BALLAD POETRY CULTIVATED: SEPÚLVEDA, FUENTES, TIMONEDA, PADILLA, CUEVA,
HITA, HIDALGO, VALDIVIELSO, LOPE DE VEGA, ARELLANO, ROCA Y SERNA,
ESQUILACHE, MENDOZA, QUEVEDO.--ROMANCEROS OF MORE POPULAR BALLADS: THE
TWELVE PEERS, THE CID, AND OTHERS.--GREAT NUMBER OF WRITERS OF BALLADS.
The collection and publication of the popular ballads of the country
in the Cancioneros and Romanceros, in the sixteenth century, attracted
to them a kind and degree of attention they had failed to receive
during the long period in which they had been floating about among the
unrecorded traditions of the common people. There was so much that
was beautiful in them, so much that appealed successfully to the best
recollections of all classes, so much directly connected with the great
periods of the national glory, that the minds of all were stirred by
them, as soon as they appeared in a permanent form, and they became, at
once, favorites of the more cultivated portion of the people, as they
had always been of the humble hearts that gave them birth. The natural
consequence followed;--they were imitated;--and not merely by poets who
occasionally wrote in this among other forms of verse, but by persons
who composed them in large numbers and published them by volumes.[34]
[34] When looking through any of the large collections of
ballads, especially those produced in the seventeenth century
by the popularity of the whole class and the facility of their
metrical structure, we find pertinent an excellent remark of
Rengifo, in his “Arte Poética,” 1592, p. 38:--“There is nothing
easier than to make a ballad, and nothing more difficult than to
make it what it ought to be.”
The first of these persons was Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, whose Ballad-book
can be traced back to 1551, the very year after the appearance, at
Saragossa, of the earliest collection of popular and anonymous ballads,
gathered from the memories of the people. The attempt of Sepúlveda
was made in the right direction; for he founded it almost entirely on
the old Castilian Chronicles, and appealed, as they did, to popular
tradition and the national feelings for his support. In his Preface,
he says, that his ballads “ought to be more savory than many others,
because not only are they true and drawn from the truest histories he
could find, but written in the Castilian measure and in the tone of the
old ballads, which,” he adds, “_is now in fashion_. They were taken,”
he declares, “literally from the Chronicle which was compiled by the
most serene king Don Alfonso; the same who, for his good letters and
royal desires, and great learning in all branches of knowledge, was
called ‘The Wise.’” In fact, more than three fourths of this curious
volume consist of ballads taken from the “General Chronicle of Spain,”
often employing its very words, and always imbued with its spirit.
The rest is made up chiefly of ballads founded on sacred and ancient
history, or on mythological and other stories of an imaginary nature.
But, unfortunately, Sepúlveda was not truly a poet, and therefore,
though he sought his subjects in good sources and seldom failed to
select them well, he yet failed to give any more of a poetical coloring
to his ballads than he found in the old chronicles he followed. He was,
however, successful as far as the general favor was concerned; for
not only was his entire work reprinted at least four times, but the
separate ballads in it constantly reappear in the old collections[35]
that were, from time to time, published to meet the popular demand.
[35] “Romances nuevamente sacados de Historias Antiguas de la
Crónica de España, compuestos por Lorenço de Sepúlveda,” etc., en
Anvers, 1551, 18mo. There were editions, enlarged and altered,
in 1563, 1566, 1580, and 1584, mentioned by Ebert. That of
1584 contains one hundred and fifty-six ballads;--that of 1551
contains one hundred and forty-nine. Many of them are in the
Romanceros Generales, and not a few in the recent collections of
Depping and Duran.
Quite as characteristic of the period is a small selection of ballads
printed for the first time in 1564. It was made by some person of
distinction, who sent it to Alonso de Fuentes, with a request that he
would furnish it with all needful explanations in prose. This he did;
but the original collector died before it was published. Of the forty
ballads of which it consists, ten are on subjects from the Bible; ten
from Roman history; ten from other portions of ancient history; and
the remainder from the history of Spain, coming down to the fall of
Granada. We are not told where they were obtained, and none of them
has much value;--the great merit of the whole, in the eyes of those
who were concerned in their publication, consisting, no doubt, in the
wearisome historical and moral commentary by which each is followed.
