THE BALLAD-MAKER AND THE BOOT-MAKER.
There was a minstrel who went travelling about the country from time to time singing sweet songs which people loved to hear. His music was not like the music of the Spanish people, for he came from the kingdom of Provence, and every one thronged to hear the strange sweet melody. And when he had passed on, and there was no one left to sing as he sang, people tried to remember his words and his tones, and to sing like him.
At one of the towns where he passed there was a boot-maker, who, as he sat all day alone at his last, diverted himself with singing; and as he had sung a good deal, he thought he could sing very well. He was much delighted with the minstrel’s songs, caught up a good many of them, and never tired of singing them—after his fashion. But from being quite ignorant both of music and of the Provençal language, he made, as we should say, a great mess of it. Yet, as the people knew no more about it than himself, they were very well pleased to listen to him.
So, a long time after, when the Provençal minstrel came back that way, they would not admit him, but cried out, “We have one of our own people who sings your songs for us as well as you, and we need no Frenchman here.”
Now the minstrel was one greatly devoted to his art, he did not merely sing for sordid gain; so instead of being angry because he was supplanted, he was really pleased to hear that the people in that far-off town had learnt the language and melody of his dear Provence; and he said he would hear the boot-maker himself.
Imagine how great was his annoyance and mortification, when he heard the beautiful ballads lamed and spoilt by the rude, unlearned attempts of the boot-maker!
“Is it possible,” he said, “that this man has been deluding all the people into the idea that what he sings is like my songs? And how can I prevent his going on keeping them under this error?” Then he bethought him what to do. He went by night to the boot-maker’s workshop, and putting all the wrong pieces of leather together, he sewed them up into all sorts of foolish, useless shapes.
When daylight returned, and the boot-maker came to his work, he was in a great fury at what was done, and began shouting to the neighbours to come and avenge him, for the Frenchman had spoilt all his work. Then they all came running helter-skelter to exercise summary justice on the minstrel.
But the minstrel stood up and confronted them, and said, “Good people! first hear me. This man is a maker of boots and I am a maker of ballads. True I have spoilt his boots, I do not deny it; but he first spoilt my ballads: what I have done is but fair. If you will hear us sing one after the other, you will yourselves give judgment in my favour.” So the people told the boot-maker to stand up and sing, which he did in his clumsy droning way, with plenty of false notes and mispronunciations. After him the minstrel stood up and warbled his song in tones so soft and sweet, that the people wondered how they ever could have listened to the other, and with one voice they cried out, “The minstrel is right! The minstrel is right!”
Then the minstrel, who bore no malice, and had only acted out of love for his art, repaid the boot-maker amply for all the damage to his leather, but took a promise of him that he would never sing his songs again.
EL CLAVEL[1].
The carnation is the flower of predilection of the Andalusian peasant. His cottage does not seem like home without its scent; nor is the maiden’s toilet complete without one of its glorious blossoms placed behind her ear, in the ebon setting of her massive hair-braids: it is the token of gladness in their festivals; of love, where coyly offered with a trembling hand. The people sing of its perfections and its meaning in a thousand little ditties.
Among all the trees of the wood
The laurel bears questionless sway.
What maid can compete with my Anna?
What flower, with carnations, I pray[2]?
They always speak of it, thus, as only next in order to female beauty, and the amorous swain is continually raising the comparison.
To January’s biting frost
No carnation trusts its charms,
The tints that Heav’n thy cheeks has given,
Are dyed ingrain and fear no harms[3],
he sings; or perhaps,—
My carnation was raising a plaint,
I ask’d it to tell me its grief,
And it said that thy lips were so fair,
Of their charms it would e’en be the thief[4].
The one his fair has given him he declares binds him to her for ever.
The carnation which thou gav’st me,
On holy Thursday last,
Was no flower, but a fetter
To bind me to thee fast[5].
The one she nurtures he watches as a token of all that is dearest and most beautiful in her.
My maid has a fav’rite carnation
Which she watches both early and late;
I give it a kiss on its petals,
Whenever I pass by her gate[6].
And she in her turn guards her charge with a jealous eye.
A ruddy carnation have I,
But I keep it secure from the cold,
And I shade off the gaze of the sun,
Lest it tarnish, if he were too bold[7].
Such a carnation was once thus tended by a poor village girl: it had grown up and blossomed and put forth its deep, rich hues under her care, though she was so poor that she had nothing to grow it in but a broken olla[8]. Nevertheless when she thought of the happy day when it should become a love-token to one worthy of her, she took such care of it, covering it up when the sun was too hot, watering it with water from the purest spring, sheltering it from the wind, bringing it into her room to guard through the night, lest any evil should befall it, that never carnation flourished so gloriously; it was her only flower, the object of her whole care.
One day there came into the garden a maja[9] in her gala costume. According to the pretty Andalusian custom, she carried a bunch of bright, sparkling flowers twisted into her raven hair behind her left ear.
“Ah!” cried the handsome carnation from the depths of its broken olla, “why should it not be my lot to adorn the head of this lovely creature, instead of being abandoned to the care of a penniless peasant?”
The maja smiled, and passed round the garden two or three times, to see if the carnation persisted in his idea. Every time her black veil caught, as she passed, in the sharp edge of the broken pipkin, the carnation wafted a soft sigh,—
“Ah, why was I not born to adorn that shining hair?”
The maja deferred no longer to fulfil his wish: throwing the bunch of showy flowers on to the ground, she plucked the carnation and plaited it into her hair.
Right proud was the carnation to find himself thus grandly enthroned; far too proud to have a thought of compassion for the other flowers cast away for his sake; too triumphant even to smart under the puncture of the hair-pin which fixed him on the maja’s head. Many a scornful glance he cast at the broken olla which had been his nursery, and the cot of the lowly child who had nurtured him.
Thus he was borne about, displaying his beautiful hues in the sun, and charming every one with his perfume all day. Then night came: the maja stood at her reja[10], looking out for her serenader. He came at last, and brought in his hand a beautiful white rose; the maja stretched out her hand to receive it with delight; with loud and joyous thanks she placed it on her head, flinging the hapless carnation from her without a thought.
Instead of blooming on his lordly stalk as at the first, the pride and pet of the peasant maid, he was soon trampled to atoms by a drove of pigs, passing on their way to market!
Entre los árboles todos
se señorea el laurel
entre las mujeres, Ana
entre los flores, el clavel.
En énero no hay claveles
porque los marchita el hielo
en tu cara los hay siempre
porque lo permite el cielo.
El encarnado clavel
viene publicando agravios
porque no le han hecho á el
hermoso como tus labios.
El clavel que tu mi diste
el día de la Ascension
no fué clavel, sino clavo
que clavó mi corazon.
En una teja de su casa
crió mi niño un clavel
y quando á su vera pasa
le da un besito en la sien.
Tengo un clavel encarnado
á la sombra y bajo llave
para que el sol no lo vea
y con mirarlo lo aje.
[9] A name employed in Andalusia to designate a person who wears the national costume with great ostentation of correctness, and is altogether what we should term showy. [↑]