CHAPTER II
.
FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE SPANISH AS A WRITTEN LANGUAGE.--POEM OF THE CID.--ITS HERO, SUBJECT, LANGUAGE, AND VERSE.--STORY OF THE POEM.--ITS CHARACTER.--ST. MARY OF EGYPT.--THE ADORATION OF THE THREE KINGS.--BERCEO, THE FIRST KNOWN CASTILIAN POET.--HIS WORKS AND VERSIFICATION.--HIS SAN DOMINGO DE SILOS.--HIS MIRACLES OF THE VIRGIN.
The oldest document in the Spanish language with an ascertained date is a confirmation by Alfonso the Seventh, in the year 1155, of a charter of regulations and privileges granted to the city of Avilés in Asturias.[6] It is important, not only because it exhibits the new dialect just emerging from the corrupted Latin, little or not at all affected by the Arabic infused into it in the southern provinces, but because it is believed to be among the very oldest documents ever written in Spanish, since there is no good reason to suppose that language to have existed in a written form even half a century earlier.
[6] See Appendix (A.), on the History of the Spanish Language.
How far we can go back towards the first appearance of poetry in this Spanish, or, as it was oftener called, Castilian, dialect is not so precisely ascertained; but we know that we can trace Castilian verse to a period surprisingly near the date of the document of Avilés. It is, too, a remarkable circumstance, that we can thus trace it by works both long and interesting; for, though ballads, and the other forms of popular poetry, by which we mark indistinctly the beginning of almost every other literature, are abundant in the Spanish, we are not obliged to resort to them, at the outset of our inquiries, since other obvious and decisive monuments present themselves at once.
* * * * *
The first of these monuments in age, and the first in importance, is the poem commonly called, with primitive simplicity and directness, “The Poem of the Cid.” It consists of above three thousand lines, and can hardly have been composed later than the year 1200. Its subject, as its name implies, is taken from among the adventures of the Cid, the great popular hero of the chivalrous age of Spain; and the whole tone of its manners and feelings is in sympathy with the contest between the Moors and the Christians, in which the Cid bore so great a part, and which was still going on with undiminished violence at the period when the poem was written. It has, therefore, a national bearing and a national character throughout.[7]
[7] The date of the only early manuscript of the Poem of the Cid is in these words: “Per Abbat le escribio en el mes de Mayo, en Era de Mill è CC..XLV años.” There is a blank made by an erasure between the second C and the X, which has given rise to the question, whether this erasure was made by the copyist because he had accidentally put in a letter too much, or whether it is a subsequent erasure that ought to be filled,--and, if filled, whether with the conjunction _è_ or with another C; in short, the question is, whether this manuscript should be dated in 1245 or in 1345. (Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Madrid, 1779, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 221.) This year, 1245, _of the Spanish era_, according to which the calculation of time is commonly kept in the elder Spanish records, corresponds to our A. D. 1207;--a difference of 38 years, the reason for which may be found in a note to Southey’s “Chronicle of the Cid,” (London, 1808, 4to, p. 385,) without seeking it in more learned sources.
The date of _the poem itself_, however, is a very different question from the date of _this particular manuscript_ of it; for the _Per Abbat_ referred to is merely the copyist, whether his name was Peter Abbat or Peter the Abbot, (Risco, Castilla, etc., p. 68.) This question--the one, I mean, of the age of _the poem itself_--can be settled only from internal evidence of style and language. Two passages, vv. 3014 and 3735, have, indeed, been alleged (Risco, p. 69, Southey’s Chronicle, p. 282, note) to prove its date historically; but, after all, they only show that it was written subsequently to A. D. 1135. (V. A. Huber, Geschichte des Cid, Bremen, 1829, 12mo, p. xxix.) The point is one difficult to settle; and none can be consulted about it but natives or _experts_. Of these, Sanchez places it at about 1150, or half a century after the death of the Cid, (Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. p. 223,) and Capmany (Eloquencia Española, Madrid, 1786, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 1) follows him. Marina, whose opinion is of great weight, (Memorias de la Academia de Historia, Tom. IV. 1805, Ensayo, p. 34,) places it thirty or forty years before Berceo, who wrote 1220-1240. The editors of the Spanish translation of Bouterwek, (Madrid, 1829, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 112,) who give a fac-simile of the manuscript, agree with Sanchez, and so does Huber (Gesch. des Cid, Vorwort, p. xxvii.). To these opinions may be added that of Ferdinand Wolf, of Vienna, (Jahrbücher der Literatur, Wien, 1831, Band LVI. p. 251,) who, like Huber, is one of the acutest scholars alive in whatever touches Spanish and Mediæval literature, and who places it about 1140-1160. Many other opinions might be cited, for the subject has been much discussed; but the judgments of the learned men already given, formed at different times in the course of half a century from the period of the first publication of the poem, and concurring so nearly, leave no reasonable doubt that it was composed as early as the year 1200.
Mr. Southey’s name, introduced by me in this note, is one that must always be mentioned with peculiar respect by scholars interested in Spanish literature. From the circumstance, that his uncle, the Rev. Herbert Hill, a scholar, and a careful and industrious one, was connected with the English Factory at Lisbon, Mr. Southey visited Spain and Portugal in 1795-6, when he was about twenty-two years old, and, on his return home, published his Travels, in 1797;--a pleasant book, written in the clear, idiomatic, picturesque English that always distinguishes his style, and containing a considerable number of translations from the Spanish and the Portuguese, made with freedom and spirit rather than with great exactness. From this time he never lost sight of Spain and Portugal, or of Spanish and Portuguese literature; as is shown, not only by several of his larger original works, but by his translations, and by his articles in the London Quarterly Review on Lope de Vega and Camoens; especially by one in the second volume of that journal, which was translated into Portuguese, with notes, by Müller, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Lisbon, and so made into an excellent compact manual for Portuguese literary history.
The Cid himself, who is to be found constantly commemorated in Spanish poetry, was born in the northwestern part of Spain, about the year 1040, and died in 1099, at Valencia, which he had rescued from the Moors.[8] His original name was Ruy Diaz, or Rodrigo Diaz; and he was by birth one of the considerable barons of his country. The title of _Cid_, by which he is almost always known, is believed to have come to him from the remarkable circumstance, that five Moorish kings or chiefs acknowledged him in one battle as their _Seid_, or their lord and conqueror;[9] and the title of _Campeador_, or Champion, by which he is hardly less known, though it is commonly supposed to have been given to him as a leader of the armies of Sancho the Second, has long since been used almost exclusively as a popular expression of the admiration of his countrymen for his exploits against the Moors.[10] At any rate, from a very early period, he has been called _El Cid Campeador_, or The Lord Champion. And he well deserved the honorable title; for he passed almost the whole of his life in the field against the oppressors of his country, suffering, so far as we know, scarcely a single defeat from the common enemy, though, on more than one occasion, he was exiled and sacrificed by the Christian princes to whose interests he had attached himself.
