CHAPTER IV

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JUAN LORENZO SEGURA.--CONFUSION OF ANCIENT AND MODERN MANNERS.--EL ALEXANDRO, ITS STORY AND MERITS.--LOS VOTOS DEL PAVON.--SANCHO EL BRAVO.--DON JUAN MANUEL, HIS LIFE AND WORKS, PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED.--HIS CONDE LUCANOR.

The proof that the “Partidas” were in advance of their age, both as to style and language, is plain, not only from the examination we have made of what preceded them, but from a comparison of them, which we must now make, with the poetry of Juan Lorenzo Segura, who lived at the time they were compiled, and probably somewhat later. Like Berceo, he was a secular priest, and he belonged to Astorga; but this is all we know of him, except that he lived in the latter part of the thirteenth century, and has left a poem of above ten thousand lines on the life of Alexander the Great, drawn from such sources as were then accessible to a Spanish ecclesiastic, and written in the four-line stanza used by Berceo.[78]

[78] The Alexandro fills the third volume of the Poesías Anteriores of Sanchez, and was for a long time strangely attributed to Alfonso the Wise, (Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus, ed. Bayer, Matriti, 1787-8, fol., Tom. II. p. 79, and Mondejar, Memorias, pp. 458, 459,) though the last lines of the poem itself declare its author to be Johan Lorenzo Segura.

What is most obvious in this long poem is its confounding the manners of a well-known age of Grecian antiquity with those of the Catholic religion, and of knighthood, as they existed in the days of its author. Similar confusion is found in some portion of the early literature of every country in modern Europe. In all, there was a period when the striking facts of ancient history, and the picturesque fictions of ancient fable, floating about among the traditions of the Middle Ages, were seized upon as materials for poetry and romance; and when, to fill up and finish the picture presented by their imaginations to those who thus misapplied an imperfect knowledge of antiquity, the manners and feelings of their own times were incongruously thrown in, either from an ignorant persuasion that none other had ever existed, or from a wilful carelessness concerning every thing but poetical effect. This was the case in Italy, from the first dawning of letters till after the time of Dante; the sublime and tender poetry of whose “Divina Commedia” is full of such absurdities and anachronisms. It was the case, too, in France; examples singularly in point being found in the Latin poem of Walter de Chatillon, and the French one by Alexandre de Paris, on this same subject of Alexander the Great; both of which were written nearly a century before Juan Lorenzo lived, and both of which were used by him.[79] And it was the case in England, till after the time of Shakspeare, whose “Midsummer Night’s Dream” does all that genius can do to justify it. We must not, therefore, be surprised to find it in Spain, where, derived from such monstrous repositories of fiction as the works of Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis, Guido de Colonna and Walter de Chatillon, some of the histories and fancies of ancient times already filled the thoughts of those men who were unconsciously beginning the fabric of their country’s literature on foundations essentially different.

[79] Walter de Chatillon’s Latin poem on Alexander the Great was so popular, that it was taught in the rhetorical schools, to the exclusion of Lucan and Virgil. (Warton’s English Poetry, London, 1824, 8vo, Vol. I. p. clxvii.) The French poem begun by Lambert li Cors, and finished by Alexandre de Paris, was less valued, but much read. Ginguené, in the Hist. Lit. de la France, Paris, 4to, Tom. XV. 1820, pp. 100-127.

Among the most attractive subjects that offered themselves to such persons was that of Alexander the Great. The East--Persia, Arabia, and India--had long been full of stories of his adventures;[80] and now, in the West, as a hero more nearly approaching the spirit of knighthood than any other of antiquity, he was adopted into the poetical fictions of almost every nation that could boast the beginning of a literature, so that the Monk in the “Canterbury Tales” said truly,--

[80] Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, Vol. I Part II. pp. 5-23, a curious paper by Sir W. Ouseley.

“The storie of Alexandre is so commune, That every wight, that hath discretion, Hath herd somewhat or all of his fortune.”

Juan Lorenzo took this story substantially as he had read it in the “Alexandreïs” of Walter de Chatillon, whom he repeatedly cites;[81] but he has added whatever he found elsewhere, or in his own imagination, that seemed suited to his purpose, which was by no means that of becoming a mere translator. After a short introduction, he comes at once to his subject thus, in the fifth stanza:--

[81] Coplas 225, 1452, and 1639, where Segura gives three Latin lines from Walter.

I desire to teach the story · of a noble pagan king, With whose valor and bold heart · the world once did ring: For the world he overcame, · like a very little thing; And a clerkly name I shall gain, · if his story I can sing.

This prince was Alexander, · and Greece it was his right; Frank and bold he was in arms, · and in knowledge took delight; Darius’ power he overthrew, · and Porus, kings of might, And for suffering and for patience · the world held no such wight.

Now the infant Alexander · showed plainly from the first, That he through every hindrance · with prowess great would burst; For by a servile breast · he never would be nursed, And less than gentle lineage · to serve him never durst.