Fuentes, however, who intimates that the task was hardly worthy of his
position, may have had a better taste in such things than the person
who employed him; for, in a prefatory epistle, he gives us, of his own
accord, the following ballad, evidently very old, if not very spirited,
which he attributes to Alfonso the Wise. But it is no otherwise the
work of that monarch than that all but the last stanzas are taken from
the remarkable letter he wrote on the disastrous position of his
affairs in 1280, when, by the rebellion of his son and the desertion
of the higher ecclesiastics of his kingdom, he was reduced, in his old
age, to misery and despair,--a letter already cited, and more poetical
than the ballad founded on it.
I left my land, I left my home,
To serve my God against his foes;
Nor deemed, that, in so short a space,
My fortunes could in ruin close.
For two short months were hardly sped,
And April was but gone, and May,
When Castile’s towers and Castile’s towns
From my fair realm were rent away.
And they that should have counselled peace
Between the father and his son,
My bishops and my lordly priests,
Forgetting what they should have done,--
Not by contrivance deep and dark,
Not silent, like the secret thief,
But trumpet-tongued, rebellion raised,
And filled my house with guilt and grief.
Then, since my blood denies my cause,
And since my friends desert and flee,--
Since they are gone, who should have stood
Between the guilty blow and me,--
To thee I bend, my Saviour Lord,
To thee, the Virgin Mother, bow,
For your support and gracious help
Pouring my daily, nightly vow:
For your compassion now is all
My child’s rebellious power hath left
To soothe the piercing, piercing woes
That leave me here of hope bereft.
And since before his cruel might
My friends have all in terror fled,
Do thou, Almighty Father, thou,
Protect my unprotected head.
But I have heard in former days
The story of another king,
Who--fled from and betrayed like me--
Resolved all fears away to fling,
And launch upon the wide, wide sea,
And find adventurous fortune there,
Or perish in its rolling waves,
The victim of his brave despair.
This ancient monarch far and near--
Old Apollonius--was known:
I’ll follow where he sought his fate,
And where he found it find my own.[36]
[36] The “Cantos de Fuentes,” in the Epístola to which this
ballad is found, were printed three times, and in the edition
of Alcalá, 1587, 12mo, fill, with their tedious commentary,
above eight hundred pages. Fuentes is noted by Zuñiga, in his
“Annals of Seville,” 1677, p. 585, as a knight of Seville “of an
illustrious lineage.” See also, _ante_, Vol. I. pp. 36-38.
Juan de Timoneda, partly bookseller and partly poet,--the friend of
Lope de Rueda, and, like him, the author of farces acted in the public
squares of Valencia,--was, both from his occupations and tastes, a
person who would naturally understand the general poetical feeling and
wants of his time. In consequence of this, probably, he published, in
1573, a collection of ballads, entitled “The Rose,” consisting, in
no small degree, of his own compositions, but containing, also, some
by other and older poets. Taken together, they constitute a volume
of nearly seven hundred pages, divided into “The Rose of Love”; “The
Spanish Rose”; “The Gentile Rose,” so called, because its subjects are
heathen; and “The Royal Rose,” which is on the fates and fortunes of
princes;--the whole being followed by about a hundred pages of popular,
miscellaneous verse, rustic songs, and fanciful glosses.
