effect on the rude beginnings of the Spanish drama; perhaps not so much
as the dialogues of “Mingo Revulgo,” and “Love and the Old Man.” But
the three taken together unquestionably lead us to the true founder of
the secular theatre in Spain, Juan de la Enzina,[433] who was probably
born in the village whose name he bears, in 1468 or 1469, and was
educated at the neighbouring University of Salamanca, where he had the
good fortune to enjoy the patronage of its chancellor, then one of the
rising family of Alva. Soon afterwards he was at court; and at the age
of twenty-five, we find him in the household of Fadrique de Toledo,
first Duke of Alva, to whom and to his duchess Enzina addressed much of
his poetry. In 1496, he published the earliest edition of his works,
divided into four parts, which are successively dedicated to Ferdinand
and Isabella, to the Duke and Duchess of Alva, to Prince John, and to
Don Garcia de Toledo, son of his patron.
[433] He spells his name differently in different editions of his
works; Encina in 1496, Enzina in 1509 and elsewhere.
Somewhat later, Enzina went to Rome, where he became a priest, and,
from his skill in music, rose to be head of Leo the Tenth’s chapel; the
highest honor the world then offered to his art. In the course of the
year 1519, he made a pilgrimage from Rome to Jerusalem with Fadrique
Afan de Ribera, Marquis of Tarifa; and on his return, published, in
1521, a poor poetical account of his devout adventures, accompanied
with great praises of the Marquis, and ending with an expression of
his happiness at living in Rome.[434] At a more advanced age, however,
having received a priory in Leon as a reward for his services, he
returned to his native country, and died, in 1534, at Salamanca, in
whose cathedral his monument is probably still to be seen.[435]
[434] There is an edition of it (Madrid, 1786, 12mo) filling
a hundred pages, to which is added a summary of the whole in
a ballad of eighteen pages, which may have been intended for
popular recitation. The last is not, perhaps, the work of Enzina.
A similar pilgrimage, partly devout, partly poetical, was made
a century later by Pedro de Escobar Cabeza de la Vaca, who
published an account of it in 1587, (12mo,) at Valladolid, in
twenty-five cantos of blank verse, entitled “Lucero de la Tierra
Santa,”--A Lighthouse for the Holy Land. He went and returned
by the way of Egypt, and at Jerusalem became a knight-templar;
but his account of what he saw and did, though I doubt not it is
curious for the history of geography, is as free from the spirit
of poetry as can well be imagined. Nearly the whole of it, if not
broken into verses, might be read as pure and dignified Castilian
prose, and parts of it would have considerable merit as such.
[435] The best life of Enzina is one in the “Allgemeine
Encyclopedie der Wissenschaften und Künste” (Erste Section,
Leipzig, 4to, Tom. XXXIV. pp. 187-189). It is by Ferdinand Wolf,
of Vienna. An early and satisfactory notice of Enzina is to be
found in Gonzalez de Avila, “Historia de Salamanca,” (Salamanca,
1606, 4to, Lib. III. c. xxii.,) where Enzina is called “hijo
desta patria,” i. e. Salamanca.
Of his collected works six editions at least were published between
1496 and 1516; showing, that, for the period in which he lived, he
enjoyed a remarkable degree of popularity. They contain a good deal of
pleasant lyrical poetry, songs, and _villancicos_, in the old popular
Spanish style; and two or three descriptive poems, particularly “A
Vision of the Temple of Fame and the Glories of Castile,” in which
Ferdinand and Isabella receive great eulogy and are treated as if
they were his patrons. But most of his shorter poems were slight
contributions of his talent offered on particular occasions; and by far
the most important works he has left us are the dramatic compositions
which fill the fourth division of his Cancionero.
These compositions are called by Enzina himself “Representaciones”;
and in the edition of 1496 there are nine of them, while in the last
two editions there are eleven, one of which contains the date of 1498.
They are in the nature of eclogues, though one of them, it is difficult
to tell why, is called an “Auto”;[436] and they were represented
before the Duke and Duchess of Alva, the Prince Don John, the Duke of
Infantado, and other distinguished personages enumerated in the notices
prefixed to them. All are in some form of the old Spanish verse; in all
there is singing; and in one there is a dance. They have, therefore,
several of the elements of the proper secular Spanish drama, whose
origin we can trace no farther back by any authentic monument now
existing.
[436] “Auto del Repelon,” or Auto of the Brawl, being a quarrel
in the market-place of Salamanca, between some students of the
University and sundry shepherds. The word _auto_ comes from the
Latin _actus_, and was applied to any particularly solemn acts,
however different in their nature and character, like the _autos
sacramentales_ of the _Corpus Christi_ days, and the _autos da
fé_ of the Inquisition. (See Covarrubias, Tesoro, ad verb.;
and the account of Lope de Vega’s drama, in the next period.)
In 1514, Enzina published, at Rome, a drama entitled “Placida
y Victoriano,” which he called _una egloga_, and which is much
praised by the author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas”; but it was
put into the Index Expurgatorius, 1559, and occurs again in that
of 1667, p. 733. I believe no copy of it is known to be extant.
Two things, however, should be noted, when considering these dramatic
efforts of Juan de la Enzina as the foundation of the Spanish drama.
The first is their internal structure and essential character. They
are eclogues only in form and name, not in substance and spirit.
Enzina, whose poetical account of his travels in Palestine proves him
to have had scholarlike knowledge, began by translating, or rather
paraphrasing, the ten Eclogues of Virgil, accommodating some of them to
events in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, or to passages in the
fortunes of the house of Alva.[437] From these, he easily passed to
the preparation of eclogues to be represented before his patrons and
their courtly friends. But, in doing this, he was naturally reminded
of the religious exhibitions, which had been popular in Spain from
the time of Alfonso the Tenth, and had always been given at the great
festivals of the Church. Six, therefore, of his eclogues, to meet the
demands of ancient custom, are, in fact, dialogues of the simplest
kind, represented at Christmas and Easter, or during Carnival and Lent;
in one of which the manger at Bethlehem is introduced, and in another a
sepulchral monument, setting forth the burial of the Saviour, while all
of them seem to have been enacted in the chapel of the Duke of Alva,
though two certainly are not very religious in their tone and character.
[437] They may have been represented, but I know of no proof
that they were, except this accommodation of them to personages
some of whom are known to have been of his audience on similar
occasions.
The remaining five are altogether secular; three of them having a sort
of romantic story, the fourth introducing a shepherd so desperate with
love that he kills himself, and the fifth exhibiting a market-day farce
and riot between sundry country people and students, the materials
for which Enzina may well enough have gathered during his own life at
Salamanca. These five eclogues, therefore, connect themselves with the
coming secular drama of Spain in a manner not to be mistaken, just as
the first six look back towards the old religious exhibitions of the
country.
The other circumstance that should be noted in relation to them, as
proof that they constitute the commencement of the Spanish secular
drama, is, that they were really acted. Nearly all of them speak
in their titles of this fact, mentioning sometimes the personages
who were present, and in more than one instance alluding to Enzina
himself, as if he had performed some of the parts in person. Rojas, a
great authority in whatever relates to the theatre, declares the same
thing expressly, coupling the fall of Granada and the achievements of
Columbus with the establishment of the theatre in Spain by Enzina;
events which, in the true spirit of his profession as an actor, he
seems to consider of nearly equal importance.[438] The precise year
when this happened is given by a learned antiquary of the time of
Philip the Fourth, who says, “In 1492, companies began to represent
publicly in Castile plays by Juan de la Enzina.”[439] From this year,
then, the great year of the discovery of America, we may safely date
the foundation of the Spanish secular theatre.
[438] Agustin de Rojas, Viage Entretenido, Madrid, 1614, 12mo,
ff. 46, 47. Speaking of the bucolic dramas of Enzina, represented
before the Dukes of Alva, Infantado, etc., he says expressly,
“These were the first.” Rojas was not born till 1577, but he was
devoted to the theatre his whole life, and seems to have been
more familiar with its history than anybody else of his time.
[439] Rodrigo Mendez de Silva, Catálogo Real Genealógico de
España, at the end of his “Poblacion de España” (Madrid, 1675,
folio, f. 250. b). Mendez de Silva was a learned and voluminous
author. See his Life, Barbosa, Bib. Lusitana, Tom. III. p. 649,
where is a sonnet of Lope de Vega in praise of the learning of
this very Catálogo Real. The word “publicly,” however, seems
only to refer to the representations in the houses of Enzina’s
patrons, etc., as we shall see hereafter.
It must not, however, be supposed that the “Representations,” as he
calls them, of Juan de la Enzina have much dramatic merit. On the
contrary, they are rude and slight. Some have only two or three
interlocutors, and no pretension to a plot; and none has more than six
personages, nor any thing that can be considered a proper dramatic
structure. In one of those prepared for the Nativity, the four
shepherds are, in fact, the four Evangelists;--Saint John, at the
same time, shadowing forth the person of the poet. He enters first,
and discourses, in rather a vainglorious way, of himself as a poet;
not forgetting, however, to compliment the Duke of Alva, his patron,
as a person feared in France and in Portugal, with which countries
the political relations of Spain were then unsettled. Matthew, who
follows, rebukes John for this vanity, telling him that “all his works
are not worth two straws”; to which John replies, that, in pastorals
and graver poetry, he defies competition, and intimates, that, in the
course of the next May, he shall publish what will prove him to be
something even more than bucolic. They both agree that the Duke and
Duchess are excellent masters, and Matthew wishes that he, too, were in
their service. At this point of the dialogue, Luke and Mark come in,
and, with slight preface, announce the birth of the Saviour as the last
news. All four then talk upon that event at large, alluding to John’s
Gospel as if already known, and end with a determination to go to
Bethlehem, after singing a _villancico_ or rustic song, which is much
too light in its tone to be religious.[440] The whole eclogue is short
and comprised in less than forty rhymed stanzas of nine lines each,
including a wild lyric at the end, which has a chorus to every stanza,
and is not without the spirit of poetry.[441]
[440] The _villancicos_ long retained a pastoral tone and
something of a dramatic character. At the marriage of Philip
II., in Segovia, 1570, “The youth of the choir, gayly dressed
as shepherds, danced and sang a _villancico_,” says Colmenares,
(Hist. de Segovia, Segovia, 1627, fol., p. 558,) and in 1600,
_villancicos_ were again performed by the choir, when Philip III.
visited the city. Ibid., p. 594.
[441] This is the eclogue beginning “Dios salva acá buena gente,”
etc., and is on fol. 103 of the “Cancionero de Todas las Obras
de Juan de la Encina; impreso en Salamanca, a veinte dias del
Mes de Junio de M.CCCC. E XCVI. años” (116 leaves, folio). It
was represented before the Duke and Duchess of Alva, while they
were in the chapel for matins on Christmas morning; and the
next eclogue, beginning “Dios mantenga, Dios mantenga,” was
represented in the same place, at vespers, the same day.
This belongs to the class of Enzina’s religious dramas. One, on the
other hand, which was represented at the conclusion of the Carnival,
during the period then called popularly at Salamanca _Antruejo_, seems
rather to savor of heathenism, as the festival itself did.[442] It
is merely a rude dialogue between four shepherds. It begins with a
description of one of those mummings, common at the period when Enzina
lived, which, in this case, consisted of a mock battle in the village
between Carnival and Lent, ending with the discomfiture of Carnival;
but the general matter of the scene presented is a somewhat free frolic
of eating and drinking among the four shepherds, ending, like the rest
of the eclogues, with a _villancico_, in which Antruejo, it is not easy
to tell why, is treated as a saint.[443]
[442] “This word,” says Covarruvias, in his Tesoro, “is used
in Salamanca, and means Carnival. In the villages, they call
it _Antruydo_; it is certain days before Lent.... They savor
a little of heathenism.” Later, _Antruejo_ became, from a
provincialism, an admitted word. Villalobos, about 1520, in his
amusing “Dialogue between the Duke and the Doctor,” says, “Y el
dia de Antruejo,” etc. (Obras, Çaragoça, 1544, folio, f. 35); and
the Academy’s dictionary has it, and defines it to be “the three
last days of Carnival.”
[443] The “Antruejo” eclogue begins “Carnal fuera! Carnal
fuera!”--“Away, Carnival! away, Carnival!”--and recalls the old
ballad, “Afuera, afuera, Rodrigo!” It is found at f. 85 of the
edition of 1509, and is preceded by another “Antruejo” eclogue,
represented the same day before the Duke and Duchess, beginning
“O triste de mi cuytado,” (f. 83,) and ending with a _villancico_
full of hopes of a peace with France.
Quite opposite to both of the pieces already noticed is the
Representation for Good Friday, between two hermits, Saint Veronica,
and an angel. It opens with the meeting and salutation of the two
hermits, the elder of whom, as they walk along, tells the younger,
with great grief, that the Saviour has been crucified that very day,
and agrees with him to visit the sepulchre. In the midst of their talk,
Saint Veronica joins them, and gives an account of the crucifixion,
not without touches of a simple pathos; showing, at the same time,
the napkin on which the portrait of the Saviour had been miraculously
impressed, as she wiped from his face the sweat of his agony. Arrived
at the sepulchre,--which was some kind of a monument for the Corpus
Christi in the Duke of Alva’s chapel, where the representation took
place,--they kneel; an angel whom they find there explains to them the
mystery of the Saviour’s death; and then, in a _villancico_ in which
all join, they praise God, and take comfort with the promise of the
resurrection.[444]
[444] It begins “Deo gracias, padre onrado!” and is at f. 80 of
the edition of 1509.
