This was quoted by Sancho Panza, and—as M. Foulché-Delbosc 92 was the first to point out—it has had the distinction of being splendidly adapted by Victor Hugo in the Orientales (xxx.) under the fantastic title of Romance Mauresque:—

In this instance we have to do with a genuine old romance derived—more or less indirectly—from a lost epic on the Infantes of Lara written between 1268 and 1344, or perhaps from a lost recast of this lost epic. And Lockhart might have chosen other ballads of even more energetic inspiration which spring from the same source. Among these are—

in which Rodrigo de Lara vows vengeance for the insult offered to his wife by Gonzalo González, the youngest of the Infantes of Lara; and that genuine masterpiece of barbaric but poignant pathos in which Gonzalo Gustios kisses the severed heads of his seven murdered sons:—

And to these Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo would add a third ballad beginning with the line:—

But, if a foreigner may be allowed an opinion, this falls far short of the others in force and fire.

The next ballad given by Lockhart, entitled The Wedding of the Lady Theresa, is a translation of

first printed by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, who may perhaps have written it. Whatever doubt there may be as to the authorship, there is none as to the date of this composition: it is no earlier than the sixteenth century. There would seem to be some basis of fact for the story that some Christian princess married some prominent Arab chief; but there is a confusion between Almanzor and the Toledan governor Abdallah on the one hand, and a confusion between Alfonso V. of León and his father Bermudo II. on the other hand, not to speak of chronological difficulties and the like. But we need not try to unravel the tangle, for there is no authentic old romance on the Infanta Teresa, though a poem on the subject—

has crept into the collection edited by Wolf and Hofmann, This is not unimpressive as a piece of poetic narrative; yet as it is written—not in assonances, but—in perfect rhyme, it is not a romance at all, according to the definition with which we began.

In his choice of romances on the Cid Lockhart has not been altogether happy. He begins well with a translation of the admirable

This is probably no older than the sixteenth century, yet, apart from its poetic beauty, it has a special interest as deriving from a lost Cantar de Rodrigo which differed from the extant Crónica rimada. But the remaining poems in Lockhart’s group are mostly poor and recent imitations. Ximena demands vengeance is translated from

But this romance appears for the first time in Escobar’s collection published as late as 1612. Then, again. The Cid and the Five Moorish Kings is translated from

And this is first given by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda who also prints the original of the next ballad, The Cid’s Courtship—

Upon this follows a translation of a ballad which, says Lockhart, ‘contains some curious traits of rough and antique manners,’ and ‘is not included in Escobar’s collection.’ The ballad, which Lockhart entitles The Cid’s Wedding, is translated from

But there is nothing antique about it; it was written in Escobar’s own time, and appeared first in the Romancero general. Nor is there anything antique in the original of The Cid and the Leper—

This is first printed by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, who is also the first to give

which Lockhart, whose version begins at the eleventh line, calls Bavieca. These are, of course, no older than the sixteenth century, and this is also the date of

entitled The Excommunication of the Cid in the English version. There is a note of disrespect in the original which need cause no surprise, for our Spanish friends, though incorruptibly orthodox, keep their religion and their politics more apart than one might think, and at this very period Charles V. had shown unmistakably that he knew how to put a Pope in his place as regards temporal matters. But it need scarcely be said that the Spanish contains nothing equivalent to Lockhart’s—

a Protestant interpolation so grotesque as to be wholly out of keeping in any Spanish poem.

You will see, then, that most of the Cid ballads translated by Lockhart are unrepresentative. He might have given us a version of

one of three romances41 which are taken from the same source as the first in his group—

But the deficiency has been made good by Gibson who notes as a proof of the ballad’s modernity—it is no older than the sixteenth century—the inclusion of a passage from the Lara legend—

Of the two hundred and five romances on the Cid printed by Madame Michaëlis de Vasconcellos, probably one hundred and eighty at least may be considered modern, and some we know to have been written by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, Lucas Rodríguez, and Juan de la Cueva. But the rest are doubtless ancient (as romances go), and it is unfortunate that Lockhart gives no specimen of the ballads on the siege of Zamora. For example, the celebrated ballad that begins

a splendid romance the opening of which may be quoted from Gibson’s rendering:—

Then follow their challenge to any two knights in Sancho’s camp (except the King himself and the Cid), its acceptance by the two Counts, the Cid’s mocking intervention, and the encounter:—

And another romance worth giving from the Zamora series is the impressive

Fortunately, Lockhart’s omission has been made good by 98 Gibson, though of course no translation can do more than give a hint of the original:—

These ballads are included in the Romancero del Cid, and they are particularly interesting as being the débris of a lost epic on the siege of Zamora which has apparently been utilised in the Crónica general; but perhaps a translator might excuse himself for not dealing with them on the ground that the Cid only appears incidentally. Indeed in

the Cid does not appear at all. The same excuse might be given for omitting the well-known

of which Gibson, however, gives a fairly adequate rendering, so far as the difference of language allows:—

