Chapter VII

BALLADS ON SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH CHIVALRY.--BALLADS FROM SPANISH HISTORY.--BERNARDO DEL CARPIO.--FERNAN GONZALEZ.--THE LORDS OF LARA.--THE CID.--BALLADS FROM ANCIENT HISTORY AND FABLE, SACRED AND PROFANE.--BALLADS ON MOORISH SUBJECTS.--MISCELLANEOUS BALLADS, AMATORY, BURLESQUE, SATIRICAL, ETC.--CHARACTER OF THE OLD SPANISH BALLADS.

_Ballads of Chivalry._--The first thing that strikes us, on opening any one of the old Spanish ballad-books, is the national air and spirit that prevail throughout them. But we look in vain for many of the fictions found in the popular poetry of other countries at the same period, some of which we might well expect to find here. Even that chivalry, which was so akin to the character and condition of Spain when the ballads appeared, fails to sweep by us with the train of its accustomed personages. Of Arthur and his Round Table the old ballads tell us nothing at all, nor of the “Mervaile of the Graal,” nor of Perceval, nor of the Palmerins, nor of many other well-known and famous heroes of the shadow land of chivalry. Later, indeed, some of these personages figure largely in the Spanish prose romances. But, for a long time, the history of Spain itself furnished materials enough for its more popular poetry; and therefore, though Amadis, Lancelot du Lac, Tristan de Leonnais, and their compeers, present themselves now and then in the ballads, it is not till after the prose romances, filled with their adventures, had made them familiar. Even then, they are somewhat awkwardly introduced, and never occupy any well-defined place; for the stories of the Cid and Bernardo del Carpio were much nearer to the hearts of the Spanish people, and had left little space for such comparatively cold and unsubstantial fancies.

The only considerable exception to this remark is to be found in the stories connected with Charlemagne and his peers. That great sovereign--who, in the darkest period of Europe since the days of the Roman republic, roused up the nations, not only by the glory of his military conquests, but by the magnificence of his civil institutions--crossed the Pyrenees in the latter part of the eighth century, at the solicitation of one of his Moorish allies, and ravaged the Spanish marches as far as the Ebro, taking Pamplona and Saragossa.[202] The impression he made there seems to have been the same he made everywhere; and from this time the splendor of his great name and deeds was connected in the minds of the Spanish people with wild imaginations of their own achievements, and gave birth to that series of fictions which is embraced in the story of Bernardo del Carpio, and ends with the great rout, when, according to the persuasions of the national vanity,

“Charlemain with all his peerage fell
By Fontarabbia.”

[202] Sismondi, Hist. des Français, Paris, 1821, 8vo, Tom. II.
pp. 257-260.

These picturesque adventures, chiefly without countenance from history, in which the French paladins appear associated with fabulous Spanish heroes, such as Montesinos and Durandarte,[203] and once with the noble Moor Calaynos, are represented with some minuteness in the old Spanish ballads. The largest number, including the longest and the best, are to be found in the ballad-book of 1550-1555, to which may be added a few from that of 1593-1597, making together somewhat more than fifty, of which only twenty occur in the collection expressly devoted to the Twelve Peers, and first published in 1608. Some of them are evidently very old; as, for instance, that on the Conde d’ Irlos, that on the Marquis of Mantua, two on Claros of Montalban, and both the fragments on Durandarte, the last of which can be traced back to the Cancionero of 1511.[204]

[203] Montesinos and Durandarte figure so largely in Don
Quixote’s visit to the cave of Montesinos, that all relating to
them is to be found in the notes of Pellicer and Clemencin to
Parte II. cap. 23, of the history of the mad knight.

[204] These ballads begin, “Estabase el Conde d’ Irlos,” which is
the longest I know of; “Assentado esta Gayferos,” which is one
of the best, and cited more than once by Cervantes; “Media noche
era por hilo,” where the counting of time by the dripping of
water is a proof of antiquity in the ballad itself; “A caça va el
Emperador,” also cited repeatedly by Cervantes; and “O Belerma,
O Belerma,” translated by M. G. Lewis; to which may be added,
“Durandarte, Durandarte,” found in the Antwerp Romancero, and in
the old Cancioneros Generales.

