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CHAPTER X: THE ROMANCEROS OR BALLADS (CONTINUED)

There was crying in Granada as the sun was going clown,
Some calling on the Trinity, some calling on Mahoun
Here passed away the Koran, there in the Cross was borne,
And here was heard the Christian bell, and there the Moorish horn.

IN this vivid verse, the first two lines of which seem to me especially successful, Lockhart, with a stroke or two of his pen, provides us with a moving sketch of the confusion and turmoil attending the Moorish flight from Granada, the last stronghold of the Moons in Spain, which fell to the victorious arms of Ferdinand and Isabella on the 6th of January, 1492, the year of the discovery of America. The remainder of the ballad is no better than Lorenzo de Sepúlveda's rather unmusical original. It is pity that a ballad beginning with such a spirited couplet should be lost in the shallows and the miseries of such stuff as

Here the spirit of the metre has deserted the body of the verse, which is now merely galvanized into life by an artificial current of pedantry. The striking inequalities in the work of Lockhart are surely eloquent of the tragedy of the half-talent.

Don Alonso de Aguilar

Upon the fall of Granada the Catholic zeal of Ferdinand and Isabella insisted upon the conversion of the Moors of that province. Most of the defeated pagans concurred, outwardly at least, with the royal decree, but in the Sierra of Alpuxarra there remained a leaven of the infidel blood who refused baptism at the hands of the priests who were sent to seal them of the faith. A royal order at length went forth to carry out the ceremony by force of arms. For a season the Moors resisted with the stubborn courage of their race, but at length they were subdued and almost extirpated. But their ruin was not accomplished without severe losses on the side of their would-be proselytizers, one of the most notable of whom was Don Alonzo de Aguilar, brother of that Gonzalvo Hernandez de Cordova of Aguilar who gained widespread renown as 'the Great Captain.' But the ballad does not seem to square with the facts of history. Indeed it places Aguilar's death before the surrender of Granada, whereas in reality it took place as late as 1501. Mr. Fitzmaurice Kelly thinks that "this points to the conclusion that the romance was not written till long after the event, when the exact details had been forgotten." But why blame an entire people for what may have been a lapsus memoriæ on the part of a single balladeer? On the other hand, Mr. Kelly might justly ask one to indicate any ballad springing from folk-sources the details of which square with the circumstances as known to history or ascertained by research.

Lockhart, as usual upon first mounting his destrier, dashes the spurs in its sides with a flourish:

So far good. Now for the conclusion:

It will not serve to point out that this is just what one might expect in a ballad, for it bears not the shadow of resemblance to the original.

I am sometimes tempted to think that the weary giant at Abbotsford wrote all Lockhart's first verses, as one heads a copy-book for a child!

Lockhart omits from his collection the very fine ballad beginning:

which was rather inaccurately rendered by Bishop Percy as follows

Perhaps a more accurate though less finished rendering of these opening verses might be:

I have translated these two verses chiefly for the purpose of showing how very freely those English authors who have attempted to render verse from the Castilian have dealt with the originals. And, as I have said before, I suspect that the principal reason for this looseness is a lack of idiomatic grasp. Indeed, it is obvious from most English translations that the sense of the original has been gathered rather than fully apprehended.

We can pass over "The Departure of King Sebastian," with its daring rhythm of

recalling in some measure the irregular lilt of the old Scots ballads, and enter the division entitled by Lockhart "Moorish Ballads."

Moorish Ballads

We have already discussed the question of the 'Moorishness'(or otherwise) of these ballads. Let us now discuss them as ballads and as nothing more. The first, "The Bull-fight of Ganzul," is not only a famous piece, but in translating it Lockhart has risen to the occasion. It describes the dexterity of Ganzul, a noble Moor, in the bull-ring, and is certainly not without its quota of Moresque colour.

He defeats the bulls sent against him with the exception of one Harpado, a furious yet sagacious beast. The quatrain which describes him is well forged:

But it is not surpassingly like the original:

But proud as is Harpado, he must give way to the knightly Moor, regarding whom many other tales are told, especially with reference to his love affairs with a fair lady of his own race.