[8] The Arabic accounts represent the Cid as having died of grief, at the defeat of the Christians near Valencia, which fell again into the hands of the Moslem in 1100. (Gayangos, Mohammedan Dynasties, Vol. II. Appendix, p. xliii.) It is necessary to read some one of the many Lives of the Cid in order to understand the Poema del Cid, and much else of Spanish literature; I will therefore notice four or five of the more suitable and important. 1. The oldest is the Latin “Historia Didaci Campidocti,” written before 1238, and published as an Appendix in Risco. 2. The next is the cumbrous and credulous one by Father Risco, 1792. 3. Then we have a curious one by John von Müller, the historian of Switzerland, 1805, prefixed to his friend Herder’s Ballads of the Cid. 4. The classical Life by Manuel Josef Quintana, in the first volume of his “Vidas de Españoles Célebres” (Madrid, 1807, 12mo). 5. That of Huber, 1829; acute and safe. The best of all, however, is the old Spanish “Chronicle of the Cid,” or Southey’s Chronicle, 1808;--the best, I mean, for those who read in order to enjoy what may be called the literature of the Cid;--to which may be added a pleasant little volume by George Dennis, entitled “The Cid, a Short Chronicle founded on the Early Poetry of Spain,” London, 1845, 12mo.
[9] Chrónica del Cid, Burgos, 1593, fol., c. 19.
[10] Huber, p. 96. Müller’s Leben des Cid, in Herder’s Sämmtliche Werke, zur schönen Literatur und Kunst, Wien, 1813, 12mo, Theil III. p. xxi.
But, whatever may have been the real adventures of his life, over which the peculiar darkness of the period when they were achieved has cast a deep shadow,[11] he comes to us in modern times as the great defender of his nation against its Moorish invaders, and seems to have so filled the imagination and satisfied the affections of his countrymen, that, centuries after his death, and even down to our own days, poetry and tradition have delighted to attach to his name a long series of fabulous achievements, which connect him with the mythological fictions of the Middle Ages, and remind us almost as often of Amadis and Arthur as they do of the sober heroes of genuine history.[12]
[11] “No period of Spanish history is so deficient in contemporary documents.” Huber, Vorwort, p. xiii.
[12] It is amusing to compare the Moorish accounts of the Cid with the Christian. In the work of Conde on the Arabs of Spain, which is little more than a translation from Arabic chronicles, the Cid appears first, I think, in the year 1087, when he is called “the Cambitur [Campeador] who _infested_ the frontiers of Valencia.” (Tom. II. p. 155.) When he had taken Valencia, in 1094, we are told, “Then the Cambitur--_may he be accursed of Allah!_--entered in with all his people and allies.” (Tom. II. p. 183.) In other places he is called “Roderic the Cambitur,”--“Roderic, Chief of the Christians, known as the Cambitur,”--and “the Accursed”;--all proving how thoroughly he was hated and feared by his enemies. He is nowhere, I think, called Cid or Seid by Arab writers; and the reason why he appears in Conde’s work so little is, probably, that the manuscripts used by that writer relate chiefly to the history of events in Andalusia and Granada, where the Cid did not figure at all. The tone in Gayangos’s more learned and accurate work on the Mohammedan Dynasties is the same. When the Cid dies, the Arab chronicler (Vol. II. App., p. xliii.) adds, “May God not show him mercy!”
The Poem of the Cid partakes of both these characters. It has sometimes been regarded as wholly, or almost wholly, historical.[13] But there is too free and romantic a spirit in it for history. It contains, indeed, few of the bolder fictions found in the subsequent chronicles and in the popular ballads. Still, it is essentially a poem; and in the spirited scenes at the siege of Alcocer and at the Cortes, as well as in those relating to the Counts of Carrion, it is plain that the author felt his license as a poet. In fact, the very marriage of the daughters of the Cid has been shown to be all but impossible; and thus any real historical foundation seems to be taken away from the chief event which the poem records.[14] This, however, does not at all touch the proper value of the work, which is simple, heroic, and national. Unfortunately, the only ancient manuscript of it known to exist is imperfect, and nowhere informs us who was its author. But what has been lost is not much. It is only a few leaves in the beginning, one leaf in the middle, and some scattered lines in other parts. The conclusion is perfect. Of course, there can be no doubt about the subject or purpose of the whole. It is the development of the character and glory of the Cid, as shown in his achievements in the kingdoms of Saragossa and Valencia, in his triumph over his unworthy sons-in-law, the Counts of Carrion, and their disgrace before the king and Cortes, and, finally, in the second marriage of his two daughters with the Infantes of Navarre and Aragon; the whole ending with a slight allusion to the hero’s death, and a notice of the date of the manuscript.[15]
[13] This is the opinion of John von Müller and of Southey, the latter of whom says, in the Preface to his Chronicle, (p. xi.,) “The poem is to be considered as metrical history, not as metrical romance.” But Huber, in the excellent Vorwort to his Geschichte, (p. xxvi.,) shows this to be a mistake; and in the introduction to his edition of the Chronicle, (Marburg, 1844, 8vo, p. xlii.,) shows further, that the poem was certainly not taken from the old Latin Life, which is the proper foundation for what is historical in our account of the Cid.
[14] Mariana is much troubled about the history of the Cid, and decides nothing (Historia, Lib. X. c. 4);--Sandoval controverts much, and entirely denies the story of the Counts of Carrion (Reyes de Castilla, Pamplona, 1615, fol., f. 54);--and Ferreras (Synopsis Histórica, Madrid, 1775, 4to, Tom. V. pp. 196-198) endeavours to settle what is true and what is fabulous, and agrees with Sandoval about the marriage of the daughters of the Cid with the Counts. Southey (Chronicle, pp. 310-312) argues both sides, and shows his desire to believe the story, but does not absolutely succeed in doing so.
[15] The poem was originally published by Sanchez, in the first volume of his valuable “Poesías Castellanas Anteriores al Siglo XV.” (Madrid, 1779-90, 4 tom., 8vo; reprinted by Ochoa, Paris, 1842, 8vo.) It contains three thousand seven hundred and forty-four lines, and, if the deficiencies in the manuscript were supplied, Sanchez thinks the whole would come up to about four thousand lines. But he saw a copy made in 1596, which, though not entirely faithful, showed that the older manuscript had the same deficiencies then that it has now. Of course, there is little chance that they will ever be supplied.