The ballads of this class are occasionally quite long, and approach the character of the old French and English metrical romances; that of the Conde d’ Irlos extending to about thirteen hundred lines. The longer ballads, too, are generally the best; and those, through large portions of which the same _asonante_, and sometimes, even, the same _consonante_ or full rhyme, is continued to the end, have a solemn harmony in their protracted cadences, that produces an effect on the feelings like the chanting of a rich and well-sustained recitative.

Taken as a body, they have a grave tone, combined with the spirit of a picturesque narrative, and entirely different from the extravagant and romantic air afterwards given to the same class of fictions in Italy, and even from that of the few Spanish ballads which, at a later period, were constructed out of the imaginative and fantastic materials found in the poems of Bojardo and Ariosto. But in all ages and in all forms, they have been favorites with the Spanish people. They were alluded to as such above five hundred years ago, in the oldest of the national chronicles; and when, at the end of the last century, Sarmiento notices the ballad-book of the Twelve Peers, he speaks of it as one which the peasantry and the children of Spain still knew by heart.[205]

[205] Memorias para la Poesía Española, Sect. 528.

* * * * *

_Historical Ballads._--The most important and the largest division of the Spanish ballads is, however, the historical. Nor is this surprising. The early heroes in Spanish history grew so directly out of the popular character, and the early achievements of the national arms so nearly touched the personal condition of every Christian in the Peninsula, that they naturally became the first and chief subjects of a poetry which has always, to a remarkable degree, been the breathing of the popular feelings and passions. It would be easy, therefore, to collect a series of ballads,--few in number as far as respects the Gothic and Roman periods, but ample from the time of Roderic and the Moorish conquest of Spain down to the moment when its restoration was gloriously fulfilled in the fall of Granada,--a series which would constitute such a poetical illustration of Spanish history as can be brought in aid of the history of no other country. But, for our present purpose, it is enough to select a few sketches from these remarkable ballads devoted to the greater heroes,--personages half-shadowy, half-historical,--who, between the end of the eighth and the beginning of the twelfth century, occupy a wide space in all the old traditions, and serve alike to illustrate the early popular character in Spain, and the poetry to which that character gave birth.

The first of these, in the order of time, is Bernardo del Carpio, concerning whom we have about forty ballads, which, with the accounts in the Chronicle of Alfonso the Wise, have constituted the foundations for many a drama and tale, and at least three long heroic poems. According to these early narratives, Bernardo flourished about the year 800, and was the offspring of a secret marriage between the Count de Saldaña and the sister of Alfonso the Chaste, at which the king was so much offended, that he kept the Count in perpetual imprisonment, and sent the Infanta to a convent; educating Bernardo as his own son, and keeping him ignorant of his birth. The achievements of Bernardo, ending with the victory of Roncesvalles,--his efforts to procure the release of his father, when he learns who his father is,--the falsehood of the king, who promises repeatedly to give up the Count de Saldaña and as often breaks his word,--with the despair of Bernardo, and his final rebellion, after the Count’s death in prison,--are all as fully represented in the ballads as they are in the chronicles, and constitute some of the most romantic and interesting portions of each.[206]

[206] The story of Bernardo is in the “Crónica General,” Parte
III., beginning at f. 30, in the edition of 1604. But it must be
almost entirely fabulous.

Of the ballads which contain this story, and which generally suppose the whole of it to have passed in one reign, though the Chronicle spreads it over three, none, perhaps, is finer than the one in which the Count de Saldaña, in his solitary prison, complains of his son, who, he supposes, must know his descent, and of his wife, the Infanta, who, he presumes, must be in league with her royal brother. After a description of the castle in which he is confined, the Count says:--

