</li><li> -Trillo de Armenta (Antonia), <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li><li> -Trueba (Antonio de), <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>.</li><li> -—— y Cosío (Joaquín Telesforo de), <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li><li> -Tuke, Samuel, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li><li> -Turia (Ricardo de), <i>pseud.</i>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li><li> -Turpin (Archbishop), <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Urban VIII.</span>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>.</li><li> -—— (Count). <i>See</i> Julian (Count).</li><li> -Urbina (Diego de), <a href="#Page_123">123</a>.</li><li> -—— y Cortinas (Isabel de), <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Valdivia</span> (Diego de), <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li><li> -Valdivielso (José de), <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</li><li> -Valera (Diego de), <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li><li> -—— (Juan), 2, 243-246, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li><li> -Valle-Inclán (Ramón del), <a href="#Page_251">251</a>.</li><li> -Vanbrugh (John), <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li><li> -Vázquez (Mateo), <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li><li> -Vega (Bernardo de la), <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li><li> -—— (Garcilaso de la), <em lang="es" xml:lang="es">romances</em> on, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li><li> -—— (Garcilaso de la), poet, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li><li> -—— (Leonor de la), <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li><li> -—— Carpio (Félix de), father of the dramatist, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>.</li><li> -—— —— (Lope Félix de), <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;<ul><li class="li padl3"> -biography of, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>-172;</li><li class="li padl3"> -character and tastes, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>-174;</li><li class="li padl3"> -as a poet, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>;</li><li class="li padl3"> -as a dramatist, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>-183; <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li></ul></li><li> -Vega Carpio y Guardo (Antonia Clara), <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li><li> -—— —— y Guardo (Carlos Félix), <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.</li><li> -Velázquez (Jerónimo), <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li><li> -—— (Luis José), <a href="#Page_53">53</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -Vélez de Guevara (Luis), <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a> <i>n.</i></li><li> -Veraguas (Duke of), <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li><li> -Vera Tassis y Villarroel (Juan), <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li><li> -Verlaine (Paul), <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li><li> -Verville (Béroalde de), <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li><li> -Vicente (Gil), <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li><li> -Victor Amadeus, Prince of Savoy, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.</li><li> -Vidal (Raimon), <a href="#Page_68">68</a>.</li><li> -Villafranca (Marqués de), <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li><li> -Villaviciosa (Sebastián de), <a href="#Page_228">228</a>.</li><li> -Villegas (Pedro de), <a href="#Page_186">186</a>.</li><li> -Villena (Enrique de), <a href="#Page_60">60</a>-64.</li><li> -Vollmöller (Carl), <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Waller</span> (Edmund), <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li><li> -Warnke (Carl), <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li><li> -Wolf (Ferdinand Joseph), <a href="#Page_31">31</a> <i>n.</i>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li><li> -Wolfram von Eschenbach, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Ximena</span>. <i>See</i> Jimena.</li><li> -Yahya Al-Kadir, <a href="#Page_6">6</a>, <a href="#Page_7">7</a>, <a href="#Page_8">8</a>.</li><li> -‘Ysopete,’ <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.<br /><br /></li><li> - -<span class="smcap">Zabaleta</span> (Juan de), <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li><li> -Zamora (Antonio de), <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li><li> -Zárate y Castronovo (Fernando de), <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li><li> -Zola (Émile), <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> -</ul> - -<hr /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span></p> -<p class="center">Printed by T. and A. <span class="smcap">Constable</span>, Printers to His Majesty<br /> -at the Edinburgh University Press.</p> - 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