But the story of the poem constitutes the least of its claims to our notice. In truth, we do not read it at all for its mere facts, which are often detailed with the minuteness and formality of a monkish chronicle; but for its living pictures of the age it represents, and for the vivacity with which it brings up manners and interests so remote from our own experience, that, where they are attempted in formal history, they come to us as cold as the fables of mythology. We read it because it is a contemporary and spirited exhibition of the chivalrous times of Spain, given occasionally with an Homeric simplicity altogether admirable. For the story it tells is not only that of the most romantic achievements, attributed to the most romantic hero of Spanish tradition, but it is mingled continually with domestic and personal details, that bring the character of the Cid and his age near to our own sympathies and interests.[16] The very language in which it is told is the language he himself spoke, still only half developed; disencumbering itself with difficulty from the characteristics of the Latin; its new constructions by no means established; imperfect in its forms, and ill furnished with the connecting particles in which resides so much of the power and grace of all languages; but still breathing the bold, sincere, and original spirit of its times, and showing plainly that it is struggling with success for a place among the other wild elements of the national genius. And, finally, the metre and rhyme into which the whole poem is cast are rude and unsettled: the verse claiming to be of fourteen syllables, divided by an abrupt cæsural pause after the eighth, yet often running out to sixteen or twenty, and sometimes falling back to twelve;[17] but always bearing the impress of a free and fearless spirit, which harmonizes alike with the poet’s language, subject, and age, and so gives to the story a stir and interest, which, though we are separated from it by so many centuries, bring some of its scenes before us like those of a drama.
[16] I would instance the following lines on the famine in Valencia during its Siege by the Cid:--
Mal se aquexan los de Valencia · que non sabent ques’ far; De ninguna part que sea · no les viene pan; Nin da consejo padre à fijo, · nin fijo à padre: Nin amigo à amigo nos · pueden consolar. Mala cuenta es, Señores, · aver mengua de pan, Fijos e mugieres verlo · morir de fambre.
vv. 1183-1188.
Valencian men doubt what to do, · and bitterly complain, That, wheresoe’er they look for bread, · they look for it in vain. No father help can give his child, · no son can help his sire, Nor friend to friend assistance lend, · or cheerfulness inspire. A grievous story, Sirs, it is, · when fails the needed bread, And women fair and children young · in hunger join the dead.
From the use of _Señores_, “Sirs,” in this passage, as well as from other lines, like v. 734 and v. 2291, I have thought the poem was either originally addressed to some particular persons, or was intended--which is most in accordance with the spirit of the age--to be recited publicly.
[17] For example:--
Ferran Gonzalez non vió alli dos’ alzase · nin camara abierta nin torre.--v. 2296.
Feme ante vos yo · è vuestras fijas, Infantes son è · de dias chicas.--vv. 268, 269.
Some of the irregularities of the versification may be owing to the copyist, as we have but one manuscript to depend upon; but they are too grave and too abundant to be charged, on the whole, to any account but that of the original author.
The first pages of the manuscript being lost, what remains to us begins abruptly, at the moment when the Cid, just exiled by his ungrateful king, looks back upon the towers of his castle at Bivar, as he leaves them. “Thus heavily weeping,” the poem goes on, “he turned his head and stood looking at them. He saw his doors open and his household chests unfastened, the hooks empty and without pelisses and without cloaks, and the mews without falcons and without hawks. My Cid sighed, for he had grievous sorrow; but my Cid spake well and calmly: ‘I thank thee, Lord and Father, who art in heaven, that it is my evil enemies who have done this thing unto me.’”
He goes, where all desperate men then went, to the frontiers of the Christian war; and, after establishing his wife and children in a religious house, plunges with three hundred faithful followers into the infidel territories, determined, according to the practice of his time, to win lands and fortunes from the common enemy, and providing for himself meanwhile, according to another practice of his time, by plundering the Jews as if he were a mere Robin Hood. Among his earliest conquests is Alcocer; but the Moors collect in force, and besiege him in their turn, so that he can save himself only by a bold sally, in which he overthrows their whole array. The rescue of his standard, endangered in the onslaught by the rashness of Bermuez, who bore it, is described in the very spirit of knighthood.[18]
[18] Some of the lines of this passage in the original (vv. 723, etc.) may be cited, to show that gravity and dignity were among the prominent attribute of the Spanish language from its first appearance.
Embrazan los escudos · delant los corazones, Abaxan las lanzas apuestas · de los pendones, Enclinaron las caras · de suso de los arzones, Iban los ferir · de fuertes corazones, A grandes voces lama · el que en buen ora nasceò: “Ferid los, cavalleros, por · amor de caridad, Yo soy Ruy Diaz el Cid · Campeador de Bibar,” etc.
Their shields before their breasts, · forth at once they go, Their lances in the rest, · levelled fair and low, Their banners and their crests · waving in a row, Their heads all stooping down · toward the saddle-bow; The Cid was in the midst, · his shout was heard afar, “I am Ruy Diaz, · the champion of Bivar; Strike amongst them, Gentlemen, · for sweet mercies’ sake!” There where Bermuez fought · amidst the foe they brake, Three hundred bannered knights, · it was a gallant show. Three hundred Moors they killed, · a man with every blow; When they wheeled and turned, · as many more lay slain; You might see them raise their lances · and level them again. There you might see the breast-plates · how they were cleft in twain, And many a Moorish shield · lie shattered on the plain, The pennons that were white · marked with a crimson stain, The horses running wild · whose riders had been slain.[19]
[19] This and the two following translations were made by Mr. J. Hookham Frere, one of the most accomplished scholars England has produced, and one whom Sir James Mackintosh has pronounced to be the first of English translators. He was, for some years, British Minister in Spain, and, by a conjectural emendation which he made of a line in _this very poem_, known only to himself and the Marquis de la Romana, was able to accredit a secret agent to the latter in 1808, when he was commanding a body of Spanish troops in the French service on the soil of Denmark;--a circumstance that led to one of the most important movements in the war against Bonaparte. (Southey’s History of the Peninsular War, London, 1823, 4to, Tom. I. p. 657.) The admirable translations of Mr. Frere from the Poem of the Cid, are to be found in the Appendix to Southey’s Chronicle of the Cid; itself an entertaining book, made out of free versions and compositions from the Spanish Poem of the Cid, the old ballads, the prose Chronicle of the Cid, and the General Chronicle of Spain. Mr. Wm. Godwin, in a somewhat singular “Letter of Advice to a Young American on a Course of Studies,” (London, 1818, 8vo,) commends it justly as one of the books best calculated to give an idea of the age of chivalry.
It is proper I should add here, that, except in this case of the Poem of the Cid, where I am indebted to Mr. Frere for the passages in the text, and in the case of the Coplas of Manrique, (Chap. 21 of this Period,) where I am indebted to the beautiful version of Mr. Longfellow, the translations in these volumes are made by myself.