The Zegris' Bride

"The Zegris' Bride" tells in ballad form of the lierce feud between the two Moorish parties in Granada, the Zegris and the Abencerrages, the Montagues and Capulets of the last of the Moorish strongholds, when factious strife certainly accelerated the fall of their city. The ballad is well turned, and attractive in rhythm:

Such a phrase as "the place of his dominion" is not suited to ballad composition, nor is the four-line rhyming grateful to the ear, although the measure is all that could be desired. Once more I think I see the hand of Scott in this translation, his 'equestrian ' rhythm, his fondness for introducing words intended to assist local colour, as

which he must, perforce, explain in a note as 'scimitar.' The young Zegri, we are told, is attired for action, not for the cavalcade or procession. Indeed, his armour and even his horse are camouflaged to assist his passage through an enemy 5 country without observation.

And again:

Lisaro wears on his bonnet a sprig of bay given him by Zayda, his lady.

But he lives to win his bride, as we are told in the curt final verse:

The Bridal of Andella

"The Bridal of Andella" is brilliant with Oneutal colouring:

Skilful weaving this. The lady would not look, however, because Andella, who was about to wed another, had been false to her. Ballad literature is scarcely a record of human constancy. In Ballad-land the percentage of faithless swains, black or white, clown or knight, is a high one. Was the law regarding breach of promise first formulated by a student of ballad lore, I wonder? Whatever else it may have effected, it seems to have put an end to ballad-writing, perhaps because it ended the conditions and circumstances which went to the making of balladeering.

Zara's Earrings

The intriguing ballad of "Zara's Earrings" bears upon it the stamp of natural folk-song. It may come from a Moorish original, but appearances are often deceptive. In any case it is worth quoting in part.

The lady resolves in the end to do the best thing she can-that is, to tell the truth. There is a sequence of romances about this Mu~a, who seems to have been a Saracen of worth, and the same must be remarked about Celin or Selim, his successor in the collections of Lockhart and Depping. Had Lockhart been well advised, he would have substituted the ringing and patriotic " Las soberbias torres mira," which is certainly difficult of translation, for the very s6mbre "Lamentation for the Death of Celin," fine though it is. Anything in the nature of a ceremony or a procession seems to have attracted him like a child. But let us have a verse of the first poem. Even should we not know Spanish its music could not fail to haunt and hold us or coaxed into the acceptance of the faith of Mohammed and Termagaunt. Working himself up into one of those passions which seem to be the especial privilege of Oriental potentates, Marlotes commanded that Guarinos should be incarcerated in the lowest dungeon in his castle keep.

It was the Moorish custom to hale captives to the light of day three times in every year for the popular edification and amusement. On one of these occasions, the Feast of St John, the King raised a high target beneath which the Moorish knights rode in an attempt to pierce it with their spears. But so lofty was it that none of them might succeed in the task, and the King, annoyed at their want of skill, refused to permit the banquet to commence until the target was transfixed. Guarinos boasted that he could accomplish the feat. The royal permission was accorded him to try, and his grey charger and the armour he had not worn for seven long years were brought to him.

Guarinos whispered in the old horse's ear, and it recalled the voice of its master.

There would seem to be some connexion between this ballad and the French romance of "Ogier the Dane," and Erman tells us that it was sung in Russian in Siberia as late as 1828.

"The Lady of the Tree" tells how a princess was stolen by the fairies, and how a knight to whom she appealed for rescue turned a deaf ear to her request and was afterward scorned by her when she returned to her rightful station. "The False Queen" is a mere fragment, but "The Avenging Childe" is both complete and vivid. Mr. Fitzmaurice Kelly declares that Gibson's version of this ballad is superior to that of Lockhart. Let us compare a verse of both.

Gibson renders this:

My preference is for Lockhart's rendering. Gibson's first line is extraordinarily clumsy and cacophonous, and the ugly inversions in the second line could scarcely be tolerated outside the boundaries of the nursery. The remaining lines are well enough, but no improvement, I think, upon those of Lockhart, only the whole has a better swing, a livelier lilt, even if in the first line this is roughened by the crudity occasioned by the juxtaposition of so many sibilants and explosives. The Avenging Childe duly accounts for his enemy.

Pity it is that a sense of humour seldom chimes with a sense of the romantic. An 'avenging childe' who could smile gladly when fixing the head of a foe on his spear seems more fitted for a Borstal institution than for the silken atmosphere of Courts. Yet he married the Infanta, and was knighted and honoured by the King. Possibly they found in him a kindred soul, if all we read in romance regarding kings and infantas be true.

Count Arnaldos

This very beautiful ballad, which is given in the Cancionero of Antwerp (1555), tells how Count Arnaldos, wandering by the seashore one morning, hears the mystic song of a sailor in a passing galley.

