governments of Spain may be learned, sufficiently for our
purpose, from many passages in Conde, e. g. Tom. I. pp. 39, 82,
etc. But after all, perhaps, the reluctant admissions of Florez,
Risco, etc., in the course of the forty-five volumes of the
“España Sagrada,” are quite as good a proof of the tolerance
exercised by the Moors, as the more direct statements taken
from the Arabian writers. See, for Toledo, Florez, Tom. V. pp.
323-329; for Complutum or Alcalá de Henares, Tom. VII. p. 187;
for Seville, Tom. IX. p. 234; for Córdova and its martyrs, Tom.
X. pp. 245-471; for Saragossa, Risco, Tom. XXX. p. 203, and Tom.
XXXI. pp. 112-117; for Leon, Tom. XXXIV. p. 132; and so on.
Indeed, there is something in the accounts of a great majority
of the churches, whose history these learned men have given in
so cumbrous a manner, that shows the Moors to have practised
a toleration which, _mutatis mutandis_, they would have been
grateful to have found among the Christians in the time of Philip
III.
[438] The meaning of the word _Mozárabe_ was long doubtful; the
best opinion being that it was derived from _Mixti-arabes_, and
meant what this Latin phrase would imply. (Covarrubias, Tesoro,
1674, _ad verb._) That this was the common meaning given to it in
early times is plain from the “Chrónica de España,” (Parte II.,
at the end,) and that it continued to be so received is plain,
among other proofs, from the following passage in “Los Muçárabes
de Toledo,” (a play in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXXVIII.,
1672, p. 157,) where one of the Muzárabes, explaining to Alfonso
VII. who and what they are, says, just before the capture of the
city,--
Muçárabes, Rey, nos llamamos,
Porque, entre Arabes mezclados,
Los mandamientos sagrados
De nuestra ley verdadera,
Con valor y fé sincera
Han sido siempre guardados.
Jornada III.
But, amidst the other rare learning of his notes on “The
Mohammedan Dynasties of Spain,” (4to, London, 1840, Vol. I.
pp. 419, 420,) Don Pascual de Gayangos has perhaps settled
this vexed, though not very important, question. _Mozárabe_,
or _Muzárabe_, as he explains it, “is the Arabic _Musta’rab_,
meaning a man who tries to imitate or to become an Arab in his
manners and language, and who, though he may know Arabic, speaks
it like a foreigner.” The word is still used in relation to the
ritual of some of the churches in Toledo. (Castro, Biblioteca,
Tom. II. p. 458, and Paleographía Esp., p. 16.) On the other
hand, the Moors who, as the Christian conquests were advanced
towards the South, remained, in their turn, inclosed in the
Christian population and spoke or assumed its language, were
originally called _Moros Latinados_. See “Poema del Cid,” v. 266,
and “Crónica General,” (ed. 1604, fol. 304. a,) where, respecting
Alfaraxi, a Moor, afterwards converted, and a counsellor of the
Cid, it is said he was “de tan buen entendimento, e era _tan
ladino_ que semejava Christiano.”
The effect of all this on whatever of the language and literature of
Rome still survived among them was, of course, early apparent. The
natives of the soil who dwelt among the Moors soon neglected their
degraded Latin, and spoke Arabic. In 794, the conquerors thought
they might already venture to provide schools for teaching their own
language to their Christian subjects, and require them to use no
other.[439] Alvarus Cordubensis, who wrote his “Indiculus Luminosus”
in 854,[440] and who is a competent witness on such a subject, shows
that they had succeeded; for he complains that, in his time, the
Christians neglected their Latin, and acquired Arabic to such an extent
that hardly one Christian in a thousand was to be found who could
write a Latin letter to a brother in the faith, while many were able
to write Arabic poetry so as to rival the Moors themselves.[441] Such,
indeed, was the early prevalence of the Arabic, that John, Bishop of
Seville, one of those venerable men who commanded the respect alike
of Christians and Mohammedans, found it necessary to translate the
Scriptures into it, because his flock could read them in no other
language.[442] Even the records of Christian churches were often kept
in Arabic from this period down through several succeeding centuries,
and in the archives of the cathedral at Toledo, above two thousand
documents were recently and are probably still to be seen, written
chiefly by Christians and ecclesiastics, in Arabic.[443]
[439] Conde, Tom. I. p. 229.
[440] Florez, España Sagrada, Tom. XI. p. 42.
[441] The “Indiculus Luminosus” is a defence of the fanatical
martyrs of Córdova, who suffered under Abderrahman II. and his
son. The passage referred to, with all its sins against pure
Latinity and good taste, is as follows:--“Heu, proh dolor!
linguam suam nesciunt Christiani, et linguam propriam non
advertunt Latini, ita ut omni Christi collegio vix inveniatur
unus in milleno hominum numero, qui salutatorias fatri possit
rationabiliter dirigere literas. Et reperitur absque numero
multiplex turba, qui eruditè Caldaicas verborum explicet pompas.
Ita ut metricè eruditiori ab ipsis gentibus carmine et sublimiori
pulchritudine,” etc. It is found at the end of the treatise,
which is printed entire in Florez (Tom. XI. pp. 221-275). The
phrase _omni Christi collegio_ is, I suppose, understood by
Mabillon, “De Re Diplomaticâ,” (fol., 1681, Lib. II. c. 1, p.
55,) to refer to the clergy, in which case the statement would be
much stronger, and signify that “not one _priest_ in a thousand
could address a common letter of salutation to another” (Hallam,
Middle Ages, London, 8vo, 1819, Vol. III. p. 332);--but I incline
to think that it refers to the whole body of Christians in and
about Córdova.
[442] The time when John of Seville lived is not settled
(Florez, Tom. IX. pp. 242, etc.); but that is not important
to our purpose. The fact of the translation is in the Crónica
General (Parte III. c. 2, f. 9, ed. 1604): “Trasladó las sanctas
Escripturas en Arávigo e fizó las exposiciones dellas segun
conviene a la sancta Escriptura.” And Mariana gives the true
reason for it: “A causa que la lengua Arábiga se usaba mucho
entre todos; la Latina ordinariamente ni se usaba, _ni se
sabia_.” (Lib. VII. c. iii., _prope finem_.) See, also, Antonio,
Bib. Vet., Lib. VI. c. 9; Castro, Bib. Esp., Tom. II. pp. 454,
etc.
[443] Paleographía Española, p. 22.
Nor was this state of things at once changed when the Christians from
the North prevailed again; for, after the reconquest of some of the
central portions of the country, the coins struck by Christian kings
to circulate among their Christian subjects were covered with Arabic
inscriptions, as may be seen in coins of Alfonso the Sixth and Alfonso
the Eighth, in the years 1185, 1186, 1191, 1192, 1199, and 1212.[444]
And in 1256 Alfonso the Wise, when, by a solemn decree dated at Burgos,
18th December, he was making provision for education at Seville,
established Arabic schools there, as well as Latin.[445] Indeed, still
later, and even down to the fourteenth century, the public acts and
monuments of that part of Spain were often written in Arabic, and the
signatures to important ecclesiastical documents, though the body of
the instrument might be in Latin or Spanish, were sometimes made in the
Arabic character, as they are in a grant of privileges by Ferdinand the
Fourth to the monks of Saint Clement.[446] So that almost as late as
the period of the conquest of Granada, and in some respects later, it
is plain that the language, manners, and civilization of the Arabs were
still much diffused among the Christian population of the centre and
South of Spain.
[444] Memorias de la Real Acad. de la Hist., Tom. IV., Ensayo de
Marina, pp. 40-43.
[445] Mondejar, Memorias de Alonso el Sabio, fol., 1777, p. 43.
Ortiz y Zuñiga, Anales de Sevilla, fol., 1677, p. 79.
[446] Mem. de la Real Acad. de la Hist., Tom. IV., Ensayo de
Marina, p. 40.
When, therefore, the Christians from the North, after a contest the
most bitter and protracted, had rescued the greater part of their
country from thraldom, and driven the Moors before them into its
southwestern provinces, they found themselves, as they advanced,
surrounded by large masses of their ancient countrymen, Christians,
indeed, in faith and feeling, though most imperfect in Christian
knowledge and morals, but Moors in dress, manners, and language. A
union, of course, took place between these different bodies, who, by
the fortunes of war, had been separated from each other so long, that,
though originally of the same stock and still connected by some of the
strongest sympathies of our nature, they had for centuries ceased to
possess a common language in which alone it would be possible to carry
on the daily intercourse of life. But such a reunion of the two parts
of the nation, wherever and whenever it occurred, necessarily implied
an immediate modification or accommodation of the language that was to
be used by both. No doubt, such a modification of the Gothicized and
corrupted Latin had been going on, in some degree, from the time of
the Moorish conquest. But now it was indispensable that it should be
completed. A considerable infusion of the Arabic, therefore, quickly
took place;[447] and the last important element was thus added to
the present Spanish, which has been polished and refined, indeed, by
subsequent centuries of progress in knowledge and civilization, but is
still, in its prominent features, the same that it appeared soon after
what, with characteristic nationality, is called the Restoration of
Spain.[448]
[447] For the great Arabic infusion into the language of Spain,
see Aldrete, Orígen, Lib. III. c. 15; Covarrubias, Tesoro,
_passim_; and the catalogue, of 85 pages, in the fourth volume
of the Memorias de la Academia de Historia. To these may be well
added the very curious “Vestigios da Lingua Arábica em Portugal
per João de Sousa,” Lisboa, 1789, 4to. A general notice of the
whole subject, but one that gives too much influence to the
Arabic, may be found in the “Ocios de Españoles Emigrados,” Tom.
II. p. 16, and Tom. III. p. 291.
[448] The common and characteristic phrase, from a very early
period, for the Moorish conquest of Spain, was “la _pérdida_
de España,” and that for its reconquest, “la _restauracion_ de
España.”
The language, however, which was thus brought from the North by the
Christian conquerors, and became modified as it advanced among the
Moorish population of the South, was, as we have seen, by no means the
classical Latin. It was Latin corrupted, at first, by the causes which
had corrupted that language throughout the Roman empire, even before
the overthrow of the Roman power,--then by the inevitable effect of the
establishment in Spain of the Goths and other barbarians immediately
afterwards,--and subsequently by additions from the original Iberian or
Basque, made during the residence of the Christians, after the Moorish
conquest, among the mountaineers, with whom that language had never
ceased to prevail. But the principal cause of the final degradation of
the Latin at the North, after the middle of the eighth century, was, no
doubt, the miserable condition of the people who spoke it. They had
fled from the ruins of the Latinized kingdom of the Goths, pursued by
the fiery sword of the Moslem, and found themselves crowded together
in the wild fastnesses of the Biscayan and Asturian mountains. There,
deprived of the social institutions in which they had been nurtured,
and which, however impaired or ruined, yet represented and retained
to the last whatever of civilization had been left in their unhappy
country; mingled with a people who, down to that time, appear to have
shaken off little of the barbarism that had resisted alike the invasion
of the Romans and of the Goths; and pent up, in great numbers, within a
territory too small, too rude, and too poor to afford them the means of
a tolerable subsistence, the Christians at the North seem to have sunk
at once into a state nearly approaching that of savage life,--a state,
of course, in which no care or thought would be given to preserve the
purity of the language they spoke.[449] Nor was their condition much
more favorable for such purposes when, with the vigor of despair,
they began to recover the country they had lost. For they were then
constantly in arms and constantly amidst the perils and sufferings of
an exhausting warfare, embittered and exasperated by intense national
and religious hatreds. When, therefore, as they advanced with their
conquests towards the south and the east, they found themselves coming
successively in contact with those portions of their race that had
remained among the Moors, they felt that they were at once in the
presence of a civilization and refinement altogether superior to their
own.
[449] The Arabic accounts, which are much to be relied on,
because they are contemporary, give a shocking picture of the
Christians at the North in the eighth century. “Viven como
fieras, que nunca lavan sus cuerpos ni vestidos, que no se las
mudan, y los llevan puestas hasta que se les caen despedezados
en andrajos,” etc. (Conde, Dominacion, etc., Parte II. c. 18.)
The romantic and uncertain accounts, in the beginning of the
third part of the Crónica General, and the more formal narrative
of Mariana, (book seventh,) leave little doubt that such
descriptions must be near the truth.
The result was inevitable. The change, which, as has been said,
now took place in their language, was governed by this peculiar
circumstance in their position. For, as the Goths, between the fifth
and eighth centuries, received a vast number of words from the Latin
because it was the language of a people with whom they were intimately
mingled and who were much more intellectual and advanced than
themselves, so now, for the same reason, the whole nation received,
between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, another increase of
their vocabulary from the Arabic, and accommodated themselves, in
a remarkable degree, to the advanced cultivation of their Southern
countrymen and of their new Moorish subjects.
At what precise period the language, since called the Spanish and
Castilian, can be said to have been formed by this union of the
Gothicized and corrupted Latin that came from the North with the Arabic
of the South, cannot now be determined.[450] Such a union was, from its
nature, brought about by one of those gradual and silent changes in
what belongs essentially to the character of a whole people, which can
leave behind them no formal monuments or exact records. But the learned
Marina, who may perhaps be safely trusted on this point, asserts that
no document in the Castilian language, with a date anterior to the
year 1140, exists, or, in his opinion, ever did exist.[451] Indeed
the oldest yet cited is a confirmation of privileges by Alfonso the
Seventh, in the year 1155, to the city of Avilés in Asturias.[452]
However gradual, therefore, and indistinct may have been the formation
and first appearance of the Castilian as the spoken language of modern
Spain, we may no doubt feel sure, that, about the middle of the twelfth
century, it had risen to the dignity of being a written language, and
had begun to appear in the important public documents of the time.
[450] Consult Marina, Ensayo, p. 19.
[451] Ibid., pp. 23, 24.
[452] The Avilés document is regarded by all who have noticed it
as of great importance for the earliest history of the Castilian.
It is first mentioned, I believe, by Father Risco, in his
“Historia de la Ciudad y Corte de Leon” (Madrid, 1793, 4to, Tom.
I. pp. 252, 253); and next by Marina, in his “Ensayo” (Memorias
de la Acad. de Historia, Tom. IV., 1805, p. 33);--both competent
witnesses, and both entirely satisfied that it is genuine. Risco,
however, printed no part of it, and Marina published only a
few extracts. But in the “Revista de Madrid,” (Segunda Epoca,
Tom. VII. pp. 267-322,) it is published entire, as part of an
interesting discussion concerning the old codes of the country,
by Don Rafael Gonzalez Llanos, a man of learning and a native
of Avilés, who seems to have a strong love for the place of his
birth and to be familiar with its antiquities.
The document in question belongs to the class of instruments
sometimes called “Privilegios,” and sometimes “Foros,” or
“Fueros” (see, _ante_, Vol. I. p. 47, note 28); but where, as in
this case, the authority of the instrument is restricted to a
single town or city, it is more properly called “Carta Puebla,”
or municipal charter. This Carta Puebla of Avilés contains a
royal grant of rights and immunities to the several citizens,
as well as to the whole municipality, and involves whatever
regarded the property, business, and franchises of all whom it
was intended to protect. Charters, which were so important to the
welfare of many persons, but which still rested on the arbitrary
authority of the crown, were, as we have previously said, (Vol.
I. p. 47, note 27,) confirmed by succeeding sovereigns, as often
as their confirmation could conveniently be procured by the
communities so deeply interested in their preservation.
The Carta Puebla of Avilés was originally granted by Alfonso VI.,
who reigned from 1073 to 1109. It was, no doubt, written in such
Latin as was then used; and in 1274 it was formally made known
to Alfonso the Wise, that it had been burnt during the attack on
that city by his son Sancho. The original, therefore, is lost,
and we know how it was lost.
What we possess is the translation of this Carta Puebla, made
when it was confirmed by Alfonso VII., A. D. 1155. It is still
preserved in the archives of the city of Avilés, on the original
parchment, consisting of two skins sewed together,--the two
united being about four feet and eleven inches long, and about
nineteen inches wide. It bears the known seal of Alfonso VII.,
and the original signatures of several persons who were bound to
sign it with him, and several subsequent confirmations, scattered
over five centuries. (See Revista, _ut sup._, pp. 329, 330.) So
that in all respects, including the coarseness of the parchment,
the handwriting, and the language, it announces its own
genuineness with as much certainty as any document of its age. As
printed, it fills about twelve pages in octavo, and enables us to
judge somewhat of the state of the Castilian at the time it was
written.
After a caption or enrolment in bad Latin, it opens with these
words:--
“Estos sunt los foros que deu el rey D. Alfonso ad Abilies
cuando la poblou par foro Sancti Facundi et otorgo lo emperador.
Em primo, per solar pinder, I solido a lo reu et II denarios a
lo saion, é cada ano un sólido en censo per lo solar: é qui lo
vender, de I solido á lo rai, é quil comparar dará II denarios a
lo saion,” etc. p. 267.
A part of one of its important regulations is as follows:--“Toth
homine qui populador for ela villa del rey, de quant aver qui ser
aver, si aver como heredat, dè fer en toth suo placer de vender o
de dar, et á quen lo donar que sedeat stabile si filio non aver,
et si filio aver del, delo á mano illo quis quiser é fur placer,
que non deserede de toto, et si toto lo deseredar, toto lo perdan
aquellos á quen lo der.” Revista, p. 315.
Its concluding provisions are in these words:--“Duos homines cum
armas derumpent casa, et de rotura de orta serrada, LX. sólidos
al don de la orta, el medio al rei, é medio al don dela.--Homines
populatores de Abilies, non dent portage ni rivage, desde la mar
ata Leon.” Ibid., p. 322.
It ends with bad Latin, denouncing excommunication on any person
who shall attempt to infringe its provisions, and declaring him
“cum Datam et Abiron in infernum damnatus.” Ibid., p. 329.
By the general consent of those who have examined it, this Carta
Puebla of Avilés is determined to be the oldest document now
known to exist in the Castilian or vulgar dialect of the period,
which dialect, in the opinion of Don Rafael Gonzalez Llanos,
received its essential character as early as 1206, or six years
before the decisive battle of the Navas de Tolosa, (see, _ante_,
Vol. I. p. 9, note,) though not a few documents, after that date,
abound in Latin words and phrases. Revista, _ut supra_, Tom.