So, again, the Cid does not appear in the often-quoted romance beginning—

Nor does he figure in the still more celebrated ballad which records Diego Ordóñez’ challenge to the garrison of Zamora after Sancho’s assassination:—

But we may thank Gibson for enabling English readers to form some idea of both. His version of the Ordóñez ballad is by no means unhappy:—

To Gibson’s fine instinct we are also indebted for an English rendering of

a ballad of doubtful date which is superbly ‘glossed’ in Las Almenas de Toro by Lope de Vega, who uses the old romances with astonishing felicity. But the most ancient poem in the whole series of the Cid ballads is a composition, said to be unconnected with any antecedent epic, and possibly dating (in its primitive form) from the fourteenth century:—

This romance has been done into English by Gibson with considerable success, as you may judge by the opening stanzas:—

There is still much to be said concerning the Cid romances which Southey dismissed too cavalierly; but my time is running out, and I must pass on to the next ballads translated by Lockhart. Garci Perez de Vargas is a rendering of

and The Pounder, which was referred to by Don Quixote when he proposed to tear up an oak by the roots and use it as a weapon, is a version of

Neither need detain us; both are modern, and the latter is by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda. Much more curious are the group of ballads on Peter the Cruel. In the Spanish drama Peter is represented as the Rey Justiciero, the autocrat of democratic sympathies, dealing out summary justice to the nobles and the wealthy, who grind the poor man’s face. But this is merely what the sophisticated middle class supposed to be the democratic point of view. The democracy, as we see from the anonymous popular poets, believed Peter to be much worse than he actually was, and the romances record the deliberate calumnies invented by the partisans of Peter’s triumphant bastard 102 brother, Henry of Trastamara. This is noticeable in the translation of

which Lockhart calls The Murder of the Master. It is true that Peter had his brother, Don Fadrique, Master of the Order of Santiago, put to death at Seville in 1358; it is also true that Fadrique was a tricky and dangerous conspirator, who had already been detected and pardoned by his brother more than once. The romance passes over Fadrique’s plots in silence, and this is common enough with political hacks; but it goes on to imply that the crime was suggested to Peter by his mistress. This is almost certainly false, and not a vestige of evidence can be produced in favour of it; but no one is asked to swear to the truth of a song, and the dramatic power of the romance—which is supposed to be recited by the murdered man—is undeniable.

A similar perversion of historical truth is found in The Death of Queen Blanche, which Lockhart translates from

Lockhart, indeed, says: ‘that Pedro was accessory to the violent death of this young and innocent princess whom he had married, and immediately after deserted for ever, there can be no doubt.’ But the matter is by no means so free from doubt as Lockhart would have us believe. It is true that Peter’s conduct to Blanche de Bourbon was inhuman, but the circumstances—and even the place—of her death are uncertain. Assuming that she was murdered, however, it is certain that María de Padilla had no share in this crime. María appears to have been a gentle and compassionate 103 creature, whose only fault was that she loved Peter too well. But justice is not greatly cultivated by political partisans, and the vindictiveness of the romances is poetically effective. Lockhart closes the series with a version (apparently by Walter Scott) of

and with a disappointing translation of a very striking ballad, in which an undercurrent of sympathy for Peter is observable:—

Refrains of any kind are exceptional in the romances, but in this instance a double refrain is artistically used:—

This is indeed a most brilliant performance, worthy, as Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo says, of Góngora himself at his best; but the very brilliance of the versification is enough to prove that the ballad cannot have been written by a poet of the people. Still, though it is neither ancient nor popular, we may be grateful to Lockhart for including it in his volume.

He was less happy in deciding to give us The Lord of Buitrago, a version of a ballad beginning

This is not of any great merit, nor is it in any sense popular 104 or ancient: it appears to be the production of Alfonso Hurtado de Velarde, a Guadalajara dramatist who lived towards the end of the sixteenth century, and much of its vogue is due to the fact that it struck the fancy of Vélez de Guevara who used the first six words as the title of one of his plays. Lockhart was better advised in choosing The King of Aragon, a translation of

This is thought by Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo to be, possibly, the production of some soldier serving at Naples under Alfonso v. of Aragón, and in any case it is of popular inspiration. Lorenzo de Sepúlveda’s text contains an allusion to a page—un pajecico—whom Alfonso is said to have loved better than himself, and the translator was naturally puzzled by it. It is precisely by attention to some such detail that we are often enabled to fix the date of composition; and so it happens in the present instance. A fuller and better text is given by Esteban de Nájera, who reads un tal hermano for the incomprehensible un pajecico. This reading makes the matter clear. The reference is to the death of Alphonso v.’s brother Pedro; this occurred in 1438, and the romance was probably written not long afterwards.

