Chapter XII: Canto I

[220] On one of the occasions when Bernardo had been most foully
and falsely treated by the king, he says,--

Señor, Rey sois, y haredes
A vuestro querer y guisa.

A king you are, and you must do,
In your own way, what pleases you.

And on another similar occasion, another ballad, he says to the
king,--

De servir no os dejaré
Mientras que tenga la vida.

Nor shall I fail to serve your Grace
While life within me keeps its place.

* * * * *

_Ballads on Moorish Subjects._--The Moorish ballads form a brilliant and large class by themselves, but none of them are as old as the earliest historical ballads. Indeed, their very subjects intimate their later origin. Few can be found alluding to known events or personages that occur before the period immediately preceding the fall of Granada; and even in these few the proofs of a more recent and Christian character are abundant. The truth appears to be, that, after the final overthrow of the Moorish power, when the conquerors for the first time came into full possession of whatever was most luxurious in the civilization of their enemies, the tempting subjects their situation suggested were at once seized upon by the spirit of their popular poetry. The sweet South, with its picturesque, though effeminate, refinement; the foreign, yet not absolutely stranger, manners of its people; its magnificent and fantastic architecture; the stories of the warlike achievements and disasters at Baza, at Ronda, and at Alhama, with the romantic adventures and fierce feuds of the Zegris and Abencerrages, the Gomeles and the Aliatares;--all took strong hold of the Spanish imagination, and made of Granada, its rich plain and snowcapped mountains, that fairy land which the elder and sterner ballad poetry of the North had failed to create. From this time, therefore, we find a new class of subjects, such as the loves of Gazul and Abindarraez, with games and tournaments in the Bivarrambla, and tales of Arabian nights in the Generalife; in short, whatever was matter of Moorish tradition or manners, or might by the popular imagination be deemed such, was wrought into Spanish ballad poetry, until the very excess became ridiculous, and the ballads themselves laughed at one another for deserting their own proper subjects, and becoming, as it were, renegades to nationality and patriotism.[221]

[221] In the humorous ballad, “Tanta Zayda y Adalifa,” (first
printed, Flor de Romances, Quinta Parte, Burgos, 1594, 18mo, f.
158,) we have the following:--

Renegaron de su ley
Los Romancistas de España,
Y ofrecieronle a Mahoma
Las primicias de sus galas.
Dexaron los graves hechos
De su vencedora patria,
Y mendigan de la agena
Invenciones y patrañas.

Like renegades to Christian faith,
These ballad-mongers vain
Have given to Mahound himself
The offerings due to Spain;
And left the record of brave deeds
Done by their sires of old,
To beg abroad, in heathen lands,
For fictions poor and cold.

Góngora, too, attacked them in an amusing ballad,--“A mis Señores
poetas,”--and they were defended in another, beginning “Porque,
Señores poetas.”

The period when this style of poetry came into favor was the century that elapsed after the fall of Granada; the same in which all classes of the ballads were first written down and printed. The early collections give full proof of this. Those of 1511 and 1550 contain several Moorish ballads, and that of 1593 contains above two hundred. But though their subjects involve known occurrences, they are hardly ever really historical; as, for instance, the well-known ballad on the tournament in Toledo, which is supposed to have happened before the year 1085, while its names belong to the period immediately preceding the fall of Granada; and the ballad of King Belchite, which, like many others, has a subject purely imaginary. Indeed, this romantic character is the prevalent one in the ballads of this class, and gives them much of their interest; a fact well illustrated by that beginning “The star of Venus rises now,” which is one of the best and most consistent in the “Romancero General,” and yet, by its allusions to Venus and to Rodamonte, and its mistake in supposing a Moor to have been Alcayde of Seville, a century after Seville had become a Christian city, shows that there was, in its composition, no serious thought of any thing but poetical effect.[222]

[222] “Ocho á ocho, diez á diez,” and “Sale la estrella de
Venus,” two of the ballads here referred to, are in the Romancero
of 1593. Of the last there is a good translation in an excellent
article on Spanish Poetry in the Edinburgh Review, Vol. XXXIX. p.
419.

These, with some of the ballads on the famous Gazul, occur in the popular story of the “Wars of Granada,” where they are treated as if contemporary with the facts they record, and are beautiful specimens of the poetry which the Spanish imagination delighted to connect with that most glorious event in the national history.[223] Others can be found in a similar tone on the stories, partly or wholly fabulous, of Muça, Xarifé, Lisaro, and Tarfé; while yet others, in greater number, belong to the treasons and rivalries, the plots and adventures, of the more famous Zegris and Abencerrages, which, as far as they are founded in fact, show how internal dissensions, no less than external disasters, prepared the way for the final overthrow of the Moorish empire. Some of them were probably written in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella; many more in the time of Charles the Fifth; the most brilliant, but not the best, somewhat later.

[223] Among the fine ballads on Gazul are, “Por la plaza de San
Juan,” and “Estando toda la corte.”