VIII. p. 197.
I am aware that two documents in the Spanish language, claiming
to be yet older, have been cited by Mr. Hallam, in a note to Part
II. c. 9 of his Middle Ages, London, 1819, 8vo, Vol. III. p. 554,
where he says: “The earliest Spanish that I remember to have seen
is an instrument in Martene, Thesaurus Anecdotorum, Tom. I. p.
263; the date of which is 1095. Persons more conversant with the
antiquities of that country may possibly go farther back. Another
of 1101 is published in Marina’s Teoria de las Cortes, Tom.
III. p. 1. It is in a Vidimus by Peter the Cruel, and cannot, I
presume, have been a translation from the Latin.” There can be no
higher general authority than Mr. Hallam for any historical fact,
and this statement seems to carry back the oldest authentic date
for the Spanish language sixty years earlier than I have ventured
to carry it. But I have examined carefully both of the documents
to which Mr. Hallam refers, and am satisfied they are of later
date than the charter of Avilés. That in Martene is merely an
anecdote connected with the taking of “the city of Exea,” when
it was conquered, as this story states, by Sancho of Aragon. Its
language strongly resembles that of the “Partidas,” which would
bring it down to the middle of the thirteenth century; but it
bears, in truth, no date, and only declares at the end that the
city of Exea was taken on the nones of April, 1095, from the
Moors. Of course, there is some mistake about the whole matter,
for Sancho of Aragon, here named as its conqueror, died June 4th,
1094, and was succeeded by Peter I., and the person who wrote
this account, which seems to be, after all, only an extract from
some monkish chronicle, did not live near enough to that date to
know so notorious a fact. Moreover, Exea is in Aragon, where it
is not probable the earliest Castilian was spoken or written.
Thus much for the document from Martene. That from Marina’s
Teoria is of a still later and quite certain date. It is a
charter of privileges granted by Alfonso VI. to the Mozárabes of
Toledo, but translated in 1340, when it was confirmed by Alfonso
XI. Indeed, it is so announced by Marina himself, who in the
table of contents says especially, that it is “_translated_ into
Castilian.”
From this period, then, we are to recognize the existence in Spain
of a language spreading gradually through the greater part of the
country, different from the pure or the corrupted Latin, and still
more different from the Arabic, yet obviously formed by a union of
both, modified by the analogies and spirit of the Gothic constructions
and dialects, and containing some remains of the vocabularies of the
Germanic tribes, of the Iberians, the Celts, and the Phœnicians,
who, at different periods, had occupied nearly or quite the whole of
the Peninsula. This language was called originally the _Romance_,
because it was so much formed out of the language of the Romans; just
as the Christians, in the northwestern mountains, were called by the
Arabs _Alromi_, because they were imagined to be descended from the
Romans.[453] Later, it was called _Spanish_, from the name taken by the
whole people, and perhaps, at last, it was even more frequently called
_Castilian_, from that portion of the country, whose political power
grew to be so predominant, as to give its dialect a preponderance over
all the other dialects, which, like the Galician, the Catalonian, and
the Valencian, were, for a longer or shorter period, written languages,
each with claims to a literature of its own.
[453] Marina, Ensayo, p. 19.
The proportion of materials contributed by each of the languages that
enter into the composition of the Spanish has never been accurately
settled, though enough is known to permit an adjustment of their
general relations to each other. Sarmiento, who investigated the
subject with some care, thinks that six tenths of the present Castilian
are of Latin origin; one tenth Greek and ecclesiastical; one tenth
Northern; one tenth Arabic; and the remaining tenth East Indian and
American, Gypsy, modern German, French, and Italian. Probably this
estimate is not very far from the truth. But Larramendi and Humboldt
leave no doubt that the Basque should be added; and, while Marina’s
inquiries give a smaller proportion to the Arabic, those of Gayangos
raise it to an eighth. The main point, however, is one concerning which
there can be no doubt;--the broad foundations of the Castilian are to
be sought in the Latin, to which, in fact, we are to trace nearly or
quite all the contributions sometimes attributed to the Greek.[454]
[454] The most striking proof, perhaps, that can be given of the
number of Latin words and constructions retained in the modern
Spanish, is to be found in the many pages of verse and prose that
have, from time to time, been so written that they can be read
throughout either as Latin or as Spanish. The first instance of
this sort that I know of is by Juan Martinez Siliceo, Archbishop
of Toledo and preceptor to Philip II., who, when he was in Italy,
wrote a short prose dissertation that could be read in both
languages, in order to prove to some of his learned friends in
that country that the Castilian of Spain was nearer to the Latin
than their Italian;--a _jeu-d’esprit_, which he printed in his
treatise on Arithmetic, in 1514. (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II.
p. 737.) Other examples occur afterwards. One may be found in
a Spanish Grammar, published at Louvain in 1555, and entitled
“Util y Breve Institution para aprender Lengua Hespañola”; a
curious book, which treats the Castilian as only one of several
languages then spoken in the Spanish Peninsula, and says of it,
“no es otra cosa que Latin corrupto,”--adding that many letters
had been written in Spanish words that were yet Latin letters,
one of which he proceeds to give in proof. Other examples
occur in a Dialogue by Fern. Perez de Oliva, and an Epistle of
Ambrosio Morales, the historian, printed in 1585, with the works
of the first; in a Sonnet published by Rengifo, in his “Arte
Poética,” in 1592; and, finally, in an excessively rare volume of
_terza rima_, by Diego de Aguiar, printed in 1621, and entitled
“Tercetos _en Latin congruo_ y puro Castellano,” of which the
following is a favorable specimen:--
Scribo historias, graves, generosos
Spiritus, divinos Heroes puros,
Magnanimos, insignes, bellicosos;
Canto de Marte, defensores duros
Animosos Leones, excellentes,
De rarâ industriâ, invictos, grandes muros,
Vos animas illustres, præeminentes
Invoco, etc.
Much cannot be said for the purity of either the Castilian or
the Latin in verses like these; but they leave no doubt of the
near relationship of the two. For the proportions of all the
languages that enter into the Spanish, see Sarmiento, Memorias,
1775, p. 107;--Larramendi, Antiguedad y Universalidad del
Bascuence, 1728, c. xvi., apud Vargas y Ponce, Disertacion, 1793,
pp. 10-26;--Rosseeuw de St. Hilaire, Etudes sur l’Origine de
la Langue et Romances Espagnoles, Thèse, 1838, p. 11;--W. von
Humboldt, Prüfung, already cited;--Marina, Ensayo, in Mem. de la
Acad. de Hist., Tom. IV., 1805;--and an article in the British
and Foreign Review, No. XV., 1839.
The Spanish, or Castilian, language thus formed was introduced into
general use sooner and more easily than, perhaps, any other of the
newly created languages, which, as the confusion of the Middle Ages
passed off, were springing up, throughout the South of Europe, to take
the place of the universal language of the Roman world. The reasons
of this were, that the necessity for its creation and employment was
more urgent, from the extraordinary relations between the Moors, the
Muçárabes, and the Christians; that the reign of Saint Ferdinand, at
least as late as the capture of Seville in 1247, was a period, if not
of quiet, yet of prosperity and almost of splendor; and that the Latin,
both as a written and a spoken language, had become so much degraded,
that it could offer less resistance to change in Spain than in the
other countries where a similar revolution was in progress.[455] We
must not be surprised, therefore, to find, not only specimens, but even
considerable monuments, of Spanish literature soon after the first
recognized appearance of the language itself. The narrative poem of
the Cid, for instance, cannot be dated later than the year 1200; and
Berceo, who flourished from 1220 to 1240, though he almost apologizes
for not writing in Latin,[456] and thus shows how certainly he lived
in the debatable period between the two languages, has left us a large
mass of genuine Spanish, or Castilian, verse. But it is a little later,
and in the reign of Alfonso the Tenth, from 1252 to 1282, that we are
to consider the introduction of the Spanish, as a written, a settled,
and a polite language, to have been recognized and completed. By his
order, the Bible was translated into it from the Vulgate; he required
all contracts and legal instruments to be written in it, and all law
proceedings to be held in it; and, finally, by his own remarkable code,
“Las Siete Partidas,” he at once laid the foundations for the extension
and establishment of its authority as far as the Spanish race and power
should prevail.[457] From this period, therefore, we are to look for
the history and development of the Spanish language, in the body of
Spanish literature.
[455] All the documents containing the privileges granted by St.
Ferdinand to Seville, on the capture of the city, are in the
vernacular of the time, the _Romance_. Ortiz y Zuñiga, Anales de
Sevilla, fol., 1677, p. 89.
[456]
Quiero fer una _prosa_ en _Roman paladino_,
En qual suele el pueblo fablar a su vecino,
Car non so tan letrado por fer _otro latino_, etc.
Vida de S. Domingo de Silos, St. 2.
_Roman paladino_ means the “plain Romance language,” _paladino_
being derived, as I think, with Sanchez, from _palam_, though
Sarmiento (in his manuscript on “Amadis de Gaula,” referred to,
Vol. I. p. 322, note) says, when noticing this line: “Paladino
es de _palatino_ y este es de _palacio_.” The _otro latino_
is, of course, the elder Latin, however corrupted. Cervantes
uses the word _ladino_ to mean Spanish, (Don Quixote, Parte I.
c. 41, and the note of Clemencin,) and Dante (Par., III. 63)
uses it once to mean _plain_, _easy_; both curious instances of
an indirect meaning, forced, as it were, upon a word. _Prosa_
means, I suppose, _story_. Biagioli (Ad Purgatorio, XXVI. 118)
says: “_Prosa_ nell’ Italiano e nel Provenzale del secolo xiii.
significa precisamente _istoria o narrazione in versi_.” It may
be doubted whether he is right in applying this remark to the
passage in Dante, but it is no doubt applicable to the passage
before us in Berceo, the meaning of which both Bouterwek and his
Spanish translators have mistaken. (Bouterwek, Trad. Cortina,
etc., 8vo, Madrid, 1829, Tom. I. pp. 60 and 119.) Ferdinand Wolf
(in his very learned work, “Über die Lais, Sequenzen und Leiche,”
Heidelberg, 1841, 8vo, pp. 92 and 304) thinks the use of the word
_prosa_, here and elsewhere in early Spanish poetry, had some
reference to the well-known use of the same word in the offices
of the Church. (Du Cange, Glossarium, _ad verb_.) But I think the
early Spanish rhymers took it from the Provençal, and not from
the ecclesiastical Latin.
[457] Mondejar, Memorias del Rey D. Alonso el Sabio, fol.,
Madrid, 1777, pp. 450-452. Mariana, Hist., Lib. XIV. c. 7, and
Castro, Bib., Tom. I. pp. 411, etc.
APPENDIX, B.
ON THE ROMANCEROS.
(See Vol. I. p. 128.)
As the earliest ballads were not by known authors, but were gathered at
different times, from the traditions of the people, it is impossible to
understand their history without understanding something of the history
of the Ballad-books in which they are found. A sketch of such a history
has been written, with much knowledge of the subject, by Ferdinand
Wolf, and is found in the “Jahrbücher der Literatur” (Band CXIV.,
Wien, 1846, pp. 1-72). I do not willingly enter into a discussion so
peculiarly within the province of this distinguished scholar; but, as
I possess, or have seen, several very early Ballad-books which he does
not mention, and am besides unable to agree with him as to which is
the oldest of them all, and therefore the most important, I will, as
briefly as I can, give my views of this obscure branch of bibliography;
confining myself, where it is possible to do so, to what has not
before been published, and touching the whole matter only so far as it
concerns the history of Spanish poetry.
A considerable number of ballads, printed on one or more sheets, in
black letter, for popular use, may still be found. Such are “El Conde
Alarcos”; “El Moro Calaynos”; a collection of twelve separate pieces,
and a collection of fifty-nine, sold at Heber’s sale; with others
noticed by Brunet, under the head of _Romances Séparées_, in his
article “Romanceros.” But they are all without dates; it is extremely
uncertain when any one of them was printed; and it seems to me, judging
from those I have seen, to be more probable, that they were taken from
collections now known to exist or to have existed, than that they
helped to make up those collections,--the oldest of which claims to
have been taken from the memories of the people, and from imperfect
manuscript copies circulating only for popular use.
1. The first separate collection of ballads ever published was, I
think, the one printed at Saragossa, under the title of “Silva de
Varios Romances,” by Stevan G. de Nagera, in two parts, 1550. (See
Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, ed. 1843, art. _Silva_.) I have seen a
copy of this Silva belonging, in 1838, to M. Henri Ternaux-Compans, of
Paris. In a prefatory address to the First Part, the collector says, “I
have taken the trouble in this Silva to bring together all the ballads
that have come to my knowledge”; adding afterwards, “It may be that
some, though very few, of the old ballads are wanting, which I have not
inserted, either because they did not come to my knowledge, or because
I did not find them so complete and perfect as I wished. Nor do I deny,
that, in some of those here printed, there may be an occasional error;
but this is to be imputed to the copies from which I took them, which
were very corrupt, and to the weakness of memory of some persons, who
dictated them to me, and who could not recollect them perfectly. I did
all I could to obtain the least faulty that were to be had, and had no
little trouble to collect and amend them, and add to some that were
imperfect. However, I wished they should stand in some order, and so I
placed, first, those of devotion and from the Holy Scriptures; next,
those that relate Castilian stories; next, those of Troy; and, lastly,
those that relate to affairs of love.” After these ballads, which fill
one hundred and ninety-six leaves, he gives us twenty-five leaves of
_canciones_, _villancicos_, and _chistes_, or jests, among which, at
folio 199, is the well-known witty Dialogue of Castillejo and his Pen.
At the end of the First Part, folio 221, we have the following Address
to the Reader, in which the collector has evidently changed his mind
about having obtained all but a “very few of the old ballads” known
to exist; for he now says: “Some of my friends, as they knew I was
printing this ‘Cancionero,’ brought me _many_ ballads, in order that I
might insert them; but as we were coming to the end of the printing, I
chose not to put them in, since they would interrupt the order that had
been begun; but rather to make another volume, which will be the Second
Part of this ‘Silva de Varios Romances,’ which is now in the press.
Vale.”
This “Segunda Parte” was published in the same year, 1550, and
consists of two hundred and three leaves of ballads, nineteen leaves
of _chistes_, and two leaves of contents, at the end of which the
“Impresor” says: “I did not wish to put into this part any more of
those short _chistes_, because, if God pleases, they will be put into
the Third Part, with other things agreeable to the curious reader.
Vale.” I know of no copy of this Third Part; but it is possible it was
printed, because, in the “Silva de Varios Romances,” of which Wolf and
Brunet mention several editions between 1578 and 1673, and of which I
possess that of 1602, the title-page declares that it contains “los
mejores romances de los _tres_ libros de la Silva.”
2. The first two parts, however, combined into one, but omitting the
_chistes_, etc., soon appeared at Antwerp, printed by Martin Nucio,
a well-known publisher, with considerable additions, but without the
date of its publication. The Preface is in nearly the same words with
that of the Silva of Nagera, Parte I.; but, when it announces the
arrangement of the ballads, it changes their order, and puts “first,
those that speak of France and the Twelve Peers; then, those that
relate Castilian stories; then, those of Troy; and, lastly, those
that treat of affairs of love.” Some of the ballads of the Saragossa
collection are omitted, and the whole is called “Cancionero de
Romances.” There is a copy of it in the Bibliothèque de l’Arsénal at
Paris; and that it is subsequent to the Saragossa Silva, and taken from
it, seems certain, because one _must_ be taken from the other, and the
note at the end of the Silva, Parte I., shows that the Saragossa Silva
was collected and printed at _different_ times; while the arrangement
of the ballads in the Cancionero of Antwerp shows that they were
necessarily all present to the editor when he put his work together.
Besides, how should Nucio collect ballads from the memories of the
people around him at Antwerp, where there were few Spaniards, except
soldiers? And how much less valuable would be any collection made there
than one made in Spain?
3. Again, a “Cancionero de Romances” occurs, printed “En Envers en
casa de Martin Nucio, MDL.,” a copy of which is in the Bibliothèque
de l’Arsenal of Paris. It has the same Preface with the one last
mentioned, from which it differs only in omitting seven of its ballads,
and inserting thirty-seven others. The errors noted in the one without
date, at folios 272. b, etc., are corrected in this one, dated
1550, and prove it to be the subsequent edition of the two,--a fact
necessarily inferred, also, from the additions it contains.
4. This edition of 1550 seems to have been issued with different
title-pages, for Wolf says there is a copy of it in the Imperial
Library at Vienna, dated 1554. But nearly all the copies now known to
exist bear the date of 1555, under which this collection is best known,
and is commonly cited. It is absolutely the same work with the copy
at the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, dated 1550, ballad for ballad, and
page for page; and as there is no appearance that the title-page of
the copy at the Arsenal has been tampered with, we are to suppose that
three editions of the collection of ballads made at Saragossa in 1550
appeared in the course of that year; two of which were published by
Martin Nucio, at Antwerp. That all three are only one work is apparent
from the circumstance, that their ballads are generally the same, and
that they have the same Preface, a little changed in the second and
third editions to meet the changes in the ballads contained in them.
They are all in 18mo. The first, taking both its parts together,
fills four hundred and thirty-six leaves; the second, two hundred and
seventy-six; and the third, three hundred. Several reprints of the last
are given by Wolf; namely, Antwerp, 1568 and 1573; Lisbon, 1581; and
Barcelona, 1587 and 1626.
Subsequent to the Silva of Saragossa, we have several collections of
ballads, that are noticed in the text,--such as those of Sepulveda,
1551, Timoneda, 1573, Linares, 1573, Padilla, 1583, Maldonado, 1586,
and Cueva, 1587,--consisting chiefly or entirely of ballads written
by their respective authors. At last, an attempt was made to gather
another Romancero from _all_ the sources, whether of books, memory,
or tradition, that were open to its collectors,--the true principle
on which the popular Spanish Romanceros have always been compiled. It
seems to have been begun at Valencia, when the first volume of the
“Flor de Varios y Nuevos Romances, Primera y Segunda Parte,” collected
by Andrés de Villalta, with a Third Part by Felipe Mey,--himself a poet
and scholar as well as a printer,[458]--were printed in one volume,
in 1593, though each of them had, probably, been printed earlier by
itself. It is cited by Duran (Romances Caballarescos, Madrid, 1832,
12mo, Tom. I., Advertencia); and from the ballads he took out of it
there can be no doubt, that its three parts differed little from the
first three parts of the “Romancero General” printed somewhat later.