And mighty signs when he was born · foretold his coming worth: The air was troubled, and the sun · his brightness put not forth, The sea was angry all, · and shook the solid earth, The world was wellnigh perishing · for terror at his birth.[82]

[82] Quiero leer un libro · de un rey noble pagano, Que fue de grant esforcio, · de corazon lozano, Conquistó todel mundo, · metiol so su mano, Terné, se lo compriere, · que soe bon escribano.

Del Princepe Alexandre, · que fue rey de Grecia, Que fue franc è ardit · è de grant sabencia. Venció Poro è Dário, · dos Reyes de grant potencia, Nunca conosció ome su par · en la sufrencia.

El infante Alexandre · luego en su ninnéz Comenzó à demostrar · que seríe de grant prez: Nunca quiso mamar leche · de mugier rafez, Se non fue de linage · è de grant gentiléz.

Grandes signos contiron · quando est infant nasció: El ayre fue cambiado, · el sol escureció, Todol mar fue irado, · la tierra tremeció, Por poco quel mundo · todo non pereció.

Sanchez, Tom. III. p. 1.

Then comes the history of Alexander, mingled with the fables and extravagances of the times; given generally with the dulness of a chronicle, but sometimes showing a poetical spirit. Before setting out on his grand expedition to the East, he is knighted, and receives an enchanted sword made by Don Vulcan, a girdle made by Doña Philosophy, and a shirt made by two sea fairies,--_duas fadas enna mar_.[83] The conquest of Asia follows soon afterwards, in the course of which the Bishop of Jerusalem orders mass to be said to stay the conqueror, as he approaches the Jewish capital.[84]

[83] Coplas 78, 80, 83, 89, etc.

[84] Coplas 1086-1094, etc.

In general, the known outline of Alexander’s adventures is followed, but there are a good many whimsical digressions; and when the Macedonian forces pass the site of Troy, the poet cannot resist the temptation of making an abstract of the fortunes and fate of that city, which he represents as told by Don Alexander himself to his followers, and especially to the Twelve Peers, who accompanied him in his expedition.[85] Homer is vouched as authority for the extraordinary narrative that is given;[86] but how little the poet of Astorga cared for the Iliad and Odyssey may be inferred from the fact, that, instead of sending Achilles, or Don Achilles, as he is called, to the court of Lycomedes of Scyros, to be concealed in woman’s clothes, he is sent, by the enchantments of his mother, in female attire, to a convent of nuns, and the crafty Don Ulysses goes there as a peddler, with a pack of female ornaments and martial weapons on his back, to detect the fraud.[87] But, with all its defects and incongruities, the “Alexandro” is a curious and important landmark in early Spanish literature; and if it is written with less purity and dignity than the “Partidas” of Alfonso, it has still a truly Castilian air, in both its language and its versification.[88]

[85] Coplas 299-716.

[86] Coplas 300 and 714.

[87] Coplas 386, 392, etc.

[88] Southey, in the notes to his “Madoc,” Part I. Canto xi., speaks justly of the “sweet flow of language and metre in Lorenzo.” At the end of the Alexandro are two prose letters supposed to have been written by Alexander to his mother; but I prefer to cite, as a specimen of Lorenzo’s style, the following stanzas on the music which the Macedonians heard in Babylon:--

Alli era la musica · cantada per razon, Las dobles que refieren · coitas del corazon, Las dolces de las baylas, · el plorant semiton, Bien podrien toller precio · à quantos no mundo son.

Non es en el mundo · ome tan sabedor, Que decir podiesse · qual era el dolzor, Mientre ome viviesse · en aquella sabor Non avrie sede · nen fame nen dolor.

St. 1976, 1977.

_Las dobles_ in modern Spanish means the tolling for the dead;--here, I suppose, it means some sort of sad chanting.

A poem called “Los Votos del Pavon,” The Vows of the Peacock, which was a continuation of the “Alexandro,” is lost. If we may judge from an old French poem on the vows made over a peacock that had been a favorite bird of Alexander, and was served accidentally at table after that hero’s death, we have no reason to complain of our loss as a misfortune.[89] Nor have we probably great occasion to regret that we possess only extracts from a prose book of advice, prepared for his heir and successor by Sancho, the son of Alfonso the Tenth; for though, from the chapter warning the young prince against fools, we see that it wanted neither sense nor spirit, still it is not to be compared to the “Partidas” for precision, grace, or dignity of style.[90] We come, therefore, at once to a remarkable writer, who flourished a little later,--the Prince Don Juan Manuel.