But the nearest approach to a dramatic composition made by Juan de
la Enzina is to be found in two eclogues between “The Esquire that
turns Shepherd,” and “The Shepherds that turn Courtiers”; both of
which should be taken together and examined as one whole, though,
in his simplicity, the poet makes them separate and independent of
each other.[445] In the first, a shepherdess, who is a coquette,
shows herself well disposed to receive Mingo, one of the shepherds,
for her lover, till a certain gay esquire presents himself, whom,
after a fair discussion, she prefers to accept, on condition he will
turn shepherd;--an unceremonious transformation, with which, and the
customary _villancico_, the piece concludes. The second eclogue,
however, at its opening, shows the esquire already tired of his
pastoral life, and busy in persuading all the shepherds, somewhat
in the tone of Touchstone in “As you like it,” to go to court, and
become courtly. In the dialogue that follows, an opportunity occurs,
which is not neglected, for a satire on court manners, and for natural
and graceful praise of life in the country. But the esquire carries
his point. They change their dresses, and set forth gayly upon their
adventures, singing, by way of finale, a spirited _villancico_ in honor
of the power of Love, that can thus transform shepherds to courtiers,
and courtiers to shepherds.
[445] These are the two eclogues, “Pascuala, Dios te mantenga!”
(f. 86,) and “Ha, Mingo, quedaste atras” (f. 88). They were,
I have little doubt, represented in succession, with a pause
between, like that between the acts of a modern play, in which
Enzina presented a copy of his Works to the Duke and Duchess, and
promised to write no more poetry unless they ordered him to do it.
The most poetical passage in the two eclogues is one in which Mingo,
the best of the shepherds, still unpersuaded to give up his accustomed
happy life in the country, describes its cheerful pleasures and
resources, with more of natural feeling, and more of a pastoral air,
than are found anywhere else in these singular dialogues.
But look ye, Gil, at morning dawn,
How fresh and fragrant are the fields;
And then what savory coolness yields
The cabin’s shade upon the lawn.
And he that knows what ’t is to rest
Amidst his flocks the livelong night,
Sure he can never find delight
In courts, by courtly ways oppressed.
O, what a pleasure ’t is to hear
The cricket’s cheerful, piercing cry!
And who can tell the melody
His pipe affords the shepherd’s ear?
Thou know’st what luxury ’t is to drink,
As shepherds do, when worn with heat,
From the still fount, its waters sweet,
With lips that gently touch their brink;
Or else, where, hurrying on, they rush
And frolic down their pebbly bed,
O, what delight to stoop the head,
And drink from out their merry gush![446]
[446] There is such a Doric simplicity in this passage, with
its antiquated, and yet rich, words, that I transcribe it as a
specimen of description very remarkable for its age:--
Cata, Gil, que las mañanas,
En el campo hay gran frescor,
Y tiene muy gran sabor
La sombra de las cabañas.
Quien es ducho de dormir
Con el ganado de noche,
No creas que no reproche
El palaciego vivir.
Oh! que gasajo es oir
El sonido de los grillos,
Y el tañer de los caramillos;
No hay quien lo pueda decir!
Ya sabes que gozo siente
El pastor muy caluroso
En beber con gran reposo,
De bruzas, agua en la fuente,
O de la que va corriente
Por el cascajal corriendo,
Que se va todo riendo;
Oh! que prazer tan valiente!
Ed. 1509, f. 90.
Both pieces, like the preceding translation, are in double
_redondillas_ forming octave stanzas of eight-syllable verses; and as
the two together contain about four hundred and fifty lines, their
amount is sufficient to show the direction Enzina’s talent naturally
took, as well as the height to which it rose.
Enzina, however, is to be regarded not only as the founder of the
Spanish theatre, but as the founder of the Portuguese, whose first
attempts were so completely imitated from his, and had in their turn
so considerable an effect on the Spanish stage, that they necessarily
become a part of its history. These attempts were made by Gil Vicente,
a gentleman of good family, who was bred to the law, but left that
profession early and devoted himself to dramatic compositions, chiefly
for the entertainment of the families of Manuel the Great and John the
Third. When he was born is not known, but he died in 1557. As a writer
for the stage he flourished from 1502 to 1536,[447] and produced,
in all, forty-two pieces, arranged as works of devotion, comedies,
tragicomedies, and farces; but most of them, whatever be their names,
are in fact short, lively dramas, or religious pastorals. Taken
together, they are better than any thing else in Portuguese dramatic
literature.
[447] Barbosa, Biblioteca Lusitana, Tom. II. pp. 383, etc. The
dates of 1502 and 1536 are from the prefatory notices, by the son
of Vicente, to the first of his works, in the “Obras de Devoção,”
and to the “Floresta de Engaños,” which was the latest of them.
The first thing, however, that strikes us in relation to them is, that
their air is so Spanish, and that so many of them are written in the
Spanish language. Of the whole number, ten are in Castilian, fifteen
partly or chiefly so, and seventeen entirely in Portuguese. Why this
is the case, it is not easy to determine. The languages are, no doubt,
very nearly akin to each other; and the writers of each nation, but
especially those of Portugal, have not unfrequently distinguished
themselves in the use of both. But the Portuguese have never, at any
period, admitted their language to be less rich or less fitted for
all kinds of composition than that of their prouder rivals. Perhaps,
therefore, in the case of Vicente, it was, that the courts of the two
countries had been lately much connected by intermarriages; that King
Manuel had been accustomed to have Castilians about his person to amuse
him;[448] that the queen was a Spaniard;[449] or that, in language as
in other things, he found it convenient thus to follow the leading of
his master, Juan de la Enzina;--but, whatever may have been the cause,
it is certain that Vicente, though he was born and lived in Portugal,
is to be numbered among Spanish authors as well as among Portuguese.
[448] Damião de Goes, Crónica de D. Manoel, Lisboa, 1749, fol.,
Parte IV. c. 84, p. 595. “Trazia continuadamente na sua Corte
choquarreiros Castellanos.”
[449] Married in 1500. (Ibid., Parte I. c. 46.) As so many of
Vicente’s Spanish verses were made to please the Spanish queens,
I cannot agree with Rapp, (Pruth’s Literärhistorisch Taschenbuch,
1846, p. 341,) that Vicente used Spanish in his Pastorals as
a low, vulgar language. Besides, if it was so regarded, why
did Camoens and Saa de Miranda,--two of the four great poets
of Portugal,--to say nothing of a multitude of other proud
Portuguese, write occasionally in Spanish?
His earliest effort was made in 1502, on occasion of the birth of
Prince John, afterwards John the Third.[450] It is a monologue in
Spanish, a little more than a hundred lines long, spoken before the
king, the king’s mother, and the Duchess of Braganza, probably by
Vicente himself, in the person of a herdsman, who enters the royal
chambers, and, after addressing the queen mother, is followed by a
number of shepherds, bringing presents to the new-born prince. The
poetry is simple, fresh, and spirited, and expresses the feelings of
wonder and admiration that would naturally rise in the mind of such
a rustic, on first entering a royal residence. Regarded as a courtly
compliment, the attempt succeeded. In a modest notice, attached to
it by the son of Vicente, we are told, that, being the first of his
father’s compositions, and the first dramatic representation ever made
in Portugal, it pleased the queen mother so much, as to lead her to ask
its author to repeat it at Christmas, adapting it to the birth of the
Saviour.
[450] The youngest son of Vicente published his father’s Works at
Lisbon, in folio, in 1562, of which a reprint in quarto appeared
there in 1586, much disfigured by the Inquisition. But these are
among the rarest and most curious books in modern literature,
and I remember to have seen hardly five copies, one of which
was in the library at Göttingen, and another in the public
library at Lisbon, the first in folio, and the last in quarto.
Indeed, so rare had the Works of Vicente become, that Moratin,
to whom it was very important to see a copy of them, and who
knew whatever was to be found at Madrid and Paris, in both which
places he lived long, never saw one, as is plain from No. 49 of
his “Catálogo de Piezas Dramáticas.” We therefore owe much to two
Portuguese gentlemen, J. V. Barreto Feio and J. G. Monteiro, who
published an excellent edition of Vicente’s Works at Hamburg,
1834, in three volumes, 8vo, using chiefly the Göttingen copy.
In this edition (Vol. I. p. 1) occurs the monologue spoken of in
the text, placed first, as the son says, “por ser á _primeira_
coisa, que o autor fez, _e que em Portugal se representou_.” He
says, the representation took place on the second night after the
birth of the prince, and, this being so exactly stated, we know
that the first secular dramatic exhibition in Portugal took place
June 8, 1502, John III. having been born on the 6th. Crónica de
D. Manoel, Parte I. c. 62.
Vicente, however, understood that the queen desired to have such an
entertainment as she had been accustomed to enjoy at the court of
Castile, when John de la Enzina brought his contributions to the
Christmas festivities. He therefore prepared for Christmas morning
what he called an “Auto Pastoril,” or Pastoral Act;--a dialogue in
which four shepherds with Luke and Matthew are the interlocutors, and
in which not only the eclogue forms of Enzina are used, and the manger
of Bethlehem is introduced, just as that poet had introduced it, but
in which his verses are freely imitated. This effort, too, pleased the
queen, and again, on the authority of his son, we are told she asked
Vicente for another composition, to be represented on Twelfth Night,
1503. Her request was not one to be slighted; and in the same way four
other pastorals followed for similar devout occasions, making, when
taken together, six; all of which being in Spanish, and all religious
pastorals, represented with singing and dancing before King Manuel,
his queen, and other distinguished personages, they are to be regarded
throughout as imitations of Juan de la Enzina’s eclogues.[451]
[451] The imitation of Enzina’s poetry by Vicente is noticed
by the Hamburg editors. (Vol. I. Ensaio, p. xxxviii.) Indeed,
it is quite too obvious to be overlooked, and is distinctly
acknowledged by one of his contemporaries, Garcia de Resende, the
collector of the Portuguese Cancioneiro of 1517, who says, in
some rambling verses on things that had happened in his time,--
E vimos singularmente
Fazer representações
Destilo muy eloquente,
De muy novas invenções,
E feitas por Gil Vicente.
Elle foi o que inventou
Isto ca e o usou
Cõ mais graça e mais dotrina;
Posto que Joam del Enzina
O pastoril començou.
Miscellania e Variedade de Historias, at the end of Resende’s
Crónica de João II., 1622, folio, f. 164.
Of these six pieces, three of which, we know, were written in 1502 and
1503, and the rest, probably, soon afterwards, the most curious and
characteristic is the one called “The Auto of the Sibyl Cassandra,”
which was represented in the rich old monastery of Enxobregas, on
a Christmas morning, before the queen mother. It is an eclogue in
Spanish, above eight hundred lines long, and is written in the
stanzas most used by Enzina. Cassandra, the heroine, devoted to a
pastoral life, yet supposed to be a sort of lay prophetess who has had
intimations of the approaching birth of the Saviour, enters at once on
the scene, where she remains to the end, the central point, round which
the other seven personages are not inartificially grouped. She has
hardly avowed her resolution not to be married, when Solomon appears
making love to her, and telling her, with great simplicity, that he
has arranged every thing with her aunts, to marry her in three days.
Cassandra, nothing daunted at the annunciation, persists in the purpose
of celibacy; and he, in consequence, goes out to summon these aunts to
his assistance. During his absence, she sings the following song:
They say, “’T is time, go, marry! go!”
But I’ll no husband! not I! no!
For I would live all carelessly,
Amidst these hills, a maiden free,
And never ask, nor anxious be,
Of wedded weal or woe.
Yet still they say, “Go, marry! go!”
But I’ll no husband! not I! no!
So, mother, think not I shall wed,
And through a tiresome life be led,
Or use, in folly’s ways instead,
What grace the heavens bestow.
Yet still they say, “Go, marry! go!”
But I’ll no husband! not I! no!
The man has not been born, I ween,
Who as my husband shall be seen;
And since what frequent tricks have been
Undoubtingly I know,
In vain they say, “Go, marry! go!”
For I’ll no husband! not I! no![452]
[452]
Dicen que me case yo;
No quiero marido, no!
Mas quiero vivir segura
Nesta sierra á mi soltura,
Que no estar en ventura
Si casaré bien ó no.
Dicen que me case yo;
No quiero marido, no!
Madre, no seré casada,
Por no ver vida cansada,
O quizá mal empleada
La gracia que Dios me dió.
Dicen que me case yo;
No quiero marido, no!
No será ni es nacido
Tal para ser mi marido;
Y pues que tengo sabido.
Que la flor yo me la só,
Dicen que me case yo;
No quiero marido, no!
Gil Vicente, Obras, Hamburgo, 1834, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 42.