* * * * *

_Ballads on Manners and Private Life._--But the ballad poetry of Spain was not confined to heroic subjects drawn from romance or history, or to subjects depending on Moorish traditions and manners; and therefore, though these are the three largest classes into which it is divided, there is yet a fourth, which may be called miscellaneous, and which is of no little moment. For, in truth, the poetical feelings even of the lower portions of the Spanish people were spread out over more subjects than we should anticipate; and their genius, which, from the first, had a charter as free as the wind, has thus left us a vast number of records, that prove at least the variety of the popular perceptions, and the quickness and tenderness of the popular sensibility. Many of the miscellaneous ballads thus produced--perhaps most of them--are effusions of love; but many are pastoral, many are burlesque, satirical, and _picaresque_; many are called _Letrillas_, but have nothing epistolary about them except the name; many are lyrical in their tone, if not in their form; and many are descriptive of the manners and amusements of the people at large. But one characteristic runs through the whole of them. They are true representations of Spanish life. Some of those first printed have already been referred to; but there is a considerable class marked by an attractive simplicity of thought and expression, united to a sort of mischievous shrewdness, that should be particularly noticed. No such popular poetry exists in any other language. A number of these ballads occur in the peculiarly valuable Sixth Part of the Romancero, that appeared in 1594, and was gathered by Pedro Flores, as he himself tells us, in part least, from the memories of the common people.[224] They remind us not unfrequently of the lighter poetry of the Archpriest of Hita in the middle of the fourteenth century, and may, probably, be traced back in their tone and spirit to a yet earlier period. Indeed, they are quite a prominent and charming part of all the earliest Romanceros, not a few of them being as simple, and yet as shrewd and humorous, as the following, in which an elder sister is represented lecturing a younger one, on first noticing in her the symptoms of love:--

[224] For example, “Que es de mi contento,” “Plega á Dios que si
yo creo,” “Aquella morena,” “Madre, un cavallero,” “Mal ayan mis
ojos,” “Niña, que vives,” etc.

Her sister Miguela
Once child little Jane,
And the words that she spoke
Gave a great deal of pain.

“You went yesterday playing,
A child like the rest;
And now you come out,
More than other girls dressed.

“You take pleasure in sighs,
In sad music delight;
With the dawning you rise,
Yet sit up half the night.

“When you take up your work,
You look vacant and stare,
And gaze on your sampler,
But miss the stitch there.

“You’re in love, people say,
Your actions all show it;--
New ways we shall have,
When mother shall know it.

“She’ll nail up the windows,
And lock up the door;
Leave to frolic and dance
She will give us no more.

“Old aunt will be sent
To take us to mass,
And stop all our talk
With the girls as we pass.

“And when we walk out,
She will bid our old shrew
Keep a faithful account
Of what our eyes do;

“And mark who goes by,
If I peep through the blind,
And be sure and detect us
In looking behind.

“Thus for your idle follies
Must I suffer too,
And, though nothing I’ve done,
Be punished like you.”

“O sister Miguela,
Your chiding pray spare;--
That I’ve troubles you guess,
But not what they are.

“Young Pedro it is,
Old Juan’s fair youth;
But he’s gone to the wars,
And where is his truth?

“I loved him sincerely,
I loved all he said;
But I fear he is fickle,
I fear he is fled!

“He is gone of free choice,
Without summons or call,
And ’t is foolish to love him,
Or like him at all.”

“Nay, rather do thou
To God pray above,
Lest Pedro return,
And again you should love,”

Said Miguela in jest,
As she answered poor Jane;
“For when love has been bought
At cost of such pain,

“What hope is there, sister,
Unless the soul part,
That the passion you cherish
Should yield up your heart?

“Your years will increase,
But so will your pains,
And this you may learn
From the proverb’s old strains:--

“‘If, when but a child,
Love’s power you own,
Pray, what will you do
When you older are grown?’”[225]

[225] The oldest copy of this ballad or _letra_ that I have
seen is in the “Flor de Romances,” Sexta Parte, (1594, f. 27,)
collected by Pedro Flores, from popular traditions, and of which
a less perfect copy is given, by an oversight, in the Ninth Part
of the same collection, 1597, f. 116. I have not translated the
verses at the end, because they seem to be a poor gloss by a
later hand and in a different measure. The ballad itself is as
follows:--

