Chapter XIII: Humorous Romances of Spain (3)

The balance is, however, greatly in favour of Chaucer, whose lines, if properly accented, beat the original Spanish on its own ground, and this notwithstanding the absurd remark of Swinburne that "Chaucer and Spenser scarcely made a good poet between them."

[35] See the work of Rivadeneyra, Biblioteca de Autores españoles, vol. xl (1846-48), where the romance is prefaced in a brilliant and scholarly manner by Gayangos. Its origins are ably discussed by Eugène Baret, Études sur la Redaction Espagnole de l'Amadis de Gaule (1853); T. Braga, Historia das Novellas Portuguezas de Cavalleria (1873); and L. Braunfels, Kritischer Versuch über den Roman Amadis von Gallien (1876).

[36] Anstruther, in Fife? The Spaniards would know the place through their intercourse with the Flemings, who traded considerably with it. A Spanish vessel put into Anstruther during the flight of the Armada round the coasts of Scotland.

[37] I think I can see in this giant Albadan the giant Albiona, one of the two monsters, sons of Neptune, who, according to Pomponius Mela, attacked Hercules in Liguria. The name Albion was once given to the whole of Britain, and later, as Alba and Albany, to Scotland, whose people were known as Albannach. This is said to mean 'the White,' in allusion to the cliffs of Dover! It is much more probable that it signified 'the place or region of the god Alba,' 'the country of the white god.' All the Scottish gods were giants, like the Fomorians of Ireland.

[38] Strange that a sword and a ring should so often be the test of identity in such tales! So it was, as regards the first of these tokens at least, with Theseus, Arthur, and many another hero. On this head see Hartland, The Legend of Perseus (1894-96).

[39] Urganda, as Southey remarks, is a true fairy, resembling Morgan le Fay in her attributes, but, as Scott says, she has no connexion with the more classic nymphidæ. But is not this dea phantastica identical with Morgan, and her name merely a Hispanic rendering of the Celtic fairy's?

[40] Scott girds fiercely against Southey's interpolation of Anthony Munday's translation of these verses in his Amadis, and with justice. The above translation is only slightly more tolerable, but it is at least sense. Poor Tony was bitten by the absurdities of euphuism, and his lines are mere nonsense. But there is even less excuse for a modern translation to backslide into the style of the eighteenth century.

[41] She had previously visited Scotland and embarked there "for Great Britain," and while on this voyage was driven on the Poor Rock, which would seem to have been 'somewhere' in the Mediterranean! Strange that geography should have been so shaky at such a period and among a people who had done so much for discovery and navigation.

[42] 'Cildadan' I take to be Cuchullin (pron. Coohoolin, or Coolin), the hero of the well-known Irish epic.

[43] It was Munday's translation of these verses from the French which chiefly aroused the scorn of Scott, and it is in dread of the memory of that scorn that I offer these lines, which partake much more of the nature of an adaptation than a translation, the original Spanish being much too stiff and artificial for rendition in English.

[44] I take this incident to be a reminiscence of the Minotaur story. Indeed the Firm Island appears to me, both from its geographical proximities and its whole phenomena, as a borrowing of Cretan or Minoan story. The "old covered way" from which the bull emerges is surely the Labyrinth. Is the wise old ape Dædalus?

[45] It is scarcely necessary to indicate to the reader that the name Nasciano is borrowed from that of Nasciens, the hermit king of Grail romance.

[46] Forbear.

[47] William Stewart Rose, Amadis de Gaul: A Poem in Three Books (London, 1803).

[48] For a brief account of this Toledan poet, who translated Ovid's Metamorphoses, see Antonio, Bib. Nov., t. ii, p. 44.

[49] Unless the Anseis de Carthage be excepted--a romance which attributes the downfall of Spain to a son of Charlemagne, who acts as does Don Roderick. The Anseis is in French.

[50] As enshrined in the Crónica Sarrazyna, of Pedro de Carrel, which founds on the Crónica General, the Chronicle of the Moor Rasis, and the Crónica Trayana, the ballads relating to Roderic are all later than this compilation.

[51] Besides the collection of romances alluded to, which may be said to represent the standard sources of the subject, collections were published at Antwerp and Saragossa, in the middle of the sixteenth century, by Martin Nucio and Esteban de Nájera respectively. The reader may also consult the Primavera y Flor de Romance, by Wolf and Hofman, in the reprint published by Señor Menéndez y Pelayo, the collection of Depping (two vols., Leipzig, 1844), and the English translations of Lockhart and Bowring.

[52] If Scott wrote this verse himself (as Lockhart admits), he wrote others.

[53] I take these two quatrains from two different versions.

[54] The witch-cult in Europe seems to me to have a connexion with the horse. Occasionally witches proceed to the sabbat on flying horses. One of the tests of a witch was to look in her eyes for the reflection of a horse. In Scotland even to-day a 'Horseman's Society' exists which has a semi-occult initiation and strange rites.

[55] The reader who wishes to follow this phase of the subject further should consult Miss M. A. Murray's recent articles in Man.

[56] T. i, p. 543.

End of Project Gutenberg's Legends & Romances of Spain, by Lewis Spence