At this point Lockhart enters upon the series of border-ballads called romances fronterizos, and he begins with a translation of

quoted by Ginés Pérez de Hita in the first part of his Guerras civiles de Granada, published in 1595 under the title of Historia de los bandos de los Zegríes y Abencerrajes. 105 Pérez de Hita speaks of it as ancient, and Lockhart is, of course, not to blame for translating the ballad precisely as he found it in the text before him. Any translator would be bound to do the same to-day if he attempted a new rendering of the poem; but he would doubtless think it advisable to state in a note the result of the critical analysis which had scarcely been begun when Lockhart wrote. It now seems fairly certain that Pérez de Hita ran two romances into one, and that the verses from the fourth stanza onwards in Lockhart—

are part of a ballad on Boabdil’s expedition against Lucena in 1483. This martial narrative, describing the gorgeous squadrons of El Rey Chico as they file past the towers of the Alhambra packed with applauding Moorish ladies, reduces to insignificance The Flight from Granada, though the translation is an improvement on Lorenzo de Sepúlveda’s creaking original:—

The next in order is The Death of Don Alonso de Aguilar, a rendering of

This ballad commemorates the death of Alonso de Aguilar, elder brother of ‘the great Captain’ Gonzalo de Córdoba, which took place in action at Sierra Bermeja on May 18, 1501. This date is important. A serious chronological mistake occurs in the opening line of the ballad, which places Aguilar’s death before the surrender of Granada in 1492; and this points to the conclusion that the romance 106 was not written till long after the event, when the exact details had been forgotten. It is of popular inspiration, no doubt, but it is clearly not ancient. Still, in default of any other romances fronterizos, we receive it gratefully. This section of Lockhart’s book is certainly the least adequate.60 The border-ballads which he gives are most of them excellent, but unfortunately he gives us far too few of them. Some of his omissions may be explained. He tells us in almost so many words that he leaves out a later ballad on Aguilar’s death:—

because there was already in existence an ‘exquisite version’ by the Bishop of Dromore62—whom some of you may not instantly identify with Thomas Percy, the editor of the Reliques. Most probably Lockhart omitted a ballad with 107 an effective refrain (perhaps borrowed from some Arabic song)—

because it had been translated, though with no very striking success, by Byron a little while before.63 Nor can Lockhart be blamed for omitting the oldest of the romances fronterizos:—

Hidden in Argote de Molina’s Nobleza de Andalucía,65 this ballad was generally overlooked till 1899 when Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo did us the good service of reprinting it. It still awaits an English translator who, when he takes it in hand, may perhaps have something destructive to say respecting its alleged date (1368). Such a translator might also give us an English version of

which is thought to be the next oldest of these romances fronterizos. Or he might attempt to render

which commemorates the death of Diego de Ribera during the siege of Álora in 1434. A passage in the Laberinto de Fortuna implies that Ribera’s death was the theme of many popular songs in the time of Juan de Mena,68 and possibly the extant romance may be taken to represent them. There is another fine ballad on the historic victory of the Infante Fernando (the first regent during Juan II.’s minority) at Antequera in 1410:—

This also calls for translation, for all that we possess is Gibson’s version of Timoneda’s recast, a copy of verses disfigured by superfine interpolations:—

Nymphs called Narcissa are never met with in popular primitive poetry; but Gibson (from whose version of Timoneda I have just quoted) has happily translated some genuine specimens of the romances fronterizos. Thus he has given us a version of the justly celebrated

in which Juan II. questions the Moor, and declares himself, according to an Arabic poetical convention, the suitor of Granada:—

Gibson has missed an opportunity in not translating one 110 of the popular ballads on the precocious Master of the Order of Calatrava, Rodrigo Girón, who was killed at the siege of Loja in 1482:—

But he makes amends with a version of a sixteenth-century romance72 which he entitles The Lady and the Lions: the story has been versified by Schiller, and has been still more admirably retold by Browning in The Glove. And we have also from Gibson a version of a rather puzzling romance given by Pérez de Hita:—

The fact that full rhymes take the place of assonants is a decisive argument against the antiquity, and also against the popular origin, of this ballad in which, as Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo points out, a rather insignificant Garcilaso de la Vega of the end of the fifteenth century is confused with a namesake and relative who fell at Baza in 1455, and is further represented as the hero of a feat of arms—the slaying of a Moor who insultingly attached the device Ave Maria to his horse’s tail—which was really performed by an ancestor of his about a hundred and fifty years earlier. This later Garcilaso was a favourite of fortune, for, at the end of the sixteenth century, Gabriel Lobo Lasso de la Vega wrote a romance ascribing to him Hernando del Pulgar’s daring exploit—his riding into Granada, fastening with his dagger a placard inscribed Ave Maria to the door of the chief mosque, and thus proclaiming his intention of converting it into a Christian church.

It is needless to discuss Lockhart’s group of so-called ‘Moorish ballads.’74 If any one wishes to translate a romance of this kind, let him try to convey to us the adroitly suggested orientalism of