The tale of my imprisoned life
Within these loathsome walls,
Each moment, as it lingers by,
My hoary hair recalls;
For when this castle first I saw,
My beard was scarcely grown,
And now, to purge my youthful sins,
Its folds hang whitening down.
Then where art thou, my careless son?
And why so dull and cold?
Doth not my blood within thee run?
Speaks it not loud and bold?
Alas! it may be so, but still
Thy mother’s blood is thine;
And what is kindred to the king
Will plead no cause of mine:
And thus all three against me stand;--
For the whole man to quell,
’T is not enough to have our foes,
Our heart’s blood must rebel.
Meanwhile, the guards that watch me here
Of thy proud conquests boast;
But if for me thou lead’st it not,
For whom, then, fights thy host?
And since thou leav’st me prisoned here,
In cruel chains to groan,
Or I must be a guilty sire,
Or thou a guilty son!
Yet pardon me, if I offend
By uttering words so free;
For while oppressed with age I moan,
No words come back from thee.[207]

[207]
Los tiempos de mi prision
Tan aborrecida y larga,
Por momentos me lo dizen
Aquestas mis tristes canas.
Quando entre en este castillo,
Apenas entre con barbas,
Y agora por mis pecados
Las veo crecidas y blancas.
Que descuydo es este, hijo?
Como a vozes no te llama
La sangre que tienes mia,
A socorrer donde falta?
Sin duda que te detiene
La que de tu madre alcanças,
Que por ser de la del Rey
Juzgaras qual el mi causa.
Todos tres sois mis contrarios;
Que a un desdichado no basta
Que sus contrarios lo sean,
Sino sus propias entrañas.
Todos los que aqui me tienen
Me cuentan de tus hazañas:
Si para tu padre no,
Dime para quien las guardas?
Aqui estoy en estros hierros,
Y pues dellos no me sacas,
Mal padre deuo de ser,
O mal hijo pues me faltas.
Perdoname, si te ofendo,
Que descanso en las palabras,
Que yo como viejo lloro,
Y tu como ausente callas.

Romancero General, 1602, f. 46.

But it was printed as early as 1593.

The old Spanish ballads have often a resemblance to each other in their tone and phraseology; and occasionally several seem imitated from some common original. Thus, in another, on this same subject of the Count de Saldaña’s imprisonment, we find the length of time he had suffered, and the idea of his relationship and blood, enforced in the following words, not of the Count himself, but of Bernardo, when addressing the king:--

The very walls are wearied there,
So long in grief to hold
A man whom first in youth they saw,
And now see gray and old.
And if, for errors such as these,
The forfeit must be blood,
Enough of his has flowed from me,
When for your rights I stood.[208]

[208] This is evidently among the older ballads. The earliest
printed copy of it that I know is to be found in the “Flor de
Romances,” Novena Parte, (Madrid, 1597, 18mo, f. 45,) and the
passage I have translated is very striking in the original:--

Cansadas ya las paredes
De guardar en tanto tiempo
A un hombre, que vieron moço
Y ya le ven cano y viejo.
Si ya sus culpas merecen,
Que sangre sea en su descuento,
Harta suya he derramado,
Y toda en servicio vuestro.

It is given a little differently by Duran.

In reading the ballads relating to Bernardo del Carpio, it is impossible not to be often struck with their resemblance to the corresponding passages of the “General Chronicle.” Some of them are undoubtedly copied from it; others possibly may have been, in more ancient forms, among the poetical materials out of which we know that Chronicle was in part composed.[209] The best are those which are least strictly conformed to the history itself; but all, taken together, form a curious and interesting series, that serves strikingly to exhibit the manners and feelings of the people in the wild times of which they speak, as well as in the later periods when many of them must have been written.

[209] The ballad beginning “En Corte del casto Alfonso,” in the
ballad-book of 1555, is taken from the “Crónica General,” (Parte
III. ff. 32, 33, ed. 1604,) as the following passage, speaking
of Bernardo’s first knowledge that his father was the Count of
Saldaña, will show:--

_Quando_ Bernaldo _lo supo
Pesóle_ a gran demasia,
Tanto que _dentro en el cuerpo
La sangre se le volvia_.
Yendo _para su posada_
Muy grande llanto hacia,
_Vistióse paños de luto_,
Y delante el Rey se iba.
_El Rey quando_ asi _le vió_,
Desta suerte le decía:
“_Bernaldo_, por aventura
_Cobdicias la muerte mia_?”