The second volume of this collection, which is entitled “Quarta y
Quinta Parte de Flor de Romances,” was collected by Sebastian Velez
de Guevara, Racionero de la Colegial de Santander, and was printed
at Burgos, in 1594, 18mo, one hundred and ninety-one leaves. It is
apparently not the first edition, for the _Aprobacion_ by Pedro de
Padilla, and a permission to print it, are dated 1592, while the
permission to print the present edition is dated August 11, 1594, and
says it has been “otras veces impreso.” Probably the two parts were
originally printed separately.
[458] Felipe Mey printed a volume of his own poems at Tarragona,
in 1586, from which Faber, in his Floresta, Tom. II., has taken
three sonnets of some merit. A Life of him may be found in
Ximeno, (Tom. I. p. 249,) completed by Fuster (Tom. I. p. 213).
As a translator of Ovid he is favorably noticed by Pellicer,
Biblioteca de Traductores, Tom. II. p. 76.
The third volume, and the most important, is entitled “Sexta Parte de
Flor de Romances Nuevos, recopilados de muchos Autores, por Pedro de
Flores, Librero,” and was printed at Toledo, in 1594, 18mo, one hundred
and ninety leaves. It is the first edition, but the license seems to
speak of a fourth and fifth part as if also made by Flores. In a ballad
prefixed to this third volume, Flores is accused before Apollo of
having taken great pains to collect its contents.
“De diversas flores
Un ramillete ha juntado,
Las quales con grande afan,
De estrañas partes buscaron”;--
to which, in a defence immediately following, Flores replies, that
“they were _stray_ ballads [romances que andavan descarriados], which
he had brought together with great labor,” and for which the god
proceeds to reward rather than to punish him. Flores adds, that he
gives each ballad complete, and not like the street-singers, who drawl
out one half, and then say they are tired of it. The whole account
shows that many of the ballads in this Sixth Part--which is excellent
and contains a hundred and fifty-eight--were collected from the
memories of the people by Pedro Flores himself.
The fourth volume contains “Septima y Octava Parte de Flor de Varios
Romances Nuevos, recopilados de muchos Autores”; printed by Juan
Iñiguez de Lequerica, Alcalá de Henares, 1597, 18mo. There is a license
for each part; that of the first dated May 4, 1596, and recognizing it
as a reprint, and that of the second dated September 30, 1597, as if it
were the original edition, and entitling it “Flores del Parnaso, Octava
Parte.” The Seventh Part fills one hundred and sixty-eight leaves, and
the Eighth one hundred and thirty-two leaves, numbered separately.
The fifth and last volume is called “Flor de Varios Romances diferentes
de todos impresos, Novena Parte,” printed by Juan Flamenco, Madrid,
1597, 18mo, one hundred and forty-four leaves. The _Aprobacion_, 4th
September, 1597, and the _Tassa_, 22d March, 1596, speak of it as the
eighth and ninth parts; but the license, without date, is only for Part
Ninth.
5. From these nine parts was made, with slight changes and additions,
chiefly toward the end, the first edition of the “Romancero General,”
which was printed at Madrid, 1600, 4to; the _Tassa_ being dated 16th
December, 1599. A copy of it is in the National Library at Madrid. A
new edition--again with slight changes--appeared in 1602; and another
in 1604. This last was reprinted, without alteration, by Juan de la
Cuesta, at Madrid, in 1614. But Miguel de Madrigal had previously
published the “Segunda Parte del Romancero General y Flor de diversa
Poesía,” (Valladolid, 1605, 4to,) which may appropriately be added to
either of the last two editions of the principal work; and thus, from
nine parts, of which all four of the editions otherwise consist, extend
them to thirteen parts. All these editions are in small quarto, and
constitute the well-known “Romanceros Generales.”
The publication of so many different collections of ballads, in
the last half of the sixteenth century and the first years of the
seventeenth, leaves no doubt that ballads had then become known in
all classes of society, and were gradually finding favor with the
highest. But the Romanceros Generales were too large for popular use.
Smaller ballad-books, therefore, were printed; such as the “Jardin de
Amadores,” by Juan de la Puente, 1611; the “Primavera” of Pedro Arias
Perez, made with much judgment, and printed in 1626, 1659, etc.; the
“Maravillas del Parnaso” of Jorge Pinto de Morales, 1640; the “Romances
Varios” of Pablo de Val, 1655; and several others, to say nothing of
the many still less considerable collections, making only a sheet or
two, which are noticed by Depping and Wolf, and which were published to
meet the broad demands of the less cultivated portions of the Spanish
people, just as they have been published and republished down to our
own times. For similar reasons, though, perhaps, more to gratify
the military taste of the age, and afford amusement to the armies
in Flanders, Italy, and the Indies, selections were made from the
Romanceros Generales, and contributions obtained from other sources,
to make smaller and more convenient ballad-books of a stirring nature.
Such is the “Floresta de Romances de los Doce Pares de Francia,” by
Damian Lopez de Tortajada, the first edition of which was printed at
Alcalá in 1608, (Don Quixote, ed. Pellicer, 1797, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 105,)
and such is the “Romancero del Cid,” by Juan de Escobar, first printed
at Alcalá in 1612 (Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 684); both of which
have often been reprinted since.
But towards the end of the seventeenth century, a love for the old
Spanish ballads, as well as for the rest of the elder national
literature, began to decay in the more favored classes of society; and,
with the coming in of the eighteenth century and the Bourbon family, it
disappeared almost entirely. So strong a feeling, however, and one that
had struck its roots so deeply in the popular character, could not be
extirpated. The ballads were forgotten and neglected by the courtly and
the noble, but that the mass of the nation was as faithful to them as
ever we have the plain testimony of Sarmiento, and the fact, that they
were constantly reprinted for popular use in the humblest forms,--most
frequently in what are called _broadsides_. At last, an attempt was
made to replace them on their old ground. Fernandez, in 1796, printed
two volumes of them in his collection of Castilian poetry, and Quintana
made a small, but dainty, bouquet of them for his lyrical extracts in
1807, adding to each publication a Preface, which gave them praise high
and graceful, if not such as seemed to be imbued with their own earnest
spirit. Little effect, however, was yet produced at home, but some was
soon apparent abroad. Jacob Grimm published at Vienna, in 1815, a small
collection of the best old ballads, chiefly taken from the Romancero
of 1555; and C. B. Depping published at Leipzig, in 1817, a larger
one, containing above three hundred ballads, with a Preface and notes
in German, the whole of which was republished in Spanish, first, with
slight additions and corrections, at London, in 1825, by V. Salvá,
and secondly, with very large and important additions, at Leipzig, by
Depping himself and by A. A. Galiano, in 1844;--publications of great
merit, which have done more than all that had been done previously to
make the old Spanish ballads known in Europe generally, and which have
apparently called forth the admirably spirited translations of ballads
by J. G. Lockhart, 1823, and the interesting historically-arranged
French versions in prose of nearly three hundred, by Damas Hinard, 1844.
A very important publication of Spanish ballads in later times
comes, however, as it should come, from Spain itself, and was made
by Don Agustin Duran, to whom early Spanish literature, in other
respects, owes much. He began, in 1828, with the Moorish ballads in
the Romancero General of 1614, and went on, in 1829, with two volumes
of miscellaneous ballads, ending his labors, in 1832, with two volumes
more, containing historical ballads and ballads of chivalry;--in all,
five volumes,--the last four of which are collected from all the
sources he could command earlier than the middle of the seventeenth
century, and the whole of which, with additions, have been republished
at Paris by Ochoa, in 1838, and at Barcelona by Pons, in 1840.
Still, a general, thorough, and critical collection of Spanish ballads
is wanting;--one embracing those of the known authors, like Cueva,
Padilla, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, and Góngora, as well as the untold
wealth that remains, and must always remain, anonymous in the elder
Romanceros. When we possess such a work, and not before, we can
understand and honor, as they deserve to be understood and honored,
the poetry and the nationality of the old Spanish ballads, upon which,
as upon its true foundations, rests the old Spanish drama. But to whom
shall we look for it? Is it to Duran at Madrid, or to Wolf at Vienna,
or to Huber at Berlin? I have intimations that one may be expected from
Duran, and hope they may soon be fulfilled.
APPENDIX, C.
ON FERNAN GOMEZ DE CIBDAREAL AND THE “CENTON EPISTOLARIO.”
(See Vol. I. p. 398.)
I have treated the “Centon Epistolario” in the text just as it has
heretofore been treated; that is, as a collection of the unstudied
letters of a simple-hearted, vain man, who, for above forty years, was
attached to the person of John the Second, and familiar with what was
done at his court. Still, the exactness and genuineness of the work
have not been entirely unquestioned. Mayans y Siscar (in his Orígenes,
Tom. I., 1737, p. 203) speaks of Antonio de Vera y Zuñiga, (see,
_ante_, Vol. II. p. 500, Vol. III. p. 184,) the well-known author and
diplomatist of the time of Philip the Fourth, sometimes called Vera y
Figueroa, and says, “Feamente adulteró las epístolas históricas del
Bachiller Fernan Gomez de Ciudad Real,”--_He shamefully adulterated
the historical letters of the Bachelor Ferdinand Gomez de Cibdareal_;
but Mayans gives no reasons or facts to support this severe charge,
and he is roundly rebuked for it by Diosdado, (in his treatise “De
Primâ Typographiæ Hispanicæ Ætate,” Romæ, 1794, p. 74,) who calls it
“an atrocious calumny.” And again, Quintana, in his Life of Alvaro de
Luna, (Vidas de Españoles Célebres, Tom. III., 1833, p. 248, note,) is
so much troubled about some of the discrepancies between the Bachelor’s
accounts of the death of the Constable and the known facts of history,
that he, too, suggests all sorts of doubts, but ends by saying that he
follows the Bachelor’s accounts as a sufficient authority where they
are not directly contradicted by others higher and safer.
My own opinion is, that the book is a forgery from beginning to end;
but a forgery so ingenious, so happy, so agreeable, that it may seem
an ungracious thing to tell the truth about it, or attempt to disturb
the position it has so long held in the Castilian literature of the
fifteenth century. The facts on which I ground my opinion are chiefly
these:--
1. No such person as the Bachelor Cibdareal is mentioned in the
chronicles or correspondence of the period during which he is supposed
to have lived, though our accounts from such sources are copious and
minute; noticing, I believe, everybody of consequence at the court of
John the Second, and certainly many persons of much less importance
than the king’s confidential physician.
2. No manuscript of the Letters is known to be in existence.
3. The first notice of them is, that they appear in an edition in small
quarto, black letter, one hundred and sixty-six pages, which claims to
have been printed at Burgos in 1499. Of this edition, few copies have
ever been seen. Antonio, who died in 1684, intimates (Bib. Vetus, Tom.
II. p. 250) a doubt about the truth of its date; Bayer, in his note on
the passage, 1788, says that learned men commonly supposed that Antonio
de Vera y Zuñiga, (who died in 1658,) published this edition; and
Mendez (in his Typographia, 1796, pp. 291 and 293) declares the edition
to be unquestionably half a century later than its pretended date;--all
three of these learned men being experts and good witnesses concerning
a fact, which, I think, must be obvious to any person familiar with the
earliest printed Spanish books, who should look on a copy of it now
before me. The name of the printer on its title-page, Juan de Rei, it
is important to add, is otherwise suspected.
4. The next edition of the Letters of Cibdareal is that of Madrid,
1775, edited by Don Eugenio Llaguno y Amirola, Secretary of the Academy
of History, who thinks the first edition could not have been printed
till after 1600;--a circumstance otherwise probable, as I am not aware
that it is cited by any author of an earlier date. Indeed, if Antonio
de Vera y Zuñiga had any thing to do with it, we must suppose it to
have been printed yet later; for in 1600 that statesman was only about
ten years old.
5. The Bachelor Cibdareal gives a date to no one of his letters; but
so completely are the facts or hints for them to be detected in the
Chronicle of John the Second, that the editor of the Letters in 1775
has been able, by means of that Chronicle, to affix its proper date
to every one, I believe, of the hundred and five letters of which the
collection consists. This would hardly be possible, if the two works
had been written quite independently of each other.
6. The style of the Letters, though certainly adapted with great skill
and felicity to its supposed period, is not uniformly true to it,
erring on the side of curious archaisms. Sometimes it goes further,
and uses words for which _no_ example can be adduced. Thus the use of
_ca_ in the sense of _than_ is wholly unjustifiable; and wherever it
so occurs in the first edition, it is altered in the edition of 1775
to _que_, in order to make sense. Other errors more trifling might be
noticed; and in the spelling there is a systematical use of _c_ for _z_
in words that never were spelt with a _c_.
7. The few words in the “Aviso al Letor,” and the still fewer that
introduce the verses at the end of the volume, profess to come from the
_Editor_, who, according to Bayer, Mendez, etc., lived after 1600, and
should, therefore, have written in the style of the period when Mariana
and Cervantes flourished. But he writes exactly in the style of the
Letters he edits, which claim to be a century and a half older; and,
what is worse, he uses in his own person the _ca_ for _que_, which, as
we have noticed, nobody else ever used, except his Bachelor.
8. All accounts represent Juan de Mena as having died at Torrelaguna
in 1456, at the age of forty-five. (Antonio, Bib. Vetus, ed. Bayer,
Tom. II. p. 266; and Romero, Epicedio, 1578, f. 486, at the end of
Hernan Nuñez, Proverbios.) Now the supposed Cibdareal (Epist. 20)
places Juan de Mena, in 1428,--when he was, of course, only seventeen
years old,--on the most familiar footing at court, and makes him
already historiographer to the king, and far advanced in his principal
poem;--a statement the more incredible when we recollect that Romero
says expressly, that Mena was twenty-three years old when he first gave
himself to “the sweet labor of good learning,”--“al dulce trabajo de
aquel buen saber.” See the notice of Juan de Mena, _ante_, Vol. I. pp.
379-388.
9. The contemptuous account Cibdareal gives of Barrientos is not one
which a courtier in his position would be likely to give of a person
already of great consequence, and rising fast to the highest places
in the government. But, what is more, it is not the true account. He
represents that distinguished ecclesiastic, as we have seen, (_ante_,
Vol. I. p. 359,) to have burnt, in a very rash and reckless manner, a
large quantity of books, from the library of the Marquis of Villena,
sent to him for examination after the death of their owner, because he
had been accused, in his lifetime, of studying magic,--Barrientos, as
Cibdareal would have us believe, knowing nothing about the contents of
the books, which he burnt, at once, only because he would not take the
trouble to examine them. Now I happen to possess, in an unpublished
manuscript of Barrientos, his own account of this very matter. It is
in a learned treatise on Divination, which he wrote by order of John
the Second, and addressed to that monarch; and in the Preface to the
Second Part of which he declares that he burnt the books in question
_by the royal order_, and intimates, that, in his own opinion, they
should have been spared. “And this book,” he says, speaking of the one
called “Raziel,” to which I have alluded, (_ante_, Vol. I, p. 359,
note,) “this book is the one, which, after the death of Don Enrique
[de Villena], you, _as king_, commanded me, your servant and creature,
to burn, with many others, which I did, in presence of sundry of your
servants;--a matter in which, as in many other things, you showed
and still show the great devotion your Highness has always had for
the Christian religion. And, although this was and is to be praised,
still, for other respects, it is good in some way to preserve such
books, provided they are in the hands and power of good, trustworthy
persons, who will take heed that they be read by none but wise men,”
etc.;--a very different account certainly from the one given in the
letter of Cibdareal, and one which, being addressed to the king, who
was necessarily acquainted with the whole transaction, can hardly have
been untrue.
10. The most considerable event recorded in the Letters of Cibdareal,
and one of the most considerable occurrences in Spain during the
fifteenth century, is the execution of the Constable Alvaro de Luna,
at Valladolid, June 2, 1452. The Bachelor says, he was with the king
in that city the day it happened and the night preceding; that the
king showed great irresolution as to the fulfilment of the sentence
up to the last moment; that he had a sorrowful and sleepless night
before it occurred; and that nobody dared to tell him the execution
was absolutely over till he had eaten his dinner;--adding to these
striking statements sundry picturesque local details, as if they had
come within his own knowledge by his witnessing the execution. Now the
truth is, that the king was not in Valladolid on that day, nor for some
days before and after; and it would have been a very hard-hearted thing
if he had been there at the moment when his old friend and favorite
minister of state, to whom he never ceased to be attached, was brought
to the scaffold, in order to satisfy the turbulent nobility whom he
had oppressed. The king was, in fact, then at the siege of Maqueda, a
little town northwest of Toledo, above eighty miles off, as appears
by his letters still extant, dated May 29, June 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.;
so that many of the circumstances recorded in Cibdareal’s letter
(the 103d) are necessarily untrue. Moreover, the supposed Cibdareal
places the execution of the Constable on the eve of Saint Mary
Magdalen,--“Víspera de la Magdalena,”--confounding it with the date of
the death of the king, which happened on that day the next year, and
thus placing it on the 21st of July, which was the eve of Saint Mary
Magdalen, instead of the 2d of June, which, after some discussion,
long since the time when these Letters were first printed, has been
determined to be the true day of the execution. This gross mistake
in the Letters about the date of the Constable’s death was made, I
suppose, in part from carelessness, and in part because that date was
not then settled, as it is now. (See Mendez, Typographia, 1796, pp.
256-260; and Quintana, Vidas, Tom. III. pp. 437-439.)
11. The age in which I suppose the Letters of Cibdareal to have been
forged was one in which such attempts were likely to be made. It was
in Spain an age of forgeries. Guevara had just before maintained
his “Marcus Aurelius” to be true history. (See, _ante_, Vol. I. p.