The aunts, named Cimeria, Peresica, and Erutea, who are, in fact, the
Cumæan, Persian, and Erythræan Sibyls, now come in with King Solomon
and endeavour to persuade Cassandra to consent to his love; setting
forth his merits and pretensions, his good looks, his good temper, and
his good estate. But, as they do not succeed, Solomon, in despair,
goes for her three uncles, Moses, Abraham, and Isaiah, with whom he
instantly returns, all four dancing a sort of mad dance as they enter,
and singing,--
She is wild! She is wild!
Who shall speak to the child?
On the hills pass her hours,
As a shepherdess free;
She is fair as the flowers,
She is wild as the sea!
She is wild! She is wild!
Who shall speak to the child?[453]
[453] Traz Salomão, Esaias, e Moyses, e Abrahao cantando todos
quatro de folia á cantiga seguinte:--
Que sañosa está la niña!
Ay Dios, quien le hablaria?
En la sierra anda la niña
Su ganado á repastar;
Hermosa como las flores,
Sañosa como la mar.
Sañosa como la mar
Está la niña:
Ay Dios, quien le hablaria?
Vicente, Obras, Tom. I. p. 46.
The three uncles first endeavour to bribe their niece into a more
teachable temper; but, failing in that, Moses undertakes to show her,
from his own history of the creation, that marriage is an honorable
sacrament and that she ought to enter into it. Cassandra replies,
and, in the course of a rather jesting discussion with Abraham about
good-tempered husbands, intimates that she is aware the Saviour is
soon to be born of a virgin; an augury which the three Sibyls, her
aunts, prophetically confirm, and to which Cassandra then adds that
she herself has hopes to be this Saviour’s mother. The uncles, shocked
at the intimation, treat her as a crazed woman, and a theological and
mystical discussion follows, which is carried on by all present, till
a curtain is suddenly withdrawn, and the manger of Bethlehem and the
child are discovered, with four angels, who sing a hymn in honor of
his birth. The rest of the drama is taken up with devotions suited
to the occasion, and it ends with the following graceful _cancion_
to the Madonna, sung and danced by the author, as well as the other
performers:--
The maid is gracious all and fair;
How beautiful beyond compare!
Say, sailor bold and free,
That dwell’st upon the sea,
If ships or sail or star
So winning are.
And say, thou gallant knight,
That donn’st thine armour bright,
If steed or arms or war
So winning are.
And say, thou shepherd hind,
That bravest storm and wind,
If flocks or vales or hill afar
So winning are.[454]
[454]
Muy graciosa es la doncella:
Como es bella y hermosa!
Digas tú, el marinero,
Que en las naves vivias,
Si la nave ó la vela ó la estrella
Es tan bella.
Digas tú, el caballero,
Que las armas vestías,
Si el caballo ó las armas ó la guerra
Es tan bella.
Digas tú, el pastorcico,
Que el ganadico guardas,
Si el ganado ó las valles ó la sierra
Es tan bella.
Vicente, Obras, Tom. I. p. 61.
And so ends this incongruous drama;[455] a strange union of the spirit
of an ancient mystery and of a modern _vaudeville_, but not without
poetry, and not more incongruous or more indecorous than the similar
dramas which, at the same period, and in other countries, found a place
in the princely halls of the most cultivated, and were listened to with
edification in monasteries and cathedrals by the most religious.
[455] It is in the Hamburg edition (Tom. I. pp. 36-62); but
though it properly ends, as has been said, with the song to the
Madonna, there is afterwards, by way of _envoi_, the following
_vilancete_, (“_por despedida ó vilancete seguinte_,”) which is
curious as showing how the theatre was, from the first, made to
serve for immediate excitement and political purposes; since the
_vilancete_ is evidently intended to stir up the noble company
present to some warlike enterprise in which their services were
wanted, probably against the Moors of Africa, as King Manoel had
no other wars.
To the field! To the field!
Cavaliers of emprise!
Angels pure from the skies
Come to help us and shield.
To the field! To the field!
With armour all bright,
They speed down their road,
On man call, on God,
To succour the right.
To the field! To the field!
Cavaliers of emprise,
Angels pure from the skies
Come to help us and shield.
To the field! To the field!
A la guerra,
Caballeros esforzados;
Pues los angeles sagrados
A socorro son en tierra.
A la guerra!
Con armas resplandecientes
Vienen del cielo volando,
Dios y hombre apelidando
En socorro de las gentes.
A la guerra,
Caballeros esmerados;
Pues los angeles sagrados
A socorro son en tierra.
A la guerra!
Vicente, Obras, Tom. I. p 62.
A similar tone is more fully heard in the spirited little drama
entitled “The Exhortation to War,” performed 1513.
Vicente, however, did not stop here. He took counsel of his success,
and wrote dramas which, without skill in the construction of their
plots, and without any idea of conforming to rules of propriety or
taste, are yet quite in advance of what was known on the Spanish or
Portuguese theatre at the time. Such is the “Comedia,” as it is called,
of “The Widower,”--_O Viudo_,--which was acted before the court in
1514.[456] It opens with the grief of the widower, a merchant of
Burgos, on the loss of an affectionate and faithful wife, for which he
is consoled, first by a friar, who uses religious considerations, and
afterwards by a gossiping neighbour, who, being married to a shrew,
assures his friend, that, after all, it is not probable his loss is
very great. The two daughters of the disconsolate widower, however,
join earnestly with their father in his mourning; but their sorrows are
mitigated by the appearance of a noble lover who conceals himself in
the disguise of a herdsman, in order to be able to approach them. His
love is very sincere and loyal; but, unhappily, he loves them both,
and hardly addresses either separately. His trouble is much increased
and brought to a crisis by the father, who comes in and announces
that one of his daughters is to be married immediately, and the other
probably in the course of a week. In his despair, the noble lover calls
on death; but insists, that, as long as he lives, he will continue to
serve them both faithfully and truly. At this juncture, and without any
warning, as it is impossible that he should marry both, he proposes to
the two ladies to draw lots for him; a proposition which they modify by
begging the Prince John, then a child twelve years old and among the
audience, to make a decision on their behalf. The prince decides in
favor of the elder, which seems to threaten new anxieties and troubles,
till a brother of the disguised lover appears and consents to marry
the remaining lady. Their father, at first disconcerted, soon gladly
accedes to the double arrangement, and the drama ends with the two
weddings and the exhortations of the priest who performs the ceremony.
[456] Obras, Hamburgo, 1834, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 68, etc.
This, indeed, is not a plot, but it is an approach to one. The
“Rubena,” acted in 1521, comes still nearer,[457] and so do “Don
Duardos,” founded on the romance of “Palmerin,” and “Amadis of
Gaul,”[458] founded on the romance of the same name, both of which
bring a large number of personages on the stage, and, if they have
not a proper dramatic action, yet give, in much of their structure,
intimations of the Spanish heroic drama, as it was arranged half
a century later. On the other hand, the “Templo d’ Apollo,”[459]
acted in 1526, in honor of the marriage of the Portuguese princess
to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, belongs to the same class with the
allegorical plays subsequently produced in Spain; the three _Autos_
on the three ships that carried souls to Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven,
evidently gave Lope de Vega the idea and some of the materials for one
of his early moral plays;[460] and the _Auto_ in which Faith explains
to the shepherds the origin and mysteries of Christianity[461] might,
with slight alterations, have served for one of the processions of the
Corpus Christi at Madrid, in the time of Calderon. All of them, it is
true, are extremely rude; but nearly all contain elements of the coming
drama, and some of them, like “Don Duardos,” which is longer than a
full-length play ordinarily is, are quite long enough to show what was
their dramatic tendency. But the real power of Gil Vicente does not lie
in the structure or the interest of his stories. It lies in his poetry,
of which, especially in the lyrical portions of his dramas, there is
much.[462]
[457] The “Rubena” is the first of the plays called,--it is
difficult to tell why,--by Vicente or his editor, _Comedias_; and
is partly in Spanish, partly in Portuguese. It is among those
prohibited in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, (p. 464,)--a
prohibition renewed down to 1790.
[458] These two long plays, wholly in Spanish, are the first
two of those announced as “Tragicomedias” in Book III. of the
Works of Vicente. No reason that I know of can be given for this
precise arrangement and name.
[459] This, too, is one of the “Tragicomedias,” and is chiefly,
but not wholly, in Spanish.
[460] The first of these three _Autos_, the “Barca do Inferno,”
was represented, in 1517, before the queen, Maria of Castile,
in her sick-chamber, when she was suffering under the dreadful
disease of which she soon afterwards died. Like the “Barca do
Purgatorio,” (1518,) it is in Portuguese, but the remaining
_Auto_, the “Barca da Gloria,” (1519,) is in Spanish. The last
two were represented in the royal chapel. The moral play of Lope
de Vega which was suggested by them is the one called “The Voyage
of the Soul,” and is found in the First Book of his “Peregrino en
su Patria.” The opening of Vicente’s play resembles remarkably
the setting forth of the Demonio on his voyage in Lope, besides
that the general idea of the two fictions is almost the same. On
the other side of the account, Vicente shows himself frequently
familiar with the old Spanish literature. For instance, in one
of his Portuguese _Farças_, called “Dos Físicos,” (Tom. III. p.
323,) we have--
En el mes era de Mayo,
Vespora de Navidad,
Cuando canta la cigarra, etc.;
plainly a parody of the well-known and beautiful old Spanish
ballad beginning--
Por el mes era de Mayo,
Quando hace la calor,
Quando canta la calandria, etc.,
a ballad which, so far as I know, can be traced no farther back
than the ballad-book of 1555, or, at any rate, that of 1550,
while here we have a distinct allusion to it before 1536, giving
a curious proof how widely this old popular poetry was carried
about by the memories of the people before it was written down
and printed, and how much it was used for dramatic purposes from
the earliest period of theatrical compositions.
[461] This “Auto da Fé,” as it is strangely called, is in Spanish
(Obras, Tom. I. pp. 64, etc.); but there is one in Portuguese,
represented before John III., (1527,) which is still more
strangely called “Breve Summario da Historia de Deos,” the action
beginning with Adam and Eve, and ending with the Saviour. Ibid.,
I. pp. 306, etc.
[462] Joam de Barros, the historian, in his dialogue on the
Portuguese Language, (Varias Obras, Lisboa, 1785, 12mo, p. 222,)
praises Vicente for the purity of his thoughts and style, and
contrasts him proudly with the Celestina; “a book,” he adds, “to
which the Portuguese language has no parallel.”
CHAPTER XV.
DRAMA CONTINUED.--ESCRIVA.--VILLALOBOS.--QUESTION DE AMOR.--TORRES
NAHARRO, IN ITALY.--HIS EIGHT PLAYS.--HIS DRAMATIC THEORY.--DIVISION
OF HIS PLAYS, AND THEIR PLOTS.--THE TROFEA.--THE HYMENEA.--INTRIGUING
DRAMA.--BUFFOON.--CHARACTER AND PROBABLE EFFECTS OF NAHARRO’S
PLAYS.--STATE OF THE THEATRE AT THE END OF THE REIGN OF FERDINAND AND
ISABELLA.
While Vicente, in Portugal, was thus giving an impulse to Spanish
dramatic literature, which, considering the intimate connection of the
two countries and their courts, can hardly have been unfelt in Spain at
the time, and was certainly recognized there afterwards, scarcely any
thing was done in Spain itself. During the five-and-twenty years that
followed the first appearance of Juan de la Enzina, no other dramatic
poet seems to have been encouraged or demanded. He was sufficient to
satisfy the rare wants of his royal and princely patrons; and, as we
have seen, in both countries, the drama continued to be a courtly
amusement, confined to a few persons of the highest rank. The commander
Escriva, who lived at this time and is the author of a few beautiful
verses found in the oldest Cancioneros,[463] wrote, indeed, a dialogue,
partly in prose and partly in verse, in which he introduces several
interlocutors and brings a complaint to the god of Love against his
lady. But the whole is an allegory, occasionally graceful and winning
from its style, but obviously not susceptible of representation; so
that there is no reason to suppose it had any influence on a class of
compositions already somewhat advanced. A similar remark may be added
about a translation of the “Amphitryon” of Plautus, made into terse
Spanish prose by Francisco de Villalobos, physician to Ferdinand the
Catholic and Charles the Fifth, which was first printed in 1515, but
which it is not at all probable was ever acted.[464] These, however,
are the only attempts made in Spain or Portugal before 1517, except
those of Enzina and Vicente, which need to be referred to at all.
[463] His touching verses, “Ven, muerte, tan escondida,” so often
cited, and at least once in Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. 38,) are
found as far back as the Cancionero of 1511; but I am not aware
that Escriva’s “Quexa de su Amiga” can be found earlier than in
the Cancionero, Sevilla, 1535, where it occurs, f. 175. b, etc.
He himself, no doubt, flourished about the year 1500-1510. But
I should not, probably, have alluded to him here, if he had not
been noticed in connection with the early Spanish theatre, by
Martinez de la Rosa (Obras, Paris, 1827, 12mo, Tom. II. p. 336).
Other poems, written in dialogue, by Alfonso de Cartagena, and by
Puerto Carrero, occur in the Cancioneros Generales, but they can
hardly be regarded as dramatic; and Clemencin twice notices Pedro
de Lerma as one of the early contributors to the Spanish drama;
but he is not mentioned by Moratin, Antonio, Pellicer, or any of
the other authors who would naturally be consulted in relation to
such a point. Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. IV. p. viii., and
Memorias de la Academia de Historia, Tom. VI. p. 406.