The Chronicle reads thus: “E el [Bernardo] _quandol supo_, que
su padre era preso, _pesol_ mucho de coraçon, e _bolbiosele la
sangre en el cuerpo_, e fuesse _para su posada_, faziendo el
mayor duelo del mundo; e _vistióse paños de duelo_, e fuesse
para el Rey Don Alfonso; e _el Rey, quando lo vido_, dixol:
‘_Bernaldo, cobdiciades la muerte mia?_’” It is plain enough,
in this case, that the Chronicle is the original of the ballad;
but it is very difficult, if not impossible, from the nature
of the case, to show that any particular ballad was used in
the composition of the Chronicle, because, we have undoubtedly
none of the ballads in the form in which they existed when the
Chronicle was compiled in the middle of the thirteenth century,
and therefore a correspondence of phraseology like that just
cited is not to be expected. Yet it would not be surprising, if
some of these ballads on Bernardo, found in the Sixth Part of
the “Flor de Romances,” (Toledo, 1594, 18mo,) which Pedro Flores
tells us he collected far and wide from tradition, were known
in the time of Alfonso the Wise, and were among the Cantares de
Gesta to which he alludes. I would instance particularly the
three beginning, “Contandole estaba un dia,” “Antesque barbas
tuviesse,” and “Mal mis servicios pagaste.” The language of those
ballads is, no doubt, chiefly that of the age of Charles V. and
Philip II., but the thoughts and feelings are evidently much
older.

The next series is that on Fernan Gonzalez, a popular chieftain, whom we have already mentioned, when noticing his metrical chronicle; and one who, in the middle of the tenth century, recovered Castile anew from the Moors, and became its first sovereign Count. The number of ballads relating to him is not large; probably not twenty. The most poetical are those which describe his being twice rescued from prison by his courageous wife, and those which relate his contest with King Sancho, where he displayed all the turbulence and cunning of a robber baron, in the Middle Ages. Nearly all their facts may be found in the Third Part of the “General Chronicle”; and though only a few of the ballads themselves appear to be derived from it as distinctly as some of those on Bernardo del Carpio, still two or three are evidently indebted to that Chronicle for their materials and phraseology, while yet others may possibly, in some ruder shape, have preceded it, and contributed to its composition.[210]

[210] Among the ballads taken from the “Crónica General” is, I
think, the one in the ballad-book of 1555, beginning “Preso esta
Fernan Gonzalez,” though the Chronicle says (Parte III. f. 62,
ed. 1604) that it was a Norman count who bribed the castellan,
and the ballad says it was a Lombard. Another, which, like the
two last, is very spirited, is found in the “Flor de Romances,”
Séptima Parte, (Alcalá, 1597, 18mo, f. 65,) beginning “El Conde
Fernan Gonzalez,” and contains an account of one of his victories
over Almanzor not told elsewhere, and therefore the more curious.

The ballads which naturally form the next group are those on the Seven Lords of Lara, who lived in the time of Garcia Ferrandez, the son of Fernan Gonzalez. Some of them are beautiful, and the story they contain is one of the most romantic in Spanish history. The seven Lords of Lara, in consequence of a family quarrel, are betrayed by their uncle into the hands of the Moors, and put to death; while their father, by the basest treason, is confined in a Moorish prison, where, by a noble Moorish lady, he has an eighth son, the famous Mudarra, who at last avenges all the wrongs of his race. On this story there are about thirty ballads; some very old, and exhibiting either inventions or traditions not elsewhere recorded, while others seem to have come directly from the “General Chronicle.” The following is a part of one of the last, and a good specimen of the whole:--[211]

[211] The story of the Infantes de Lara is in the “Crónica
General,” Parte III., and in the edition of 1604 begins at f.
74. I possess, also, a striking volume, containing forty plates,
on their history, by Otto Vaenius, a scholar and artist, who
died in 1634. It is entitled “Historia Septem Infantium de Lara”
(Antverpiae, 1612, fol.); the same, no doubt, an imperfect copy
of which Southey praises in his notes to the “Chronicle of the
Cid” (p. 401). Sepúlveda (1551-84) has a good many ballads on the
subject; the one I have partly translated in the text beginning,--

Quien es aquel caballero
Que tan gran traycion hacia?
Ruy Velasquez es de Lara,
Que à sus sobrinos vendia.