The poem afterwards relates the Cid’s contest with the Count of Barcelona; the taking of Valencia; the reconcilement of the Cid to the king, who had treated him so ill; and the marriage of the Cid’s two daughters, at the king’s request, to the two Counts of Carrion, who were among the first nobles of the kingdom. At this point, however, there is a somewhat formal division of the poem,[20] and the remainder is devoted to what is its principal subject, the dissolution of this marriage in consequence of the baseness and brutality of the Counts; the Cid’s public triumph over them; their no less public disgrace; and the announcement of the second marriage of the Cid’s daughters with the Infantes of Navarre and Aragon, which, of course, raised the Cid himself to the highest pitch of his honors, by connecting him with the royal houses of Spain. With this, therefore, the poem virtually ends.
[20] This division, and some others less distinctly marked, have led Tapia (Historia de la Civilización de España, Madrid, 1840, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 268) to think, that the whole poem is but a congeries of ballads, as the Iliad has sometimes been thought to be, and, as there is little doubt, the Nibelungenlied really is. But such breaks occur so frequently in different parts of it, and seem so generally to be made for other reasons, that this conjecture is not probable. (Huber, Chrónica del Cid, p. xl.) Besides, the whole poem more resembles the Chansons de Geste of old French poetry, and is more artificial in its structure, than the nature of the ballad permits.
The most spirited part of it consists of the scenes at the Cortes, summoned, on demand of the Cid, in consequence of the misconduct of the Counts of Carrion. In one of them, three followers of the Cid challenge three followers of the Counts, and the challenge of Munio Gustioz to Assur Gonzalez is thus characteristically given:--
Assur Gonzalez · was entering at the door, With his ermine mantle · trailing along the floor; With his sauntering pace · and his hardy look, Of manners or of courtesy · little heed he took; He was flushed and hot · with breakfast and with drink. “What ho! my masters, · your spirits seem to sink! Have we no news stirring from the Cid, · Ruy Diaz of Bivar? Has he been to Riodivirna, · to besiege the windmills there? Does he tax the millers for their toll? · or is that practice past? Will he make a match for his daughters, · another like the last?” Munio Gustioz · rose and made reply:-- “Traitor, wilt thou never cease · to slander and to lie? You breakfast before mass, · you drink before you pray; There is no honor in your heart, · nor truth in what you say; You cheat your comrade and your lord, · you flatter to betray; Your hatred I despise, · your friendship I defy! False to all mankind, · and most to God on high, I shall force you to confess · that what I say is true.” Thus was ended the parley · and challenge betwixt these two.[21]
[21] Asur Gonzalez entraba · por el palacio; Manto armino è un · Brial rastrando: Bermeio viene, · ca era almorzado. En lo que fabló · avie poco recabdo. “Hya varones, quien · vió nunca tal mal? Quien nos darie nuevas · de Mio Cid, el de Bibar? Fues’ á Riodouirna · los molinos picar, E prender maquilas · como lo suele far’: Quil’ darie con los · de Carrion a casar’?” Esora Muno Gustioz · en pie se levantó: “Cala, alevoso, · malo, è traydor: Antes almuerzas, · que bayas à oracion: A los que das paz, · fartas los aderredor. Non dices verdad · amigo ni à Señor, Falso à todos · è mas al Criador. En tu amistad non · quiero aver racion. Facertelo decir, que · tal eres qual digo yo.”
Sanchez. Tom. I., p. 359.
This passage, with what precedes and what follows it, may be compared with the challenge in Shakspeare’s “Richard II.,” Act IV.
The opening of the lists for the six combatants, in the presence of the king, is another passage of much spirit and effect.
The heralds and the king · are foremost in the place. They clear away the people · from the middle space; They measure out the lists, · the barriers they fix, They point them out in order · and explain to all the six: “If you are forced beyond the line · where they are fixed and traced, You shall be held as conquered · and beaten and disgraced.” Six lances’ length on either side · an open space is laid; They share the field between them, · the sunshine and the shade. Their office is performed, · and from the middle space The heralds are withdrawn · and leave them face to face. Here stood the warriors of the Cid, · that noble champion; Opposite, on the other side, · the lords of Carrion. Earnestly their minds are fixed · each upon his foe. Face to face they take their place, · anon the trumpets blow; They stir their horses with the spur, · they lay their lances low, They bend their shields before their breasts, · their face to the saddle-bow. Earnestly their minds are fixed · each upon his foe. The heavens are overcast above, · the earth trembles below; The people stand in silence, · gazing on the show.[22]
[22] Los Fieles è el rey · enseñaron los moiones. Librabanse del campo · todos aderredor: Bien gelo demostraron · à todos seis como son, Que por y serie vencido · qui saliese del moion. Todas las yentes · esconbraron aderredor De seis astas de lanzas · que non legasen al moion. Sorteabanles el campo, · ya les partien el sol: Salien los Fieles de medio, · ellos cara por cara son. Desi vinien los de Mio Cid · à los Infantes de Carrion, Ellos Infantes de Carrion · à los del Campeador. Cada uno dellos mientes · tiene al so. Abrazan los escudos · delant’ los corazones: Abaxan las lanzas · abueltas con los pendones: Enclinaban las caras · sobre los arzones: Batien los cavallos · con los espolones: Tembrar querie la tierra · dod eran movedores. Cada uno dellos mientes · tiene al só.
Sanchez, Tom. I. p. 368.
A parallel passage from Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale”--the combat between Palamon and Arcite (Tyrwhitt’s edit., v. 2601)--should not be overlooked.
“The heraudes left hir priking up and down, Now ringen trompes loud and clarioun, There is no more to say, but est and west, In gon the speres sadly in the rest; In goth the sharpe spore into the side: Ther see men who can just and who can ride.”
And so on twenty lines farther, both in the English and the Spanish. But it should be borne in mind, when comparing them, that the Poem of the Cid was written two centuries earlier than the “Canterbury Tales” were.
These are among the most picturesque passages in the poem. But it is throughout striking and original. It is, too, no less national, Christian, and loyal. It breathes everywhere the true Castilian spirit, such as the old chronicles represent it amidst the achievements and disasters of the Moorish wars; and has very few traces of an Arabic influence in its language, and none at all in its imagery or fancies. The whole of it, therefore, deserves to be read, and to be read in the original; for it is there only that we can obtain the fresh impressions it is fitted to give us of the rude but heroic period it represents: of the simplicity of the governments, and the loyalty and true-heartedness of the people; of the wide force of a primitive religious enthusiasm; of the picturesque state of manners and daily life in an age of trouble and confusion; and of the bold outlines of the national genius, which are often struck out where we should least think to find them. It is, indeed, a work which, as we read it, stirs us with the spirit of the times it describes; and as we lay it down and recollect the intellectual condition of Europe when it was written, and for a long period before, it seems certain, that, during the thousand years which elapsed from the time of the decay of Greek and Roman culture, down to the appearance of the “Divina Commedia,” no poetry was produced so original in its tone, or so full of natural feeling, picturesqueness, and energy.[23]
[23] The change of opinion in relation to the Poema del Cid, and the different estimates of its value, are remarkable circumstances in its history. Bouterwek speaks of it very slightingly,--probably from following Sarmiento, who had not read it,--and the Spanish translators of Bouterwek almost agree with him. F. v. Schlegel, however, Sismondi, Huber, Wolf, and nearly or quite all who have spoken of it of late, express a strong admiration of its merits. There is, I think, truth in the remark of Southey (Quarterly Review, 1814, Vol. XII. p. 64): “The Spaniards have not yet discovered the high value of their metrical history of the Cid, as a poem; they will never produce any thing great in the higher branches of art, till they have cast off the false taste which prevents them from perceiving it.”