[89] Los Votos del Pavon is first mentioned by the Marquis of Santillana (Sanchez, Tom. I. p. lvii.); and Fauchet says, (Recueil de l’Origine de la Langue et Poésie Française, Paris, 1581, fol., p. 88,) “Le Roman du Pavon est une continuation des faits d’Alexandre.” There is an account of a French poem on this subject, in the “Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale,” etc., (Paris, an VII. 4to,) Tom. V. p. 118. Vows were frequently made in ancient times over favorite birds (Barante, Ducs de Bourgogne, ad an. 1454, Paris, 1837, 8vo, Tom. VII. pp. 159-164); and the vows in the Spanish poem seem to have involved a prophetic account of the achievements and troubles of Alexander’s successors.

[90] The extracts are in Castro, (Tom. II. pp. 725-729,) and the book, which contained forty-nine chapters, was called “Castigos y Documentos para bien vivir, ordenados por el Rey Don Sancho el Quarto, intitulado el Brabo”; _Castigos_ being used to mean _advice_, as in the old French poem, “Le _Castoiement_ d’un Père a son Fils”; and _Documentos_ being taken in its primitive sense of _instructions_. The spirit of his father seems to speak in Sancho, when he says of kings, “que han de governar regnos e gentes con ayuda de çientificos sabios.”

Lorenzo was an ecclesiastic,--_bon clérigo é ondrado_,--and his home was at Astorga, in the northwestern portion of Spain, on the borders of Leon and Galicia. Berceo belonged to the same territory, and, though there may be half a century between them, they are of a similar spirit. We are glad, therefore, that the next author we meet, Don John Manuel, takes us from the mountains of the North to the chivalry of the South, and to the state of society, the conflicts, manners, and interests, that gave us the “Poem of the Cid,” and the code of the “Partidas.”

Don John was of the blood royal of Castile and Leon; grandson of Saint Ferdinand, nephew of Alfonso the Wise, and one of the most turbulent and dangerous of the Spanish barons of his time. He was born in Escalona, on the 5th of May, 1282, and was the son of Don Pedro Manuel, an Infante of Spain,[91] brother of Alfonso the Wise, with whom he always had his officers and household in common. Before Don John was two years old, his father died, and he was educated by his cousin, Sancho the Fourth, living with him on a footing like that on which his father had lived with Alfonso.[92] When twelve years old he was already in the field against the Moors, and in 1310, at the age of twenty-eight, he had reached the most considerable offices in the state; but Ferdinand the Fourth dying two years afterwards, and leaving Alfonso the Eleventh, his successor, only thirteen months old, great disturbances followed till 1320, when Don John Manuel became joint regent of the realm; a place which he suffered none to share with him, but such of his near relations as were most involved in his interests.[93]

[91] Argote de Molina, Sucesion de los Manueles, prefixed to the Conde Lucanor, 1575. The date of his birth has been heretofore considered unsettled, but I have found it given exactly by himself in an unpublished letter to his brother, the Archbishop of Toledo, which occurs in a manuscript in the National Library at Madrid, to be noticed hereafter.

[92] In his report of his conversation with King Sancho, when that monarch was on his death-bed, he says, “The King Alfonso and my father in his lifetime, and King Sancho and myself in his lifetime, always had our households together, and our officers were always the same.” Farther on, he says he was brought up by Don Sancho, who gave him the means of building the castle of Peñafiel, and calls God to witness that he was always true and loyal to Sancho, to Fernando, and to Alfonso XI., adding cautiously, “as far as this last king gave me opportunities to serve him.” Manuscript in the National Library at Madrid.

[93] Crónica de Alfonso XI., ed. 1551, fol., c. 19-21.

The affairs of the kingdom during the administration of Prince John seem to have been managed with talent and spirit; but at the end of the regency the young monarch was not sufficiently contented with the state of things to continue his grand-uncle in any considerable employment. Don John, however, was not of a temper to submit quietly to affront or neglect.[94] He left the court at Valladolid, and prepared himself, with all his great resources, for the armed opposition which the politics of the time regarded as a justifiable mode of obtaining redress. The king was alarmed, “for he saw,” says the old chronicler, “that they were the most powerful men in his kingdom, and that they could do grievous battle with him, and great mischief to the land.” He entered, therefore, into an arrangement with Prince John, who did not hesitate to abandon his friends, and go back to his allegiance, on the condition that the king should marry his daughter Constantia, then a mere child, and create him governor of the provinces bordering on the Moors, and commander-in-chief of the Moorish war; thus placing him, in fact, again at the head of the kingdom.[95]

[94] Ibid., c. 46 and 48.

[95] Crónica de Alfonso XI., c. 49.

From this time we find him actively engaged on the frontiers in a succession of military operations, till 1327, when he gained over the Moors the important victory of Guadalhorra. But the same year was marked by the bloody treachery of the king against Prince John’s uncle, who was murdered in the palace under circumstances of peculiar atrocity.[96] The Prince immediately retired in disgust to his estates, and began again to muster his friends and forces for a contest, into which he rushed the more eagerly, as the king had now refused to consummate his union with Constantia, and had married a Portuguese princess. The war which followed was carried on with various success till 1335, when Prince John was finally subdued, and, entering anew into the king’s service, with fresh reputation, as it seemed, from a spirited rebellion, and marrying his daughter Constantia, now grown up, to the heir-apparent of Portugal, went on, as commander-in-chief, with an uninterrupted succession of victories over the Moors, until almost the moment of his death, which happened in 1347.[97]

[96] Mariana, Hist., Lib. XV. c. 19.