The corresponding passage of the Chronicle is at f. 78, ed. 1604.

What knight goes there, so false and fair,
That thus for treason stood?
Velasquez hight is that false knight,
Who sold his brother’s blood.
Where Almenar extends afar,
He called his nephews forth,
And on that plain he bade them gain
A name of fame and worth.
The Moors he shows, the common foes,
And promises their rout;
But while they stood, prepared for blood,
A mighty host came out.
Of Moorish men were thousands ten,
With pennons flowing fair;
Whereat each knight, as well he might,
Inquired what host came there.
“O, do not fear, my kinsmen dear,”
The base Velasquez cried,
“The Moors you see can never be
Of power your shock to bide;
I oft have met their craven set,
And none dared face my might;
So think no fear, my kinsmen dear,
But boldly seek the fight.”
Thus words deceive, and men believe,
And falsehood thrives amain;
And those brave knights, for Christian rights,
Have sped across the plain;
And men ten score, but not one more,
To follow freely chose:
So Velasquez base his kin and race
Has bartered to their foes.

But, as might be anticipated, the Cid was seized upon with the first formation of the language as the subject of popular poetry, and has been the occasion of more ballads than any other of the great heroes of Spanish history or fable.[212] They were first collected in a separate ballad-book as early as 1612, and have continued to be published and republished at home and abroad down to our own times.[213] It would be easy to find a hundred and sixty; some of them very ancient; some poetical; many prosaic and poor. The chronicles seem to have been little resorted to in their composition.[214] The circumstances of the Cid’s history, whether true or fictitious, were too well settled in the popular faith, and too familiar to all Christian Spaniards, to render the use of such materials necessary. No portion of the old ballads, therefore, is more strongly marked with the spirit of their age and country; and none constitutes a series so complete. They give us apparently the whole of the Cid’s history, which we find nowhere else entire; neither in the ancient poem, which does not pretend to be a life of him; nor in the prose chronicle, which does not begin so early in his story; nor in the Latin document, which is too brief and condensed. At the very outset, we have the following minute and living picture of the mortification and sufferings of Diego Laynez, the Cid’s father, in consequence of the blow he had received from Count Lozano, which his age rendered it impossible for him to avenge:--

[212] In the barbarous rhymed Latin poem, printed with great
care by Sandoval, (Reyes de Castilla, Pamplona, 1615, f. 189,
etc.,) and apparently written, as we have noticed, by some one
who witnessed the siege of Almeria in 1147, we have the following
lines:--

Ipse Rodericus, _Mio Cid_ semper vocatus,
_De quo cantatur_, quod ab hostibus haud superatus,
Qui domuit Moros, comites quoque domuit nostros, etc.

These poems must, by the phrase _Mio Cid_, have been in Spanish;
and, if so, could hardly have been any thing but ballads.

[213] Nic. Antonio (Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 684) gives 1612 as
the date of the oldest Romancero del Cid. The oldest I possess
is of Pamplona (1706, 18mo); but the Madrid edition, (1818,
18mo,) the Frankfort, (1827, 12mo,) and the collection in Duran,
(Caballerescos, Madrid, 1832, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 43-191,) are
more complete. The most complete of all is that by Keller,
(Stuttgard, 1840, 12mo,) and contains 154 ballads. But a few
could be added even to this one.

[214] The ballads beginning, “Guarte, guarte, Rey Don Sancho,”
and “De Zamora sale Dolfos,” are indebted to the “Crónica del
Cid,” 1593, c. 61, 62. Others, especially those in Sepúlveda’s
collection, show marks of other parts of the same chronicle, or
of the “Crónica General,” Parte IV. But the whole amount of such
indebtedness in the ballads of the Cid is small.