Of all poems belonging to the early ages of any modern nation, the one that can best be compared with the Poem of the Cid is the Nibelungenlied, which, according to the most judicious among the German critics, dates, in its present form at least, about half a century after the time assigned to the Poem of the Cid. A parallel might easily be run between them, that would be curious.
In the Jahrbücher der Literatur, Wien, 1846, Band CXVI., M. Francisque Michel, the scholar to whom the literature of the Middle Ages owes so much, published, for the first time, what remains of an old poetical Spanish chronicle,--“Chrónica Rimada de las Cosas de España,”--on the history of Spain from the death of Pelayo to Ferdinand the Great;--the same poem that is noticed in Ochoa, “Catálogo de Manuscritos,” (Paris, 1844, 4to, pp. 106-110,) and in Huber’s edition of the Chronicle of the Cid, Preface, App. E.
It is a curious, though not important, contribution to our resources in early Spanish literature, and one that immediately reminds us of the old Poem of the Cid. It begins with a prose introduction on the state of affairs down to the time of Fernan Gonzalez, compressed into a single page, and then goes on through eleven hundred and twenty-six lines of verse, when it breaks off abruptly in the middle of a line, as if the copyist had been interrupted, but with no sign that the work was drawing to an end. Nearly the whole of it is taken up with the history of the Cid, his family and his adventures, which are sometimes different from those in the old ballads and chronicles. Thus, Ximena is represented as having three brothers, who are taken prisoners by the Moors and released by the Cid; and the Cid is made to marry Ximena, by the royal command, against his own will; after which he goes to Paris, in the days of the Twelve Peers, and performs feats like those in the romances of chivalry. This, of course, is all new. But the old stories are altered and amplified, like those of the Cid’s charity to the leper, which is given with a more picturesque air, and of Ximena and the king, and of the Cid and his father, which are partly thrown into dialogue, not without dramatic effect. The whole is a free version of the old traditions of the country, apparently made in the fifteenth century, after the fictions of chivalry began to be known, and with the intention of giving the Cid rank among their heroes.
The measure is that of the long verses used in the older Spanish poetry, with a cæsural pause near the middle of each, and the termination of the lines is in the _asonante_ a-o.[*] But in all this there is great irregularity;--many of the verses running out to twenty or more syllables, and several passages failing to observe the proper _asonante_. Every thing indicates that the old ballads were familiar to the author, and from one passage I infer that he knew the old poem of the Cid:--
Veredes lidiar a porfia · e tan firme se dar, Atantos pendones obrados · alçar e abaxar, Atantas lanças quebradas · por el primor quebrar, Atantos cavallos caer · e non se levantar, Atanto cavallo sin dueño · por el campo andar.
vv. 895-899.
The preceding lines seem imitated from the Cid’s fight before Alcocer, in such a way as to leave no doubt that its author had seen the old poem:--
Veriedes tantas lanzas · premer è alzar; Tanta adarga à · foradar è pasar; Tanta loriga falsa · desmanchar; Tantos pendones blancos · salir bermeios en sangre; Tantos buenos cavallos · sin sos duenos andar.
vv. 734-738.
[*] For the meaning of _asonante_, and an explanation of _asonante_ verse, see Chap. VI. and the notes to it.
Three other poems, anonymous like that of the Cid, have been placed immediately after it, because they are found together in a single manuscript assigned to the thirteenth century, and because the language and style of at least the first of them seem to justify the conjecture that carries it so far back.[24]
[24] The only knowledge of the manuscript containing these three poems was long derived from a few extracts in the “Biblioteca Española” of Rodriguez de Castro;--an important work, whose author was born in Galicia, in 1739, and died at Madrid, in 1799. The first volume, printed in 1781, in folio, under the patronage of the Count Florida Blanca, consists of a chronological account of the Rabbinical writers who appeared in Spain from the earliest times to his own, whether they wrote in Hebrew, Spanish, or any other language. The second, printed in 1786, consists of a similar account of the Spanish writers, heathen and Christian, who wrote either in Latin or in Spanish down to the end of the thirteenth century, and whose number he makes about two hundred. Both volumes are somewhat inartifically compiled, and the literary opinions they express are of small value; but their materials, largely derived from manuscripts, are curious, and frequently such as can be found in print nowhere else.
In this work, (Madrid, 1786, fol., Vol. II. pp. 504, 505,) and for a long time, as I have said, there alone, were found notices of these poems; but all of them were printed at the end of the Paris edition of Sanchez’s “Coleccion de Poesías Anteriores al Siglo XV.,” from a copy of the original manuscript in the Escurial, marked there III. K. 4to. Judging by the specimens given in De Castro, the spelling of the manuscript has not been carefully followed in the copy used for the Paris edition.
The poem with which this manuscript opens is called “The Book of Apollonius,” and is the reproduction of a story whose origin is obscure, but which is itself familiar to us in the eighth book of Gower’s “Confessio Amantis,” and in the play of “Pericles,” that has sometimes been attributed to Shakspeare. It is found in Greek rhyme very early, but is here taken, almost without alteration of incident, from that great repository of popular fiction in the Middle Ages, the “Gesta Romanorum.” It consists of about twenty-six hundred lines, divided into stanzas of four verses, all terminating with the same rhyme. At the beginning, the author says, in his own person,--
In God’s name the most holy · and Saint Mary’s name most dear, If they but guide and keep me · in their blessed love and fear, I will strive to write a tale, · in mastery new and clear, Where of royal Apollonius · the courtly you shall hear.
The new mastery or method--_nueva maestría_--here claimed may be the structure of the stanza and its rhyme; for, in other respects, the versification is like that of the Poem of the Cid; showing, however, more skill and exactness in the mere measure, and a slight improvement in the language. But the merit of the poem is small. It contains occasional notices of the manners of the age when it was produced,--among the rest, some sketches of a female _jongleur_, of the class soon afterwards severely denounced in the laws of Alfonso the Wise,--that are curious and interesting. Its chief attraction, however, is its story, and this, unhappily, is not original.[25]
[25] The story of Apollonius, Prince of Tyre, as it is commonly called, and as we have its incidents in this long poem, is the 153d tale of the “Gesta Romanorum” (s. l., 1488, fol.). It is, however, much older than that collection. (Douce, Illustrations of Shakspeare, London, 1807, 8vo, Vol. II. p. 135; and Swan’s translation of the Gesta, London, 1824, 12mo, Vol. II. pp. 164-495.) Two words in the original Spanish of the passage translated in the text should be explained. The author says,--
Estudiar querria Componer un _romance_ de nueva _maestría_.
