[104] To this number they amount in the old folio edition, printed with gothic characters, which forms one of the literary curiosities of the library of Gottingen. Dieze, in his observations on Velasquez, page 177, gives a particular account of this, as well as of the succeeding editions of the Cancionero general.
[105] With this spiritual composition, the Cancionero general commences. The reader will have enough in the first stanza:—
Enantes, que culpa fuesso cansada,
Tu, Virgen benigna, ya yves delante,
Tan lexos del crimen y del semejante,
Que sola quedaste daquel libertada, &c.
[106] This silly conceit, which consists only of eight lines, commences thus:—
La M madre te muestra,
La A te manda adorar, &c.
[107] The Ave begins thus:—
Ave, preciosa Maria,
Que se deve interpretar
Trasmontana de la mar,
Que los mareantes guia.
[108] In the third strophe he thus addresses king Ferdinand:—
Gran señor, los, que creyeron
Estas consejeros tales,
De sus culmines reales
En lo mas hondo cayeron.
Si esto contradiran
Algunos con ambicion,
Testigos se les daran.
Uno sera Roboan,
Hijo del rey Solomon.
[109] A new edition of Jorge Manrique’s Coplas, with glosses or poetic paraphrases by various authors, appeared at Madrid in 1779.