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.
Heart may beat and eye may glisten,
Faith is strong and Hope is free,
But mortal ear no more may listen
To the song that rules the sea.
When the grey-hair’d sailor chaunted,
Every wind was hushed to sleep—
Like a virgin’s bosom panted
All the wide reposing deep.
Bright in beauty rose the star-fish
From her green cave down below,
Right above the eagle poised him—
Holy music charmed them so.
“For the sake of God, our Maker”
(Count Arnaldos’ cry was strong),
“Old man, let me be partaker
In the secret of thy song.”
“Count Arnaldos! Count Arnaldos!
Hearts I read and thoughts I know—
Wouldst thou learn the ocean secret
In our galley thou must go.”
Longfellow wrote a rather anæmic 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 changing 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.”
When the fleet ships stand inward to the shore
As a white tempest, ’tis then I implore
The gods not treasure of red spice to spill
Upon the marble quays beneath the hill,
Nor scintillant dust from far Arabian streams,
Nor weaves more brilliant than the hue of dreams,
Nor feathers, pearls, or such things as belong
To Eastern waters, but a wondrous song
To send perchance upon a seaman’s lips
That once I heard when the departing ships
Swept from the arms of sea-bound Syracuse.
I know my evening vigil is in vain,
That never shall I hear that song again.
Some splendid sea-spell in the sailor’s soul,
Swelling his heart, and bursting all control,
Some white sea-spirit chanting from his mouth
Sang the strange colours of a distant south.
Music deep-drowned within the siren sea
Art thou beyond the call of ecstasy?
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:
Ye galleys fairly built,
Like castles on the sea,
Oh, great will be your guilt
If ye bring him not to me!
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:
Since for kissing thee, Minguillo,
My mother scolds me all the day,
Let me have it quickly, darling;
Give me back my kiss, I pray.
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.
All the stars are glowing
In the gorgeous sky,
In the stream scarce flowing
Mimic lustres lie:
Blow, gentle, gentle breeze,
But bring no cloud to hide
Their dear resplendencies;
Nor chase from Zara’s side
Dreams bright and pure as these.
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:
Woe dwells with me in spite of thee, thou gladsome month of May;
I cannot see what stars there be, I know not night from day.
There was a bird whose voice I heard, oh, sweet my small bird sung,
I heard its tune when night was gone, and up the morning sprung.
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.
It was a Spanish knight, who had long been in Algiers,
From ladies high descended and noble cavaliers,
But forced for a season a false Moor’s slave to be,
Upon the shore his gardener, and his galley-slave at sea.
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:
Fount of freshness, fount of freshness,
Fount of freshness and of love,
Where the little birds of spring-time
Seek for comfort as they rove;
All except the widow’d turtle,
Widow’d, sorrowing turtle-dove.
There the nightingale, the traitor,
Lingered on his giddy way;
And these words of hidden treachery
To the dove I heard him say:
“I will be thy servant, lady,
I will ne’er thy love betray.”
But no English translation, however fine, can possibly do justice to this beautiful lyric:
Fonte frida, fonte frida,
Fonte frida, y con amor,
Do todas las avezicas
Van tomar consolacion,
Sino es la tortolica
Que esta viuda y con dolor,
Por ay fue a passar
El traydor del ruyseñor
Las palabras que el dezia
Llenas son de traicion:
“Si tu quisiesses, Señora,
Yo seria tu servidor.”
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 la 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 bestowed her hand upon another, makes the rocks and hills re-echo with his plaints. He pronounces a terrible and bitter curse upon the proud and wanton maiden who has spurned him. Maddened, he seeks the palace of the Alcalde to whom his faithless fair one is to be espoused that night. The building is bright with torches and gay with song.
And the crowds make way before him
While he pays his courtesies.
Ha! his bloody lance has traversed
The Alcalde’s fluttering breast,
And his life-blood now is flowing,
Flowing through his purple vest.
O what horror! What confusion,
Desolation and dismay!
While the stern, unnoticed murderer,
To Medina takes his way.
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 a 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 of romance, of drama, and of song!