_Romance_ here evidently means _story_, and this is the earliest use of the word in this sense that I know of. _Maestría_, like our old English _Maisterie_, means _art_ or _skill_, as in Chaucer, being the word afterwards corrupted into _Mystery_.
The next poem in the collection is called “The Life of our Lady, Saint Mary of Egypt,”--a saint formerly much more famous than she is now, and one whose history is so coarse and indecent, that it has often been rejected by the wiser members of the church that canonized her. Such as it appears in the old traditions, however, with all its sins upon its head, it is here set forth. But we notice at once a considerable difference between the composition of its verse and that of any Castilian poetry assigned to the same or an earlier period. It is written in short lines, generally of eight syllables, and in couplets; but sometimes a single line carelessly runs out to the number of ten or eleven syllables; and, in a few instances, three or even four lines are included in one rhyme. It has a light air, quite unlike the stateliness of the Poem of the Cid, and seems, from its verse and tone, as well as from a few French words scattered through it, to have been borrowed from some of the earlier French Fabliaux, or, at any rate, to have been written in imitation of their easy and garrulous style. It opens thus, showing that it was intended for recitation:--
Listen, ye lordlings, listen to me, For true is my tale, as true can be; And listen in heart, that so ye may Have pardon, when humbly to God ye pray.
It consists of fourteen hundred such meagre, monkish verses, and is hardly of importance, except as a monument of the language at the period when it was written.[26]
[26] St. Mary of Egypt was a saint of great repute in Spain and Portugal, and had her adventures written by Pedro de Ribadeneyra in 1609, and Diogo Vas Carrillo in 1673; they were also fully given in the “Flos Sanctorum” of the former, and, in a more attractive form, by Bartolomé Cayrasco de Figueroa, at the end of his “Templo Militante,” (Valladolid, 1602, 12mo,) where they fill about 130 flowing octave stanzas, and by Montalvan, in the drama of “La Gitana de Menfis.” She has, too, a church dedicated to her at Rome on the bank of the Tiber, made out of the graceful ruins of the temple of Fortuna Virilis. But her coarse history has often been rejected as apocryphal, or at least as unfit to be repeated. Bayle, Dictionaire Historique et Critique, Amsterdam, 1740, fol., Tom. III. pp. 334-336.
The last of the three poems is in the same irregular measure and manner. It is called “The Adoration of the Three Holy Kings,” and begins with the old tradition about the wise men that came from the East; but its chief subject is an arrest of the Holy Family, during their flight to Egypt, by robbers, the child of one of whom is cured of a hideous leprosy by being bathed in water previously used for bathing the Saviour; this same child afterwards turning out to be the penitent thief of the crucifixion. It is a rhymed legend of only two hundred and fifty lines, and belongs to the large class of such compositions that were long popular in Western Europe.[27]
[27] Both of the last poems in this MS. were first printed by Pidal in the Revista de Madrid, 1841, and, as it would seem, from bad copies. At least, they contain many more inaccuracies of spelling, versification, and style than the first, and appear to be of a later age; for I do not think the French Fabliaux, which they imitate, were known in Spain till after the period commonly assigned to the Apollonius.
* * * * *
Thus far, the poetry of the first century of Spanish literature, like the earliest poetry of other modern countries, is anonymous; for authorship was a distinction rarely coveted or thought of by those who wrote in any of the dialects then forming throughout Europe, among the common people. It is even impossible to tell from what part of the Christian conquests in Spain the poems of which we have spoken have come to us. We may infer, indeed, from their language and tone, that the Poem of the Cid belongs to the border country of the Moorish war in the direction of Catalonia and Valencia, and that the earliest ballads, of which we shall speak hereafter, came originally from the midst of the contest, with whose very spirit they are often imbued. In the same way, too, we may be persuaded that the poems of a more religious temper were produced in the quieter kingdoms of the North, where monasteries had been founded and Christianity had already struck its roots deeply into the soil of the national character. Still, we have no evidence to show where any one of the poems we have thus far noticed was written.
But as we advance, this state of things is changed. The next poetry we meet is by a known author, and, comes from a known locality. It was written by Gonzalo, a secular priest who belonged to the monastery of San Millan or Saint Emilianus, in the territory of Calahorra, far within the borders of the Moorish war, and who is commonly called Berceo, from the place of his birth. Of the poet himself we know little, except that he flourished from 1220 to 1246, and that, as he once speaks of suffering from the weariness of old age,[28] he probably died after 1260, in the reign of Alfonso the Wise.[29]
[28] It is in Sta. Oria, st. 2.
Quiero en mi vegez, maguer so ya cansado, De esta santa Virgen romanzar su dictado.
[29] Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. II. p. iv.; Tom. III. pp. xliv.-lvi. As Berceo was ordained Deacon in 1221, he must have been born as early as 1198, since deacon’s orders were not taken before the age of twenty-three. See some curious remarks on the subject of Berceo in the “Examen Crítico del Tomo Primero de el Anti-Quixote,” (Madrid, 1806, 12mo, pp. 22 et seq.,) an anonymous pamphlet, written, I believe, by Pellicer, the editor of Don Quixote.
His works amount to above thirteen thousand lines, and fill an octavo volume.[30] They are all on religious subjects, and consist of rhymed Lives of San Domingo de Silos, Santa Oria, and San Millan; poems on the Mass, the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, the Merits of the Madonna, the Signs that are to precede the Last Judgment, and the Mourning of the Madonna at the Cross, with a few Hymns, and especially a poem of more than three thousand six hundred lines on the Miracles of the Virgin Mary. With one inconsiderable exception, the whole of this formidable mass of verse is divided into stanzas of four lines each, like those in the poem of Apollonius of Tyre; and though in the language there is a perceptible advance since the days when the Poem of the Cid was written, still the power and movement of that remarkable legend are entirely wanting in the verses of the careful ecclesiastic.[31]
[30] The second volume of Sanchez’s Poesías Anteriores.
[31] The metrical form adopted by Berceo, which he himself calls the _quaderna via_, and which is in fact that of the poem of Apollonius, should be particularly noticed, because it continued to be a favorite one in Spain for above two centuries. The following stanzas, which are among the best in Berceo, may serve as a favorable specimen of its character. They are from the “Signs of the Judgment,” Sanchez, Tom. II. p. 274.