541.) The “Leaden Books” of Granada, and the “Chronicones” of Father
Higuera,--the first decided by the whole civil authority of the realm
to be genuine, and the second received as such by a very general
consent,--were, from 1595 to 1652, at the height of their success,
though both have long since been admitted to be gross frauds, which
acute scholars like Montano, and historians like Mariana, must, indeed,
have seen through, and were too high-minded to countenance; but which,
it should be remembered, they did not feel strong enough openly to
resist and denounce. In this state of opinion in Spain, some ingenious
scholar--perhaps Vera y Zuñiga--as clear-sighted as they were and only
a little less scrupulous, may well have been encouraged to imitate
Father Higuera in a matter which, instead of being an attempt, like
his, to bring false records concerning important affairs into the
history of the kingdom, may have been regarded merely as a literary
_jeu d’esprit_, intended to mislead nobody on any point except merely
that of the genuineness of the correspondence. (See, _ante_, Vol. III.
p. 152, note.)
Against all this may be urged the general simplicity and interesting
details of the Letters themselves, so appropriate in their tone to
the age they illustrate, and the fact, that for above two centuries
they have been cited as the highest authority for the events of which
they speak; a fact, however, whose importance is diminished when we
recollect how rarely a spirit of criticism has shown itself in Spanish
historical literature, and that even in Spanish poetry the case of
the Bachiller de la Torre is, in some respects, as strong as that of
the Bachiller de Cibdareal, and in others yet stronger. At any rate,
all we know with tolerable certainty about the Bachelor Cibdareal
is, that the first edition of his Letters is a forgery, intended to
conceal something, and more likely, I think, intended to conceal the
spuriousness of the whole than any thing else.
APPENDIX, D.
ON THE BUSCAPIÉ.
(See Vol. II. pp. 105, etc.)
A good deal has been said within the last seventy years, and especially
of late, (1847-49,) about a pamphlet entitled “_El Buscapié_,”--“The
Squib,” or “Search-foot,”--supposed by some persons to have been
written by Cervantes, soon after the publication of the First Part of
his Don Quixote. The subject, though not one of great consequence, is
certainly not without interest, and the facts in relation to it are, I
believe, as follows.
In the Life of Cervantes, by Vicente de los Rios, prefixed to the
magnificent edition of the Don Quixote published by the Spanish Academy
in 1780, (see, _ante_, Vol. II. p. 52,) it is stated, that, on the
appearance of the First Part of that romance, in 1605, the public
having, according to a tradition not, I think, earlier recorded,
received it with coldness or censure, the author himself _published_ an
_anonymous_ pamphlet, called “The Squib,” in which he gave a pleasant
critique on his Don Quixote, insinuating that it was a covert satire on
sundry well-known and important personages, without, however, in the
slightest degree intimating who those personages were; in consequence
of which, the public curiosity became much excited, and the Don Quixote
obtained such attention as it needed in order to insure its success.
(Tom. I. p. xvii.)
In a note appended (p. cxci.) to this statement of the tradition, we
have a letter of Don Antonio Ruydiaz,--a person of whom little or
nothing is now known, except that Don Vicente declares him to have
been a man of learning worthy of credit,--in which letter, under date
of December 16, 1775, Don Antonio asserts, that, about sixteen years
earlier, he had seen a copy of the Buscapié at the house of the Count
of Salceda, and had read it;--that it was a small _anonymous_ volume,
_printed_ at Madrid with a good type and on poor paper;--that it
pretended to be written by a person who had neglected to buy or read
the Don Quixote for some time after its first appearance, but who,
having at last bought and read it, had been filled with admiration at
its merits and resolved in consequence to make them known;--that this
Buscapié declared the characters in the Don Quixote to be, in the main,
imaginary, but yet insinuated that they had certain relations to the
designs and gallantries of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and of some
of the principal personages in his government;--and that the Count de
Salceda being dead, and the copy of the Buscapié in question having
been only lent to that nobleman by some person unknown to the writer of
the letter, he could give no further account of the matter.
This statement, differing, it will be noted, from the tradition
recorded in the text to which it is appended, in what relates to the
Emperor Charles the Fifth, was not, on the whole, deemed satisfactory.
Pellicer, besides other strong doubts, doubted whether Cervantes wrote
the pamphlet, even if all the rest related of it were true, (Don
Quixote, ed. 1797, Tom. I. p. xcvii.,) and Navarrete inclined to the
opinion, that there was some mistake about the whole affair, and that
Cervantes could never have intended to allude to the Emperor in the way
intimated (Vida de Cervantes, 1819, § 105, etc.); to which Clemencin
has since added the suggestion, that the copy of the Buscapié, alleged
to have been seen by Ruydiaz, might have been a forgery cunningly
imposed on the Count of Salceda, who was “rich and greedy”--_rico y
goloso_--in such matters (ed. D. Quixote, Tom. IV., 1835, p. 50).
Indeed, the intimations concerning Charles the Fifth were so absurd in
themselves, and the fact,--unknown when the Academy published their
edition of 1780,--that _four_ editions of the First Part of Don Quixote
were, within a year from the date of its appearance, demanded in order
to satisfy the impatient curiosity of the public, is so decisive of its
popular success from the outset, that men were, before long, disposed
to believe that there never was a Buscapié written by any body. After a
time, therefore, the discussion about it ceased, except among those who
were interested in the smallest details of the life of Cervantes.
But in 1847 the whole subject came up afresh. Don Adolfo de Castro, a
young Andalusian gentleman, much devoted to researches in early Spanish
literature, and the author of several curious historical works, which
give proof of his success, declared that he had accidentally found a
copy of the Buscapié. In 1848 he published it at Cadiz, in a duodecimo
volume, with a body of very learned notes,--the text, in large type,
making forty-six pages, and the notes one hundred and eighty-eight
pages, which, if printed with the same type, would make above two
hundred and fifty.
In the Preface, Don Adolfo declares, that the Buscapié he thus
publishes was printed from a _manuscript_ which he had obtained from
the library of Don Pascual de Gándara, a lawyer of the city of San
Fernando, which library, apparently after the death of its owner, had
been brought, less than three months before, to the city of Cadiz, the
residence of Don Adolfo, to be publicly sold;--that the title of the
manuscript, which purports throughout to be the work of Cervantes, is
“The very pleasant little Book, called the Squib, in which, besides
its much and excellent Learning, are explained all the hidden and
unexplained Matters in the Ingenious Knight, Don Quixote de la Mancha,
written by a certain Cervantes de Saavedra”;--that the manuscript in
question is not in the handwriting of Cervantes, but, as appears by
a memorandum following the title, is a copy made at Madrid, February
27, 1606, for Agostin de Molina, son of Argote de Molina, and that it
had subsequently come into the possession of the Duke of Lafões, of
the royal family of Braganza;--that it contains no allusion whatever
disrespectful to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, for whom, as Don Adolfo
believes, Cervantes had a sincere admiration;--that it was, according
to the _Aprobacion_ of Gutierre de Cetina, June 27, 1605, and that of
Thomas Gracian Dantisco, on the 6th of August following, prepared for
the press, but that it was not in fact printed, or it would not have
been needful to make a copy of it in manuscript the next year;--and
that the true and real object of the Squib was, not to attract
attention to the Don Quixote, but to defend that work against many
persons accounted learned, who, as Don Adolfo suggests, had attacked it
with some severity.
In the Buscapié, which immediately follows these statements, Cervantes
represents himself as riding on his mule one day upon the road to
Toledo, a little beyond the Puente Toledana, when he sees coming
towards him a Bachelor mounted on a sorry hack, that at last falls with
him to the ground, in the midst of a contest between the beast and his
rider, as to whether they shall go on or no. Cervantes courteously
helps the stranger to rise; and then, after a few introductory words,
they agree to spend together, under some neighbouring trees, the heat
of the day, then fast coming upon them. The Bachelor, a foolish,
conceited little fellow, with a very deformed person, produces two
books for their common entertainment. The first of them is “The
Spiritual Verses of Pedro de _Ezinas_,” which they both praise, and
of whose author Cervantes speaks as of a personal acquaintance. The
other is the Don Quixote, which the Bachelor treats very slightingly,
and which Cervantes, a little disturbed by such contempt, maintains,
in general terms, to be a book of merit, not hinting, however, to the
Bachelor that he is its author, and putting his defence on the ground,
that it is a well-intended attempt to drive the institution of chivalry
from the world.
But the vain, garrulous little Bachelor prefers to talk about himself
or to tell stories about his father, and is with difficulty brought
back to the Don Quixote, which he then assails as a book absurdly
recognizing the existence of knight-errantry at the time it was
published, and therefore at the very time when they are talking
about it,--a position which Cervantes fully admits and then defends,
alleging, in proof of its truth, the examples of Suero de Quiñones
and Charles the Fifth; while, on the other side, the Bachelor sets
forth, how glad he should be if it were really so, because he would
then turn knight himself, and come by a princess and a kingdom as
other knights had done before him;--all in a strain as crazy as that
of the hero of Cervantes, and sometimes much resembling it. Cervantes
replies, maintaining the real, actual existence of knight-errantry in
his own time by the examples of Olivier de Lamarche and others, which
are as little to the purpose as those of Quiñones and the Emperor
Charles the Fifth, already cited by him; and so the discussion goes on,
until a scene occurs between the hack of the Bachelor and the mule of
Cervantes, not unlike that between Rozinante and the horse-flesh of the
Galician carriers, in the fifteenth chapter of the First Part of Don
Quixote, and one that ends with the total overthrow and demolition of
the Bachelor’s beast. This breaks up the conversation between their two
riders, and brings the pamphlet to a conclusion,--Cervantes leaving the
unlucky Bachelor to get out of his troubles as best he may.
On closing this gay little trifle, we are at once struck with the
circumstance, that the Buscapié we have just read, avowing itself on
every page to be _the work of Cervantes_, and declared _never to have
been printed_ till the year 1848, can have nothing at all to do with
the _anonymous_ Buscapié of which a _printed_ copy is supposed to have
been seen about the year 1759;--in fact, that it involves a formal and
complete contradiction of every thing of consequence that was ever
said or supposed on the subject, before it appeared. This simplifies
the matter very much. It is as if a Buscapié had never before been
mentioned, and we are therefore to examine the one now published by
Don Adolfo de Castro as if the statement of Los Rios and the letter of
Ruydiaz had never appeared.
The next thing that occurs to us is the strangeness of the
circumstance, that the copy of such a work, not anonymous, but
professing to have been written by the greatest and most popular genius
of his nation, should, during two centuries and a half, have attracted
nobody’s notice; though, during that time, it must have travelled from
Madrid to Lisbon and from Lisbon back again to Spain, and though,
during the last seventy years, a Buscapié has been much talked about
and eagerly asked for.
Nor is the history of the individual manuscript now printed and offered
to us, so far as it professes to have a history, more satisfactory. It
claims to have been owned by three persons, and a word must be said
about each of them.
First, it is said to have been “copied from another copy in the year
1606, at Madrid, on the 27th of February of the said year, for Señor
Agustin de Argote, son of the very noble Señor (may he be in holy
glory!) Gonzalo Zatieco de Molina, a knight of Seville.”[459] Now,
that Argote Zatieco de Molina, a person I have often had occasion
to mention, (see, _ante_, Vol. I. pp. 74, 75, 77, 117, etc.,) was,
as this certificate sets forth, dead in 1606, I have no doubt. A
manuscript copy of his well-known hints for the history of Seville,
now in the possession of one of my friends, contains notices and
documents relating to his life, collected, apparently, by the early
copyist, from which we learn that Argote de Molina, by a deed dated
July 5, 1597, left to his daughter, two sisters, and a brother the
patronage of a chaplaincy he had founded in a chapel prepared by him
for his burial-place in the church of Santiago, at Seville;[460] and
that in 1600 this chapel was completed, and an inscription placed
in it, signifying that it was the burial-place of Argote de Molina,
late a chief of the Hermandad, and a Veintequatro, or Regidor, of
Seville;[461] from all which, as well as from other grounds, it appears
that Argote de Molina died between 1597 and 1600. But why is no _son_
of his mentioned in the deed of 1597, providing for the care of his
chapel and the protection of his family burial-place after his own
death? This is explained by Ortiz de Zuñiga, the very best authority
on such a point, who, when giving an account of Argote de Molina and
his manuscripts, some of which Zuñiga had then in his possession, says
that Argote de Molina had sons, but that they died before him, and
that their loss so embittered the latter part of his life, that his
reason was impaired by it.[462] What, then, are we to say about this
“Agustin,” for whom Don Adolfo’s copy of the Buscapié is certified to
have been made in 1606, _after_ the death of his father, Argote, who
died without leaving any son?
[459] “Copióse de otra copia el año de 1606, en Madrid, 27 de
Ebrero año dicho. Para el Señor Agustin de Argote, hijo del muy
noble Señor (que sancta gloria haya) Gonzalo Zatieco de Molina,
un caballero de Sevilla.” Zatieco occurs elsewhere, as part of
the name of Argote de Molina, or of his family.
[460] “En otra escritura de 5 de Julio de 1597 deja por patronas
de una capellanía fundada por él en la dicha iglésia de Santiago
á Doña Francisca Argote de Molina y Mexia, su hija, y despues
de ella á Doña Isabel de Argote y á Doña Gerónima de Argote sus
hermanas, y á sus hijos y descendientes, y á Juan Argote de Mexia
su hermano y á sus hijos,” etc.
[461] “En dicha Capilla hay una inscripcion del tenor siguiente:
Esta capilla mayor y entierro es de Don Gonzalo Argote de Molina,
Provincial de la Hermandad del Andalucia y Veintequatro que
fué de Sevilla, y de sus herederos. Acabóse año de 1600.” He
purchased this privilege, January 28, 1586, for 800 ducats.
[462] “Tuvo hijos que le precedieron en muerte, cuyo sentimiento
hizo infausto el último término de su vida, turbando su juizio
que, lleno de altivez, levantaba sus pensamientos á mayor
fortuna.” Anales de Sevilla, fol., 1677, p. 706.
Vanflora, Hijos de Sevilla, No. II. p. 76, says: “Murió sin dexar
hijos ni caudales y con algunas señas de demente.”
The second trace of this manuscript is, that it professes to have
been a part of the library of the Duke of Lafões; the inscription to
this effect being in Portuguese, and without a date.[463] But is it
likely that such a manuscript could have remained in such a position
unnoticed? Is it likely that João de Braganza, one of the most
cultivated and distinguished men of his time, who was born in 1719,
and died in 1806; who was the friend of the Prince de Ligne, of Maria
Theresa, and of Frederic the Great; who founded the Academy of Lisbon,
and was its head till his death; in whose family lived Correa de Serra,
and who every evening collected the chief men of letters of his country
in his saloon,--is it likely that a work avowedly by Cervantes, and
one concerning which, after 1780, the Spanish Academy had caused much
inquiry to be made, should have remained in the library of such a man
without attracting, during his long life, either his own notice or
that of the scholars by whom he was surrounded? Or, finally, as to the
third and last presumed possessor of this manuscript of the Buscapié,
is it likely that it would have wandered on without being recognized
by any body until it found its obscure way into the collection of an
Andalusian advocate,--Don Pascual de Gándara,--and that even _he_, in
the nineteenth century, when Navarrete and Clemencin were keeping alive
the discussion of the eighteenth about it, should yet know nothing
of its import or pretensions, or, knowing them, should withhold his
knowledge from all the world?
[463] “Da Livreria do Senhor Duque de Lafões.”
Thus much for the external evidence, the whole of which, I believe,
I have examined. It is, as it seems to me, very suspicious and
unsatisfactory.
Nor can the internal evidence be accounted more satisfactory than the
external.
In the first place, the Buscapié in question is a closer imitation
of Cervantes than he would be likely to make of himself. It opens
like the Prólogo to the “Persiles and Sigismunda,” in which the
conversation that Cervantes says he held with a travelling medical
student seems to have been the model for the one he is represented
as holding with the travelling Bachelor in the Buscapié;--it then
goes on with an examination of one or two contemporary authors, and
allusions to others, in the manner of the scrutiny of Don Quixote’s
library;--and it ends with an acknowledged parallel to the story of
the Yanguese carriers and their beasts; different parts of the whole
reminding us of different works of Cervantes, but of the “Adjunta al
Parnaso” oftener than of any other. In many cases, phrases seem to be
borrowed directly from Cervantes. Thus, of an author praised in the
Buscapié, it is said, “Se atreve á competir con los mas famosos de
Italia,” (p. 20,) which is nearly the phrase applied to Rufo, Ercilla,
and Virues in the Don Quixote. In another place, (p. 22,) Cervantes
is made to say of himself, when speaking in the third person of the
author of Don Quixote, “Su autor esta mas cargado de desdichas que de
años,” which strongly resembles the more beautiful phrase he, in the
same way, applies to himself, as the author of the “Galatea”; and in
another place, (p. 10,) the little Bachelor’s shouts to his mule are
said to be as much wasted “as if they were tossed into the well of
Airon, or the pit of Cabra,”--an allusion much more appropriately made
by Cervantes in the “Adjunta al Parnaso,” where mothers are advised
to threaten their naughty children, that “the poet shall come and
toss them, together with his bad verses, into the pit of Cabra, or the
well of Airon,”--natural caves in the kingdoms of Granada and Córdova,
about which strange stories were long credited. (Semanario Pintoresco,
1839, p. 25; Diccionario de la Academia, 1726, _in verb._ Airon; Don
Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. IV. p. 237; and Miñano, Diccionario
Geográfico.) But there is no need of citing parallel passages. The
Buscapié is full of them; some being happily chosen and aptly adjusted
to their new places, like three allusions to the words of Cervantes in
Don Quixote about “driving books of chivalry out of the world,” (see,
_ante_, Vol. II. p. 105, note,) and others, like those I have just
cited, being awkwardly introduced, and fitting their subjects less well
than they did those to which they were originally applied. But whether
well or ill selected, whether well or ill applied, these phrases
in the Buscapié have seldom or never the appearance of accidental
coincidences arising out of the carelessness of an author repeating
from himself. They seem rather to be words and forms of expression
carefully selected, and are so used as to give an air of constraint to
the passages where they occur, showing that the writer turns, as it
were, in a narrow circle;--an air as unlike as possible to the bold and
unfettered movement which is so eminently characteristic of Cervantes.