Longfellow wrote a rather an~mie ballad, "The Seaside and the Fireside," on the Arnaldos episode, incorporating several of the lines. Some years ago I published an adaptation of it, altering the environment and chang mg the metre, and this the reader may perhaps be complacent enough to accept as an illustration of the manner in which "this sort of thing is done."

The "Song for the Morning of the Day of St John the Baptist" has little to do with ballad, so we may pass it by, as we may do the "Julian" fragment, one of the Gayferos group. "The Song of the Galley," which Mr. Kelly regards as " too dulcet," seems to me poorly rendered:

This seems to me facility run mad, and great would be my guilt did I quote more. To the very fine "Wandering Knight's Song" I have already made allusion. "Minguillo" enshrines a motif of almost world-wide usage:

A conceit current from Caithness to Capo d'Istria. "Serenade," from the Romancero General of 1604, is certainly not peasant work. For his translation of this Lockhart deserves high praise. Its music is reminiscent of Shelley's "Skylark," though of course it lacks the almost intolerable keenness of that song most magical.

It is inspired by a chaste and natural music all its own, beyond the conscious artistry of the material man. To do Lockhart justice, he loved the art of letters for itself alone. His was that natural modesty which is content to sing in the shadow; nor can one recall the memory of that fine and upright spirit, his labour and his sacrifice, without praise and gratitude gladly bestowed. In this poem I seem to see the real Lockhart-a man with the heart of a child.

Minguela's Chiding" tells of the woe of a rustic maid who loved to her destruction. "The Captive Knight and the Blackbird" is the prison plaint of a warrior who knows not how the seasons pass, or the moons wax and wane:

Some cruel hand had slain the blackbird which was wont to delight the poor prisoner's heart. But the King heard his plaint while passing beneath his dungeon window, and set him free.

We may pass over the rather sepulchral "Valladolid," which tells of the visit of a knight to the tomb of his lady-love in that city. "The Ill-Married Lady" recounts the grief of a dame whose husband is faithless to her, and who consoles herself with another cavalier. They are surprised by her lord, and she artlessly asks:

"Must I, must I die to-day?" and requests to be buried in the orange garden. The romance does not tell us if her last wishes were complied with, or even if her life was forfeited, but to a Spanish public of the seventeenth century it was probably a supererogation even to allude to such a sequel.

Dragut" tells the story of a famous corsair whose ship was sunk by a vessel belonging to the Knights of Malta. Dragut saved himself by swimming ashore, but the Christian captives with whom his barque was laden were all drowned save one, to whom the Maltese threw a rope.

We have already recounted the tale of the Count Alarcos, and with it Lockhart's collection comes to an end.

But it is not in the pages of Lockhart alone that we should look for good translations of the Spanish romanceros. John Bowring in his Ancient Poetry and Romances of Spain (1824) has undoubtedly done much to render some of the lesser lyrics of Castilian balladeers into successful English verse. His translation of the celebrated "Fonte Frida" is, perhaps, the best version of that much-discussed poem to be met with in our language. It is clear that Ticknor's rendition of this piece is practically a paraphrase of Bowring's translation, of which I give the first two verses

But no English translation, however fine, can possibly do justice to this beautiful lyric:

Ticknor speaks truly when he says of the Spanish ballads: "To feel their true value and power we must read large numbers of them, and read them, too, in their native language; for there is a winning freshness in the originals, as they lie embedded in the old romanceros, that escapes in translations, however free, or however strict."

The romancero entitled "Sale Ia estrella de Venus" recounts a tragic story. A Moorish warrior, flying from the city of Sidonia because of the cruelty of his lady, who had taunted him with poverty and had bestow' her hand upon another, makes the rocks and hi] re-echo with his plaints. He pronounces a terrible at bitter curse upon the proud and wanton maiden wi has spurned him. Maddened, he seeks the palace the Alcalde to whom his faithless fair one is to espoused that night. The building is bright wi torches and gay with song.

We have examined every type of Spanish ballad poetry. The general note struck, we will observe, is a grave and romantic one, the fruit of the thoughts of a proud and imaginative people. Nor can we fail to notice the national note which rings through these poems, the racial individuality which informs them. "Poor Spain! How often do we hear the expression employed by men of Anglo-Saxon race! Let these undeceive themselves. What can material poverty signify to people dowered with such treasures of the imagination; Poor Spain! Nay, opulent Spain; treasure-house of the minted coin of story, of the priceless jewels O romance, of drama, and of song!

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Next: XI. Moorish Romances of Spain