Esti sera el uno · de los signos dubdados: Subira a los nubes · el mar muchos estados, Mas alto que las sierras · è mas que los collados, Tanto que en sequero · fincaran los pescados.
Las aves esso mesmo · menudas è granadas Andaran dando gritos · todas mal espantadas; Assi faran las bestias · por domar è domadas, Non podran à la noche · tornar à sus posadas.
And this shall be one of the signs · that fill with doubts and fright: The sea its waves shall gather up, · and lift them, in its might, Up to the clouds, and far above · the dark sierra’s height, Leaving the fishes on dry land, · a strange and fearful sight.
The birds besides that fill the air, · the birds both small and great, Shall screaming fly and wheel about, · scared by their coming fate; And quadrupeds, both those we tame · and those in untamed state, Shall wander round nor shelter find · where safe they wonned of late.
There was, no doubt, difficulty in such a protracted system of rhyme, but not much; and when rhyme first appeared in the modern languages, an excess of it was the natural consequence of its novelty. In large portions of the Provençal poetry, its abundance is quite ridiculous; as in the “Croisade contre les Hérétiques Albigeois,”--a remarkable poem, dating from 1210, excellently edited by M. C. Fauriel, (Paris, 1837, 4to,)--in which stanzas occur where the same rhyme is repeated above a hundred times. When and where this quaternion rhyme, as it is used by Berceo, was first introduced, cannot be determined; but it seems to have been very early employed in poems that were to be publicly recited. (F. Wolf, Ueber die Lais, Wien. 1841, 8vo, p. 257.) The oldest example I know of it, in a modern dialect, dates from about 1100, and is found in the curious MS. of Poetry of the Waldenses (F. Diez, Troubadours, Zwickau, 1826, 8vo, p. 230) used by Raynouard;--the instance to which I refer being “Lo novel Confort,” (Poésies des Troubadours, Paris, 1817, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 111,) which begins,--
Aquest novel confort de vertuos lavor Mando, vos scrivent en carita et en amor: Prego vos carament per l’amor del segnor, Abandona lo segle, serve a Dio cum temor.
In Spain, whither it no doubt came from Provence, its history is simply,--that it occurs in the poem of Apollonius; that it gets its first known date in Berceo about 1230; and that it continued in use till the end of the fourteenth century.
The thirteen thousand verses of Berceo’s poetry, including even the Hymns, are, with the exception of about twenty lines of the “Duelo de la Vírgen,” in this measure. These twenty lines constitute a song of the Jews who watched the sepulchre after the crucifixion, and, like the parts of the demons in the old Mysteries, are intended to be droll, but are, in fact, as Berceo himself says of them, more truly than perhaps he was aware, “not worth three figs.” They are, however, of some consequence, as perhaps the earliest specimen of Spanish lyrical poetry that has come down to us with a date. They begin thus:--
Velat, aliama de los Judios, Eya velar! Que no vos furten el fijo de Dios, Eya velar! Car furtarvoslo querran, Eya velar! Andre è Piedro et Johan, Eya velar!
Duelo, 178-9.
Watch, congregation of the Jew, Up and watch! Lest they should steal God’s son from you, Up and watch! For they will seek to steal the son, Up and watch! His followers, Andrew, and Peter, and John, Up and watch!
Sanchez considers it a _Villancico_, to be sung like a litany (Tom. IV. p. ix.); and Martinez de la Rosa treats it much in the same way. Obras, Paris, 1827, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 161.
In general, the versification of Berceo is regular,--sometimes it is harmonious; and though he now and then indulges himself in imperfect rhymes, that may be the beginning of the national _asonantes_ (Sanchez, Tom. II. p. xv.) still the license he takes is much less than might be anticipated. Indeed, Sanchez represents the harmony and finish of his versification as quite surprising, and uses stronger language in relation to it than seems justifiable, considering some of the facts he admits. Tom. II. p. xi.
“The Life of San Domingo de Silos,” with which his volume opens, begins, like a homily, with these words: “In the name of the Father, who made all things, and of our Lord Jesus Christ, son of the glorious Virgin, and of the Holy Spirit, who is equal with them, I intend to tell a story of a holy confessor. I intend to tell a story in the plain Romance, in which the common man is wont to talk to his neighbour; for I am not so learned as to use the other Latin. It will be well worth, as I think, a cup of good wine.”[32] Of course, there is no poetry in thoughts like these; and much of what Berceo has left us does not rise higher.
[32] San Domingo de Silos, st. 1 and 2. The Saviour, according to the fashion of the age, is called, in v. 2, _Don_ Jesu Christo,--the word then being synonymous with Dominus. See a curious note on its use, in Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Madrid, 1836, 4to, Tom. V. p. 408.
Occasionally, however, we find better things. In some portions of his work, there is a simple-hearted piety that is very attractive, and in some, a story-telling spirit that is occasionally picturesque. The best passages are to be found in his long poem on the “Miracles of the Virgin,” which consists of a series of twenty-five tales of her intervention in human affairs, composed evidently for the purpose of increasing the spirit of devotion in the worship particularly paid to her. The opening or induction to these tales contains, perhaps, the most poetical passage in Berceo’s works; and in the following version the measure and system of rhyme in the original have been preserved, so as to give something of its air and manner:--
My friends, and faithful vassals · of Almighty God above, If ye listen to my words · in a spirit to improve, A tale ye shall hear · of piety and love, Which afterwards yourselves · shall heartily approve.
I, a master in Divinity, · Gonzalve Berceo hight, Once wandering as a Pilgrim, · found a meadow richly dight, Green and peopled full of flowers, · of flowers fair and bright, A place where a weary man · would rest him with delight.
And the flowers I beheld · all looked and smelt so sweet, That the senses and the soul · they seemed alike to greet; While on every side ran fountains · through all this glad retreat, Which in winter kindly warmth supplied, · yet tempered summer’s heat.
And of rich and goodly trees · there grew a boundless maze, Granada’s apples bright, · and figs of golden rays, And many other fruits, · beyond my skill to praise; But none that turneth sour, · and none that e’er decays.
The freshness of that meadow, · the sweetness of its flowers, The dewy shadows of the trees, · that fell like cooling showers, Renewed within my frame · its worn and wasted powers; I deem the very odors would · have nourished me for hours.[33]
[33] Amigos è vasallos de · Dios omnipotent, Si vos me escuchasedes · por vuestro consiment, Querriavos contar un · buen aveniment: Terrédeslo en cabo por · bueno verament.
Yo Maestro Gonzalvo de · Berceo nomnado Iendo en Romeria · caeci en un prado, Verde è bien sencido, · de flores bien poblado, Logar cobdiciaduero · pora ome cansado.
Daban olor sobeio · las flores bien olientes, Refrescaban en ome · las caras è las mientes, Manaban cada canto · fuentes claras corrientes, En verano bien frias, · en yvierno calientes.