[464] Three editions of it are cited by L. F. Moratin, (Catálogo,
No. 20,) the earliest of which is in 1515. My copy, however,
is of neither of them. It is dated Çaragoça, 1544, (folio,)
and is at the end of the “Problemas” and of the other works of
Villalobos, which also precede it in the editions of 1543 and
1574.
But in 1517, or a little earlier, a new movement was felt in the
difficult beginnings of the Spanish drama; and it is somewhat singular,
that, as the last came from Portugal, the present one came from
Italy. It came, however, from two Spaniards. The first of them is the
anonymous author of the “Question of Love,” a fiction to be noticed
hereafter, which was finished at Ferrara in 1512, and which contains an
eclogue of respectable poetical merit, that seems undoubtedly to have
been represented before the court of Naples.[465]
[465] It fills about twenty-six pages and six hundred lines,
chiefly in octave stanzas, in the edition of Antwerp, 1576, and
contains a detailed account of the circumstances attending its
representation.
The other, a person of more consequence in the history of the Spanish
drama, is Bartolomé de Torres Naharro, born at Torres, near Badajoz, on
the borders of Portugal, who, after he had been for some time a captive
in Algiers, was redeemed, and visited Rome, hoping to find favor at the
court of Leo the Tenth. This must have been after 1513, and was, of
course, at the time when Juan de la Enzina resided there. But Naharro,
by a satire against the vices of the court, made himself obnoxious
at Rome, and fled to Naples, where he lived for some time under the
protection of the noble-minded Fabricio Colonna, and where, at last, we
lose sight of him. He died in poverty.[466]
[466] This notice of Naharro is taken from the slight accounts of
him contained in the letter of Juan Baverio Mesinerio prefixed to
the “Propaladia” (Sevilla, 1573, 18mo) as a life of its author,
and from the article in Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 202.
His works, first published by himself at Naples in 1517, and dedicated
to a noble Spaniard, Don Fernando Davalos, a lover of letters,[467] who
had married Victoria Colonna, the poetess, are entitled “Propaladia,”
or “The Firstlings of his Genius.”[468] They consist of satires,
epistles, ballads, a Lamentation for King Ferdinand, who died in 1516,
and some other miscellaneous poetry; but chiefly of eight plays, which
he calls “Comedias,” and which fill almost the whole volume.[469]
He was well situated for making an attempt to advance the drama,
and partly succeeded in it. There was, at the time he wrote, a great
literary movement in Italy, especially at the court of Rome. The
representations of plays, he tells us, were much resorted to,[470]
and, though he may not have known it, Trissino had, in 1515, written
the first regular tragedy in the Italian language, and thus given an
impulse to dramatic literature, which it never afterwards entirely
lost.[471]
[467] Antonio (Preface to Biblioteca Nova, Sec. 29) says he bred
young men to become soldiers by teaching them to read romances of
chivalry.
[468] “Intitulélas” (he says, “Al Letor”) “Propaladia a Prothon,
quod est primum, et Pallade, id est, primæ res Palladis, a
differencia de las que segundariamente y con mas maduro estudio
podrian succeder.” They were, therefore, probably written when he
was a young man.
[469] I have never seen the first edition, which is sometimes
said to have been printed at Naples (Ebert, etc.) and sometimes
(Moratin, etc.) at Rome; but as it was dedicated to one of its
author’s Neapolitan patrons, and as Mesinerio, who seems to have
been a personal acquaintance of its author, implies that it was,
_at some time_, printed at Naples, I have assigned its _first_
edition to that city. Editions appeared at Seville in 1520, 1533,
and 1545; one at Toledo, 1535; one at Madrid, 1573; and one
without date at Antwerp. I have used the editions of Seville,
1533, small quarto, and Madrid, 1573, small 18mo; the latter
being expurgated, and having “Lazarillo de Tórmes” at the end.
There were but six plays in the early editions; the “Calamita”
and “Aquilana” being added afterwards.
[470] “Viendo assi mismo todo el mundo en fiestas de Comedias y
destas cosas,” is part of his apology to Don Fernando Davalos for
asking leave to dedicate them to him.
[471] Trissino’s “Sofonisba” was written as early as 1515, though
not printed till later.
The eight plays of Naharro, however, do not afford much proof of a
familiarity with antiquity, or of a desire to follow ancient rules or
examples; but their author gives us a little theory of his own upon the
subject of the drama, which is not without good sense. Horace, he says,
requires five acts to a play, and he thinks this reasonable; though he
looks upon the pauses they make rather as convenient resting-places
than any thing else, and calls them, not acts, but “Jornadas,” or
days.[472] As to the number of persons, he would have not less than
six, nor more than twelve; and as to that sense of propriety which
refuses to introduce materials into the subject that do not belong
to it, or to permit the characters to talk and act inconsistently, he
holds it to be as indispensable as the rudder to a ship. This is all
very well.
[472] “Jornadas,” days’-work, days’-journey, etc. The old French
mysteries were divided into _journées_ or portions each of which
could conveniently be represented in the time given by the Church
to such entertainments on a single day. One of the mysteries in
this way required forty days for its exhibition.
Besides this, his plays are all in verse, and all open with a sort of
prologue, which he calls “Introyto,” generally written in a rustic and
amusing style, asking the favor and attention of the audience, and
giving hints concerning the subject of the piece that is to follow.
But when we come to the dramas themselves, though we find a decided
advance, in some respects, beyond any thing that had preceded them,
in others we find great rudeness and extravagance. Their subjects are
very various. One of them, the “Soldadesca,” is on the Papal recruiting
service at Rome. Another, the “Tinelaria,” or Servants’ Dining-Hall,
is on such riots as were likely to happen in the disorderly service
of a cardinal’s household; full of revelry and low life. Another, “La
Jacinta,” gives us the story of a lady who lives at her castle on the
road to Rome, where she violently detains sundry passengers and chooses
a husband among them. And of two others, one is on the adventures
of a disguised prince, who comes to the court of a fabulous king of
Leon, and wins his daughter after the fashion of the old romances of
chivalry;[473] and the other on the adventures of a child stolen in
infancy, which involve disguises in more humble life.[474]
[473] La Aquilana.
[474] La Calamita.
How various were the modes in which these subjects were thrown into
action and verse, and, indeed, how different was the character of his
different dramas, may be best understood by a somewhat ampler notice of
the two not yet mentioned.
The first of these, the “Trofea,” is in honor of King Manuel of
Portugal, and the discoveries and conquests that were made in India
and Africa, under his auspices; but it is very meagre and poor. After
the prologue, which fills above three hundred verses, Fame enters in
the first act and announces, that the great king has, in his most
holy wars, gained more lands than are described by Ptolemy; whereupon
Ptolemy appears instantly, by especial permission of Pluto, from the
regions of torment, and denies the fact; but, after a discussion, is
compelled to admit it, though with a saving clause for his own honor.
In the second act, two shepherds come upon the stage to sweep it for
the king’s appearance. They make themselves quite merry, at first,
with the splendor about them, and one of them sits on the throne, and
imitates grotesquely the curate of his village; but they soon quarrel,
and continue in bad humor, till a royal page interferes and compels
them to go on and arrange the apartment. The whole of the third act is
taken up with the single speech of an interpreter, bringing in twenty
Eastern and African kings who are unable to speak for themselves, but
avow, through his very tedious harangue, their allegiance to the crown
of Portugal; to all which the king makes no word of reply. The next act
is absurdly filled with a royal reception of four shepherds, who bring
him presents of a fox, a lamb, an eagle, and a cock, which they explain
with some humor and abundance of allegory; but to all which he makes as
little reply as he did to the proffered fealty of the twenty heathen
kings. In the fifth and last act, Apollo gives verses, in praise of
the king, queen, and prince, to Fame, who distributes copies to the
audience; but, refusing them to one of the shepherds, has a riotous
dispute with him. The shepherd tauntingly offers Fame to spread the
praises of King Manuel through the world as well as she does, if she
will but lend him her wings. The goddess consents. He puts them on
and attempts to fly, but falls headlong on the stage, with which poor
practical jest and a _villancico_ the piece ends.
The other drama, called “Hymenea,” is better, and gives intimations
of what became later the foundations of the national theatre. Its
“Introyto,” or prologue, is coarse, but not without wit, especially in
those parts which, according to the peculiar toleration of the times,
were allowed to make free with religion, if they but showed sufficient
reverence for the Church. The story is entirely invented, and may be
supposed to have passed in any city of Spain. The scene opens in front
of the house of Febea, the heroine, before daylight, where Hymeneo, the
hero, after making known his love for the lady, arranges with his two
servants to give her a serenade the next night. When he is gone, the
servants discuss their own position, and Boreas, one of them, avows
his desperate love for Doresta, the heroine’s maid; a passion which,
through the rest of the piece, becomes the running caricature of his
master’s. But at this moment the Marquis, a brother of Febea, comes
with his servants into the street, and, by the escape of the others,
who fly immediately, has little doubt that there has been love-making
about the house, and goes away determined to watch more carefully. Thus
ends the first act, which might furnish materials for many a Spanish
comedy of the seventeenth century.
In the second act, Hymeneo enters with his servants and musicians,
and they sing a _cancion_ which reminds us of the sonnet in Molière’s
“Misantrope,” and a _villancico_ which is but little better. Febea
then appears in the balcony, and after a conversation, which, for
its substance and often for its graceful manner, might have been in
Calderon’s “Dar la Vida por su Dama,” she promises to receive her
lover the next night. When she is gone, the servants and the master
confer a little together, the master showing himself very generous in
his happiness; but they all escape at the approach of the Marquis,
whose suspicions are thus fully confirmed, and who is with difficulty
restrained by his page from attacking the offenders at once.
The next act is devoted entirely to the loves of the servants. It
is amusing, from its caricature of the troubles and trials of their
masters, but does not advance the action at all, The fourth, however,
brings the hero and lover into the lady’s house, leaving his attendants
in the street, who confess their cowardice to one another, and agree
to run away, if the Marquis appears. This happens immediately. They
escape, but leave a cloak, which betrays who they are, and the Marquis
remains undisputed master of the ground at the end of the act.
The last act opens without delay. The Marquis, offended in the nicest
point of Castilian honor,--the very point on which the plots of so
many later Spanish dramas turn,--resolves at once to put both of the
guilty parties to death, though their offence is no greater than that
of having been secretly in the same house together. The lady does not
deny her brother’s right, but enters into a long discussion with him
about it, part of which is touching and effective, but most of it very
tedious; in the midst of all which Hymeneo presents himself, and after
explaining who he is and what are his intentions, and especially after
admitting, that, under the circumstances of the case, the Marquis
might justly have killed his sister, the whole is arranged for a
double wedding of masters and servants, and closes with a spirited
_villancico_ in honor of Love and his victories.
The two pieces are very different, and mark the extremes of the various
experiments Naharro tried in order to produce a dramatic effect. “As to
the kinds of dramas,” he says, “it seems to me that two are sufficient
for our Castilian language: dramas founded on knowledge, and dramas
founded on fancy.”[475] The “Trofea,” no doubt, was intended by him to
belong to the first class. Its tone is that of compliment to Manuel,
the really great king then reigning in Portugal; and from a passage in
the third act it is not unlikely that it was represented in Rome before
the Portuguese ambassador, the venerable Tristan d’ Acuña. But the rude
and buffoon shepherds, whose dialogue fills so much of the slight and
poor action, show plainly that he was neither unacquainted with Enzina
and Vicente, nor unwilling to imitate them; while the rest of the
drama--the part that is supposed to contain historical facts--is, as we
have seen, still worse. The “Hymenea,” on the other hand, has a story
of considerable interest, announcing the intriguing plot which became
a principal characteristic of the Spanish theatre afterwards. It has
even the “Gracioso,” or Droll Servant, who makes love to the heroine’s
maid; a character which is also found in Naharro’s “Serafina,” but
which Lope de Vega above a century afterwards claimed, as if invented
by himself.[476]
[475] “Comedia á noticia” he calls them, in the Address to the
Reader, and “comedia á fantasía”; and explains the first to be
“de cosa nota y vista en realidad,” illustrating the remark by
his plays on recruiting and on the riotous life of a cardinal’s
servants. His _comedias_ are extremely different in length; one
of them extending to about twenty-six hundred lines, which would
be very long, if represented, and another hardly reaching twelve
hundred. All, however, are divided into five _jornadas_.
[476] In the Dedication of “La Francesilla” in his Comedias, Tom.
XIII. Madrid, 1620, 4to.
What is more singular, this drama approaches to a fulfilment of the
requisitions of the unities, for it has but one proper action, which
is the marriage of Febea; it does not extend beyond the period of
twenty-four hours; and the whole passes in the street before the house
of the lady, unless, indeed, the fifth act passes within the house,
which is doubtful.[477] The whole, too, is founded on the national
manners, and preserves the national costume and character. The best
parts, in general, are the humorous; but there are graceful passages
between the lovers, and touching passages between the brother and
sister. The parody of the servants, Boreas and Doresta, on the passion
of the hero and heroine is spirited; and in the first scene between
them we have the following dialogue, which might be transferred with
effect to many a play of Calderon:--
[477] The “Aquilana,” absurd as its story is, approaches,
perhaps, even nearer to absolute regularity in its form.