The best parts of this large collection are the ballads gathered by
its author from popular tradition, most of which were soon published
in other Romanceros, with the variations their origin necessarily
involved. The poorest parts are those written by himself,--such as the
last division, which is entirely his own, and is not superior to the
similar ballads in Sepúlveda and Fuentes. As a collection, however, it
is important; because it shows how true the Spanish people remained to
their old traditions, and how constantly they claimed to have the best
portions of their history repeated to them in the old forms to which
they had so long been accustomed. In another point of view, also, it is
of consequence. It furnishes ballads on the early heroes of Spain, some
of which are needed to fill up two or three of the best among their
traditional stories, while others come down, with similar accounts of
later heroes, to the end of the Moorish wars.[37]
[37] The only copy of this volume known to exist is among the
rare and precious Spanish books given by Reinhart to the Imperial
Library at Vienna; but an excellent account of it, followed
by above sixty of the more important ballads it contains, was
published at Leipzig, 1846, 12mo, under the title of “Rosa de
Romances,” by Mr. Wolf, the admirable scholar, to whom the lovers
of Spanish literature owe so much.
In 1583, the series of such popular works was still further continued
by Pedro de Padilla, who published a Romancero containing sixty-three
long ballads of his own,--about half of them taken from uncertain
traditions, or from fables like those of Ariosto, and the others from
the known history of Spain, which they follow down through the times
of Charles the Fifth and the Flemish wars of Philip the Second. The
Italian measures several times intrude, where they can produce only an
awkward and incongruous effect; and the rest of the volume, not devoted
to ballads,--except fifty _villancicos_, which are full of the old
popular spirit,--is composed of poems in the Italian manner, that add
nothing to its value.[38]
[38] “Romancero de Pedro de Padilla,” Madrid, 1583, 12mo. The
ballads fill about three hundred and sixty pages. The first
twenty-two are on the wars in Flanders; afterwards there are
nine taken from Ariosto’s stories; then several on the story of
Rodrigo de Narvaez, on Spanish traditions, etc.
Juan de la Cueva, finding the old national subjects thus seized upon
by his predecessors, resorted, it would seem, from necessity, to the
histories of Greece and Rome for his materials, and in 1587 published
a volume containing above a hundred ballads, which he divided into ten
books, placing nine of them under the protection of the nine Muses, and
the other under that of Apollo. Their poetical merit is inconsiderable.
The best are a few whose subjects are drawn from the old Castilian
Chronicle, like that on the sad story of Doña Teresa, who, after being
wedded against her will to the Moorish king of Toledo, was miraculously
permitted to take refuge in a convent, rather than consummate her hated
marriage with an infidel. Two ballads, however, in which the author
gives an account of himself and of his literary undertakings, are more
curious;--the latter containing an amusing account of some of the bad
poets of his time.[39]
[39] Cueva, whom we have found in several other departments of
Spanish literature, printed his ballads with the title of “Coro
Febeo de Romances Historiales,” in his native city, Seville,
1587, 12mo,--a volume of nearly seven hundred pages. Only four or
five are on Spanish subjects;--that on Doña Teresa (f. 215) being
obviously taken from the “Crónica General,” Parte III. c. 22. The
ballad addressed to his book, “Al Libro,” is at the end of the
“Melpomene,” and is of value for his personal history.
The publication of the first part of “The Civil Wars of Granada,” by
Hita, in 1595, containing about sixty ballads, some of them very old,
and several of great poetical merit, increased, no doubt, the impulse
which the frequent appearance of volumes of popular anonymous ballads
continued to give to Spanish poetry in this attractive form.[40] This
is yet more apparent in the new direction taken by ballad-writing,
which from this time began to select particular subjects and address
itself to separate classes of readers. Thus, in 1609, we have a volume
of ballads in the dialect of the rogues, written in the very spirit of
the vagabonds it represents, and collected by some one who concealed
himself under the name of Juan Hidalgo;[41]--while in 1612, at the
other extreme of the cycle, Valdivielso, the fashionable ecclesiastic,
printed a large “Spiritual Ballad-book,” whose ballads are all on
religious subjects, and all intended to promote habits of devotion.[42]
In 1614 and 1622, Lope de Vega, always a lover of such poetry, gave
to the religious world a collection of similar devout ballads, often
reprinted afterwards;[43] and in 1629 and 1634, he contributed
materials to two other collections of the same character,--the first
anonymous, and entitled “A Bouquet of Divine Flowers”; and the other by
Luis de Arellano, which, under the name of “Counsels for the Dying,”
contains thirty ballads, several of which are by the principal poets of
the time.[44]
[40] Hita’s “Guerras Civiles de Granada” will be noticed when I
come to speak of romantic fiction.