Avie hy grand abondo · de buenas arboledas, Milgranos è figueras, · peros è mazanedas, E muchas otras fructas · de diversas monedas; Mas non avie ningunas · podridas nin acedas.
La verdura del prado, · la olor de las flores, Las sombras de los arbores · de temprados sabores Refrescaronme todo, · è perdi los sudores: Podrie vevir el ome · con aquellos olores.
Sanchez, Tom. II. p. 285.
This induction, which is continued through forty stanzas more, of unequal merit, is little connected with the stories that follow; the stories, again, are not at all connected among themselves; and the whole ends abruptly with a few lines of homage to the Madonna. It is, therefore, inartificial in its structure throughout. But in the narrative parts there is often naturalness and spirit, and sometimes, though rarely, poetry. The tales themselves belong to the religious fictions of the Middle Ages, and were no doubt intended to excite devout feelings in those to whom they were addressed; but, like the old Mysteries, and much else that passed under the name of religion at the same period, they often betray a very doubtful morality.[34]
[34] A good account of this part of Berceo’s works, though, I think, somewhat too severe, is to be found in Dr. Dunham’s “History of Spain and Portugal,” (London, 1832, 18mo, Tom. IV. pp. 215-229,) a work of merit, the early part of which, as in the case of Berceo, rests more frequently than might be expected on original authorities. Excellent translations will be found in Prof. Longfellow’s Introductory Essay to his version of the Coplas de Manrique, Boston, 1833, 12mo, pp. 5 and 10.
“The Miracles of the Virgin” is not only the longest, but the most curious, of the poems of Berceo. The rest, however, should not be entirely neglected. The poem on the “Signs which shall precede the Judgment” is often solemn, and once or twice rises to poetry; the story of María de Cisneros, in the “Life of San Domingo,” is well told, and so is that of the wild appearance in the heavens of Saint James and Saint Millan fighting for the Christians at the battle of Simancas, much as it is found in the “General Chronicle of Spain.” But perhaps nothing is more characteristic of the author or of his age than the spirit of childlike simplicity and religious tenderness that breathes through several parts of the “Mourning of the Madonna at the Cross,”--a spirit of gentle, faithful, credulous devotion, with which the Spanish people in their wars against the Moors were as naturally marked as they were with the ignorance that belonged to the Christian world generally in those dark and troubled times.[35]
[35] For example, when the Madonna is represented looking at the cross, and addressing her expiring son:--
Fiio, siempre oviemos · io è tu una vida; Io à ti quisi mucho, · è fui de ti querida; Io sempre te crey, · è fui de ti creida; La tu piedad larga · ahora me oblida?
Fiio, non me oblides · è lievame contigo, Non me finca en sieglo · mas de un buen amigo; Juan quem dist por fiio · aqui plora conmigo: Ruegote quem condones · esto que io te digo.
St. 78, 79.
I read these stanzas with a feeling akin to that with which I should look at a picture on the same subject by Perugino. They may be translated thus:--
My son, in thee and me · life still was felt as one; I loved thee much, and thou lovedst me · in perfectness, my son; My faith in thee was sure, · and I thy faith had won; And doth thy large and pitying love · forget me now, my son?
My son, forget me not, · but take my soul with thine; The earth holds but one heart · that kindred is with mine,-- John, whom thou gavest to be my child, · who here with me doth pine; I pray thee, then, that to my prayer · thou graciously incline.
* * * * *
I cannot pass farther without offering the tribute of my homage to two persons who have done more than any others in the nineteenth century to make Spanish literature known, and to obtain for it the honors to which it is entitled beyond the limits of the country that gave it birth.
The first of them, and one whose name I have already cited, is Friedrich Bouterwek, who was born at Oker in the kingdom of Hanover, in 1766, and passed nearly all the more active portion of his life at Göttingen, where he died in 1828, widely respected as one of the most distinguished professors of that long favored University. A project for preparing by the most competent hands a full history of the arts and sciences from the period of their revival in modern Europe was first suggested at Göttingen by another of its well-known professors, John Gottfried Eichhorn, in the latter part of the eighteenth century. But though that remarkable scholar published, in 1796-9, two volumes of a learned Introduction to the whole work which he had projected, he went no farther, and most of his coadjutors stopped when he did, or soon afterwards. The portion of it assigned to Bouterwek, however, which was the entire history of elegant literature in modern times, was happily achieved by him between 1801 and 1819, in twelve volumes octavo. Of this division, “The History of Spanish Literature” fills the third volume, and was published in 1804;--a work remarkable for its general philosophical views, and by far the best extant on the subject it discusses; but imperfect in many particulars, because its author was unable to procure a large number of Spanish books needful for his task, and knew many considerable Spanish authors only by insufficient extracts. In 1812, a translation of it into French was printed, in two volumes, by Madame Streck, with a judicious preface by the venerable M. Stapfer;--in 1823, it came out, together with its author’s brief “History of Portuguese Literature,” in an English translation, made with taste and skill, by Miss Thomasina Ross;--and in 1829, a Spanish version of the first and smallest part of it, with important notes, sufficient with the text to fill a volume in octavo, was prepared by two excellent Spanish scholars, José Gomez de la Cortina, and Nicolás Hugalde y Mollinedo,--a work which all lovers of Spanish literature would gladly see completed.
Since the time of Bouterwek, no foreigner has done so much to promote a knowledge of Spanish literature as M. Simonde de Sismondi, who was born at Geneva in 1773, and died there in 1842, honored and loved by all who knew his wise and generous spirit, as it exhibited itself either in his personal intercourse, or in his great works on the history of France and Italy,--two countries, to which, by a line of time-honored ancestors, he seemed almost equally to belong. In 1811, he delivered in his native city a course of brilliant lectures on the literature of the South of Europe, and in 1813, published them at Paris. They involved an account of the Provençal and the Portuguese, as well as of the Italian and the Spanish;--but in whatever relates to the Spanish Sismondi was even less well provided with the original authors than Bouterwek had been, and was, in consequence, under obligations to his predecessor, which, while he takes no pains to conceal them, diminish the authority of a work that will yet always be read for the beauty of its style and the richness and wisdom of its reflections. The entire series of these lectures was translated into German by L. Hain in 1815, and into English with notes by T. Roscoe in 1823. The part relating to Spanish literature was published in Spanish, with occasional alterations and copious and important additions by José Lorenzo Figueroa and José Amador de los Rios, at Seville, in 2 vols. 8vo, 1841-2,--the notes relating to Andalusian authors being particularly valuable.
None but those who have gone over the whole ground occupied by Spanish literature can know how great are the merits of scholars like Bouterwek and Sismondi,--acute, philosophical, and thoughtful,--who, with an apparatus of authors so incomplete, have yet done so much for the illustration of their subject.
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