_Boreas._ O, would to heaven, my lady dear,
That, at the instant I first looked on thee,
Thy love had equalled mine!
_Doresta._ Well! that’s not bad!
But still you’re not a bone for me to pick.[478]
_Boreas._ Make trial of me. Bid me do my best,
In humble service of my love to thee;
So shalt thou put me to the proof, and know
If what I say accord with what I feel.
_Doresta._ Were my desire to bid thee serve quite clear,
Perchance thy offers would not be so prompt.
_Boreas._ O lady, look’ee, that’s downright abuse!
_Doresta._ Abuse? How’s that? Can words and ways so kind,
And full of courtesy, be called abuse?
_Boreas._ I’ve done.
I dare not speak. Your answers are so sharp,
They pierce my very bowels through and through.
_Doresta._ Well, by my faith, it grieves my heart to see
That thou so mortal art. Dost think to die
Of this disease?
_Boreas._ ’T would not be wonderful.
_Doresta._ But still, my gallant Sir, perhaps you’ll find
That they who give the suffering take it too.
_Boreas._ In sooth, I ask no better than to do
As do my fellows,--give and take; but now
I take, fair dame, a thousand hurts,
And still give none.
_Doresta._ How know’st thou that?
[478] This is an old proverb, “A otro can con esse huesso.” It
occurs more than once in Don Quixote. A little lower we have
another, “Ya las toman do las dan,”--“Where they give, they
take.” Naharro is accustomed to render his humorous dialogue
savory by introducing such old proverbs frequently.
And so she continues till she comes to a plenary confession of being no
less hurt, or in love, herself, than he is.[479]
[479]
_Boreas._ Plugiera, Señora, a Dios,
En aquel punto que os vi,
Que quisieras tanto a mi,
Como luego quise a vos.
_Doresta._ Bueno es esso;
A otro can con esse huesso!
_Boreas._ Ensayad vos de mandarme
Quanto yo podré hazer,
Pues os desseo seruir:
Si quiera porqu’ en prouarme,
Conozcays si mi querer
Concierta con mi dezir.
_Doresta._ Si mis ganas fuessen ciertas
De quereros yo mandar,
Quiça de vuestro hablar
Saldrian menos offertas.
_Boreas._ Si mirays,
Señora, mal me tratais.
_Doresta._ Como puedo maltrataros
Con palabras tan honestas
Y por tan cortesas mañas?
_Boreas._ Como? ya no osso hablaros,
Que teneys ciertas respuestas
Que lastiman las entrañas.
_Doresta._ Por mi fe tengo manzilla
De veros assi mortal:
Morireys de aquesse mal?
_Boreas._ No seria maravilla.
_Doresta._ Pues, galan,
Ya las toman do las dan.
_Boreas._ Por mi fe, que holgaria,
Si, como otros mis yguales,
Pudiesse dar y tomar:
Mas veo, Señora mia,
Que recibo dos mil males
Y ninguno puedo dar.
Propaladia, Madrid, 1573, 18mo, f. 222.
All the plays of Naharro have a versification remarkably fluent and
harmonious for the period in which he wrote,[480] and nearly all of
them have passages of easy and natural dialogue, and of spirited
lyrical poetry. But several are very gross; two are absurdly composed
in different languages,--one of them in four, and the other in
six;[481] and all contain abundant proof, in their structure and
tone, of the rudeness of the age that produced them. In consequence of
their little respect for the Church, they were soon forbidden by the
Inquisition in Spain.[482]
[480] There is a good deal of art in Naharro’s verse. The
“Hymenea,” for instance, is written in twelve-line stanzas; the
eleventh being a _pie quebrado_, or broken line. The “Jacinta”
is in twelve-line stanzas, without the _pie quebrado_. The
“Calamita” is in _quintillas_, connected by the _pie quebrado_.
The “Aquilana” is in _quartetas_, connected in the same way; and
so on. But the number of feet in each of his lines is not always
exact, nor are the rhymes always good, though, on the whole, a
harmonious result is generally produced.
[481] He partly apologizes for this in his Preface to the Reader,
by saying that Italian words are introduced into the _comedias_
because of the audiences in Italy. This will do, as far as the
Italian is concerned; but what is to be said for the other
languages that are used? In the _Introyto_ to the “Serafina,” he
makes a jest of the whole, telling the audience,--
But you must all keep wide awake,
Or else in vain you’ll undertake
To comprehend the differing speech,
Which here is quite distinct for each;--
Four languages, as you will hear,
Castilian with Valencian clear,
And Latin and Italian too;--
So take care lest they trouble you.
No doubt his _comedias_ were exhibited before only a few persons,
who were able to understand the various languages they contained,
and found them only the more amusing for this variety.
[482] It is singular, however, that a very severe passage on
the Pope and the clergy at Rome, in the “Jacinta,” was not
struck out, ed. 1573, f. 256. b;--a proof, among many others,
how capriciously and carelessly the Inquisition acted in such
matters. In the Index of 1667, (p. 114,) only the “Aquilana” is
prohibited.
That they were represented in Italy before they were printed,[483] and
that they were so far circulated before their author gave them to the
press,[484] as to be already in some degree beyond his own control, we
know on his own authority. He intimates, too, that a good many of the
clergy were present at the representation of at least one of them.[485]
But it is not likely that any of his plays were acted, except in the
same way with Vicente’s and Enzina’s; that is, before a moderate number
of persons in some great man’s house,[486] at Naples, and perhaps at
Rome. They, therefore, did not probably produce much effect at first
on the condition of the drama, so far as it was then developed in
Spain. Their influence came in later, and through the press, when three
editions, beginning with that of 1520, appeared in Seville alone in
twenty-five years, curtailed indeed, and expurgated in the last, but
still giving specimens of dramatic composition much in advance of any
thing then produced in the country.
[483] As the question, whether Naharro’s plays were acted in
Italy or not, has been angrily discussed between Lampillas
(Ensayo, Madrid, 1789, 4to, Tom. VI. pp. 160-167) and Signorelli
(Storia dei Teatri, Napoli, 1813, 8vo, Tom. VI. pp. 171, etc.),
in consequence of a rash passage in Nasarre’s Prólogo to the
Plays of Cervantes, (Madrid, 1749, 4to,) I will copy the original
phrase of Naharro himself, which had escaped all the combatants,
and in which he says he used Italian words in his plays, “aviendo
respeto _al lugar_, y á las personas, á quien _se recitaron_.”
Neither of these learned persons knew even that the first edition
of the “Propaladia” was probably printed in Italy, and that one
early edition was certainly printed there.
[484] “Las mas destas obrillas andavan ya fuera de mi obediencia
y voluntad.”
[485] In the opening of the _Introyto_ to the “Trofea.”
[486] I am quite aware, that, in the important passage already
cited from Mendez Silva, on the first acting of plays in 1492,
we have the words, “Año de 1492 comenzaron en Castilla las
compañías á representar _publicamente_ comedias de Juan de la
Enzina”; but what the word _publicamente_ was intended to mean
is shown by the words that follow: “_festejando con ellas á D.
Fadrique de Toledo, Enriquez Almirante de Castilla, y á Don Iñigo
Lopez de Mendoza segundo Duque del Infantado._” So that the
representations in the halls and chapels of these great houses
were accounted _public_ representations.
But though men like Juan de la Enzina, Gil Vicente, and Naharro had
turned their thoughts towards dramatic composition, they seem to have
had no idea of founding a popular national drama. For this we must look
to the next period; since, as late as the end of the reign of Ferdinand
and Isabella, there is no trace of such a theatre in Spain.
CHAPTER XVI.
PROVENÇAL LITERATURE IN SPAIN.--PROVENCE.--BURGUNDIANS.--ORIGIN
OF THE PROVENÇAL LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.--BARCELONA.--DIALECT OF
CATALONIA.--ARAGON.--TROUBADOUR POETS IN CATALONIA AND ARAGON.--WAR
OF THE ALBIGENSES.--PETER THE SECOND.--JAMES THE CONQUEROR AND HIS
CHRONICLE.--RAMON MUNTANER AND HIS CHRONICLE.--DECAY OF POETRY IN
PROVENCE, AND DECAY OF PROVENÇAL POETRY IN SPAIN.--CATALONIAN DIALECT.
Provençal literature appeared in Spain as early as any portion of the
Castilian, with which we have thus far been exclusively occupied.
Its introduction was natural, and, being intimately connected with
the history of political power in both Provence and Spain, can be
at once explained, at least so far as to account for its prevalence
in the quarter of the Peninsula where, during three centuries, it
predominated, and for its large influence throughout the rest of the
country, both at that time and afterwards.
Provence--or, in other words, that part of the South of France which
extends from Italy to Spain, and which originally obtained its name
in consequence of the consideration it enjoyed as an early and most
important province of Rome--was singularly fortunate, during the latter
period of the Middle Ages, in its exemption from many of the troubles
of those troubled times.[487] While the great movement of the Northern
nations lasted, Provence was disturbed chiefly by the Visigoths, who
soon passed onward to Spain, leaving few traces of their character
behind them, and by the Burgundians, the mildest of all the Teutonic
invaders, who did not reach the South of France till they had been long
resident in Italy, and, when they came, established themselves at once
as the permanent masters of that tempting country.
[487] F. Diez, Troubadours, Zwickau, 1826, 8vo, p. 5.
Greatly favored in this comparative quiet, which, though sometimes
broken by internal dissension, or by the ineffectual incursions of
their new Arab neighbours, was nevertheless such as was hardly known
elsewhere, and favored no less by a soil and climate almost without
rivals in the world, the civilization and refinement of Provence
advanced faster than those of any other portion of Europe. From the
year 879, a large part of it was fortunately constituted into an
independent government; and, what was very remarkable, it continued
under the same family till 1092, two hundred and thirteen years.[488]
During this second period, its territories were again much spared
from the confusion that almost constantly pressed their borders and
threatened their tranquillity; for the troubles that then shook the
North of Italy did not cross the Alps and the Var; the Moorish power,
so far from making new aggressions, maintained itself with difficulty
in Catalonia; and the wars and convulsions in the North of France,
from the time of the first successors of Charlemagne to that of Philip
Augustus, flowed rather in the opposite direction, and furnished, at a
safe distance, occupation for tempers too fierce to endure idleness.
[488] Sismondi, Histoire des Français, Paris, 1821, 8vo, Tom.
III. pp. 239, etc.
In the course of these two centuries, a language sprang up in the
South and along the Mediterranean, compounded, according to the
proportions of their power and refinement, from that spoken by the
Burgundians and from the degraded Latin of the country, and slowly and
quietly took the place of both. With this new language appeared, as
noiselessly, about the middle of the tenth century, a new literature,
suited to the climate, the age, and the manners that produced it, and
one which, for nearly three hundred years, seemed to be advancing
towards a grace and refinement such as had not been known since the
fall of the Romans.
Thus things continued under twelve princes of the Burgundian race,
who make little show in the wars of their times, but who seem to have
governed their states with a moderation and gentleness not to have
been expected amidst the general disturbance of the world. This family
became extinct, in the male branch, in 1092; and in 1113, the crown
of Provence was transferred, by the marriage of its heir, to Raymond
Berenger, the third Count of Barcelona.[489] The Provençal poets, many
of whom were noble by birth, and all of whom, as a class, were attached
to the court and its aristocracy, naturally followed their liege
lady, in considerable numbers, from Arles to Barcelona, and willingly
established themselves in her new capital, under a prince full of
knightly accomplishments and yet not disinclined to the arts of peace.
[489] E. A. Schmidt, Geschichte Aragoniens im Mittelalter,
Leipzig, 1828, 8vo, p. 92.
Nor was the change for them a great one. The Pyrenees made then, as
they make now, no very serious difference between the languages spoken
on their opposite declivities; similarity of pursuits had long before
induced a similarity of manners in the population of Barcelona and
Marseilles; and if the Provençals had somewhat more of gentleness and
culture, the Catalonians, from the share they had taken in the Moorish
wars, possessed a more strongly marked character, and one developed in
more manly proportions.[490] At the very commencement of the twelfth
century, therefore, we may fairly consider a Provençal refinement
to have been introduced into the northeastern corner of Spain; and
it is worth notice, that this is just about the period when, as we
have already seen, the ultimately national school of poetry began to
show itself in quite the opposite corner of the Peninsula, amidst the
mountains of Biscay and Asturias.[491]
[490] Barcelona was a prize often fought for successfully by
Moors and Christians, but it was finally rescued from the
misbelievers in 985 or 986. (Zurita, Anales de Aragon, Lib. I. c.
9.) Whatever relates to its early power and glory may be found
in Capmany, (Memorias de la Antigua Ciudad de Barcelona, Madrid,
1779-1792, 4 tom. 4to,) and especially in the curious documents
and notes in Tom. II. and IV.
[491] The members of the French Academy, in their continuation of
the Benedictine Hist. Litt. de la France, (Paris, 4to, Tom. XVI.,
1824, p. 195,) trace it back a little earlier.