[41] “Romances de Germanía,” 1609; reprinted, Madrid, 1789, 8vo.
The words _Germanía_, _Germano_, etc., were applied to the jargon
in which the rogues talked with one another. Hidalgo, who wrote
only six of the ballads he published, gives at the end of his
collection a vocabulary of this dialect, which is recognized as
genuine by Mayans y Siscar, and reprinted in his “Orígenes”; so
that the suggestion of Clemencin, which I have followed in the
text, where I speak of Juan Hidalgo as a pseudonyme, may not be
well founded;--a suggestion further discountenanced by the fact,
that, in Tom. XXXVIII. of the Comedias Escogidas, 1672, the play
of “Los Mozárabes de Toledo” is attributed to a Juan Hidalgo.
That this had nothing to do with the Gypsies, though supposed, in
the last edition, to have been connected with them, is shown in
Borrow’s “Zincali,” London, 1841, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 143. Sandoval
(Carlos V., Lib. III. § 38) more than once calls the rebellious
_Comuneros_ of Valencia a _Germanía_, or combination, which can
leave little doubt about the origin of the word from _Hermandad_,
_Hermano_,--brotherhood and brother,--though Covarrubias does not
seem sure about it, in verb. _Alemania._
[42] Valdivielso’s name occurs very often in the _Aprobacion_
of books in the sixteenth century. His “Romancero Espiritual,”
Valencia, 1689, 12mo, first printed 1612, was several times
reprinted, and fills above three hundred and fifty pages. It is
not quite all in the ballad measure or in a grave tone.
[43] In Lope’s Obras Sueltas, Tom. XIII. and XVII.
[44] “Ramillete de Divinas Flores para el Desengaño de la Vida
Humana,” Amberes, 1629, 18mo, pp. 262. “Avisos para la Muerte,
por L. de Arellano,” Zaragoza, 1634, 1648, etc., 18mo, 90 leaves.
See, _ante_, p. 341, note.
Others, like Roca y Serna, wrote large numbers of ballads, but did not
print them separately.[45] Those of the Prince Esquilache, some of
which are excellent, amount to nearly three hundred. Antonio de Mendoza
wrote about two hundred; and perhaps as many, in every possible variety
of character, are scattered through the works of Quevedo; so that,
by the middle of the seventeenth century, there can be no doubt that
large and successful efforts had been made by the known authors of the
period to continue the old ballad spirit by free contributions, both in
separate volumes and in masses of ballads inserted among their other
published works.
[45] The ballads of Roca y Serna, often disfigured by his
Gongorism, are found in his “Luz del Alma,” Madrid, 1726, 12mo,
first printed in 1634, and frequently since.
Meantime the old spirit itself had not been lost. The ballad-book known
originally under the name of “Flor de Romances,” which we have already
traced in its individual parts to five small volumes,--published
between 1593 and 1597, in such widely different portions of Spain,
that its materials were gathered from the soil of nearly the whole
country,--continued to be valued, and was reprinted and enlarged,
under the name of “El Romancero General,” four times; till, with the
Ballad-book of 1550-1555, it comprehended nearly all the old ballads
that had been preserved by tradition, together with not a few by Lope
de Vega, Góngora, and other living authors. Out of these two vast
storehouses, and from such other sources as could still yield suitable
materials, smaller and more popular ballad-books were now selected and
published. One appeared at Barcelona in 1582, and was reprinted there
in 1602 and 1696, taken in a considerable degree from the collection
of 1550, but containing, besides, ballads not found elsewhere, and
among the rest, several on the history of the triple league and on
the death of Philip the Second.[46] A ballad-book for “The Twelve
Peers,” and their marvellous achievements, published for the first
time in 1608, has continued to be a favorite ever since;[47] and four
years afterwards appeared “The Ballad-Book of the Cid,” which has been
printed and reprinted again and again, at home and abroad, down to
our own times.[48] These were followed, in 1623, by the “Primavera,”
or Spring of Ballads, by Perez, of which a second part was collected
and published by Segura in 1629, comprehending together nearly three
hundred;--most, but not all, of them known before, and many of them of
great beauty.[49] And other ballad-books of the same sort, as well as
these, continued to be printed in cheap forms for popular use till the
old Castilian culture disappeared with the decay of the old national
character.