Riño con Juanilla
Su hermana Miguela;
Palabras le dize,
Que mucho le duelan:
“Ayer en mantillas
Andauas pequeña,
Oy andas galana
Mas que otras donzellas.
Tu gozo es suspiros,
Tu cantar endechas;
Al alua madrugas,
Muy tarde te acuestas;
Quando estas labrando,
No se en que te piensas,
Al dechado miras,
Y los puntos yerras.
Dizenme que hazes
Amorosas señas:
Si madre lo sabe,
Aura cosas nueuas.
Clauara ventanas,
Cerrara las puertas;
Para que baylemos,
No dara licencia;
Mandara que tia
Nos lleue a la Yglesia,
Porque no nos hablen
Las amigas nuestras.
Quando fuera salga,
Dirale a la dueña,
Que con nuestros ojos
Tenga mucha cuenta;
Que mire quien passa,
Si miro a la reja,
Y qual de nosotras
Boluio la cabeça.
Por tus libertades
Sere yo sugeta;
Pagaremos justos
Lo que malos pecan.”
“Ay! Miguela hermana,
Que mal que sospechas!
Mis males presumes,
Y no los aciertas.
A Pedro, el de Juan,
Que se fue a la guerra,
Aficion le tuue,
Y escuche sus quexas;
Mas visto que es vario
Mediante el ausencia,
De su fe fingida
Ya no se me acuerda.
Fingida la llamo,
Porque, quien se ausenta,
Sin fuerça y con gusto,
No es bien que le quiera.”
“Ruegale tu a Dios
Que Pedro no buelua,”
Respondio burlando
Su hermana Miguela,
“Que el amor comprado
Con tan ricas prendas
No saldra del alma
Sin salir con ella.
Creciendo tus años,
Creceran tus penas;
Y si no lo sabes,
Escucha esta letra:
Si eres niña y has amor,
Que haras quando mayor?”

Sexta Parte de Flor de Romances, Toledo, 1594, 18mo, f. 27.

A single specimen like this, however, can give no idea of the great variety in the class of ballads to which it belongs, nor of their poetical beauty. To feel their true value and power, we must read large numbers of them, and read them, too, in their native language; for there is a winning freshness in the originals, as they lie imbedded in the old Romanceros, that escapes in translations, however free or however strict;--a remark that should be extended to the historical as well as the miscellaneous portions of that great mass of popular poetry which is found in the early ballad-books, and which, though it is all nearly three centuries old, and some of it older, has been much less carefully considered than it deserves to be.

Yet there are certainly few portions of the literature of any country that will better reward a spirit of adventurous inquiry than these ancient Spanish ballads, in all their forms. In many respects, they are unlike the earliest narrative poetry of any other part of the world; in some, they are better. The English and Scotch ballads, with which they may most naturally be compared, belong to a ruder state of society, where a personal coarseness and violence prevailed, which did not, indeed, prevent the poetry it produced from being full of energy, and sometimes of tenderness, but which necessarily had less dignity and elevation than belong to the character, if not the condition, of a people who, like the Spanish, were for centuries engaged in a contest ennobled by a sense of religion and loyalty; a contest which could not fail sometimes to raise the minds and thoughts of those engaged in it far above such an atmosphere as settled round the bloody feuds of rival barons or the gross maraudings of a border warfare. The truth of this will at once be felt, if we compare the striking series of ballads on Robin Hood with those on the Cid and Bernardo del Carpio; or if we compare the deep tragedy of Edom o’ Gordon with that of the Conde Alarcos; or what would be better than either, if we would sit down to the “Romancero General,” with its poetical confusion of Moorish splendors and Christian loyalty, just when we have come fresh from Percy’s “Reliques,” or Scott’s “Minstrelsy.”[226]

[226] If we choose to strike more widely, and institute a
comparison with the garrulous old Fabliaux, or with the overdone
refinements of the Troubadours and Minnesingers, the result
would be yet more in favor of the early Spanish ballads, which
represent and embody the excited poetical feeling that filled
the whole nation during that period when the Moorish power was
gradually broken down by an enthusiasm that became at last
irresistible, because, from the beginning, it was founded on a
sense of loyalty and religious duty.

But, besides what the Spanish ballads possess different from the popular poetry of the rest of Europe, they exhibit, as no others exhibit it, that nationality which is the truest element of such poetry everywhere. They seem, indeed, as we read them, to be often little more than the great traits of the old Spanish character brought out by the force of poetical enthusiasm; so that, if their nationality were taken away from them, they would cease to exist. This, in its turn, has preserved them down to the present day, and will continue to preserve them hereafter. The great Castilian heroes, such as the Cid, Bernardo del Carpio, and Pelayo, are even now an essential portion of the faith and poetry of the common people of Spain; and are still, in some degree, honored as they were honored in the age of the Great Captain, or, farther back, in that of Saint Ferdinand. The stories of Guarinos, too, and of the defeat of Roncesvalles are still sung by the wayfaring muleteers, as they were when Don Quixote heard them in his journeying to Toboso; and the showmen still rehearse the adventures of Gayferos and Melisendra, in the streets of Seville, as they did at the solitary inn of Montesinos, when he encountered them there. In short, the ancient Spanish ballads are so truly national in their spirit, that they became at once identified with the popular character that had produced them, and with that same character will go onward, we doubt not, till the Spanish people shall cease to have a separate and independent existence.[227]

[227] See Appendix, B.