Political causes, however, similar to those which first brought the
spirit of Provence from Arles and Marseilles to Barcelona, soon carried
it farther onward towards the centre of Spain. In 1137, the Counts of
Barcelona obtained by marriage the kingdom of Aragon; and though they
did not, at once, remove the seat of their government to Saragossa,
they early spread through their new territories some of the refinement
for which they were indebted to Provence. This remarkable family,
whose power was now so fast stretching up to the North, possessed, at
different times, during nearly three centuries, different portions
of territory on both sides of the Pyrenees, generally maintaining
a control over a large part of the Northeast of Spain and of the
South of France. Between 1229 and 1253, the most distinguished of
its members gave the widest extent to its empire by broad conquests
from the Moors; but later the power of the kings of Aragon became
gradually circumscribed, and their territory diminished, by marriages,
successions, and military disasters. Under eleven princes, however, in
the direct line, and three more in the indirect, they maintained their
right to the kingdom, down to the year 1479, when, in the person of
Ferdinand, it was united to Castile, and the solid foundations were
laid on which the Spanish monarchy has ever since rested.
With this slight outline of the course of political power in the
northeastern part of Spain, it will be easy to trace the origin and
history of the literature that prevailed there from the beginning of
the twelfth to the middle of the fifteenth century; a literature which
was introduced from Provence, and retained the Provençal character,
till it came in contact with that more vigorous spirit which, during
the same period, had been advancing from the northwest, and afterwards
succeeded in giving its tone to the literature of the consolidated
monarchy.[492]
[492] Catalan patriotism has denied all this, and claimed that
the Provençal literature was derived from Catalonia. See Torres
Amat, Prólogo to “Memorias de los Escritores Catalanes,” and
elsewhere. But it is only necessary to read what its friends
have said in defence of this position, to be satisfied that
it is untenable. The simple fact, that the literature in
question existed a full century in Provence before there is
any pretence to claim its existence in Catalonia, is decisive
of the controversy, if there really be a controversy about
the matter. The “Memorias para ayudar á formar un Diccionario
Crítico de los Autores Catalanes,” etc., by D. Felix Torres Amat,
Bishop of Astorga, etc., (Barcelona, 1836, 8vo,) is, however,
an indispensable book for the history of the literature of
Catalonia; for its author, descended from one of the old and
distinguished families of the country, and nephew of the learned
Archbishop Amat, who died in 1824, has devoted much of his life
and of his ample means to collect materials for it. It contains
more mistakes than it should; but a great deal of its information
can be obtained nowhere else in a printed form.
The character of the old Provençal poetry is the same on both sides
of the Pyrenees. In general, it is graceful and devoted to love;
but sometimes it becomes involved in the politics of the time, and
sometimes it runs into a severe and unbecoming satire. In Catalonia,
as well as in its native home, it belonged much to the court; and the
highest in rank and power are the earliest and foremost on its lists.
Thus, both the princes who first wore the united crowns of Barcelona
and Provence, and who reigned from 1113 to 1162, are often set down as
Limousin or Provençal poets, though with slight claims to the honor,
since not a verse has been published that can be attributed to either
of them.[493]
[493] See the articles in Torres Amat, Memorias, pp. 104, 105.
Alfonso the Second, however, who received the crown of Aragon in 1162,
and wore it till 1196, is admitted by all to have been a Troubadour.
Of him we still possess a few not inelegant _coblas_, or stanzas,
addressed to his lady, which are curious from the circumstance that
they constitute the oldest poem in the modern dialects of Spain, whose
author is known to us; and one that is probably as old, or nearly as
old, as any of the anonymous poetry of Castile and the North.[494] Like
the other sovereigns of his age, who loved and practised the art of the
_gai saber_, Alfonso collected poets about his person. Pierre Rogiers
was at his court, and so were Pierre Raimond de Toulouse, and Aiméric
de Péguilain, who mourned his patron’s death in verse,--all three
famous Troubadours in their time, and all three honored and favored
at Barcelona.[495] There can be no doubt, therefore, that a Provençal
spirit was already established and spreading in that part of Spain
before the end of the twelfth century.
[494] The poem is in Raynouard, Troubadours, Tom. III. p. 118. It
begins--
Per mantas guizas m’ es datz
Joys e deport e solatz.
The life of its author is in Zurita, “Anales de Aragon” (Lib.
II.); but the few literary notices needed of him are best found
in Latassa, “Biblioteca Antigua de los Escritores Aragoneses,”
(Zaragoza, 1796, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 175,) and in “Histoire
Littéraire de la France” (Paris, 4to, Tom. XV. 1820, p. 158). As
to the word _coblas_, I cannot but think--notwithstanding all
the refined discussions about it in Raynouard, (Tom. II. pp.
174-178,) and Diez, “Troubadours,” (p. 111 and note,)--that it
was quite synonymous with the Spanish _coplas_, and may, for all
common purposes, be translated by our English _stanzas_, or even
sometimes by _couplets_.
[495] For Pierre Rogiers, see Raynouard, Troubadours, Tom. V.
p. 330, Tom. III. pp. 27, etc., with Millot, Hist. Litt. des
Troubadours, Paris, 1774, 12mo, Tom. I. pp. 103, etc., and the
Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XV. p. 459. For Pierre Raimond de
Toulouse, see Raynouard, Tom. V. p. 322, and Tom. III. p. 120,
with Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XV. p. 457, and Crescimbeni,
Istoria della Volgar Poesia, (Roma, 1710, 4to, Tom. II. p. 55,)
where, on the authority of a manuscript in the Vatican, he says
of Pierre Raimond, “Andò in corte del Re Alfonso d’Aragona, che
l’accolse e molto onorò.” For Aiméric de Péguilain, see Hist.
Litt. de la France, Paris, 4to, Tom. XVIII., 1835, p. 684.
In the beginning of the next century, external circumstances imparted
a great impulse to this spirit in Aragon. From 1209 to 1229, the
shameful war which gave birth to the Inquisition was carried on with
extraordinary cruelty and fury against the Albigenses; a religious sect
in Provence accused of heresy, but persecuted rather by an implacable
political ambition. To this sect--which, in some points, opposed
the pretensions of the See of Rome, and was at last exterminated
by a crusade under the Papal authority--belonged nearly all the
contemporary Troubadours, whose poetry is full of their sufferings and
remonstrances.[496] In their great distress, the principal ally of the
Albigenses and Troubadours was Peter the Second of Aragon, who, in
1213, perished nobly fighting in their cause at the disastrous battle
of Muret. When, therefore, the Troubadours of Provence were compelled
to escape from the burnt and bloody ruins of their homes, not a few
of them hastened to the friendly court of Aragon, sure of finding
themselves protected, and their art held in honor, by princes who were,
at the same time, poets.
[496] Sismondi (Hist. des Français, Paris, 8vo, Tom. VI. and
VII., 1823, 1826) gives an ample account of the cruelties and
horrors of the war of the Albigenses, and Llorente (Histoire
de l’Inquisition, Paris, 1817, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 43) shows the
connection of that war with the origin of the Inquisition.
The fact, that nearly all the Troubadours took part with the
persecuted Albigenses, is equally notorious. Histoire Litt. de
la France, Tom. XVIII. p. 588, and Fauriel, Introduction to the
Histoire de la Croisade contre les Hérétiques Albigeois, Paris,
1837, 4to, p. xv.
Among those who thus appeared in Spain in the time of Peter the
Second were Hugues de Saint Cyr;[497] Azémar le Noir;[498] Pons
Barba;[499] Raimond de Miraval, who joined in the cry urging the king
to the defence of the Albigenses, in which he perished;[500] and
Perdigon,[501] who, after being munificently entertained at his court,
became, like Folquet de Marseille,[502] a traitor to the cause he had
espoused, and openly exulted in the king’s untimely fate. But none of
the poetical followers of Peter the Second did him such honor as the
author of the curious and long poem of “The War of the Albigenses,”
in which much of the king of Aragon’s life is recorded, and a minute
account given of his disastrous death.[503] All, however, except
Perdigon and Folquet, regarded him with gratitude, as their patron, and
as a poet,[504] who, to use the language of one of them, made himself
“their head and the head of their honors.”[505]
[497] Raynouard, Troub., Tom. V. p. 222, Tom. III. p. 330.
Millot, Hist., Tom. II. p. 174.
[498] Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XVIII. p. 586.
[499] Ibid., p. 644.
[500] Raynouard, Troub., Tom. V. pp. 382, 386. Hist. Litt. de la
France, Tom. XVII. pp. 456-467.
[501] Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XVIII. pp. 603-605. Millot,
Hist., Tom. I. p. 428.
[502] For this cruel and false chief among the crusaders, praised
by Petrarca (Trionfo d’ Amore, C. IV.) and by Dante (Parad., IX.
94, etc.), see Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XVIII. p. 594. His
poetry is in Raynouard, Troub., Tom. III. pp. 149-162.
[503] This important poem, admirably edited by M. Charles
Fauriel, one of the soundest and most genial French scholars of
the nineteenth century, is in a series of works on the history
of France, published by order of the king of France, and begun
under the auspices of M. Guizot, and by his recommendation, when
he was Minister of Public Instruction. It is entitled “Histoire
de la Croisade contre les Hérétiques Albigeois, écrite en Vers
Provençaux, par un Poète contemporain,” Paris, 1837, 4to, pp.
738. It consists of 9578 verses,--the notices of Peter II.
occurring chiefly in the first part of it, and the account of his
death at vv. 3061, etc.
[504] What remains of his poetry is in Raynouard, Troub., Tom. V.
pp. 290, etc., and in Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XVII., 1832,
pp. 443-447, where a sufficient notice is given of his life.
[505]
Reis d’ Aragon, tornem a vos,
Car etz capz de bes et de nos.
Pons Barba.
The glorious reign of Jayme or James the Conqueror, which followed,
and extended from 1213 to 1276, exhibits the same poetical character
with that of the less fortunate reign of his immediate predecessor.
He protected the Troubadours, and the Troubadours, in return, praised
and honored him. Guillaume Anélier addressed a _sirvente_ to him as
“the young king of Aragon, who defends mercy and discountenances
wrong.”[506] Nat de Mons sent him two poetical letters, one of
which gives him advice concerning the composition of his court and
government.[507] Arnaud Plagnés offered a _chanso_ to his fair queen,
Eleanor of Castile;[508] and Mathieu de Querci, who survived the great
conqueror, poured forth at his grave the sorrows of his Christian
compatriots at the loss of the great champion on whom they had
depended in their struggle with the Moors.[509] At the same period,
too, Hugues de Mataplana, a noble Catalan, held at his castle courts
of love and poetical contests, in which he himself bore a large
part;[510] while one of his neighbours, Guillaume de Bergédan, no less
distinguished by poetical talent and ancient descent, but of a less
honorable nature, indulged himself in a style of verse more gross than
can easily be found elsewhere in the Troubadour poetry.[511] All,
however, the bad and the good,--those who, like Sordel[512] and Bernard
de Rovenac,[513] satirized the king, and those who, like Pierre
Cardenal, enjoyed his favor and praised him,[514]--all show that the
Troubadours, in his reign, continued to seek protection in Catalonia
and Aragon, where they had so long been accustomed to find it, and that
their poetry was constantly taking deeper root in a soil where its
nourishment was now become so sure.
[506] Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XVIII. p. 553. The poem
begins--
Al jove rei d’ Arago, que conferma
Merce e dreg, e malvestat desferma, etc.
[507] Millot, Hist. des Troubadours, Tom. II. pp. 186, etc.
[508] Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XVIII. p. 635, and
Raynouard, Troub., Tom. V. p. 50.
[509] Raynouard, Troub., Tom. V. pp. 261, 262. Hist. Litt. de la
France, Tom. XIX., Paris, 1838, p. 607.
[510] Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XVIII. pp. 571-575.
[511] Ibid., pp. 576-579.
[512] Millot, Hist., Tom. II. p. 92.
[513] Raynouard, Troub., Tom. IV. pp. 203-205.
[514] Ibid., Tom. V. p. 302. Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XX.,
1842, p. 574.
James himself has sometimes been reckoned among the poets of his
age.[515] It is possible, though none of his poetry has been preserved,
that he really was such; for metrical composition was easy in the
flowing language he spoke, and it had evidently grown common at
his court, where the examples of his father and grandfather, as
Troubadours, would hardly be without their effect. But however this
may be, he loved letters, and left behind him a large prose work, more
in keeping than any poetry with his character as a wise monarch and
successful conqueror, whose legislation and government were far in
advance of the condition of his subjects.[516]
[515] Quadrio (Storia d’ Ogni Poesia, Bologna, 1741, 4to, Tom.
II. p. 132) and Zurita (Anales, Lib. X. c. 42) state it, but not
with proof.
[516] In the Guía del Comercio de Madrid, 1848, is an account
of the disinterment, at Poblet, in 1846, of the remains of
several royal personages who had been long buried there; among
which the body of Don Jayme, after a period of six hundred and
seventy years, was found remarkably preserved. It was easily
distinguished by its size,--for when alive Don Jayme was seven
feet high,--and by the mark of an arrow-wound in his forehead
which he received at Valencia, and which was still perfectly
distinct. An eyewitness declared that a painter might have found
in his remains the general outline of his physiognomy. Faro
Industrial de la Habana, 6 Abril, 1848.