[46] It is entitled “Silva de Varios Romances,” and contains the
well-known ballads of the Conde d’ Irlos, the Marquis of Mantua,
Gayferos, and the Conde Claros, with others, to the number of
twenty-three, that are in the Ballad-book of 1550. Those on the
death of Philip II. and Doña Isabel de la Paz are, of course,
not in the first edition of this Silva. They occur in that of
Barcelona, 1602, 18mo.
[47] “Floresta de Varios Romances, sacados de las Historias
Antiguas de los Hechos Famosos de los Doce Pares de Francia,”
Madrid, 1728, 18mo, first printed 1608. See Sarmiento, § 528, for
its popularity; but the later ballads in the volume do not relate
to the Twelve Peers.
[48] “Romancero y Historia del muy Valeroso Cavallero, el Cid Ruy
Diaz de Bivar, recopilado por Juan de Escobar,” Alcalá, 1612,
18mo, and many other editions, the most complete being that of
Stuttgard, 1840, 12mo.
[49] Besides the editions of 1623 and 1629, I know that of
Madrid, 1659, 18mo, in two parts, containing additions of
satirical ballads, _letrillas_, etc., by Francisco de Segura.
But during the long period of a century and a half when this kind of
poetry prevailed so widely in Spain, the ballads were not left to the
formal Romanceros, whether anonymous, like the largest, or by known
authors, like those of Sepúlveda and Cueva, nor even to persons who
wrote them in great numbers and printed them in a separate department
of their collected works, as did Prince Esquilache. On the contrary,
between 1550 and 1700, hardly a Spanish poet can be found through
whose works they are not scattered with such profusion, that the
number of popular ballads that could be collected from them would,
if brought together, greatly exceed in amount all that are found
in the ballad-books proper. Many of the ballads which thus occur
either separately or in small groups are picturesque and beautiful in
the same way the elder ones are, though rarely to the same degree.
Silvestre, Montemayor, Espinel, Castillejo, and, above all of his time,
Lopez de Maldonado, wrote them with success, towards the end of the
sixteenth century.[50] A little later, those of Góngora are admirable.
Indeed, his more simple, childlike ballads, and those in which a
gay, mischievous spirit is made to conceal a genuine tenderness, are
unlike almost any of their class found elsewhere, and can hardly be
surpassed.[51] But Góngora afterwards introduced the same affected and
false style into this form of his poetry that he did into the rest,
and was followed, with constantly increasing absurdities, by Arteaga,
Pantaleon, Villamediana, Coronel, and the rest of his imitators, whose
ballads are generally worse than any thing else they wrote, because,
from the very simplicity and truth required by the proper nature of
such compositions, they less tolerate an appearance of affectation.
[50] Lopez Maldonado was a friend of Cervantes, and his
Cancionero (Madrid, 1586, 4to) was among the books in Don
Quixote’s library. There is a beautiful ballad by him, (f. 35,)
beginning,--
Ojos llenos de beldad,
Apartad de vos la ira,
Y no pagueis con mentira
A los que os tratan verdad.
The other authors referred to in the text have been before
noticed.