In the next place, the Buscapié contains many allusions to obscure
authors and long-forgotten trifles; but, with an inconsiderable
exception, which seems to be a little ostentatiously announced as
such, (p. 12, and note B,) not one, I believe, occurs, that is beyond
the reach of the singular learning of Don Adolfo, whose ample notes,
fitting with suspicious exactness to the text, drive the reader to
the conjecture, that the text may have been adjusted to the notes
quite as much as the notes to the text. Now and then, this conjecture
seems to be confirmed by a slight inaccuracy. Thus, in both text and
notes, the name of Pedro de E_n_zinas--whose poetry is cited and
examined just as I find it in my copy of the “Versos Espirituales,”
printed at Cuenca, in 1596 (see, _ante_, Vol. III. p. 13, note)--is
uniformly spelt _many times over_ Ezinas, that is, without the first
_n_, (Buscapié, pp. 19-21, and note I,)--a trifling mistake, which
a copyist might easily have made in 1606, or which Don Adolfo might
have easily made in 1847, when transcribing, as he did, from the
printed book before him, but a mistake which there is not one chance
in a thousand that _both_ should have made, if there were no other
connection between the two than the one avowed. And, again, a little
farther on, a mistake occurs which seems to have arisen from the very
excess of Don Adolfo’s recondite learning. The old Castilian proverb,
“Al buen callar llaman _sage_,”--or, “He is a wise man that knows when
to hold his tongue,”--is found in the text of the Buscapié, (p. 26,)
and Don Adolfo in the note on it (L) informs us, that, “in the same way
in which this proverb is here used by Cervantes, it is to be seen in
the Conde Lucanor,[464] and in other older works. Somebody corrupted it
into ‘Al buen callar llaman _Sancho_.’” But the idea, that Cervantes
adhered to an old form of the proverb, because he rejected or did
not know the supposed corrupt one, is not well founded. The proverb
occurs, in what Don Adolfo considers a corrupted form, as early as
the “Cartas de Garay,” in 1553, and the collection of Proverbs by the
learned Hernan Nuñez, in 1555, and _in this very form it is, in fact,
used by Cervantes himself_ (Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 43); for when
Sancho Panza is rebuked by his master for stringing together proverbs
without end, he first promises he will not utter another, and then
instantly opens his mouth with this one. Indeed, I rather think that
the word _sage_, which was in use as late as the time of Juan de Mena,
had dropped out of the current language of good society before that
of Cervantes. Nebrixa, before 1500, says it was then antiquated. (See
Diccionario de la Academia, 1739.)
[464] I suspect Don Adolfo _may_ have made another little mistake
here; for I have had occasion, since I read his note, to read
the “Conde Lucanor,” and, though I kept his criticism in mind, I
did not notice the proverb in any form in any one of the tales.
Sometimes it occurs in later authors in another form, thus: “Al
buen callar llaman santo”; or, “He who knows when to hold his
tongue is a saint.” But this is rare.
The last suggestion I have to make in relation to the genuineness of
the Buscapié published by Don Adolfo de Castro is, that, though on
its title-page it professes to explain “all the hidden and unexplained
things” in the Don Quixote, it does not, in fact, even allude to one
such; and though it professes to have been written by Cervantes in
order to defend himself against certain learned adversaries, it does
not cite any one of them, and only defends him in a light, jesting
tone against the charge of the little Bachelor by admitting its
truth, and then justifying it, on the ground that knight-errantry is
still flourishing and vigorous in Spain,--a charge which no sensible
or learned man can be supposed to have made, and a defence which is
humorous, so far as it is so at all, only for its absurdity.
Other things might be mentioned, such as that Cervantes, in the
Buscapié, is made to speak in a disparaging way of Alcalá de
Henares, his native place, (pp. 13 and 41,) which, as we have seen,
(_ante_, Vol. II. p. 53,) he delighted to honor; and that he is
made to represent his imaginary Bachelor as talking about his own
painful personal deformities, (pp. 24, 25, 28, 29,) and his father’s
contemptible poltroonery, (pp. 27, 28, 34,) in a way inconsistent with
the tact and knowledge of human nature which are among the strongest
characteristics of the author of Don Quixote.
But I will go no farther. The little tract published by Don Adolfo de
Castro is, with the exception of two or three coarse passages,[465] a
pleasant, witty trifle. It shows in many parts much lively talent, a
remarkable familiarity with the works of Cervantes, and a hardly less
remarkable familiarity with the literature of the period when Cervantes
lived. If Don Adolfo wrote it, he has probably always intended, in due
time, to claim it as his own, and he may be assured that, by so doing,
he will add something to his own literary laurels without taking any
thing from those of Cervantes. If he did not write it, then he has,
I think, been deceived in regard to the character of the manuscript,
which he purchased under circumstances that made him believe it to be
what it is not. In any event, I find no sufficient proof that it was
written by Cervantes, and therefore no sufficient ground to think that
it can be placed permanently under the protection of his great name.
[465] They are, I believe, all omitted in the translation of Miss
Thomasina Ross, which appeared in Bentley’s Magazine, (London,
August and September, 1848,) and in the translation by “A Member
of the University of Cambridge,” published at Cambridge, 1849,
with judicious notes, partly original and partly abridged from
those of Don Adolfo de Castro.
APPENDIX, E.
ON THE DIFFERENT EDITIONS, TRANSLATIONS, AND IMITATIONS OF THE “DON
QUIXOTE.”
(See Vol. II. p. 108, note, and p. 112, note.)
Whatever relates to the “Don Quixote” of Cervantes is so interesting,
that I will add here such an account of its different editions,
translations, and imitations as may serve, in some degree, to give the
just measure of its extraordinary popularity, not only in Spain, but
all over Christendom.
The first edition of the First Part of Don Quixote, of which I have a
copy, was printed with this title: “El Ingenioso Hidalgo, Don Quixote
de la Mancha, compuesto por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, dirigido al
Duque de Bejar, Marques de Gibraleon, etc. Año 1605. Con Privilegio,
etc. En Madrid, por Juan de la Cuesta,” 4to, in one volume. Three
editions more appeared in the same year, namely, one at Madrid, one at
Lisbon, and the other at Valencia. These, with another at Brussels,
in 1607,--five in all,--are the only editions that appeared, till he
took it in hand to correct some of its errors. But he did this, as I
have intimated, very imperfectly and carelessly. Among other changes,
he did away with the division of the volume into four parts or books,
but did not take the trouble to remove from the text the proofs of such
a division, as may be seen at the end of Chapters VIII., XIV., and
XXVII., where the work was divided, and where, in all our editions, the
proofs of it still remain. Such corrections, however, as he saw fit
to make, with sometimes a different spelling of words, appeared in
the Madrid edition of 1608, 4to; of which I have a copy. This edition,
though somewhat better than the first, is yet ordinary; but, as the one
containing Cervantes’s only amendments of the text, it is more valued
and sought after than any other, and is the basis on which all the
good impressions since have been founded. After this, an edition at
Milan, 1610, and one at Brussels, 1611, are known to have been printed
before the appearance of the Second Part, in 1615. So that, in nine or
ten years, there were eight editions of the First Part of Don Quixote,
implying a circulation greater than that of the works of Shakspeare or
Milton, Racine or Molière, who, as of the same century, may be fitly
compared with him.
The first edition of the Second Part of Don Quixote, which, like the
first edition of the First Part, is poorly printed, is entitled,
“Segunda Parte del Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, por
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, _autor de su Primera Parte_, dirigida
á Don Pedro Fernandez de Castro, Conde de Lemos, etc. Año 1615. Con
Privilegio, en Madrid, por Juan de la Cuesta,” 4to. It was printed
separately, Valencia, 1616; Brussels, 1616; Barcelona, 1617; and
Lisbon, 1617; after which no separate edition is known to have
appeared.[466]
[466] It is curious, that the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p.
794, and that of 1790, p. 51, direct two lines to be struck out
from c. 36, but touch no other part of the work. The two lines
signify that “works of charity performed in a lukewarm spirit
have no merit and avail nothing.” These lines are carefully
cancelled in my copy of the first edition. Cervantes, therefore,
did not, after all, stand on so safe ground as he thought he did,
when, in c. 20 of the same Part, he says his Don Quixote “does
not contain even a thought that is not strictly Catholic.”
Thus, as we have seen, eight editions of the First Part were printed
in ten years, and five of the Second Part in two years. Both parts
appeared together at Barcelona in 1617, in two volumes, duodecimo;
and from this period the number of editions has been very great, both
in Spain and in foreign countries; nearly fifty of them being of
some consequence. Only five, however, need to be here particularly
noted. These are,--1. Tonson’s edition, (London, 1738, 4 vols., 4to,)
published at the instance of Lord Carteret, in compliment to the
queen, and containing the Life by Mayans y Siscar, already noticed;
the first attempt either to edit Don Quixote or to write its author’s
life with care. 2. The magnificent edition printed by the Spanish
Academy, (Madrid, 1780, 4 tom., folio,) in which the text is settled
with some skill, a few notes are added, and the Life of Cervantes and
an Analysis, or rather an extravagant eulogy and defence, of the Don
Quixote, by Don Vicente de los Rios, prefixed. It has been several
times reprinted, though not without expressions of disapprobation,
especially at the indiscriminate admiration of Los Rios, who found,
among other opponents, a very resolute one in a Spaniard by the name of
Valentine Foronda, who, in 1807, printed in London a thin octavo volume
of very captious notes on Don Quixote, written in the form of letters,
between 1793 and 1799, and entitled “Observaciones sobre Algunos
Puntos de la Obra de Don Quixote, por T. E.” Clemencin gives the name
of the author, who is otherwise unknown to me. (Ed. Don Quixote, Tom.
I. p. 305.) 3. The extraordinary edition published in two volumes,
quarto, at Salisbury, in England, in 1781, and accompanied by a third
volume, consisting of notes and verbal indexes, all in Spanish, by the
Rev. John Bowle, a clergyman in a small village near Salisbury, who
gave fourteen years of unwearied labor to prepare it for the press;
studying, as the basis of his system of annotation, the old Spanish and
Italian authors, and especially the old Spanish ballad-books and books
of chivalry, and concluding his task, or at least dating his Prefaces
and Dedication, on the 23d of April, the anniversary of Cervantes’s
death. There are few books of so much real learning, and at the same
time of so little pretension, as the third volume of this edition.
It is, in fact, the true and safe foundation on which has been built
much of what has since been done with success for the explanation
and illustration of the Don Quixote, which thus owes more to Bowle
than to any other of its editors, except Clemencin. 4. The edition of
Juan Antonio Pellicer, (Madrid, 1797-98, 5 tom., 8vo,) an Aragonese
gentleman, who employed above twenty years in preparing it. (Latassa,
Bib. Nov., Tom. VI. p. 319.) The notes to this edition contain a good
deal of curious matter, but this matter is often irrelevant; the number
of the notes is small, and they explain only a small part of the
difficulties that occur in the text. It should be observed, too, that
Pellicer is indebted to Bowle further than he acknowledges, and that he
now and then makes mistakes on points of fact. 5. The edition of Diego
Clemencin, (Madrid, 1833-39, 6 tom., 4to,) one of the most complete
commentaries that has been published on any author, ancient or modern.
It is written, too, with taste and judgment in nearly all that relates
to the merits of the author, and is free from the blind admiration
for Cervantes which marks Vicente de los Rios and the edition of the
Academy. Its chief fault is, that there is too much of it; but then, on
the other hand, it is rare to find an obscure point which it does not
elucidate. The system of Clemencin is the one laid down by Bowle; and
the conscientious learning with which it is carried out seems really to
leave little to be desired in the way of notes.
In other countries the Don Quixote is hardly less known than it is in
Spain. Down to the year 1700, it is curious to observe, that as many
editions of the _entire_ work were printed abroad as at home, and the
succession of translations from the first has been uninterrupted.
The oldest _French_ translation is of 1620, since which there have
been six or seven others, including the poor one of Florian, 1799,
which has been the most read, and the very good one of Louis Viardot,
(Paris, 1836-38, 2 tom., 8vo,) with the admirable illustrations of
Granville,--a translation, however, which has been somewhat roughly
handled by F. B. F. Biedermann, in a tract entitled “Don Quixote et la
Tâche de ses Traducteurs” (Paris, 1837, 8vo). The oldest _English_ one
is by Shelton, 1612-20, the first half of which was made, as he says
in the Dedication, in forty days, some years before, and which was
followed by a very vulgar, unfaithful, and coarse one by John Philips,
the nephew of Milton, 1687; one by Motteux, 1712; one by Jarvis, 1742,
which Smollet used too freely in his own, 1755; one by Wilmot, 1774;
and, finally, the anonymous one of 1818, which has adopted parts of
all its predecessors. Most of them have been reprinted often; and, on
the whole, the most agreeable and the best, though certainly somewhat
too free, is that of Motteux, in the edition of Edinburgh, 1822, (5
vols., 12mo,) with notes and illustrative translations, full of spirit
and grace, by Mr. J. G. Lockhart. No foreign country has done so much
for Cervantes and Don Quixote as England, both by original editions,
published there, and by translations. It may be noticed further, that,
in 1654, Edmund Gayton, a gay fellow about town, of whom Wood gives
no very dignified account, published in London a small folio volume,
entitled “Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixote,” the best of its author’s
various works, and one that was thought worth publishing again in the
next century, for the sake, I suppose, of the amusing vein in which it
is written, but not on account of any thing it contains that will serve
to explain difficult or obscure passages in the original. Some of it is
in verse, and the whole is based on Shelton’s translation.
All countries, however, have sought the means of enjoying the Don
Quixote, for there are translations in Latin, Italian, Dutch, Danish,
Russian, Polish, and Portuguese. But better than any of these is,
probably, the admirable one made into _German_ by Ludwig Tieck, with
extraordinary freedom and spirit, and a most genial comprehension of
his author; four editions of which appeared between 1815 and 1831, and
superseded all the other German versions, of which there are five,
beginning with an imperfect attempt in 1669. It ought, perhaps, to be
added, that, in the course of the last half-century, more editions of
the original have appeared in Germany than in any other foreign country.
Of imitations out of Spain, it is only necessary to allude to
three. The first is a “Life of Don Quixote, merrily translated into
Hudibrastic Verse, by Edward Ward,” (London, 1711, 2 vols., 8vo,)--a
poor attempt, full of coarse jests not found in the original. The
second is “Don Silvio de Rosalva,” by Wieland, (1764, 2 vols.,) in
ridicule of a belief in fairies and unseen agencies;--his first work
in romantic fiction, and one that never had much success. The third is
a curious poem, in twelve cantos, by Meli, the best of the Sicilian
poets, who, in his native dialect, has endeavoured to tell the story
of Don Quixote in octave stanzas, with the heroi-comic lightness of
Ariosto; but, among other unhappinesses, has cumbered Sancho with Greek
mythology and ancient learning. It fills the third and fourth volumes
of Meli’s “Poesie Siciliane” (Palermo, 1787, 5 vols., 12mo). All these,
as well as Smollet’s “Sir Launcelot Graves” and Mrs. Lenox’s “Female
Quixote,” both published in 1762, are direct imitations of the Don
Quixote, and on that account, in part, they are all failures. Butler’s
“Hudibras,” (first edition, 1663-78,) so free and so full of wit,
comes, perhaps, as near its model as genius may venture with success.
Don Quixote has often been produced on the stage in Spain; as, for
instance, in a play by Francisco de Avila, published at Barcelona, in
1617; in two by Guillen de Castro, 1621; in one by Calderon, that is
lost; and in others by Gomez Labrador, Francisco Marti, Valladares,
Melendez Valdes, and, more lately, Ventura de la Vega; some of which
were noticed when we spoke of the drama. But all of them were failures.
(Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. IV., 1835, p. 399, note.)
As to prose imitations in Spain, except the attempt of Avellaneda,
in 1614, I know of none for above a century;--none, indeed, till the
popularity of the original work was revived. But since that period,
there have been several. One is by Christóval Anzarena,--“Empressas
Literarias del ingeniosíssimo Cavallero, Don Quixote de la Manchuela,”
(Sevilla, 12mo, without the year, but printed about 1767,)--intended to
ridicule the literary taste of the times, which, after going through
the education of the hero, breaks off with the promise of a second
part, that never appeared. Another is called “Adiciones á Don Quixote,
por Jacinto María Delgado,” (Madrid, 12mo, s. a.,) printed apparently
soon after the last, and containing the remainder of Sancho’s life,
passed chiefly with the Duke and Duchess in Aragon, where, at a very
small expense of wit, he is fooled into the idea that he is a baron.
Another, by Alonso Bernardo Ribero y Sarrea, called “El Quixote de la
Cantabria,” (Madrid, 1792, 2 tom., 12mo,) describes the travels of a
certain Don Pelayo to Madrid, and his residence at court there, whence
he returns to his native mountains, astonished and shocked that the
Biscayans are not everywhere regarded as the only true nobility and
gentlemen on earth. A fourth, “Historia de Sancho Panza,” (Madrid,
1793-98, 2 tom., 12mo,) is an unsuccessful attempt to give effect to
Sancho as a separate and independent person after Don Quixote’s death,
making him Alcalde of his native village, and sending him to figure in
the capital and get into prison there;--the whole bringing the poor
esquire’s adventures down to a very grave ending of his very merry
life. And a fifth, by Juan Siñeriz, “El Quixote del Siglo XVIII.,”
(Madrid, 1836, 4 tom., 12mo,) is an account of a French philosopher,
who, with his esquire, travels over the earth to regenerate mankind;
and, coming back just at the close of the French Revolution, which
happened while he was in Asia, is cured, by the results of that great
convulsion, of his philosophical notions; a dull, coarse book, whose
style is as little attractive as its story. Perhaps there are other
Spanish imitations of Don Quixote; but there can be none, I apprehend,
of any merit or value.