[97] Ibid., Lib. XVI. c. 4. Crónica de Alfonso XI., c. 178. Argote de Molina, Sucesion de los Manueles.

In a life like this, full of intrigues and violence,--from a prince like this, who married the sisters of two kings, who had two other kings for his sons-in-law, and who disturbed his country by his rebellions and military enterprises for above thirty years,--we should hardly look for a successful attempt in letters.[98] Yet so it is. Spanish poetry, we know, first appeared in the midst of turbulence and danger; and now we find Spanish prose fiction springing forth from the same soil, and under similar circumstances. Down to this time we have seen no prose of much value in the prevailing Castilian dialect, except in the works of Alfonso the Tenth, and in one or two chronicles that will hereafter be noticed. But in most of these the fervor which seems to be an essential element of the early Spanish genius was kept in check, either by the nature of their subjects, or by circumstances of which we can now have no knowledge; and it is not until a fresh attempt is made, in the midst of the wars and tumults that for centuries seem to have been as the principle of life to the whole Peninsula, that we discover in Spanish prose a decided development of such forms as afterwards became national and characteristic.

[98] Mariana, in one of those happy hits of character which are not rare in his History, says of Don John Manuel, that he was “de condicion inquieta y mudable, tanto que a muchos parecia nació solamente para revolver el reyno.” Hist., Lib. XV. c. 12.

Don John, to whom belongs the distinction of producing one of these forms, showed himself worthy of a family in which, for above a century, letters had been honored and cultivated. He is known to have written twelve works; and so anxious was he about their fate, that he caused them to be carefully transcribed in a large volume, and bequeathed them to a monastery he had founded on his estates at Peñafiel, as a burial-place for himself and his descendants.[99] How many of these works are now in existence is not known. Some are certainly among the treasures of the National Library at Madrid, in a manuscript which seems to be an imperfect and injured copy of the one originally deposited at Peñafiel. Two others may, perhaps, yet be recovered; for one of them, the “Chronicle of Spain,” abridged by Don John from that of his uncle, Alfonso the Wise, was in the possession of the Marquis of Mondejar in the middle of the eighteenth century;[100] and the other, a treatise on Hunting, was seen by Pellicer somewhat later.[101] A collection of Don John’s poems, which Argote de Molina intended to publish in the time of Philip the Second, is probably lost, since the diligent Sanchez sought for it in vain;[102] and his “Conde Lucanor” alone has been placed beyond the reach of accident by being printed.[103]

[99] Argote de Molina, Life of Don John, in the ed. of the Conde Lucanor, 1575. The accounts of Argote de Molina, and of the manuscript in the National Library, are not precisely the same; but the last is imperfect, and evidently omits one work. Both contain the four following, viz.:--1. Chronicle of Spain; 2. Book of Hunting; 3. Book of Poetry; and 4. Book of Counsels to his Son. Argote de Molina gives besides these,--1. Libro de los Sabios; 2. Libro del Caballero; 3. Libro del Escudero; 4. Libro del Infante; 5. Libro de Caballeros; 6. Libro de los Engaños; and 7. Libro de los Exemplos. The manuscript gives, besides the four that are clearly in common, the following:--1. Letter to his brother, containing an account of the family arms, etc.; 2. Book of Conditions, or Libro de los Estados, which may be Argote de Molina’s Libro de los Sabios; 3. Libro del Caballero y del Escudero, of which Argote de Molina seems to make two separate works; 4. Libro de la Caballería, probably Argote de Molina’s Libro de Caballeros; 5. La Cumplida; 6. Libro de los Engeños, a treatise on Military Engines, misspelt by Argote de Molina, Engaños, so as to make it a treatise on _Frauds_; and 7. Reglas como se deve trovar. But, as has been said, the manuscript has a hiatus, and, though it says there were twelve works, gives the titles of only eleven, and omits the Conde Lucanor, which is the Libro de los Exemplos of Argote’s list.

[100] Mem. de Alfonso el Sabio, p. 464.

[101] Note to Don Quixote, ed. Pellicer, Parte II. Tom. I. p. 284.

[102] Poesías Anteriores, Tom. IV. p. xi.