Sorrowing old Laynez sat,
Sorrowing on the deep disgrace
Of his house, so rich and knightly,
Older than Abarca’s race.
For he saw that youthful strength
To avenge his wrong was needed;
That, by years enfeebled, broken,
None his arm now feared or heeded.
But he of Orgaz, Count Lozano,
Walks secure where men resort;
Hindered and rebuked by none,
Proud his name, and proud his port.
While he, the injured, neither sleeps,
Nor tastes the needful food,
Nor from the ground dares lift his eyes,
Nor moves a step abroad,
Nor friends in friendly converse meets,
But hides in shame his face;
His very breath, he thinks, offends,
Charged with insult and disgrace.[215]

[215] The earliest place in which I have seen this
ballad--evidently very old in its _matériel_--is “Flor de
Romances,” Novena Parte, 1597, f. 133.

Cuydando Diego Laynez
En la mengua de su casa,
Fidalga, rica y antigua,
Antes de Nuño y Abarca,
Y viendo que le fallecen
Fuerças para la vengança,
Porque por sus luengos años,
Por si no puede tomalla,
Y que el de Orgaz se passea
Seguro y libre en la plaça,
Sinque nadie se lo impida,
Loçano en nombre y en gala.
Non puede dormir de noche,
Nin gustar de las viandas,
Nin alçar del suelo los ojos,
Nin osa salir de su casa,
Nin fablar con sus amigos,
Antes les niega la fabla,
Temiendo no les ofenda
El aliento de su infamia.

The pun on the name of Count _Lozano_ (Haughty or Proud) is of
course not translated.

In this state of his father’s feelings, Roderic, a mere stripling, determines to avenge the insult by challenging Count Lozano, then the most dangerous knight and the first nobleman in the kingdom. The result is the death of his proud and injurious enemy; but the daughter of the fallen Count, the fair Ximena, demands vengeance of the king, and the whole is adjusted, after the rude fashion of those times, by a marriage between the parties, which necessarily ends the feud.

The ballads, thus far, relate only to the early youth of the Cid in the reign of Ferdinand the Great, and constitute a separate series, that gave to Guillen de Castro, and after him to Corneille, the best materials for their respective tragedies on this part of the Cid’s story. But at the death of Ferdinand, his kingdom was divided, according to his will, among his four children; and then we have another series of ballads on the part taken by the Cid in the wars almost necessarily produced by such a division, and in the siege of Zamora, which fell to the share of Queen Urraca, and was assailed by her brother, Sancho the Brave. In one of these ballads, the Cid, sent by Sancho to summon the city, is thus reproached and taunted by Urraca, who is represented as standing on one of its towers, and answering him as he addressed her from below:--

Away! away! proud Roderic!
Castilian proud, away!
Bethink thee of that olden time,
That happy, honored day,
When, at Saint James’s holy shrine,
Thy knighthood first was won;
When Ferdinand, my royal sire,
Confessed thee for a son.
He gave thee then thy knightly arms,
My mother gave thy steed;
Thy spurs were buckled by these hands,
That thou no grace might’st need.
And had not chance forbid the vow,
I thought with thee to wed;
But Count Lozano’s daughter fair
Thy happy bride was led.
With her came wealth, an ample store,
But power was mine, and state:
Broad lands are good, and have their grace,
But he that reigns is great.
Thy wife is well; thy match was wise;
Yet, Roderic! at thy side
A vassal’s daughter sits by thee,
And not a royal bride![216]

[216] This is a very old, as well as a very spirited, ballad.
It occurs first in print in 1555; but “Durandarte, Durandarte,”
found as early as 1511, is an obvious imitation of it, so that it
was probably old and famous at that time. In the oldest copy now
known it reads thus, but was afterwards changed. I omit the last
lines, which seem to be an addition.