All this account, however, incomplete as it is, of the different
editions, translations, and imitations which, for above two centuries,
have been poured out upon the different countries of Europe, gives,
still, but an imperfect measure of the kind and degree of success
which this extraordinary work has enjoyed; for there are thousands
and thousands who never have read it, and who never have heard of
Cervantes, to whom, nevertheless, the names of Don Quixote and of
Sancho are as familiar as household words. So much of this kind of fame
is enjoyed, probably, by no other author of modern times.
APPENDIX, F.
ON THE EARLY COLLECTIONS OF OLD SPANISH PLAYS.
(See Vol. II. p. 429.)
Two large collections of plays, and several small ones, much resembling
each other, both in the character of their contents and the form
of their publication, appeared in different parts of Spain during
the seventeenth century, just as the ballads had appeared a century
before; and they should be noticed with some care, because they exhibit
the peculiar physiognomy of the Spanish national drama with much
distinctness, and furnish materials of consequence for its history.
Of the first collection, whose prevailing title seems to have been
“Comedias de Diferentes Autores,” it would, I suppose, be impossible
now to form a complete set, or one even approaching to completeness. I
possess only three volumes of it, and have seen satisfactory notices
of only two more. The first of the five is the twenty-fifth volume of
the collection itself, and was printed at Saragossa, in 1633, by Pedro
Escuer. As is usual with such volumes of the old Spanish dramatists,
it is in small quarto and contains twelve plays, seven of which are
attributed to Montalvan, then at the height of his success as a living
author, and one to Calderon, who was just rising to his great fame;
but one of the seven plays of Montalvan belongs to his master, Lope
de Vega, and the only one taken from Calderon is printed from a text
grossly corrupted. The twenty-ninth volume was printed at Valencia,
in 1636, and the thirty-second at Saragossa, in 1640; but I have seen
neither of them. In the thirty-first, printed at Barcelona, in 1638,
all the twelve plays are given without the names of their authors,
though the persons who wrote most of them are still known; and the
forty-third volume was printed at Saragossa, in 1650, containing plays
by Calderon, Moreto, and Solís, with enough by more obscure authors to
make up the regular number of twelve. It is no doubt singular, that, of
a collection like this, extending to at least forty-three volumes, so
little should now be known. But such is the fact. The Inquisition and
the confessional were very busy in the latter part of the seventeenth
century, when, under the imbecile Charles the Second, the theatre
had fallen from its high estate; and in this way the oldest large
collection of plays published in Spain, and the one we should now be
most desirous to possess, was hunted down and nearly exterminated.
The next, which is the collection commonly known under the title
of “Comedias Nuevas Escogidas de los Mejores Autores,”--a title by
no means strictly adhered to in its successive volumes,--was more
fortunate. Still it is very rare. I have never seen a set of it
absolutely complete; but I possess in all forty-one volumes out of the
forty-eight, of which such a set should consist, and have sufficiently
accurate notices of the remaining seven.
The first of these volumes was published in 1652, the last in 1704;
but, in the latter part of the period embraced between these dates,
the theatre so declined, that, though at first two or three volumes
came out every year, none was issued during the twenty-three years
that followed the death of Calderon in 1681, except the very last
in the collection, the forty-eighth. Taken together, they contain
five hundred and seventy-four _comedias_, in all the forms and with
all the characteristics of the old Spanish drama; their appropriate
_loas_ and _entremeses_ being connected with a very small number of
them. Thirty-seven of these _comedias_ are given as anonymous, and
the remaining five hundred and thirty-seven are distributed among one
hundred and thirty-eight different authors.
The distribution, however, as might be anticipated, is very unequal.
Calderon, who was far the most successful writer of the period he
illustrated, has fifty-three plays assigned to him, in whole or in
part, of which it is certain not one was printed with his permission,
and not one, so far as I have compared them with the authentic
editions of his works, from a text properly corrected. Moreto, the
dramatic writer next in popularity after Calderon, has forty-six
pieces given to him in the same way; all probably without his assent,
since he renounced the stage as sinful, and retired to a monastery
in 1657. Matos Fragoso, who was a little later, has thirty-three;
Fernando de Zarate, twenty-two; Antonio Martinez, eighteen; Mira de
Mescua, eighteen; Zavaleta, sixteen; Roxas, sixteen; Luis Velez de
Guevara, fifteen; Cancer, fourteen; Solís, twelve; Lope de Vega,
twelve; Diamante, twelve; Pedro de Rosete, eleven; Belmonte, eleven;
and Francisco de Villegas, eleven. Many others have smaller numbers
assigned to them; and sixty-nine authors, nearly all of whose names are
otherwise unknown, and some of them, probably, not genuine, have but
one each.
That the dramas in this collection all belong to the authors to whom it
ascribes them, or that it is even so far accurate in its designations
as to be taken for a sufficient general authority, is not for a moment
to be supposed. Thirteen at least of the plays it contains, that bear
the name of Calderon, are not his; one known to be his, “La Banda y
la Flor,” is printed as anonymous in the thirtieth volume, with the
title of “Hazer del Amor Agravio”; and another, “Amigo Amante y Leal,”
is twice inserted,--once in the fourth volume, 1653, and once in the
eighteenth volume, 1662,--each differing considerably from the other,
and neither taken from a genuine text.
Of its carelessness in relation to other authors similar remarks
might be made. Several of the plays of Solís are printed twice, and
one three times; and in two successive volumes, the twenty-fifth
and twenty-sixth, we have the “Lorenzo me llamo” of Matos Fragoso,
a well-known and, in its time, a popular play. On all accounts,
therefore, this collection, like its predecessor, is to be regarded as
a mere bookseller’s speculation, carried on without the consent of the
authors whose works were plundered for the purpose, and sometimes,
as we know, in disregard of their complaints and remonstrances. How
recklessly and scandalously this was done may be gathered from the
facts already stated, and from the further one, that the “Vencimiento
de Turno,” in the twelfth volume, which is boldly ascribed to Calderon
on its title, is yet given to its true author, Manuel del Campo, in the
very lines with which it is ended.
Still, these large collections, with the single volumes that, from time
to time, were sent forth in the same way by the booksellers,--such as
those published by Mateo de la Bastida, in 1652; by Manuel Lopez, in
1653; by Juan de Valdes, in 1655; by Robles, in 1664; and by Zabra and
Fernandez, in 1675, all of which have been used in the account of the
theatre in the text,--give us a living and faithful impression of the
acted Spanish drama in the seventeenth century; for the plays they
contain are those that were everywhere performed on the national stage,
and they are here presented to us, not so often in the form given them
by their authors, as in the form in which they were fitted for the
stage by the managers, and plundered from the prompter’s manuscripts,
or noted down in the theatres, by piratical booksellers.
APPENDIX, G.
ON THE ORIGIN OF THE BAD TASTE IN SPAIN, CALLED CULTISMO.
(See Vol. II. p. 533, note.)
A remarkable discussion took place in Italy in the latter part of
the eighteenth century, concerning the origin of the bad taste
in literature that existed in Spain after 1600, under the name
of “Cultismo”;--some of the distinguished men of letters in each
country casting the reproach of the whole of it upon the other. The
circumstances, which may be properly regarded as a part of Spanish
literary history, were the following.
In 1773, Saverio Bettinelli, a superficial, but somewhat popular,
writer, in his “Risorgimento d’Italia negli Studj, etc., dopo il
Mille,” charged Spain, and particularly the Spanish theatre, with the
bad taste that prevailed in Italy after that country fell so much under
Spanish control; adding to a slight notice of Lope de Vega and Calderon
the following words:--“This, then, is the taste which passed into
Italy, and there ruined every thing pure.” (Parte II. cap. 3, Tragedia
e Commedia.) Girolamo Tiraboschi, in his “Storia della Letteratura
Italiana,” first published between 1772 and 1783, maintained a similar
position or theory, tracing this bad taste, as it were, to the very
soil and climate of Spain, and following its footsteps, both in ancient
times, when, he believed, the Latin literature had been corrupted by it
after the Senecas and Martial came from Spain to Rome, and in modern
times, when he charged upon it the follies of Marini and all his
school. (Tom. II., Dissertazione Preliminare, § 27.)
Both these writers were, no doubt, sufficiently decided in the tone of
their opinions. Neither of them, however, was harsh or violent in his
manner, and neither, probably, felt that he was making such an attack
on the literature and fair fame of another country as would provoke a
reply;--much less, one that would draw after it a long controversy.
But at that period there were in Italy a considerable number of learned
Spaniards, who had been driven there, as Jesuits, by the expulsion
of their Society from Spain in 1767; men whose chief resource and
amusement were letters, and who, like true Spaniards, felt not a
whit the less proud of their country because they had been violently
expelled from it. With hardly a single exception, they seem to have
been offended by these and other similar remarks of Bettinelli and
Tiraboschi, to which they were, perhaps, only the more sensitive,
because the distinguished Italians who made them were, like themselves,
members of the persecuted Order of the Jesuits.
Answers to these imputations, therefore, soon began to appear. Two
were published in 1776;--the first by Thomas Serrano, a Valencian,
who, in some Latin Letters, printed at Ferrara, defended the Latin
poets of Spain from the accusations of Tiraboschi, (Ximeno, Tom. II.
p. 335; Fuster, Tom. II. p. 111,) and the second by Father Giovanni
Andres, who, in a Dissertation printed at Cremona, took similar ground,
which he further enlarged and fortified afterwards, in his great work
on universal literary history, (Dell’ Origine, Progresso, e Stato
Attuale di Ogni Letteratura, 1782-99, 9 tom., 4to,) where he maintains
the dignity and honor of his country’s literature on all points, and
endeavours to trace the origin of much of what is best in the early
culture of modern Europe to Arabian influences coming in from Spain,
through Provence, to Italy and France.
To the Letters of Serrano rejoinders appeared at once from Clement
Vannetti, the person to whom Serrano had addressed them, and from
Alessandro Zorzi, a friend of Tiraboschi;--and to the Dissertation of
Father Andres, Tiraboschi himself replied, with much gentleness, in
the notes to subsequent editions of his “Storia della Letteratura.”
(See Angelo Ant. Scotti, Elogio Storico del Padre Giovanni Andres,
Napoli, 1817, 8vo, pp. 13, 143, Tiraboschi, Storia, ed. Roma, 1782,
Tom. II. p. 23.)
Meantime, others among the exiled Spanish Jesuits in Italy, such as
Arteaga, who afterwards wrote the valuable “Rivoluzioni del Teatro
Musicale,” 1783, and Father Isla, who had been famous for his “Friar
Gerund” from 1758, took an interest in the controversy. (Salas, Vida
del Padre Isla, Madrid, 1803, 12mo, p. 136.) But the person who brought
to it the learning which now makes it of consequence in Spanish
literary history was Francisco Xavier Lampillas, or Llampillas, who was
born in Catalonia, in 1731, and was, for some time, Professor of Belles
Lettres in Barcelona, but who, from the period of his exile as a Jesuit
in 1767 to that of his death in 1810, lived chiefly in Genoa or its
neighbourhood, devoting himself to literary pursuits, and publishing
occasionally works, both in prose and verse, in the Italian language,
which he wrote with a good degree of purity.
Among these works was his “Saggio Storico-apologetico della Letteratura
Spagnuola,” printed between 1778 and 1781, in six volumes, octavo,
devoted to a formal defence of Spanish literature against Bettinelli
and Tiraboschi;--occasionally, however, noticing the mistakes of
others, who, like Signorelli, had touched on the same subject. In
the separate dissertations of which this somewhat remarkable book
is composed, the author discusses the connection between the Latin
poets of Spain and those of Rome in the period following the death of
Augustus;--he examines the question of the Spanish climate raised by
Tiraboschi, and claims for Spain a culture earlier than that of Italy,
and one as ample and as honorable;--he asserts that Spain was not
indebted to Italy for the revival of letters within her borders at the
end of the Dark Ages, or for the knowledge of the art of navigation
that opened to her the New World; while, on the other hand, he avers
that Italy owed to Spain much of the reform of its theological and
juridical studies, especially in the sixteenth century;--and brings
his work to a conclusion, in the seventh and eighth dissertations,
with an historical exhibition of the high claims of Spanish poetry
generally, and with a defence of the Spanish theatre from the days of
the Romans down to his own times.
No doubt, some of these pretensions are quite unfounded, and others
are stated much more strongly than they should be; and no doubt, too,
the general temper of the work is any thing rather than forbearing
and philosophical; but still, many of its defensive points are well
maintained, and many of its incidental notices of Spanish literary
history are interesting, if not important. At any rate, it produced a
good effect on opinion in Italy; and, when added to the works published
there soon afterwards by Arteaga, Clavigero, Eximeno, Andres, and other
exiled Spaniards, it tended to remove many of the prejudices that
existed among the Italians against Spanish literature;--prejudices
which had come down from the days when the Spaniards had occupied so
much of Italy as conquerors, and had thus earned for their nation the
lasting ill-will of its people.
Answers, of course, were not wanting to the work of Lampillas, even
before it was completed; one of which, by Bettinelli, appeared in the
nineteenth volume of the “Diario” of Modena, and another, in 1778, by
Tiraboschi, in a separate pamphlet, which he republished afterwards in
the different editions of his great work. To both, Lampillas put forth
a rejoinder in 1781, not less angry than his original Apology, but,
on the whole, less successful, since he was unable to maintain some
of the positions skilfully selected and attacked by his adversaries,
or to establish many of the facts which they had drawn into question.
Tiraboschi reprinted this rejoinder at the end of his own work, with a
few short notes; the only reply which he thought it necessary to make.
But in Spain the triumph of Lampillas was open and unquestioned. His
Storia Apologetica was received with distinguished honors by the
Academy of History, and, together with his pamphlet defending it, was
published first in 1782, in six volumes, and then, in 1789, in seven
volumes, translated by Doña Maria Josefa Amar y Borbon, an Aragonese
lady of some literary reputation. What, however, was yet more welcome
to its author, Charles the Third, the very king by whose command he
had been exiled, gave him an honorable pension for his defence of the
national literature, and acknowledged the merits of the work by his
minister, Count Florida Blanca, who counted among them not only its
learning, but an “urbanity” which now-a-days we are unable to discover
in it. (Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. III. p. 165.)
After this, the controversy seems to have died away entirely, except
as it appeared in notes to the great work of Tiraboschi, which he
continued to add to the successive editions till his death, in
1794. The result of the whole--so far as the original question is
concerned--is, that a great deal of bad taste is proved to have existed
in Spain and in Italy, especially from the times of Góngora and Marina,
not without connection and sympathy between the two countries, but that
neither can be held exclusively responsible for its origin or for its
diffusion.
APPENDIX, H.
INEDITA.
Having a little enlarged the first and second volumes for the purpose,
I am enabled here to present some of the very old and interesting
Spanish poetry, furnished to me by Don Pascual de Gayangos, but never
before published. I wish it were in my power to print more of the
manuscripts in my possession, but I have not room.
No. I.
POEMA DE JOSÉ EL PATRIARCA.
The first of the manuscripts referred to is the one mentioned in
Vol. I. pp. 94-99, as a poem on the subject of Joseph, the son of
Jacob,--remarkable on many accounts, and, among the rest, because, in
the only copy of it known to exist,--that in the National Library,
Madrid, MSS. G. g., 4to, 101,--it is written entirely in the Arabic
character, so that, for a long time, it was regarded as an Arabic
manuscript. It has not, I believe, been deemed of a later date than
the end of the fourteenth century. Indeed, its language and general
air would seem to indicate an earlier one; but we should bear in mind
that the Moriscos, to some one of whom this poem is due, did not
make a progress in the language and culture of Spain so rapid as the
Spaniards did, by whom, long before the fall of Granada, large masses
of them were surrounded and kept in subjection. On this account we may
conjecture the poem to have been written as late as the year 1400; but
its date is uncertain.
· · · · · ·
· · · · · ·
Jusuf seiendo chico i de pocos annos,
Castigandolo su padre no se encubrió de sus ermanos,
Dijoles el suenno que bido en los altos;
Pensaronle traision é fizieronle engannos.
Dijeronle sus ermanos, “Agamosle certero;
Roguemos a nueso padre rogaria berdadera,
Que nos deje a Jusuf en la comanda berdadera,
I amostrarle emos mannas de cazar la alimanna berdadera.”
· · · · · ·
· · · · · ·
Porque Jacab amaba á Jusuf por marabella,
Porque el era disquito i agudo de orella,
Porque la su madre era fermosa e bella,
Sobre todas las otras era amada ella.
Aquesta fue la razon porque le obieron enbidia,
Porque Jusuf sonno un suenno una noche ante el dia,
Suenno que entendieron sus ermanos siempre todabia,
Que Jusuf seiendo menor abria la mejoria.
· · · · · ·
· · · · · ·
Dijieron sus filhos, “Padre, eso no pensedes,
Somos dies ermanos, eso bien sabedes;
Seriamos taraidores, eso no dubdedes;
Mas enpero, si no vos place, aced lo que queredes.
“Mas aquesto pensamos, sabelo el Criador;
Porque supiese mas, i ganase el nuestro amor,
Enseñarle aiemos las obelhas e el ganado maior;
Mas enpero, si no vos place, mandad como señor.”
Tanto le dijeron de palabras fermosas,
Tanto le prometieron de palabras piadosas,
Que él les dió el ninno, dijoles las oras,
Que lo guardasen a el de manos enganosas.
Dioseles el padre, como no debia far,
Fiandose en sus filhos, e no quis mas dubdar;
Dijo, “Filhos, los mis filhos, lo que os quiero rogar,
Que me lo catedes e me lo querais guardar.
“E me lo bolbades luego en amor del Criador,
A él fareis placer, i a mi mui grand fabor,
Y en esto no fallescades, filhos, por mi amor,
Encomiendolo a el de Allah, poderoso Señor.”
Lebaronlo en cuello mientras su padre los bido.
De que fueron apartados bien beredes que fueron á far;
Bajaronlo del cuello, en tierra lo van a posar.
Quando esto bido Jusuf por su padre fué á sospirar.
Dejabanlo zaguero mal andante e cuitado,
E él como era tierno quedo mui querebantado;
Dijoles, “Atendedme, ermanos, que boi mui cansado,
No querais que quede aqui desmamparado.