[103] I am aware there are poems in the Cancioneros Generales, by a Don John Manuel, which have been generally attributed to Don John Manuel, the Regent of Castile in the time of Alfonso XI., as, for instance, those in the Cancionero of Antwerp (1573, 8vo, ff. 175, 207, 227, 267). But they are not his. Their language and thoughts are quite too modern. Probably they are the work of Don John Manuel who was Camareiro Mòr of King Emanuel of Portugal, († 1524,) and whose poems, both in Portuguese and in Spanish, figure largely in the Cancioneiro Gerale of Garcia Rresende, (Lisboa, 1516, fol.,) where they are found at ff. 48-57, 148, 169, 212, 230, and I believe in some other places. He is the author of the Spanish “Coplas sobre los Siete Pecados Mortales,” dedicated to John II. of Portugal, († 1495,) which are in Bohl de Faber’s “Floresta,” (Hamburgo, 1821-25, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 10-15,) taken from Rresende, f. 55, in one of the three copies of whose Cancioneiro then existing (that at the Convent of the Necessidades in Lisbon) I read them many years ago. Rresende’s Cancioneiro is now no longer so rare, being in course of publication by the Stuttgard Verein. The Portuguese Don John Manuel was a person of much consideration in his time; and in 1497 concluded a treaty for the marriage of King Emanuel of Portugal with Isabella, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. (Barbosa, Biblioteca Lusitana, Lisboa, 1747, fol., Tom. II. p. 688.) But he appears very little to his honor in Lope de Vega’s play entitled “El Príncipe Perfeto,” under the name of Don Juan de Sosa. Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, 4to, p. 121.

All that we possess of Don John Manuel is important. The imperfect manuscript at Madrid opens with an account of the reasons why he had caused his works to be transcribed; reasons which he illustrates by the following story, very characteristic of his age.

“In the time of King Jayme the First of Majorca,” says he, “there was a knight of Perpignan, who was a great Troubadour, and made brave songs wonderfully well. But one that he made was better than the rest, and, moreover, was set to good music. And people were so delighted with that song, that, for a long time, they would sing no other. And so the knight that made it was well pleased. But one day, going through the streets, he heard a shoemaker singing this song, and he sang it so ill, both in words and tune, that any man who had not heard it before would have held it to be a very poor song, and very ill made. Now when the knight heard that shoemaker spoil his good work, he was full of grief and anger, and got down from his beast, and sat down by him. But the shoemaker gave no heed to the knight, and did not cease from singing; and the further he sang, the worse he spoiled the song that knight had made. And when the knight heard his good work so spoiled by the foolishness of the shoemaker, he took up very gently some shears that lay there, and cut all the shoemaker’s shoes in pieces, and mounted his beast and rode away.

“Now, when the shoemaker saw his shoes, and beheld how they were cut in pieces, and that he had lost all his labor, he was much troubled, and went shouting after the knight that had done it. And the knight answered: ‘My friend, our lord the king, as you well know, is a good king and a just. Let us, then, go to him, and let him determine, as may seem right, the difference between us.’ And they were agreed to do so. And when they came before the king, the shoemaker told him how all his shoes had been cut in pieces and much harm done to him. And the king was wroth at it, and asked the knight if this were truth. And the knight said that it was; but that he would like to say why he did it. And the king told him to say on. And the knight answered, that the king well knew that he had made a song,--the one that was very good and had good music,--and he said, that the shoemaker had spoiled it in singing; in proof whereof, he prayed the king to command him now to sing it. And the king did so, and saw how he spoiled it. Then the knight said, that, since the shoemaker had spoiled the good work he had made with great pains and labor, so he might spoil the works of the shoemaker. And the king and all they that were there with him were very merry at this and laughed; and the king commanded the shoemaker never to sing that song again, nor trouble the good work of the knight; but the king paid the shoemaker for the harm that was done him, and commanded the knight not to vex the shoemaker any more.[104]

[104] A similar story is told of Dante, who was a contemporary of Don John Manuel, by Sachetti, who lived about a century after both of them. It is in his Novella 114, (Milano, 1815, 18mo, Tom. II. p. 154,) where, after giving an account of an important affair, about which Dante was desired to solicit one of the city officers, the story goes on thus:--

“When Dante had dined, he left his house to go about that business, and, passing through the Porta San Piero, heard a blacksmith singing as he beat the iron on his anvil. What he sang was from Dante, and he did it as if it were a ballad, (_un cantare_,) jumbling the verses together, and mangling and altering them in a way that was a great offence to Dante. He said nothing, however, but went into the blacksmith’s shop, where there were many tools of his trade, and, seizing first the hammer, threw it into the street, then the pincers, then the scales, and many other things of the same sort, all which he threw into the street. The blacksmith turned round in a brutal manner, and cried out, ‘What the devil are you doing here? Are you mad?’ ‘Rather,’ said Dante, ‘what are _you_ doing?’ ‘_I_,’ replied the blacksmith, ‘_I_ am working at my trade; and you spoil my things by throwing them into the street.’ ‘But,’ said Dante, ‘if you do not want to have me spoil your things, don’t spoil mine.’ ‘What do I spoil of yours?’ said the blacksmith. ‘You sing,’ answered Dante, ‘out of my book, but not as I wrote it; I have no other trade, and you spoil it.’ The blacksmith, in his pride and vexation, did not know what to answer; so he gathered up his tools and went back to his work, and when he afterward wanted to sing, he sang about Tristan and Launcelot, and let Dante alone.”