[51] Some of Góngora’s romantic ballads, like his “Angelica
and Medoro,” and some of his burlesque ballads, are good; but
the best are the simplest. There is a beautiful one, giving a
discussion between a little boy and girl, how they will dress up
and spend a holiday.
Cervantes, who was Góngora’s contemporary, tells us that he composed
vast numbers which are now lost; and, from his own opinion of them, we
have no reason to regret their fate. Lope’s, on the contrary, which
he preserved with a care for his own reputation that was not at all
characteristic of Cervantes, are still numerous and often excellent;
especially those that relate to himself and his loves, some of the
best of which seem to have been produced at Valencia and Lisbon.[52]
At the same time and later, good ballads were written by Quevedo,
who descended even to the style of the rogues in their composition;
by Bernarda de Fereira, a nun in the romantic convent of Buzaco, in
Portugal; by Rebolledo, the diplomatist; and perhaps, though with
some hesitation, we should add, by Solís, the historian.[53] Indeed,
wherever we turn, in the Spanish poetry of this period, we find ballads
in all their varieties of tone and character,--often by authors
otherwise little known, like Alarcon, who, in the end of the sixteenth
century, wrote excellent devout ballads,[54] or Diego de la Chica, who
is remembered only for a single satirical one, preserved by Espinosa in
the beginning of the seventeenth;[55]--but we always find them in the
works of those poets of note who desired to stand well with the mass of
their countrymen.
[52] Cervantes speaks of his “numberless ballads” in his “Viage
al Parnaso.” Those of Lope de Vega soon came into the popular
ballad-books, if, indeed, some of the best of them were not,
as I suspect, originally written for the “Flor de Romances” of
Villalta, printed at Valencia in 1593, 18mo.
[53] Solís, “Poesías Sagradas y Humanas,” 1692, 1732, etc.
[54] “Vergel de Plantas Divinas, por Arcangel de Alarcon,” 1594.
[55] It is a ballad about money (Espinosa, Flores, 1605, f. 30),
and is the only thing I know by Diego de la Chica. I might add
ballads by other authors, which are found where they would least
be looked for; like one of by Rufo, in his “Apotegmas,”--one
by Jauregui, in his “Rimas,”--and a beautiful one by Camoens,
(Rimas, 1598, f. 187,) worthy of Góngora, and beginning,--
Irme quiero, madre,
A aquella galera,
Con el marinero
A ser marinera.
I long to go, dear mother mine,
Aboard yon galley fair,
With that young sailor that I love,
His sailor life to share.
Nor could it be otherwise;--for ballads, in the seventeenth century,
had become the delight of the whole Spanish people. The soldier solaced
himself with them in his tent, and the muleteer amidst the _sierras_;
the maiden danced to them on the green, and the lover sang them for his
serenade; they entered into the low orgies of thieves and vagabonds,
into the sumptuous entertainments of the luxurious nobility, and into
the holiday services of the Church; the blind beggar chanted them to
gather alms, and the puppet-showman gave them in recitative to explain
his exhibition; they were a part of the very foundation of the theatre,
both secular and religious, and the theatre carried them everywhere,
and added everywhere to their effect and authority. No poetry of modern
times has been so widely spread through all classes of society, and
none has so entered into the national character. The ballads, in fact,
seem to have been found on every spot of Spanish soil. They seem to
have filled the very air that men breathed.[56]
[56] There is no need of authorities to prove the universal
prevalence of ballads in the seventeenth century; for the
literature of that century often reads like a mere monument
of it. But if I wished to name any thing, it would be the Don
Quixote, where Sancho is made to cite them so often; and the
Novelas of Cervantes, especially “The Little Gypsy,” who sings
her ballads in the houses of the nobles and the church of
Santa María; and “Rinconete and Cortadillo,” where they make
the coarse merriment of the thieves of Seville. Indeed, as the
puppet-showman says, in Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. 26,) “They
were in the mouths of every body,--of the very boys in the
streets.”