The work here referred to is a chronicle or commentary on the principal
events of his reign, divided into four parts;--the first of which
is on the troubles that followed his accession to the throne, after
a long minority, with the rescue of Majorca and Minorca from the
Moors, between 1229 and 1233; the second is on the greater conquest
of the kingdom of Valencia, which was substantially ended in 1239, so
that the hated misbelievers never again obtained any firm foothold
in all the northeastern part of the Peninsula; the third is on the
war James prosecuted in Murcia, till 1266, for the benefit of his
kinsman, Alfonso the Wise, of Castile; and the last is on the embassies
he received from the Khan of Tartary, and Michael Palæologus of
Constantinople, and on his own attempt, in 1268, to lead an expedition
to Palestine, which was defeated by storms. The story, however, is
continued to the end of his reign by slight notices, which, except the
last, preserve throughout the character of an autobiography; the very
last, which, in a few words, records his death at Valencia, being the
only portion written in the third person.
From this Chronicle of James the Conqueror there was early taken
an account of the conquest of Valencia, beginning in the most
simple-hearted manner with the conversation the king held at
Alcañiç (Alcañizas) with Don Blasco de Alagon and the Master of the
Hospitallers, Nuch de Follalquer, who urge him, by his successes in
Minorca, to undertake the greater achievement of the conquest of
Valencia; and ending with the troubles that followed the partition of
the spoils after the fall of that rich kingdom and its capital. This
last work was printed in 1515, in a magnificent volume, where it serves
for an appropriate introduction to the _Foros_, or privileges, granted
to the city of Valencia from the time of its conquest down to the end
of the reign of Ferdinand the Catholic;[517] but the complete work,
the Chronicle, did not appear till 1557, when it was published to
satisfy a requisition of Philip the Second.[518]
[517] Its first title is “Aureum Opus Regalium Privilegiorum
Civitatis et Regni Valentiæ,” etc., but the work itself begins,
“Comença la conquesta per lo serenisimo e Catholich Princep
de inmortal memoria, Don Jaume,” etc. It is not divided into
chapters nor paged, but it has ornamental capitals at the
beginning of its paragraphs, and fills 42 large pages in folio,
double columns, litt. goth., and was printed, as its colophon
shows, at Valencia, in 1515, by Diez de Gumiel.
[518] Rodriguez, Biblioteca Valentina, Valencia, 1747, fol.,
p. 574. Its title is “Chrónica o Commentari del Gloriosissim
e Invictissim Rey En Jacme, Rey d’ Aragò, de Mallorques, e de
Valencia, Compte de Barcelona e de Urgell e de Muntpeiller, feita
e scrita per aquell en sa llengua natural, e treita del Archiu
del molt magnifich Rational de la insigne Ciutat de Valencia, hon
stava custodita.” It was printed under the order of the Jurats
of Valencia, by the widow of Juan Mey, in folio, in 1557. The
Rational being the proper archive-keeper, the Jurats being the
council of the city, and the work being dedicated to Philip II.,
who asked to see it in print, all needful assurance is given of
its genuineness. Each part is divided into very short chapters;
the first containing one hundred and five, the second one hundred
and fifteen, and so on. A series of letters, by Jos. Villaroya,
printed at Valencia, in 1800, (8vo,) to prove that James was not
the author of this Chronicle, are ingenious, learned, and well
written, but do not, I think, establish their author’s position.
It is written in a simple and manly style, which, without making
pretensions to elegance, often sets before us the events it records
with a living air of reality, and sometimes shows a happiness in manner
and phraseology which effort seldom reaches. Whether it was undertaken
in consequence of the impulse given to such vernacular histories by
Alfonso the Tenth of Castile, in his “General Chronicle of Spain,” or
whether the intimations which gave birth to that remarkable Chronicle
came rather from Aragon, we cannot now determine. Probably both works
were produced in obedience to the demands of their age; but still, as
both must have been written at nearly the same time, and as the two
kings were united by a family alliance and constant intercourse, a full
knowledge of whatever relates to these two curious records of different
parts of the Peninsula would hardly fail to show us some connection
between them. In that case, it is by no means impossible that the
precedence in point of time would be found to belong to the Chronicle
of the king of Aragon, who was not only older than Alfonso, but was
frequently his wise and efficient counsellor.[519]
[519] Alfonso was born in 1221 and died in 1284, and Jayme I.,
whose name, it should be noted, is also spelt Jaume, Jaime, and
Jacme, was born in 1208 and died in 1276. It is probable, as I
have already said, that Alfonso’s Chronicle was written a little
before 1260; but that period was twenty-one years after the date
of _all_ the facts recorded in Jayme’s account of the conquest
of Valencia. In connection with the question of the precedence
of these two Chronicles may be taken the circumstance, that
it has been believed by some persons that Jayme attempted to
make Catalan the language of the law and of all public records,
thirty years before the similar attempt already noticed was made
by Alfonso X. in relation to the Castilian. Villanueva, Viage
Literario á las Iglesias de España, Valencia, 1821, Tom. VII. p.
195.
Another work of the king remains in manuscript. It is a moral
and philosophical treatise, called “Lo Libre de la Saviesa,” or
The Book of Wisdom, of which an account may be found in Castro,
Biblioteca Española, Tom. II. p. 605.
But James of Aragon was fortunate in having yet another chronicler,
Ramon Muntaner, born at Peralada, nine years before the death of that
monarch; a Catalan gentleman, who in his old age, after a life of great
adventure, felt himself to be specially summoned to write an account of
his own times.[520] “For one day,” he says, “being in my country-house,
called Xilvella, in the garden plain of Valencia, and sleeping in my
bed, there came unto me in vision a venerable old man, clad in white
raiment, who said unto me, ‘Arise, and stand on thy feet, Muntaner,
and think how to declare the great wonders thou hast seen, which God
hath brought to pass in the wars where thou wast; for it hath seemed
well pleasing to Him that through thee should all these things be made
manifest.’” At first, he tells us, he was disobedient to the heavenly
vision, and unmoved by the somewhat flattering reasons vouchsafed him,
why he was elected to chronicle matters so notable. “But another day,
in that same place,” he goes on, “I beheld again that venerable man,
who said unto me, ‘O my son, what doest thou? Why dost thou despise my
commandment? Arise, and do even as I have bidden thee! And know of a
truth, if thou so doest, that thou and thy children and thy kinsfolk
and thy friends shall find favor in the sight of God.’” Being thus
warned a second time, he undertook the work. It was, he tells us,
the fifteenth day of May, 1325, when he began it; and when it was
completed, as it notices events which happened in April, 1328, it is
plain that its composition must have occupied at least three years.
[520] Probably the best notice of Muntaner is to be found in
Antonio, Bib. Vetus (ed. Bayer, Vol. II. p. 145). There is,
however, a more ample one in Torres Amat, Memorias, (p. 437,) and
there are other notices elsewhere. The title of his Chronicle is
“Crónica o Descripcio dels Fets e Hazanyes del Inclyt Rey Don
Jaume Primer, Rey Daragò, de Mallorques, e de Valencia, Compte
de Barcelona, e de Munpesller, e de molts de sos Descendents,
feta per lo magnifich En Ramon Muntaner, lo qual servi axi al
dit inclyt Rey Don Jaume com á sos Fills e Descendents, es troba
present á las Coses contengudes en la present Historia.” There
are two old editions of it; the first, Valencia, 1558, and the
second, Barcelona, 1562; both in folio, and the last consisting
of 248 leaves. It was evidently much used and trusted by Zurita.
(See his Anales, Lib. VII. c. 1, etc.) A neat edition of it in
large 8vo, edited by Karl Lanz, was published in 1844, by the
Stuttgard Verein, and a translation of it into German, by the
same accomplished scholar, appeared at Leipzig in 1842, in 2
vols. 8vo.
It opens, with much simplicity, with a record of the earliest important
event he remembered, a visit of the great conqueror of Valencia at
the house of his father, when he was himself a mere child.[521] The
impression of such a visit on a boyish imagination would naturally be
deep;--in the case of Muntaner it seems to have been peculiarly so.
From that moment the king became to him, not only the hero he really
was, but something more; one whose very birth was miraculous, and whose
entire life was filled with more grace and favor than God had ever
before shown to living man; for, as the fond old chronicler will have
it, “He was the goodliest prince in the world, and the wisest and the
most gracious and the most upright, and one that was more loved than
any king ever was of all men; both of his own subjects and strangers,
and of noble gentlemen everywhere.”[522]
[521] “E per ço començ al feyt del dit senyor, Rey En Jacme,
com yol viu, e asenyaladament essent yo fadrí, e lo dit senyor
Rey essent á la dita vila de Peralada hon yo naxqui, e posa
en lalberch de mon pare En Joan Muntaner, qui era dels majors
alberchs daquell lloch, e era al cap de la plaça,” (Cap.
II.,)--“And therefore I begin with the fact of the said Lord Don
James, as I saw him, and namely, when I was a little boy and the
said Lord King was in the said city of Peralada, where I was
born, and tarried in the house of my father, Don John Muntaner,
which was one of the largest houses in that place, and was at the
head of the square.” _En_, which I have translated _Don_, is the
corresponding title in Catalan. See Andrev Bosch, Titols de Honor
de Cathalunya, etc., Perpinya, folio, 1628, p. 574.
[522] This passage reminds us of the beautiful character of Sir
Launcelot, near the end of the “Morte Darthur,” and therefore
I transcribe the simple and strong words of the original: “E
apres ques vae le pus bell princep del mon, e lo pus savi, e lo
pus gracios, e lo pus dreturer, e cell qui fo mes amat de totes
gents, axi dels seus sotsmesos com daltres estranys e privades
gents, que Rey qui hanch fos.” Cap. VII.
The life of the Conqueror, however, serves merely as an introduction
to the work; for Muntaner announces his purpose to speak of little
that was not within his own knowledge; and of the Conqueror’s reign he
could remember only the concluding glories. His Chronicle, therefore,
consists chiefly of what happened in the time of four princes of the
same house, and especially of Peter the Third, his chief hero. He
ornaments his story, however, once with a poem two hundred and forty
lines long, which he gave to James the Second, and his son Alfonso, by
way of advice and caution, when the latter was about to embark for the
conquest of Sardinia and Corsica.[523]
[523] This poem is in Cap. CCLXXII. of the Chronicle, and
consists of twelve stanzas, each of twenty lines, and each
having all its twenty lines in one rhyme, the first rhyme being
in _o_, the second in _ent_, the third in _ayle_, and so on. It
sets forth the counsel of Muntaner to the king and prince on the
subject of the conquest they had projected; counsel which the
chronicler says was partly followed, and so the expedition turned
out well, but that it would have turned out better, if the advice
had been followed entirely. How good Muntaner’s counsel was we
cannot now judge, but his poetry is certainly naught. It is in
the most artificial style used by the Troubadours, and is well
called by its author a _sermo_. He says, however, that it was
actually given to the king.
The whole work is curious, and strongly marked with the character of
its author;--a man brave, loving adventure and show; courteous and
loyal; not without intellectual training, yet no scholar; and, though
faithful and disinterested, either quite unable to conceal, or quite
willing, at every turn, to exhibit, his good-natured personal vanity.
His fidelity to the family of Aragon was admirable. He was always in
their service; often in captivity for them; and engaged at different
times in no less than thirty-two battles in defence of their rights,
or in furtherance of their conquests from the Moors. His life, indeed,
was a life of knightly loyalty, and nearly all the two hundred and
ninety-eight chapters of his Chronicle are as full of its spirit as his
heart was.
In relating what he himself saw and did, his statements seem to
be accurate, and are certainly lively and fresh; but elsewhere
he sometimes falls into errors of date, and sometimes exhibits
a good-natured credulity that makes him believe many of the
impossibilities that were related to him. In his gay spirit and love
of show, as well as in his simple, but not careless, style, he reminds
us of Froissart, especially at the conclusion of the whole Chronicle,
which he ends, evidently to his own satisfaction, with an elaborate
account of the ceremonies observed at the coronation of Alfonso the
Fourth at Saragossa, which he attended in state as syndic of the city
of Valencia; the last event recorded in the work, and the last we hear
of its knightly old author, who was then near his grand climacteric.
During the latter part of the period recorded by this Chronicle, a
change was taking place in the literature of which it is an important
part. The troubles and confusion that prevailed in Provence, from the
time of the cruel persecution of the Albigenses and the encroaching
spirit of the North, which, from the reign of Philip Augustus, was
constantly pressing down towards the Mediterranean, were more than
the genial, but not hardy, spirit of the Troubadours could resist.
Many of them, therefore, fled; others yielded in despair; and all
were discouraged. From the end of the thirteenth century, their songs
are rarely heard on the soil that gave them birth three hundred years
before. With the beginning of the fourteenth, the purity of their
dialect disappears. A little later, the dialect itself ceases to be
cultivated.[524]
[524] Raynouard, in Tom. III., shows this; and more fully in Tom.
V., in the list of poets. So does the Hist. Litt. de la France,
Tom. XVIII. See, also, Fauriel’s Introduction to the poem on the
Crusade against the Albigenses, pp. xv., xvi.