“Dadme agua del rio o de fuente o de mar,
No querades que muera de sete ni de fambar;
No querades que finque de sin padre ni madre;
Acuerdeseos lo que os dijo el cano de mi padre.”
Esto que oyera el uno de ellos, bien beredes lo que fizo;
Dio de mano al gua, en tierra la bacio,
De punnos e de cozes mui mal lo firio,
El ninno con las sobras en tierra cayo.
Alli se fue a rencorar uno de sus ermanos,
Jahuda tiene por nombre, mui arreciado de manos;
Fuesele a rogar ad aquellos onrados
No murió entonces qui sieronlo sus fados.
Tomaron su consejo, i obieronlo por bien,
Que lo llebasen al monte al pozo de Azraiel;
Frio es el fosal, e las fieras ia se acian,
Porque se lo comiesen i nunca mas lo bian.
Pensaban, que dirian al su padre onrrado,
Que, estando en las obelhas, bino el lobo airado,
Estando durmiendo Jusuf a su caiado,
Bino el lobo maldito i a Jusuf hubo matado.
Jacub estaba aflejido por la tardanza de su fijo,
Saliose por las carreras por oir i saber de sus fijos nuebas
berdaderas;
Bidolos benir, meciendo las cabezas,
Diciendo, “O ermano Jusuf!” de tan buena manera.
Quando los bido benir con tal apellido,
Luego en aquella ora caio amortesido;
Quando llegaron a él no le hallaron sentido,
Dijeron todos, “Senor, dale el perdon cumplido.”
Dijo Jahuda a todos sus ermanos,
“Bolbamos por Jusuf, donde estaba encelado,
I abremos gualardon de nueso padre onrrado;
Io prometo de encelar quanto abemos errado.”
Dijeron sus ermanos, “Eso no aremos;
Somos diez ermanos, eso bien sabemos;
Bamos a nueso padre e todo se lo contaremos,
Que, contandole aquesto, seremos creederos.”
Hasta poco de rato Jacob ubo recordado;
Dijo, “Que es de mi fijo, que es de mi amado?
Que le abedes fecho, en do lo abeis dejado?”
E todos dijeron, “El lobo lo ha matado.”
“No bos creio, filhos, de quanto me dezides;
Idme a cazar el lobo de aquel donde benides,
Que io le fare ablar corbas sus corbizes;
Con la aiuda de Allah, el me dira si falsia me dezedes.”
E fueronse a cazar el lobo con falsia mui grande,
Diciendo que abia fecho una muerte tan mala;
Traieron la camisa de Jusuf ensangrentada,
Porque creiese Jacob aquello sin dudanza.
Rogo Jacob al Criador, e al lobo fué á fablar.
Dijo el lobo, “No lo manda Allah que a nabi fuese á matar;
En tan estranna tierra me fueron á cazar,
Anme fecho pecado, i lebanme a lazrar.”
Dijo Jacob, “Filhos que tuerto me tenedes,
De quanto me decides de todo me fallesedes,
En el Allah creio, e fio que aun lo beredes
Todas estas cosas que aun lo pagaredes.”
E bolbiose Jacob e bolbiose llorando,
E quedaron sus filhos como desmamparados;
Fueronse a Jusuf donde estaba encelado,
E lebaronle al pozo por el suelo rastrando.
Echaronle en el pozo con cuerda mui luenga;
Quando fue a medio ubieronla cortada,
E caio entre una penna i una piedra airada,
E quiso Allah del cielo, e no le nocio nada.
Alli caio Jusuf en aquella agua fria,
Por do pasaba gente con mercaduria,
Que tenian sed con la calor del dia,
I embiaron por agua alli donde el iacia.
Echaron la ferrada con cuerda mui larga;
No la pudieron sacar, cá mucho les pesaba
Por razon que Jusuf en ella se trababa;
Pusieron i esfuerzo, i salto la bella barba.
Ellos de que bieron a tan noble criatura
Marabillaronse de su grand fermosura;
Llebaronle al mercader, e plaziole su figura;
Prometioles mucho bien e mui mucha mesura.
Asta poco de rato sus ermanos binieron
A demandarlo, su catibo lo ferieron;
El lo otorgo pues ellos lo quisieron;
Jahuda los aconsejo por alla por do binieron.
Dijo el mercader, “Amigos, si queredes
Aquestos vente dineros por él si lo bendedes.
Dijeron, “Contentos somos con que lo enpresionedes,
Asta la tierra santa que no lo soltaredes.”
E fizieron su carta, de como lo bendieron;
E todo por sus manos por escripto lo pusieron,
E ad aquel mercader su carta le rindieron,
E lebaronlo encadenado ansi como punsieron.
Quando bino el mober, Jusuf iba llorando,
Por espedirse de sus ermanos mal iba quexando,
Malos eran ellos, mas él acia su guisado,
Demandó al mercader i otorgoselo de grado.
Dijo el mercader, “Esta es marabella,
Que ellos te an vendido como si fueses obelha,
Diciendo que eras ladron e de mala pelelha;
E io por tales senores no daria una arbelha.”
Partiose Jusuf con la cadena rastrando,
E Jahuda aquella noche estabalos belando,
Espertolos a todos tan apriesa llorando,
Diziendo, “Lebantadbos, recibid al torteado.”
Dijo Jusuf, “Ermanos, perdoneos el Criador
Del tuerto que me tenedes, perdoneos el Senor;
Que para siempre e nunca se parta el nuestro amor.”
Abraso á cada guno, e partiose con dolor.
Iba con gran gente aquel mercadero;
Alli iba Jusuf solo e sin companero;
Pasaron por un camino por un fosal sennero,
Do iacia la su madre acerca de un otero.
Dio salto del camello donde iba cabalgando;
No lo sintio el negro que lo iba guardando;
Fuese a la fuesa de su madre a pedirla perdon doblando
Jusuf a la fuesa tan apriesa llorando.
Disiendo, “Madre, Sennora, perdoneos el Sennor,
Madre, si me bidieses de mi abriais dolor;
Boi con cadenas al cuello, catibo con sennor,
Bendido de mis ermanos, como si fuera traidor.
“Ellos me han bendido, no teniendoles tuerto;
Partieronme de mi padre, ante que fuese muerto,
Con arte, con falsia, ellos me obieron buelto;
Por mal precio me han bendido por do boi ajado e cucito.”
E bolbiose el negro ante la camella
Requiriendo a Jusuf e no lo bido en ella,
E bolbiose por el camino aguda su orella,
Bidolo en el fosal, llorando que es marabella.
E fuese alla el negro e obolo mal ferido,
E luego en aquella ora caio amortesido;
Dijo, “Tu eres malo e ladron conpilido,
Ansi nos lo dijeron tus senores que te hubieron bendido.”
Dijo Jusuf, “No soi malo ni ladron,
Mas aqui iaz mi madre e bengola a dar perdon;
Ruego ad Allah, i a el fago loaiçon
Que, si colpa no te tengo, te enbie su maldicion.”
Andaron aquella noche fasta otro dia;
Entorbioseles el mundo, gran bento corria,
Afallezioseles el sol al ora de medio dia,
No vedian por do ir con la mercaderia.
Aqueste mercader base marabillado
De aquella fortuna que traia el pecado.
Dijo el mercader, “Yo mando pribado,
Que quien pecado a fecho que bienga acordado.
“Que es aquesta fortuna que agora veiemos
Por algun pecado que entre nosotros tenemos;
Quien pecado a fecho perdone e perdonemos,
Mejoremos ventura e todos escaparemos.”
Dijo el negro, “Señor, io di una bofetada
A de aquel tu catibo que se fue a la alborada.”
Llamó el mercader a Jusuf la begada,
Que se viniere a bengar del negro e su errada.
Dijo Jusuf, “Eso no es de mi a far;
Io no vengo de aquellos que ansi se quieren vengar;
Ante bengo de aquellos que quieren perdonar;
Por gran que seia el ierro, io ansi lo quiero far.”
Aquesto fecho i el negro perdonado,
Aclarecioles el dia i el mercader fue apagado.
Dijo el mercader, “O amigo granado!
Sino por lo compuesto soltariate de grado.”
Mas a pocos de dias a su tierra llegaron;
Jusuf fue luego suelto, que un rio lo bañaron;
De purpura e de seda mui bien lo guisaron,
E de piedras preciosas mui bien lo afeitaron.
Quando entraron por la cibdad, las gentes se marabillaban;
El dia era nublo e el sol no relumbraba,
Magüer era oscuro e el la hazia calara,
Por do quier que pasaba todo lo relonbraba.
Decian las gentes a de aquel mercadero,
Si era aquel angel o ombre santurero.
Dijo, “Este es mi catibo leal e berdadero,
Io quiero lo bender, si le hallo mercadero.”
Dijo el mercader, que él lo benderia en mercado.
Fizo a saber las nuebas por todo el reinado,
Que biniese toda la gente para el dia sennalado,
Estando Jusuf apuesto en un banco posado.
No fincó en toda la comarca hombre ni muger,
Ni chico ni grande, que non le fuese a ber.
Alli bino Zaleja e dejó el comer,
Cabalgada en una mula a quanto podia correr.
Su peso de palata por el daba bien pesado,
E otro que tal haria de oro esmaltado,
E de piedras preciosas como dice el ditado,
Mercolo el Rei por su peso de oro granado.
Diolo el Rei a Zaleja con amor,
Tomaronlo por filho legitimo e maior,
Tomaronlo dambos de mui buen amor;
Lebantose el pregonero, e pregono a sabor.
Lebantose el pregonero, e pregono a sabor;
Dijo, “Quien compra Profeta cuerdo e sabidor,
Leal i berdadero i firme en el Criador,
Ansi como parece por fecho e balor?”
Dijo Jusuf, “Tu pregonaras, amado,
Quien comprara catibo, torpe e abiltado?”
Dijo el pregonero, “Eso no faré io, amado,
Que, si aqueso pregonase, no te mercaran de grado.”
Dijo, “Pues eso no quieres, pregona la berdad,
E ruegote, ermano, que no la quieras negar.
Di, Quien comprara profeta del alto lugar,
Filhos de Jacob si lo aveis oido nombrar?”
De que supo el mercader que era de tal altura,
Rogo al comprador le bolbiese por mesura
E doblarle i a el precio de su compradura,
E él no lo quiso hacer porque ia tenia bentura.
Besandole pies i manos que lo quisiese far,
El por ninguna bia no lo quiso derogar,
Tubose por mal andante; la cuenta ia le fue a tornar,
Salbante lo que costo no lo quiso mas tomar.
Rogo el mercader a Jusuf la sazon,
Que rogase ad Allah del cielo de buen corazon,
Que en doce mugeres que tenia, todas doce en amor,
Que en todas doce le diese filhos e criazon.
Lebantose Jusuf e fizo loacion,
Rogo ad Allah del cielo de buen corazon,
Que alargase la bida al buen baron,
I emprennaronse todas, cada una a su sazon.
Cuando bino la ora ubieron de librar,
Quiso Allah del cielo, e todas fueron a hechar
Mui nobles criaturas e figuras de alegrar,
Porque nuestro Señor las quiso ayudar.
Criolo Zaleja, mui bien lo hubo criado,
E de corazon lo hubo guardado,
I él como era apuesto apegose del pribado,
Demandole el su cuerpo, e no le semejo guisado.
Dijo a su pribada, “Ia sabes, amada,
Como io he criado a Jusuf cada semana,
De noche e de dia io bien lo guardaba,
I él no me lo prezia mas que si fuese bana.
“Dame sabiduria, a mi sapiencia clara.
Io no puedo facer que el acate en mi cara;
Solo que él me bediese i el luego me amara,
E de él faria a mi guisa en lo que io le mandara.”
Dijo su pribada, “Io bos daré un consejo;
Bos dadme haber, i os faré un bosquejo,
Io habre un pintor i mistorara a arrecho,
Io faré el meter, e a que se benga a buestro lecho.”
De quanto le demando todo lo fué bien guisado;
Fizo fazer un palacio mui apuesto e cuadrado,
Todo lo fizo balanco paredes e terrado,
E fizo figurar a un pintor piribado.
De Jusuf e de Zaleja allí hizo sus figuras,
Que se abrazaban dambos pribados sin mesura,
Porque semejaban bibos con seso e cordura,
Porque eran misturados de mistura con natura.
De que el palacio fue fecho e todo bien acabado,
Alli bino Zaleja e asentose ia de grado,
E embio por Jusuf luego con el mandado,
“Jusuf, tu Señora te manda que baias mui pribado.”
E fuese Jusuf do Zaleja salia,
E como quiso de entrar luego sintió la falsia,
E quisose bolber, e ella no lo consentia,
Tarabolo de la falda, e llebolo do iacia.
Alli quedó Jusuf con mui gran espanto;
Afalagabolo Zaleja i el bolbiase de canto,
Prometiendole aber e riquezas a basto.
La ora dijo Jusuf, “Allah mandara a farto.”
Por do quier que cataba beia figora artera;
Deciale Zaleja, “Esta es fiera manera;
Tu eres un catibo é io tu Sennora certera;
Io no puedo fazer que tu guies a mi carrera.”
Jusuf en aquella ora quisose encantar;
El pecado lo fazia que lo queria engannar;
E bido que no era a su padre onrrar;
Repentido fue luego i empezo de firmar.
Jusuf bolbió las cuestas e empezo de fuir;
De zaga ibale Zaleja, no lo podia sofrir;
Trabolo de la falda como oirias decir,
Echando grandes boces, “Aqui abras de benir.”
Oiolo su marido por do allí bino pribado;
Falló a Jusuf llorando su mal fado;
Rota tenia la falda en su costado,
I el su corazon negro por miedo de pecado.
Zaleja tenia tendidos sus cabellos,
En manera de forzada con sus olhos bermellos;
Diziendo al buen Rei, “Sennor, de los consellos
Aqui son menester; cata todos tus consejos.
“Cata aqui tu catibo, que tenias en fieldad;
Ame caecido por sin ninguna piedad,
Abiendolo criado con tan gran piedad
Como faze madre á filho ansi lo quise aquesto far.”
Dijo el Rei a Jusuf aquesta razon;
“Como me as pensado en tan grande traision,
Tobiendote puesto en mi corazon?”
La ora dijo Jusuf, “No bengo de tal morgon.”
Reutaban á Zaleja las duennas del lugar
Porque con su catibo queria boltariar.
Ella de que lo supo arte las fue á buscar,
Combidolas a todas e llebolas a cantar.
Diolas ricos comeres é binos esmerados,
Que hijan todas agodas de dictados,
Diolas sendas toronjas e caminetes en las manos,
Tajantes e apuestos e mui bien temperados.
E fuese Zaleja a do Jusuf estaba,
De purpura e de seda mui bien lo aguisaba,
E de piedras preciosas mui bien lo afeitaba,
Berdugadero en sus manos a las duennas lo embiaba.
Ellas de que lo bieron perdieron su cordura,
Tanto era de apuesto e de buena figura;
Pensaban que era tan angel e tornaban en locura,
Cortabanse las manos e non se abian cura,
Que por las toronjas la sangre iba andando.
Zaleja quando lo bido toda se fue alegrando;
Dijoles Zaleja que fais lo cas de sin cuidado,
Que por buesas manos la sangre iba andando.”
I ellas de que lo bieron sintieron su locura.
“Que a par una bista sola tomades en locura?
Io que debia fazer e dende el tiempo que medura?”
Dijeronle las duennas, “A ti no te colpamos,
Nosotras somos las ierradas que te razonamos;
Mas antes guisaremos que él te benga a tus manos
De manera que seais abenidos enterambos.”
E fueronse las duennas a Jusuf a rogar;
Bederedes cada una como lo debia far;
Pensabase Zaleja que por ella iban á rogar,
Mas cada guna iba para sí a recabar.
Jusuf quando aquesto bido reclamose al Criador;
Diziendo, “Padre mio, de mi aiades dolor;
Son tornadas de una muchas en mi amor,
Pues mas quiero ser preso que no ser traidor.”
Cuando bido Zaleja la cosa mal parada,
Que por ninguna bia no pudo haber de entrada,
Dijo al buen Rei, “Este me a difamada
No teniendo la culpa, mas a falsia granada.”
Echolo en la prision aqui a que se bolbiese,
E que por aquello a ella obedeciese;
E entiendolo el Rei ante que muriese
E juró que non salria mientras que él bibiese.
E quando aquesto fue fecho, Zaleja fue repentida;
No lo abria querido fazer en dias de su vida,
Diziendo, “O mezquina, nunca seré guarida
De este mal tan grande en que soi caida.
“Que si io supiera que esto abia de benir,
Que por ninguna bia no se ha podido complir,
Que io no he podido de este mal guarir,
Por deseo de Jusuf habré io de morir.”
Alli iaze diez annos como si fuese cordero,
Daquí á que mandó el Rei á un su portero
Echar en la prision dos ombres i el tercero,
El uno su escancieno e el otro un panicero;
Porque abian pensado al Rei de far traicion,
Que en el bino e en el pan que le echasen ponzon.
Probado fué al panicero, e al escancieno non,
Porque mejor supo catar e encobrir la traicion.
Allí do estaban presos mui bien los castigaba,
E qualquiera que enfermaba mui bien lo curaba;
Todos lo guardaban por do quiera que el estaba,
Porque el lo merecia, su figura se lo daba.
Sonno el escancieno un suenno tan pesado;
Contolo a Jusuf, i sacosele de grado.
Dijo, “Tu fues escancieno de tu Sennor onrrado,
Mas oi en seras a tu oficio tornado,
“E abras perdon de tu Sennor;
Aiudete el seso i guiete el Criador,
I a quien Allah da seso dale grande onor;
Bolberas á tu oficio con mui grande balor.”
Dijo el panicero al su compannero,
“Io dire a Jusuf que e sonnado un suenno
De noche en tal dia, quando salia el lucero,
I beré que me dize en su seso certero.”