One of the stories is probably taken from the other: but that of Don John is older, both in the date of its event and in the time when it was recorded.

“And now, knowing that I cannot hinder the books I have made from being copied many times, and seeing that in copies one thing is put for another, either because he who copies is ignorant, or because one word looks so much like another, and so the meaning and sense are changed without any fault in him who first wrote it; therefore, I, Don John Manuel, to avoid this wrong as much as I may, have caused this volume to be made, in which are written out all the works I have composed, and they are twelve.”

Of the twelve works here referred to, the Madrid manuscript contains only three. One is a long letter to his brother, the Archbishop of Toledo, and Chancellor of the kingdom, in which he gives, first, an account of his family arms; then the reason why he and his right heirs male could make knights without having received any order of knighthood, as he himself had done when he was not yet two years old; and lastly, the report of a solemn conversation he had held with Sancho the Fourth on his death-bed, in which the king bemoaned himself bitterly, that, having for his rebellion justly received the curse of his father, Alfonso the Wise, he had now no power to give a dying man’s blessing to Don John.

Another of the works in the Madrid manuscript is a treatise in twenty-six chapters, called “Counsels to his Son Ferdinand”; which is, in fact, an essay on the Christian and moral duties of one destined by his rank to the highest places in the state, referring sometimes to the more ample discussions on similar subjects in Don John’s treatise on the Different Estates or Conditions of Men, apparently a longer work, not now known to exist.

But the third and longest is the most interesting. It is “The Book of the Knight and the Esquire,” “written,” says the author, “in the manner called in Castile _fabliella_,” (a little fable,) and sent to his brother, the Archbishop, that he might translate it into Latin; a proof, and not the only one, that Don John placed small value upon the language to which he now owes all his honors. The book itself contains an account of a young man who, encouraged by the good condition of his country under a king that called his Cortes together often, and gave his people good teachings and good laws, determines to seek advancement in the state. On his way to a meeting of the Cortes, where he intends to be knighted, he meets a retired cavalier, who in his hermitage explains to him all the duties and honors of chivalry, and thus prepares him for the distinction to which he aspires. On his return, he again visits his aged friend, and is so delighted with his instructions, that he remains with him, ministering to his infirmities and profiting by his wisdom, till his death, after which the young knight goes to his own land, and lives there in great honor the rest of his life. The story, or little fable, is, however, a very slight thread, serving only to hold together a long series of instructions on the moral duties of men, and on the different branches of human knowledge, given with earnestness and spirit, in the fashion of the times.[105]

[105] Of this manuscript of Don John in the Library at Madrid, I have, through the kindness of Professor Gayangos, a copy, filling 199 closely written folio pages.

The “Conde Lucanor,” the best known of its author’s works, bears some resemblance to the fable of the Knight and the Esquire. It is a collection of forty-nine tales,[106] anecdotes, and apologues, clearly in the Oriental manner; the first hint for which was probably taken from the “Disciplina Clericalis” of Petrus Alphonsus, a collection of Latin stories made in Spain about two centuries earlier. The occasion on which the tales of Don John are supposed to be related is, like the fictions themselves, invented with Eastern simplicity, and reminds us constantly of the “Thousand and One Nights,” and their multitudinous imitations.[107]

[106] It seems not unlikely that Don John Manuel intended originally to stop at the end of the twelfth tale; at least, he there intimates such a purpose.

[107] That the general form of the Conde Lucanor is Oriental may be seen by looking into the fables of Bidpai, or almost any other collection of Eastern stories; the form, I mean, of separate tales, united by some fiction common to them all, like that of relating them all to amuse or instruct some third person. The first appearance in Europe of such a series of tales grouped together was in the Disciplina Clericalis; a remarkable work, composed by Petrus Alphonsus, originally a Jew, by the name of Moses Sephardi, born at Huesca in Aragon in 1062, and baptized as a Christian in 1106, taking as one of his names that of Alfonso VI. of Castile, who was his godfather. The Disciplina Clericalis, or Teaching for Clerks or Clergymen, is a collection of thirty-seven stories, and many apophthegms, supposed to have been given by an Arab on his death-bed as instructions to his son. It is written in such Latin as belonged to its age. Much of the book is plainly of Eastern origin, and some of it is extremely coarse. It was, however, greatly admired for a long time, and was more than once turned into French verse, as may be seen in Barbazan (Fabliaux, ed. Méon, Paris, 1808, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 39-183). That the Disciplina Clericalis was the prototype of the Conde Lucanor is probable, because it was popular when the Conde Lucanor was written; because the framework of both is similar, the stories of both being given as counsels; because a good many of the proverbs are the same in both; and because some of the stories in both resemble one another, as the thirty-seventh of the Conde Lucanor, which is the same with the first of the Disciplina. But in the tone of their manners and civilization, there is a difference quite equal to the two centuries that separate the two works. Through the French version, the Disciplina Clericalis soon became known in other countries, so that we find traces of its fictions in the “Gesta Romanorum,” the “Decameron,” the “Canterbury Tales,” and elsewhere. But it long remained, in other respects, a sealed book, known only to antiquaries, and was first printed in the original Latin, from seven manuscripts in the King’s Library, Paris, by the Société des Bibliophiles (Paris, 1824, 2 tom. 12mo). Fr. W. V. Schmidt--to whom those interested in the early history of romantic fiction are much indebted for the various contributions he has brought to it--published the Disciplina anew in Berlin, 1827, 4to, from a Breslau manuscript; and, what is singular for one of his peculiar learning in this department, he supposed his own edition to be the first. It is, on account of its curious notes, the best; but the text of the Paris edition is to be preferred, and a very old French prose version that accompanies it makes it as a book still more valuable.