A fuera, a fuera, Rodrigo,
El soberbio Castellano!
Acordarte te debria
De aquel tiempo ya passado,
Quando fuiste caballero
En el altar de Santiago;
Quando el Rey fue tu padrino,
Tu Rodrigo el ahijado.
Mi padre te dio las armas,
Mi madre te dio el caballo,
Yo te calze las espuelas,
Porque fuesses mas honrado,
Que pensé casar contigo.
No lo quiso mi pecado;
Casaste con Ximena Gomez,
Hija del Conde Loçano.
Con ella uviste dineros,
Conmigo uvieras estado.
Bien casaste, Rodrigo,
Muy mejor fueras casado;
Dexaste hija de Rey,
Por tomar la de su vasallo.

This was one of the most popular of the old ballads. It is often
alluded to by the writers of the best age of Spanish literature;
for example, by Cervantes, in “Persiles y Sigismunda,” (Lib. III.
c. 21,) and was used by Guillen de Castro in his play on the Cid.

Alfonso the Sixth succeeded on the death of Sancho, who perished miserably by treason before the walls of Zamora; but the Cid quarrelled with his new master, and was exiled. At this moment begins the old poem already mentioned; but even here and afterwards the ballads form a more continuous account of his life, carrying us, often with great minuteness of detail, through his conquest of Valencia, his restoration to the king’s favor, his triumph over the Counts of Carrion, his old age, death, and burial, and giving us, when taken together, what Müller the historian and Herder the philosopher consider, in its main circumstances, a trustworthy history, but what can hardly be more than a poetical version of traditions current at the different times when its different portions were composed.

Indeed, in the earlier part of the period when historical ballads were written, their subjects seem rather to have been chosen among the traditional heroes of the country, than among the known and ascertained events in its annals. Much fiction, of course, was mingled with whatever related to such personages by the willing credulity of patriotism, and portions of the ballads about them are incredible to any modern faith; so that we can hardly fail to agree with the good sense of the canon in Don Quixote, when he says, “There is no doubt there was such a man as the Cid and such a man as Bernardo del Carpio, but much doubt whether they achieved what is imputed to them”;[217] while, at the same time, we must admit there is no less truth in the shrewd intimation of Sancho, that, after all, the old ballads are too old to tell lies. At least, some of them are so.

[217] “En lo que hubo Cid, no hay duda, ni menos Bernardo del
Carpio; pero de que hicieron las hazañas que dicen, creo que hay
muy grande.” (Parte I. c. 49.) This, indeed, is the good sense
of the matter,--a point in which Cervantes rarely fails,--and it
forms a strong contrast to the extravagant faith of those who, on
the one side, consider the ballads good historical documents, as
Müller and Herder are disposed to do, and the sturdy incredulity
of Masdeu, on the other, who denies that there ever was a Cid.

At a later period, all sorts of subjects were introduced into the ballads; ancient subjects as well as modern, sacred as well as profane. Even the Greek and Roman fables were laid under contribution, as if they were historically true; but more ballads are connected with Spanish history than with any other, and, in general, they are better. The most striking peculiarity of the whole mass is, perhaps, to be found in the degree in which it expresses the national character. Loyalty is constantly prominent. The Lord of Buitrago sacrifices his own life to save that of his sovereign.[218] The Cid sends rich spoils from his conquests in Valencia to the ungrateful king who had driven him thither as an exile.[219] Bernardo del Carpio bows in submission to the uncle who basely and brutally outrages his filial affections;[220] and when, driven to despair, he rebels, the ballads and the chronicles absolutely forsake him. In short, this and the other strong traits of the national character are constantly appearing in the old historical ballads, and constitute a chief part of the peculiar charm that invests them.

[218] See the fine ballad beginning “Si el cavallo vos han
muerto,”--which first appears in the “Flor de Romances,” Octava
Parte (Alcalá, 1597, f. 129). It is boldly translated by Lockhart.

[219] I refer to the ballad in the “Romancero del Cid” beginning
“Llego Alvar Fañez a Burgos,” with the letter following
it,--“El vasallo desleale.” This trait in the Cid’s character
is noticed by Diego Ximenez Ayllon, in his poem on that hero,
1579, where, having spoken of his being treated by the king with
harshness,--“Tratado de su Rey con aspereza,”--the poet adds,--

Jamas le dio lugar su virtud alta
Que en su lealtad viniese alguna falta.