Contole el panicero el suenno que queria,
I sacosele Jusuf é nada no le mentia;
Dijo, “Tu fues panicero del Rei todabia,
Mas aqui iaceras porque fiziste falsia;
“Que al tercero dia seras tu luego suelto,
E seras enforcado a tu cabeza el tuerto,
E comeran tus meollos las abes del puerto;
Alli seras colgado hasta que sias muerto.”
Dijo el panicero, “No sonné cosa certera,
Que io me lo dezia por ber la manera.”
Dijo Jusuf, “Esta es cosa berdadera,
Que lo que tu dijestes, Allah lo embió por carrera.”
Dijo Jusuf al escancieno aquesta razon;
“Ruegote que recuerdes al Rei de mi prision,
Que arto me a durado esta gran maldicion.”
Dijo el escancieno, “Plaze me de corazon.”
Que al tercero dia salieron de grado,
E fueron delante del Rei, su Sennor onrrado;
E mandó el panicero ser luego enforcado,
Dijo, “El escancieno á su oficio a tornado.”
Olbidosele al escancieno de decir el su mandado,
E no le membro por dos años ni le fué acordado,
Fasta que sonnó un suenno el Rei apoderado;
Doce annos estubo preso, e esto mal de su grado.
Aqueste fue el suenno que el Rei ubo sonnado,
De que salia del agua un rio granado,
Anir era su nombre preciado e granado,
I bido que en salian siete bacas de grado.
Eran bellas e gordas e de lai mui cargadas,
I bido otras siete magras, flacas, e delgadas.
Comianse las flacas a las gordas granadas,
E no se les parecia ni enchian las hilladas.
E bido siete espigas mui llenas de grano,
Berdes e fermosas como en tiempo de berano;
E bido otras siete secas con grano bano,
Todas secas e blancas como caballo cano.
Comianse las secas a las berdes del dia,
E no se les parecia ninguna mejoria;
Tornabanse todas secas cada guna bacia,
Todas secas e blancas como de niebla fria.
El Rei se marabello de como se comian
Las flacas a las gordas granadas,
I las siete espigas secas a las berdes mojadas,
I entendio que en su suenno abia largas palabras,
E no podia pensar a que fuesen sacadas.
E llamo a los sabidores e el suenno les fue a contar,
Que se lo sacasen e no ge diesen bagar,
E ellos le dijeron, “Nos querais aquejar,
Miraremos en los libros o no te daremos bagar.”
Dijeronle, “Sennor, no seais aquejado;
No son los suennos ciertos en tiempo arrebatado.
Los amores crecen segun noso cuidado,
Mas a las de beras suelen tornar en falso.”
I amansose el Rei, e dioles de mano,
Porque el entendio que andaban en bano.
E ubo de saber aquello el escancieno,
E binose al Rei, e diole la mano.
E dijole, “Sennor, io sé un sabidor onrrado
El qual está en prision firmemente atorteado;
Dos annos abemos que del non me e acordado,
E fecho como torpe, e sientome ierrado.
“Ia me saco un suenno, cierto le bi benir.”
E el Rei le respondio, “Amigo, empieza de ir,
E contaselo todo, como as oido dezir,
E librarlo emos mui presto e sacarlo io de alli.”
E fuese el escancieno a Jusuf de grado,
E dijo, “Perdoname, amigo, que olbidé tu mandado,
E fizolo el miedo de mi Sennor onrrado,
Mas agora es tiempo de mandarlo doblado.
“Mas ruegote, ermano, en amor del Criador,
Que me saques un suenno que bido mi Sennor.”
La ora dijo Jusuf, “Plazeme de corazon,
Pues que no puedo salir fasta que quiera el maior.”
E contole el suenno todo bien cumplido,
Porque no ierrase Jusuf en lo que era sabido.
Quando el suenno fue contado, Jusuf ubo entendido;
Dijo Jusuf, “El suenno es cierto e benido.
“Sabras que las siete bacas gordas e granadas,
E las siete espigas berdes e mojadas,
Son siete annos mui llubiesos de aguas,
Do quiera que sembraredes todas naceran dobladas.
“I las magras bacas e las secas espigas
Son siete annos de mui fuertes prisas;
Comense a los buenos bien a las sus guisas,
Do quiera que sembraredes no ia saldran espigas.
“Porque face menester, que sembraredes á basto
En estos annos buenos que aberedes á farto,
I dejaredes probiendo para bosotros e al ganado
I alzaredes lo a otro ansi fechos llegado.
“Ansi con su espiga sin ninguna trilladura
E la palla sera guardada mui bien de afolladura,
Porque no ii caiga polilla, ni ninguna podredura,
Porque en estos tiempos secos tengades folgadura.
“Porque en aquestos annos tengades que comer
E buestros bestiales e las bacas de beber,
E todos los esforzades, e poredes guarecer,
E saldreis al buen tiempo e abreis mucho bien.”
Cuando bió el escancieno del suenno la glosa,
Bolbiose al Rei con berdadera cosa,
E fizole a saber al de la barba donosa,
Que era el suenno con razon fermosa.
E placiole mucho al Rei, e ovo gran plazer,
E supole malo de tal preso tener,
Cuerdo e berdadero, complido en el saber,
E mandó que lo traiesen, que el lo queria ber.
E fuese el escancieno a Jusuf con el mandado,
E dijo como el Rei por él abia embiado,
E que fuese presto del Rei, no fuese airado.
E dijo Jusuf, “No sere tan entorbiado;
“Mas buelbete al Rei i dile desta manera,
Io que feuza tendré en su merced certera,
Que me a tubido preso doce annos en la carcel negra
A tuerto e sin razon e a traision berdadera.
“Mas io de su prision no quiero salir
Fasta que me benga de quien alli me fizo ir,
De las duennas fermosas que me fizieron fuir,
Quant se cortaban las manos e no lo podian sentir.
“Aplazelas el Rei pues que me dannaron,
Que digan la berdad porque me colparon,
O por qual razon en carcel me echaron,
Porque entienda el Rei, porque me acolparon.
“E quando seran ajuntadas e Zaleja con ellas,
Demandelas el Rei berdad a todas ellas,
E quando el bera que la culpa tienen ellas
La ora io saldré de mui buena manera.
Aplazolas el Rei, e demandalas la berdad;
Ellas le dijeron, “Todas fizimos maldad,
E Jusuf fue certero manteniendo lealtad;
Nunca quiso boltariar ni le dió la boluntad.”
Lebantose Zaleja, i empezo de decir,
“A todas las duennas no es otra de mentir,
Sino de seier firmes e la berdad dezir,
Que io me entremeti por mi loado dezir.
“Que todas hizimos ierro si nos balga el Criador,
E le tenemos culpa, Allah es perdonador;
Jusuf es fuero de ierro e de pecado maior.”
El Rei, quando las oiera, maldiciolas con dolor.
E fizo saber el Rei a Jusuf la manera,
Como era quito cosa berdadera
De todas las duennas con prueba certera;
E la ora salio Jusuf de la carcel negra.
E en el portal de la prision fizo fazer un escripto;
“La prision es fuesa de los hombres bibos
E sitio de maldicion e banco de los abismos,
E Allah nos cure de ella a todos los amigos.”
Embiole el Rei mui rica cabalgadura
E gran caballeria, e abianlo a cura;
Llebanlo en medio como Sennor de natura,
E fueronse al palacio del buen Rei de mesura.
E el Rei como lo bido luego se fue á lebantar,
E el Rei se fue a él, que no solia usar,
E asentolo cabo a él, lo que no solia far,
E en la ora le dijo el Rei, “Mi fillol te quiero far.”
E con setenta fablaches el Rei le obo fablado,
E respondiole Jusuf a cadauno pribado;
E fabló Jusuf al Rei otro fablado e el Rei no supo dar recaudo,
E marabillose el Rei de su saber granado.
Dijo el Rei a Jusuf, “Ruegote, ermano,
Que me cuentes el suenno que te dijo mi escancieno,
Que lo oiga de tu lengua, i sea io alegrado,
I aderezaremos nuestras cosas seiendo librado.”
E dijo Jusuf al Rei, “Encomiendote al Criador,
Que de aqueste suenno habras mui grande onor;
Mas tu as menester hombre de corazon,
Que ordene tu ficienda e la guie con balor.
“Mas adreza tu ficienda como io te he fablado,
Que el pan de la tierra todo seia alzado,
El de los annos buenos para el tiempo afortunado,
Que de sede e de fambre todo el mundo sea aquejado.
“Berná toda la gente en los tiempos faltos,
E mercaran el pan de los tus alzados
Por oro e plata e cuerpos e algos,
De manera que sereis Sennor de altos i de bajos.”
E el Rei, quando esto oiera, comenzo de pensar;
Jusuf, como le bido, bolbiole a fablar,
I dijole, “En eso no pensedes, que Allah lo ha de librar,
Que io habré de ser quien lo abré de guiar.”
Dijo el Rei, “O amigo, e como me has alegrado;
Io te lo agradezco, de Allah habras grado,
Que tu seras aquel por quien se ensalzara el condado,
I que de hoi adelante te dejo el reinado.
“Porque tu perteneces mandar el reinado
I a toda la gente ibierno e berano;
Todos te ubedeceremos el joben e el cano,
Como las otras gentes quiero ser de garado.
“Porque tu lo mereces, de Allah te benga guianza;
Pero ruegote, amigo, que seias en amiganza,
Que me buelbas mi reino e no pongas dudanza,
Al cabo de dicho tiempo no finques con mala andanza.
“Con aquesta condicion que te quedes en tu estado,
Como Rei en su tierra mandando i sentenciando,
Que asi lo mandare hoi por todo el reinado,
Que io no quiero ser ia mas Rei llamado.”
I placiole a Jusuf, hubolo de otorgar,
I en el sitio del Rei luego se ha de sentar,
I mando el Rei a la gente delante del humillar;
Firmemente lo guardaban como lo debian far.
I quando bido Jusuf la luna prima i delgada
En el seno que se iba con planta apresurada,
Que dentraban los annos de bentura abastada,
Mando juntar la tierra i toda su companna.
I de que fueron llegados todos sus basallos,
Fizoles a saber porque eran llegados,
Que se fuesen a sembrar los bajos i altos,
Que sembrasen toda la tierra balles e galachos.
I fueronse a sembrar todos con cordura,
Asi como mandaba su Sennor de natura;
Benian redoblados con bien e con bentura,
I marabillaronse de su sabencia pura.
I luego mando Jusuf a todos sus maestros,
Que fiziesen graneros de grandes peltrechos,
Mui anchos i largos, de mui fuertes maderos,
Para ad alzar el pan de los tiempos certeros.
Nunca bieron hombres estancias tamannas,
Unas encima de otras que semejaban montannas,
I mando segar el pan ansi entre dos tallas,
I ligar los fachos con cuerdas delgadas.
I facialos poner en los graneros atados,
Ansi con sus espigas que fuese bien guardado,
Que no i caiese polilla ni nada ubiese cuidado;
Cada anno lo hizo facer ansi, i fizieronlo de grado.
E tanto llego del pan que no le fallaban quantia,
E quando bido la luna en el seno que se iba,
Que dentraba la seca de mui mala guisa,
Mando que no sembrasen de pues de aquel dia,
Fasta que pasasen otros siete annos cumplidos
Que de sete e de fambre serian fallecidos;
E no i abia aguas de cielo nin de rios;
Ansi como lo dijo Jusuf, asi fueron benidos.
I puso el Rei fieles para su pan bender,
Buenos e berdaderos segun el su saber,
E mando que diesen el derecho, ansi lo mando fazer,
E precio subido por el que fiz prender.
E mando a sus fieles que bendiesen de grado,
El uno a los de la tierra, e el otro a los de fuera del reinado,
A cada guno demandasen nuebas de do eran pribados,
O, si eran de la tierra, que no les diesen recaudo.
Que a pocos de dias las tierras fueron bacias
De todo el pan e mercaderias,
E no ia i abia que comer en cibdades ni en billas,
E mercaban de Jusuf el que sabian las guaridas.
Los primeros annos con dinero e moblo mercaron,
Llebaron plata e oro e todo lo acabaron,
E luego en pues de aquello la criazon ia lebaron,
E no les basto aquello, que mucha res ia llebaron.
Que al seteno anno bendieron los cuerpos,
E fueron todos catibos todos bibos e muertos,
E todo bolbio al Rei las tierras e los pueblos,
I estendiose la fambre en reinos estrangeros.
Pues, quando lo bido Jusuf todo a su mandar,
E todos los catibos que podia bender o dar,
Bolbiose al Rei e fuele a fablar;
Dijo, “Que te parece, Rei, de lo que me has bisto far.”
E dijole el Rei, “Tu aras por el reinado,
Porque tu mereces mandar el condado,
Porque tu perteneces mandar el reinado,
Que io no quiero ser ia mas Rei llamado.”
Dijo Jusuf al Rei aquesta razon;
“Io fago franco a todos e quito con onor
Ia tu tu reismo con todo Sennor;”
La ora dijo el Rei, “Eso no seria razon,
“Que no me lo consintiria el mi corazon,
Que tan noble sabencia fuese a baldon;
Antes de oi adelante quiero que tu seias Sennor.”
E bido Jusuf la fambre apoderada,
Que por toda la tierra era tan encargada;
Entendio que en la tierra de su padre seria llegada;
Puso ia regimiento como la nueba fuese arribada.
Mas a pocos de dias la fambre fue llegada
A tierra de Jacob e su barba onrrada;
Tenia mucha gente e una moier guardada.
Dijo Jacob, “Filhos, io he sentido
Que en tierras de Egito hai un Rei cunplido,
Bueno e berdadero, franco i entendido,
E tiene mucho pan partido e bendido.
“Querria que tomasedes deste nuestro aber,
E que fueseis luego ad aquel Rei a ber,
Contadle nuestra cuita e querra bos creier,
Con la aiuda de Allah querra a bos bender.”
Dijeron sus filhos, “Placemos de grado;
Iremos a beier ad aquel Rei onrrado,
E beremos la su tierra e tambien el su reinado,
E, con la aiuda de Allah, él nos dara recaudo.”
De que llegaron a la tierra abistada,
Preguntaron por el Rei do era su posada;
Dijo un escudero, “Aqui i es su morada;
Io bos dare del pan e tambien de la cebada.
“Que io soi fiel del Rei, que bendo el pan alzado
A los de fuera del reino, a los otros no me es mandado;
Decidme de donde sois, e libraros e de grado,
O, si sois de aquesta tierra, no bos dare recaudo.
“Decid me de donde sois o de que lugar,
Porque podais deste pan llebar,
E dare a cada guno quanto querais mercar,
Segun el dinero le hare io mesurar.”
I ellos le dijeron todos sus nombres,
E la tierra de do eran, e como eran ermanos,
Filhos de Jacob e de Ishac mui amados,
En Cherusalem alli eran fincados.
Ed entro el escudero al Rei e contestole la razon,
E de que logar e de qual morgon,
E filhos de Profeta de buena generacion;
“Sennor, si tu lo mandas librarlos e con amor.”
E mando el Rei que entrasen delante del pribado,
E que les diesen de comer del maior pescado,
E que los guardasen por todo el reinado,
E no los dejasen ir tobiesen su mandado.
E el Rei como los bido obo placer con ellos,
E mandose aderezar el Rei de unos bestidos bellos,
E mil caballeros al costado esquerro e mil al derecho,
E de una parte placer e de otra gran despecho.
Los bestidos que traia eran de gran balor,
Eran de oro e de seda e de fermosa labor,
E traia piedras preciosas de que salia claror,
Mas traia algalia e mui rico golor.
E mando qued entrasen a beier su figura,
E dieronle salbacion segun su catadura,
E mandolos asentar con bien i apostura,
E marabillaronse de su buena bentura.
Ellos estando en piedes i el Rei parado
E belos el Rei fieramente catando,
I ellos no se dudaban nin de abian cuidado,
Retrobalos el Rei de amor e de grado.
E de que bieron al Rei bella su catadura,
Judas dijo, “Ermanos, oid mi locura,
Temome de este Rei e de su encontradura,
Roguemosle que nos embie por mesura.”
Por mucho que le dijeron él no lo quiso far,
Fasta el tercero dia alli los fizo estar,
Fizoles mucha onrra, quanta les pudo far,
Ansi como a filhos los mandaba guardar.
La mesura del pan de oro era labrada,
E de piedras preciosas era estrellada,
I era de ber toda con guisa enclabada,
Que fazia saber al Rei la berdad apurada.
Dijoles el Rei, nuebas les demandaba,
La mesura en su mano que se la meneaba,
Disiendoles el Rei que mirasen lo que ablaban,
Que si dezian mentira ella lo declaraba;
Quien con el Rei abla guardese de mentir,
Ni en su razon no quisiere mentir,
Porque, quando lo fazia, haciala retinir,
I ella le dezia berdad sin cuentradecir.
Dijoles el Rei, “De quien sedes filhos,
O de que linage sois benidos?
Beos io de gran fuerza fermosos e cumplidos,
Quiero que me lo digades e seremos amigos.”
Ellos le dijeron, “Nosotros, Sennor,
Somos de Profeta, creientes al Criador,
De Jacob somos filhos, creientes al Criador,
E benimos por pan si hallamos bendedor.”
E firio el Rei en la mesura e fizola sonar,
Ponela a su orelha por oir e guardar;
Dijoles, e no quiso mas dudar,
“Segun dize la mesura berdad puede estar.”
Dijoles el Rei, “Quantos sos, amados?”
Ellos le dijeron, “Eramos doze ermanos,
I al uno se comio el lobo segun nos cuidamos,
E el otro queda con él, su amor acabado.”
Dijoles el Rei, “Prometo al Criador,
Sino por acatar a buestro padre e sennor,
Io os tendria presos en cadena con dolor,
Mas por amor del biejo enbiaros e con onor.”
Ellos dijeron, “Sennor, rogamoste en amor,
Por el Sennor del mundo que te dio onrra e balor,
Nos quieras embiar a nueso padre e sennor,
I abras galardon e merced del Criador.
“E no cates a nos, mas al biejo de nueso padre,
Por que es ombre mui biejo e flaco, en berdad,
Que si tu le conocieses querriaslo onrrar,
Porque es ombre mui sano e de buena boluntad.”