Legends & Romances of Spain. Lewis Spence
for himself of their affinity or otherwise with the Spanish romances.
24 See Dozy, History of the Moors in Spain, Eng. trans., and Recherches sur l’Histoire politique et littéraire de l’Espagne (1881); F. J. Simonet, Introduction to his Glosario de Voces iberias y latinas usadas entre los Muzárabes (1888); Renan, Averroës et Averroïsme (1866). Gayangos’ Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain (London, 1843) is somewhat obsolete, as is Conde’s Dominación de los Arabes.
25 “The Raid,” an old Spanish poem.
Chapter II: The “Cantares de Gesta” and the “Poema del Cid”
When meat and drink is great plentye
Then lords and ladyes still will be,
And sit and solace lythe.
Then it is time for mee to speake
Of kern knights and kempes great,
Such carping for to kythe.
“Guy and Colbrand,” a romance
The French origin of the cantares de gesta has already been alluded to. Their very name, indeed, bespeaks a Gallic source. But in justice to the national genius of Spain we trust that it has been made abundantly clear that the cantares speedily cast off the northern mode and robed themselves in Castilian garb. Some lands possess an individuality so powerful, a capacity for absorption and transmutation so exceptional, that all things, both physical and spiritual, which invade their borders become transfigured and speedily metamorphosed to suit their new environment. Of this magic of transformation Spain, with Egypt and America, seems to hold the especial secret. But transfigure the chansons of France as she might, the mould whence they came is apparent to those who are cognisant of their type and machinery. Nor could the character of their composers and professors be substantially altered, so that we must not be surprised to find in Spain the trouvères and jongleurs of France as trovadores and juglares. The trovador was the poet, the author, the juglar merely the singer or declaimer, although no very hard-and-fast line was drawn betwixt them. Some juglares of more than ordinary distinction were also the authors of the cantares they sang, while an unsuccessful trovador might be forced to chant the verses of others. Instrumentalists or accompanists were known as juglares de péñola in contradistinction to the reciters or singers, juglares de boca.
The Singers of Old Spain
With the juglar, indeed, was left the final form of the cantar, for he would shape and shear it, add to or suppress, as his instinct told him the taste of his audience demanded. Not infrequently he would try to pour the wine of a cantar into the bottle of a popular air, and if it overflowed and was spilt, so much the worse for the cantar. Frequently he was accompanied not only by an instrumentalist, but by a remendador, or mimic, who illustrated his tale in dumb show. These sons of the gay science were notoriously careless of their means of livelihood, and lived a hand-to-mouth existence. A crust of bread and a cup of wine sufficed them when silver was scarce. Unsullied by the lust of hire, they journeyed from hall to hall, from castle to castle, unmindful of all but their mission—to soothe the asperities of a barbarous age.
Our long-dead brothers of the roundelay,
Whose meed was wine, who held that praise was pay,
Hearten ye by their lives, ye singers of to-day!
But this simple state did not last. As the taste for the cantares grew, the trovadores and their satellites, after the manner of mankind, became clamorous for the desirable things of life, making the age-long plea of the artist that the outward insignia of beauty are his very birthright, and forgetting how fatal it is to
Stain with wealth and power
The poet’s free and heavenly mind.
These “spirits from beyond the moon” did not, alas! “refuse the boon.” Kings, infantes, and peers indulged the trovador out of full purses, flattered him by imitating his art and his life, and even enrolled themselves in his brotherhood. Few men of genius are so constituted as to be able to control altogether a natural hauteur and superiority. In these early days poetical arrogance seems to have been as unchecked as military boastfulness, and the trovadores, pampered and fêted by prince and noble, at length grew insufferable in their insolence and rapacity. The land swarmed with singers, real and pretended, the manner of whose lives became a scandal, even in a day when scandal was cheap. The public grew weary of the repetition of the cantares and the harping on a single string. It became fashionable to read romances instead of listening to them, and eventually we see the juglares footing it on the highways of Spain, and declaiming at street-corners in a state of mendicancy more pitiable by far than their old indigent yet dignified conditions.
A “Trovador” of Old Spain
Few of the ancient cantares of Spain have survived, in contradistinction to the hundred or more chansons that France can show. But what remains of them suffices to distinguish their type with sufficient clearness. As has been indicated, we owe our knowledge of more than one of them to the circumstance that they became embedded in the ancient chronicles of Spain. An excellent illustration of this process of literary embalming is provided by the manner in which the cantar of Bernaldo de Carpio has become encrusted in the rather dreary mass of the General Chronicle of Spain which was compiled by King Alfonso the Wise (c. 1260), in which it will be found in the seventh and twelfth chapters of the third part. The poet-king states that he has founded his history of Bernaldo upon “old lays,” and in the spirit as well as the form of his account of the legendary champion we can trace the influence of the cantar.
The Story of Bernaldo de Carpio
Young Bernaldo de Carpio, when he arrived at manhood, was, like many another hero of romance, unaware that he was of illustrious parentage, for his mother was a sister of Don Alfonso of Castile, and had wed in secret the brave and noble Count de Sandias de Saldaña. King Alfonso, bitterly offended that his sister should mate with one who was her inferior in rank, cast the Count into prison, where he caused him to be deprived of sight, and immured the princess in a cloister. Their son Bernaldo, however, he reared with care. While still a youth, Bernaldo rendered his uncle important services, but when he learned that his father languished in prison a great melancholy settled upon him, and he cared no more for the things that had once delighted him. Instead of mingling in the tourney or the dance, he put on deep mourning, and at last presented himself before King Alfonso and beseeched him to set his father at liberty.
Now Alfonso was greatly troubled when he knew that Bernaldo was aware of his lineage and of his father’s imprisonment, but his hatred for the man who had won his sister was greater than his love for his nephew. At first he made no reply, but sat plucking at his beard, so taken aback was he. But kings are not often at a loss, and Alfonso, thinking to brush the matter aside by brusque words, frowned, and said sternly: “Bernaldo, as you love me, speak no more of this matter. I swear to you that never in all the days of my life shall your father leave his prison.”
“Sire,” replied Bernaldo, “you are my