As might be expected, the delicate plant, whose flower was not
permitted to expand on its native soil, did not long continue to
flourish in that to which it was transplanted. For a time, indeed, the
exiled Troubadours, who resorted to the court of James the Conqueror
and his father, gave to Saragossa and Barcelona something of the
poetical grace that had been so attractive at Arles and Marseilles.
But both these princes were obliged to protect themselves from the
suspicion of sharing the heresy with which so many of the Troubadours
they sheltered were infected; and James, in 1233, among other severe
ordinances, forbade to the laity the Limousin Bible, which had been
recently prepared for them, and the use of which would have tended so
much to confirm their language and form their literature.[525] His
successors, however, continued to favor the spirit of the minstrels
of Provence. Peter the Third was numbered amongst them;[526] and if
Alfonso the Third and James the Second were not themselves poets, a
poetical spirit was found about their persons and in their court;[527]
and when Alfonso the Fourth, the next in succession, was crowned at
Saragossa in 1328, we are told that several poems of Peter, the king’s
brother, were recited in honor of the occasion, one of which consisted
of seven hundred verses.[528]
[525] Castro, Biblioteca Española, Tom. I. p. 411, and Schmidt,
Gesch. Aragoniens im Mittelalter, p. 465.
[526] Latassa, Bib. Antigua de los Escritores Aragoneses, Tom. I.
p. 242. Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XX. p. 529.
[527] Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer, Tom. II. Lib. VIII. c. vi.,
vii., and Amat, p. 207. But Serveri of Girona, about 1277, mourns
the good old days of James I., (Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom.
XX. p. 552,) as if poets were, when he wrote, beginning to fail
at the court of Aragon.
[528] Muntaner, Crónica, ed. 1562, fol., ff. 247, 248.
But these are among the later notices of Provençal literature in the
northeastern part of Spain, where it began now to be displaced by
one taking its hue rather from the more popular and peculiar dialect
of the country. What this dialect was has already been intimated. It
was commonly called the Catalan or Catalonian, from the name of the
country, but probably, at the time of the conquest of Barcelona from
the Moors in 985, differed very little from the Provençal spoken at
Perpignan, on the other side of the Pyrenees.[529] As, however, the
Provençal became more cultivated and gentle, the neglected Catalan
grew stronger and ruder; and when the Christian power was extended, in
1118, to Saragossa, and in 1239 to Valencia, the modifications which
the indigenous vocabularies underwent, in order to suit the character
and condition of the people, tended rather to confirm the local
dialects than to accommodate them to the more advanced language of the
Troubadours.
[529] Du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis, Parisiis,
1733, fol., Tom. I., Præfatio, sect. 34-36. Raynouard (Troub.,
Tom. I. pp. xii. and xiii.) would carry back both the Catalonian
and Valencian dialects to A. D. 728; but the authority of
Luitprand, on which he relies, is not sufficient, especially as
Luitprand shows that he believed these dialects to have existed
also in the time of Strabo. The most that should be inferred from
the passage Raynouard cites is, that they existed about 950, when
Luitprand wrote, which it is not improbable they did, though
only in their rudest elements, among the Christians in that part
of Spain. Some good remarks on the connection of the South of
France with the South of Spain, and their common idiom, may be
found in Capmany, Memorias Históricas de Barcelona, (Madrid,
1779-92, 4to,) Parte I., Introd., and the notes on it. The second
and fourth volumes of this valuable historical work furnish many
documents both curious and important for the illustration of the
Catalan language.
Perhaps, if the Troubadours had maintained their ascendency in
Provence, their influence would not easily have been overcome in Spain.
At least, there are indications that it would not have disappeared
so soon. Alfonso the Tenth of Castile, who had some of the more
distinguished of them about him, imitated the Provençal poetry, if he
did not write it; and even earlier, in the time of Alfonso the Ninth,
who died in 1214, there are traces of its progress in the heart of
the country, that are not to be mistaken.[530] But failing in its
strength at home, it failed abroad. The engrafted fruit perished with
the stock from which it was originally taken. After the opening of the
fourteenth century we find no genuinely Provençal poetry in Castile,
and after the middle of that century it begins to recede from Catalonia
and Aragon, or rather to be corrupted by the harsher, but hardier,
dialect spoken there by the mass of the people. Peter the Fourth, who
reigned in Aragon from 1336 to 1387, shows the conflict and admixture
of the two influences in such portions of his poetry as have been
published, as well as in a letter he addressed to his son;[531]--a
confusion, or transition, which we should probably be able to trace
with some distinctness, if we had before us the curious dictionary of
rhymes, still extant in its original manuscript, which was made at
this king’s command, in 1371, by Jacme March, a member of the poetical
family that was afterwards so much distinguished.[532] In any event,
there can be no reasonable doubt, that, soon after the middle of the
fourteenth century, if not earlier, the proper Catalan dialect began to
be perceptible in the poetry and prose of its native country.[533]
[530] Millot, Hist. des Troubadours, Tom. II. pp. 186-201.
Hist. Litt. de la France, Tom. XVIII. pp. 588, 634, 635. Diez,
Troubadours, pp. 75, 227, and 331-350; but it may be doubted
whether Riquier did not write the answer of Alfonso, as well as
the petition to him given by Diez.
[531] Bouterwek, Hist. de la Lit. Española, traducida por
Cortina, Tom. I. p. 162. Latassa, Bib. Antigua, Tom. II. pp.
25-38.
[532] Bouterwek, trad. Cortina, p. 177. This manuscript, it may
be curious to notice, was once owned by Ferdinand Columbus, son
of the great discoverer, and is still to be found amidst the
ruins of his library in Seville, with a memorandum by himself,
declaring that he bought it at Barcelona, in June, 1536, for 12
dineros, the ducat then being worth 588 dineros. See, also, the
notes of Cerdá y Rico to the “Diana Enamorada” of Montemayor,
1802, pp. 487-490 and 293-295.
[533] Bruce-Whyte (Histoire des Langues Romanes et de leur
Littérature, Paris, 1841, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 406-414) gives a
striking extract from a manuscript in the Royal Library, Paris,
which shows this mixture of the Provençal and Catalan very
plainly. He implies, that it is from the middle of the fourteenth
century; but he does not prove it.
CHAPTER XVII.
ENDEAVOURS TO REVIVE THE PROVENÇAL SPIRIT.--FLORAL GAMES AT
TOULOUSE.--CONSISTORY OF THE GAYA SCIENCIA AT BARCELONA.--CATALAN
AND VALENCIAN POETRY.--AUSIAS MARCH.--JAUME ROIG.--DECLINE
OF THIS POETRY.--INFLUENCE OF CASTILE.--POETICAL CONTEST AT
VALENCIA.--VALENCIAN POETS WHO WROTE IN CASTILIAN.--PREVALENCE OF THE
CASTILIAN.
The failure of the Provençal language, and especially the failure
of the Provençal culture, were not looked upon with indifference in
the countries on either side of the Pyrenees, where they had so long
prevailed. On the contrary, efforts were made to restore both, first in
France, and afterwards in Spain. At Toulouse, on the Garonne, not far
from the foot of the mountains, the magistrates of the city determined,
in 1323, to form a company or guild for this purpose; and, after some
deliberation, constituted it under the name of the “Sobregaya Companhia
dels Sept Trobadors de Tolosa,” or the Very Gay Company of the Seven
Troubadours of Toulouse. This company immediately sent forth a letter,
partly in prose and partly in verse, summoning all poets to come to
Toulouse on the first day of May in 1324, and there “with joy of heart
contend for the prize of a golden violet,” which should be adjudged
to him who should offer the best poem, suited to the occasion. The
concourse was great, and the first prize was given to a poem in honor
of the Madonna by Ramon Vidal de Besalú, a Catalan gentleman, who seems
to have been the author of the regulations for the festival, and to
have been declared a doctor of the _Gay Saber_ on the occasion. In
1355, this company formed for itself a more ample body of laws, partly
in prose and partly in verse, under the title of “Ordenanzas dels Sept
Senhors Mantenedors del Gay Saber,” or Ordinances of the Seven Lords
Conservators of the Gay Saber, which, with the needful modifications,
have been observed down to our own times, and still regulate the
festival annually celebrated at Toulouse, on the first day of May,
under the name of the Floral Games.[534]
[534] Sarmiento, Memorias, Sect. 759-768. Torres Amat, Memorias,
p. 651, article _Vidal de Besalú_. Santillana, Proverbios,
Madrid, 1799, 18mo, Introduccion, p. xxiii. Sanchez, Poesías
Anteriores, Tom. I. pp. 5-9. Sismondi, Litt. du Midi, Paris,
1813, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 227-230. Andres, Storia d’ Ogni
Letteratura, Roma, 1808, 4to, Tom. II. Lib. I. c. 1, sect. 23,
where the remarks are important at pp. 49, 50.
Toulouse was separated from Aragon only by the picturesque range of
the Pyrenees; and similarity of language and old political connections
prevented even the mountains from being a serious obstacle to
intercourse. What was done at Toulouse, therefore, was soon known at
Barcelona, where the court of Aragon generally resided, and where
circumstances soon favored a formal introduction of the poetical
institutions of the Troubadours. John the First, who, in 1387,
succeeded Peter the Fourth, was a prince of more gentle manners than
were common in his time, and more given to festivity and shows than
was, perhaps, consistent with the good of his kingdom, and certainly
more than was suited to the fierce and turbulent spirit of his
nobility.[535] Among his other attributes was a love of poetry; and in
1388, he despatched a solemn embassy, as if for an affair of state,
to Charles the Sixth of France, praying him to cause certain poets
of the company at Toulouse to visit Barcelona, in order that they
might found there an institution like their own, for the Gay Saber.
In consequence of this mission, two of the seven conservators of the
Floral Games came to Barcelona in 1390, and established what was called
a “Consistory of the Gaya Sciencia,” with laws and usages not unlike
those of the institution they represented. Martin, who followed John on
the throne, increased the privileges of the new Consistory, and added
to its resources; but at his death, in 1409, it was removed to Tortosa,
and its meetings were suspended by troubles that prevailed through the
country, in consequence of a disputed succession.
[535] Mariana, Hist. de España, Lib. XVIII. c. 14.
At length, when Ferdinand the Just was declared king, their meetings
were resumed. Enrique de Villena--whom we must speedily notice as a
nobleman of the first rank in the state, nearly allied to the blood
royal, both of Castile and Aragon--came with the new king to Barcelona
in 1412, and, being a lover of poetry, busied himself while there in
reëstablishing and reforming the Consistory, of which he became, for
some time, the principal head and manager. This was, no doubt, the
period of its greatest glory. The king himself frequently attended
its meetings. Many poems were read by their authors before the judges
appointed to examine them, and prizes and other distinctions were
awarded to the successful competitors.[536] From this time, therefore,
poetry in the native dialects of the country was held in honor in
the capitals of Catalonia and Aragon. Public poetical contests were,
from time to time, celebrated, and many poets called forth under their
influence during the reign of Alfonso the Fifth and that of John the
Second, which, ending in 1479, was followed by the consolidation of the
whole Spanish monarchy, and the predominance of the Castilian power and
language.[537]
[536] “El Arte de Trobar,” or the “Gaya Sciencia,”--a treatise
on the Art of Poetry, which, in 1433, Henry, Marquis of Villena,
sent to his kinsman, the famous Iñigo Lopez de Mendoza, Marquis
of Santillana, in order to facilitate the introduction of
such poetical institutions into Castile as then existed in
Barcelona,--contains the best account of the establishment
of the Consistory of Barcelona, which was a matter of such
consequence as to be mentioned by Mariana, Zurita, and other
grave historians. The treatise of Villena has never been printed
entire; but a poor abstract of its contents, with valuable
extracts, is to be found in Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes de la
Lengua Española, Madrid, 1737, 12mo, Tom. II.
[537] See Zurita, passim, and Eichhorn, Allg. Geschichte der
Cultur, Göttingen, 1796, 8vo, Tom. I. pp. 127-131, with the
authorities he cites in his notes.
During the period, however, of which we have been speaking, and which
embraces the century before the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the
Catalan modification of Provençal poetry had its chief success, and
produced all the authors that deserve notice. At its opening, Zurita,
the faithful annalist of Aragon, speaking of the reign of John the
First, says, that, “in place of arms and warlike exercises, which had
formerly been the pastime of princes, now succeeded _trobas_ and poetry
in the mother tongue, with its art, called the ‘Gaya Sciencia,’ whereof
schools began to be instituted”;--schools which, as he intimates, were
so thronged, that the dignity of the art they taught was impaired by
the very numbers devoted to it.[538] Who these poets were the grave
historian does not stop to inform us, but we learn something of them
from another and better source; for, according to the fashion of the
time, a collection of poetry was made a little after the middle of
the fifteenth century, which includes the whole period, and contains
the names, and more or less of the works, of those who were then best
known and most considered. It begins with a grant of assistance to the
Consistory of Barcelona, by Ferdinand the Just, in 1413; and then,
going back as far as to the time of Jacme March, who, as we have
seen, flourished in 1371, presents a series of more than three hundred
poems, by about thirty authors, down to the time of Ausias March, who
certainly lived in 1460, and whose works are, as they well deserve to
be, prominent in the collection.
[538] Anales de la Corona de Aragon, Lib. X. c. 43, ed. 1610,
folio, Tom. II. f. 393.