The Count Lucanor--a personage of power and consideration, intended probably to represent those early Christian counts in Spain, who, like Fernan Gonzalez of Castile, were, in fact, independent princes--finds himself occasionally perplexed with questions of morals and public policy. These questions, as they occur, he proposes to Patronio, his minister or counsellor, and Patronio replies to each by a tale or a fable, which is ended with a rhyme in the nature of a moral. The stories are various in their character.[108] Sometimes it is an anecdote in Spanish history to which Don John resorts, like that of the three knights of his grandfather, Saint Ferdinand, at the siege of Seville.[109] More frequently, it is a sketch of some striking trait in the national manners, like the story of “Rodrigo el Franco and his three Faithful Followers.”[110] Sometimes, again, it is a fiction of chivalry, like that of the “Hermit and Richard the Lion-Hearted.”[111] And sometimes it is an apologue, like that of the “Old Man, his Son, and the Ass,” or that of the “Crow persuaded by the Fox to sing,” which, with his many successors, he must in some way or other have obtained from Æsop.[112] They are all curious, but probably the most interesting is the “Moorish Marriage,” partly because it points distinctly to an Arabic origin, and partly because it remarkably resembles the story Shakspeare has used in his “Taming of the Shrew.”[113] It is, however, too long to be given here; and therefore a shorter specimen will be taken from the twenty-second chapter, entitled “Of what happened to Count Fernan Gonzalez, and of the answer he gave to his vassals.”

[108] They are all called _Enxiemplos_; a word which then meant _story_ or _apologue_, as it does in the Archpriest of Hita, st. 301, and in the “Crónica General.” Old Lord Berners, in his delightful translation of Froissart, in the same way, calls the fable of the Bird in Borrowed Plumes “an Ensample.”

[109] Cap. 2.

[110] Cap. 3.

[111] Cap. 4.

[112] Capp. 24 and 26. The followers of Don John, however, have been more indebted to him than he was to his predecessors. Thus, the story of “Don Illan el Negromantico” (Cap. 13) was found by Mr. Douce in two French and four English authors. (Blanco White, Variedades, Lóndres, 1824, Tom. I. p. 310.) The apologue which Gil Blas, when he is starving, relates to the Duke of Lerma, (Liv. VIII. c. 6,) and “which,” he says, “he had read in Pilpay or some other fable writer,” I sought in vain in Bidpai, and stumbled upon it, when not seeking it, in the Conde Lucanor, Cap. 18. It may be added, that the fable of the Swallows and the Flax (Cap. 27) is better given there than it is in La Fontaine.

[113] Shakspeare, it is well known, took the materials for his “Taming of the Shrew,” with little ceremony, from a play with the same title, printed in 1594. But the story, in its different parts, seems to have been familiar in the East from the earliest times, and was, I suppose, found there among the traditions of Persia by Sir John Malcolm. (Sketches of Persia, London, 1827, 8vo, Vol. II. p. 54.) In Europe I am not aware that it can be detected earlier than the Conde Lucanor, Cap. 45. The doctrine of unlimited submission on the part of the wife seems, indeed, to have been a favorite one with Don John Manuel; for, in another story, (Cap. 5,) he says, in the very spirit of Petruchio’s jest about the sun and moon, “If a husband says the stream runs up hill, his wife ought to believe him, and say that it is so.”

“On one occasion, Count Lucanor came from a foray, much wearied and worn, and poorly off; and before he could refresh or rest himself, there came a sudden message about another matter then newly moved. And the greater part of his people counselled him, that he should refresh himself a little, and then do whatever should be thought most wise. And the Count asked Patronio what he should do in that matter; and Patronio replied, ‘Sire, that you may choose what is best, it would please me that you should know the answer which Count Fernan Gonzalez once gave to his vassals.

“‘The story.--Count Fernan Gonzalez conquered Almanzor in Hazinas,[114] but many of his people fell there, and he and the rest that remained alive were sorely wounded. And before they were sound and well, he heard that the king of Navarre had broken into his lands, and so he commanded his people to make ready to fight against them of Navarre. And all his people told him, that their horses were aweary, and that they were aweary themselves; and although for this cause they might not forsake this thing, yet that, since both he and his people were sore wounded, they ought to leave it, and that he ought to wait till he and they should be sound again. And when the Count saw that they all wanted to leave that road, then his honor grieved him more than his body, and he said, “My friends, let us not shun this battle on account of the wounds that we now have; for the fresh wounds they will presently give us will make us forget those we received in the other fight.” And when they of his party saw that he was not troubled concerning his own person, but only how to defend his lands and his honor, they went with him, and they won that battle, and things went right well afterwards.

[114] Fernan Gonzalez is the great hero of Castile, whose adventures will be noticed when we come to the poem about them; and in the battle of Hazinas he gained the decisive victory over the Moors which is well described in the third part of the “Crónica General.”

“‘And you, my Lord Count Lucanor, if you desire to do what you ought, when you see that it should be achieved for the defence of your own rights and of your own people and of your own honor, then you must not be grieved by weariness, nor by toil, nor by danger, but rather so act that the new danger shall make you forget that which is past.’

“And the Count held this for a good history[115] and a good counsel; and he acted accordingly, and found himself well by it. And Don John also understood this to be a good history, and he had it written in this book, and moreover made these verses, which say thus:--

[115] “Y el Conde tovo este por buen exemplo,”--an old Castilian formula. (Crónica General, Parte III. c. 5.) Argote de Molina says of such phrases, which abound in the Conde Lucanor, that “they give a taste of the old proprieties of the Castilian”; and elsewhere, that “they show what was the pure idiom of our tongue.” Don John himself, with his accustomed simplicity, says, “I have made up the book with the handsomest words I could.” (Ed. 1575, f. 1, b.) Many of his words, however, needed explanation in the reign of Philip the Second, and, on the whole, the phraseology of the Conde Lucanor sounds older than that of the

## Partidas, which were yet written nearly a century before it.

Some of its obsolete words are purely Latin, like _cras_ for _to-morrow_, f. 83, and elsewhere.

“Hold this for certain and for fact, For truth it is and truth exact, That never Honor and Disgrace Together sought a resting-place.”

It is not easy to imagine any thing more simple and direct than this story, either in the matter or the style. Others of the tales have an air of more knightly dignity, and some have a little of the gallantry that might be expected from a court like that of Alfonso the Eleventh. In a very few of them, Don John gives intimations that he had risen above the feelings and opinions of his age: as, in one, he laughs at the monks and their pretensions;[116] in another, he introduces a pilgrim under no respectable circumstances;[117] and in a third, he ridicules his uncle Alfonso for believing in the follies of alchemy,[118] and trusting a man who pretended to turn the baser metals into gold. But in almost all we see the large experience of a man of the world, as the world then existed, and the cool observation of one who knew too much of mankind, and had suffered too much from them, to have a great deal of the romance of youth still lingering in his character. For we know, from himself, that Prince John wrote the Conde Lucanor when he had already reached his highest honors and authority; probably after he had passed through his severest defeats. It should be remembered, therefore, to his credit, that we find in it no traces of the arrogance of power, or of the bitterness of mortified ambition; nothing of the wrongs he had suffered from others, and nothing of those he had inflicted. It seems, indeed, to have been written in some happy interval, stolen from the bustle of camps, the intrigues of government, and the crimes of rebellion, when the experience of his past life, its adventures, and its passions, were so remote as to awaken little personal feeling, and yet so familiar that he could give us their results, with great simplicity, in this series of tales and anecdotes, which are marked with an originality that belongs to their age, and with a kind of chivalrous philosophy and wise honesty that would not be discreditable to one more advanced.[119]

[116] Cap. 20.

[117] Cap. 48.

[118] Cap. 8.--I infer from the Conde Lucanor, that Don John knew little about the Bible, as he cites it wrong in Cap. 4, and in Cap. 44 shows that he did not know it contained the comparison about the blind who lead the blind.

[119] There are two Spanish editions of the Conde Lucanor: the first and best by Argote de Molina, 4to, Sevilla, 1575, with a life of Don John prefixed, and a curious essay on Castilian verse at the end,--one of the rarest books in the world; and the other, only less rare, published at Madrid, 1642. The references in the notes are to the first. A reprint, made, if I mistake not, from the last, and edited by A. Keller, appeared at Stuttgard, 1839, 12mo, and a German translation by J. von Eichendorff, at Berlin, in 1840, 12mo. Don John Manuel, I observe, cites Arabic twice in the Conde Lucanor, (Capp. 11 and 14,)--a rare circumstance in early Spanish literature.

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