Some nations, the favourites of Heaven, accomplish it with more promptitude, and pass quickly from the feebleness of first essays to the vigour of thoughts more grand, and combinations more perfect. Such was the case with Greece, where the genius of poetry, scarcely numbering a few moments of infancy, grew and raised itself to the height of producing the immortal poesies of Homer. Such, though with less brilliancy and perfection, was the case with modern Italy, where in the midnight of the barbarous ages that succeeded Roman refinement, appeared on the sudden Dante and Petrarch, bringing with them the dawn of the arts and of good taste. Other nations, less fortunate, wrestle entire centuries with rudeness and ignorance, and become more slowly sensible to the blandishments of elegance and harmony; and perfection, in the degree that men can attain it, is conquered by them solely by force of time and toil. This is found to be the case with the greater number of modern nations, and amongst them, we must of necessity mention Spain.
In Spain, as in almost all countries, written verse was anterior to prose; the Poem of the Cid having appeared, being the first known book in Castilian, as well as the first work of poetry. In the midst of the confusion of languages caused by the invasion of the northern barbarians, the Romance, which was afterwards to be presented with so much splendour and majesty in the writings of Garcilasso, Herrera, Rioja, Cervantes, and Mariana, was assuming a definite form. Considering the work for the argument alone, few would have the advantage over it, at the same time that few warriors might dispute with Rodrigo de Bivar the palm of prowess and heroism. His glory, which eclipsed that of all the kings of his time, has been transmitted from age to age down to the present, by means of the infinite variety of fables which ignorant admiration has accumulated in his history. Consigned to poems, to tragedies, to comedies, to popular songs, his memory, like that of Achilles, has had the fortune to strike forcibly and occupy the fancy; but the Castilian hero, superior without doubt to the Greek in strength and in virtue, has not had the advantage of meeting with a Homer.
It was not possible to meet with one at the period when the rude writer of that poem sat down to compose it. With a language altogether uncouth, harsh in its terminations, vicious in its construction, naked of all culture and harmony; with a versification devoid of any certain measure and marked rhymes, and a style full of vicious pleonasms and ridiculous puerilities, destitute of the graces with which imagination and elegance adorn it; how was it possible to produce a work of genuine poetry, that should sweetly occupy the mind and ear? The writer is not however so wanting in talent, as not to manifest from time to time some poetic design, now in invention, now in sentiment, and now in expression. If, as Don Tomas Sanchez, the editor of this and other poems previous to the fifteenth century, suspects, there be wanting to that of the Cid merely a few verses at the beginning, it is surely a mark of judgment in the author that he disencumbered his work of all the particulars of his hero's life anterior to his banishment by Alfonso the Sixth. There the true glory of Rodrigo begins, and there the poem commences; relating afterwards his wars with the Moors and with the Count of Barcelona, his conquests, the taking of Valencia, his reconciliation with the king, the affront offered to his daughters by the Infantes of Carrion, the solemn reparation and vengeance which the Cid took for it, and his union with the royal houses of Arragon and Navarre, with which the work finishes, slightly indicating the epoch of the hero's death. In the course of his story, the writer is not wanting in vivacity and interest, great use of the dialogue, which is a point most to the purpose in animating the narration, and in occasional pictures that are not without merit in their art and composition. Such, amongst others, is the farewell of Rodrigo and Ximena, in the church of San Pedro de Cardeña, when he departs to fulfil the royal mandate. Ximena, prostrate on the steps of the altar where divine service is celebrated, makes a prayer to the Eternal in behalf of her husband, which concludes thus:
'Oh God, thou art the King of kings, and Sire of all mankind!
Thee I adore, in thee I trust with all my heart and mind;
And to divine San Pedro pray to help me in praying still,
That thou wilt shield my noble Cid the Campeador from ill,
And since we now must part, again to my embrace restore!'
Her orison thus made, high mass is offered, and is o'er;
They leave the church, they mount their barbs—with sad and solemn pace,
The Cid to Donna Ximena went to take a last embrace;
Donna Ximena, she bent down to kiss the hand of the Cid,
Sore weeping with her bright black eyes, she knew not what she did;
He turned, and kissed his little girls with all a father's love,
'Bless you, my girls,' he said, 'I you commend to God above,
To your sweet mother and ghostly sire! When we shall meet again
God only knows, but now we part.' Not one could say Amen.
Thus, weeping in a way that none e'er saw the like, at length
They part like nail from finger torn with agonizing strength.
My Cid with his vassals thought to ride, and took the onward track;
Waiting for all, his plumed head he evermore turned back.
Out then, with gallant unconcern, Don Alvar Fanez spake:
'Come, come, my Cid, what means all this? cheer up for goodness' sake;
In happy hour of woman born! fast wears the morn away;
Since we must go, let us begone, nor dally with delay;
A happier time shall turn to joy the very ills we rue;
God, who has given us souls to feel, shall give us counsel too.'
There is doubtless a great distance between this parting and that of Hector and Andromache in the Iliad, but the picture of a hero's sensibility at the time of separation from his family is always pleasing; beautiful is that turning of his head when at a distance, and fine the idea that those same warriors to whom he gives in battle an example of fortitude and constancy, should then fortify and cheer him. Superior, in my opinion, for art and dramatic effect, is the act of accusation which the Cid makes against his traitor sons-in-law before the Cortes assembled to receive it. The first shock of the Infantes and the champions of Rodrigo in the lists has much animation and even style.
They grasp their shields before their hearts; down, down their lances go;
Bowed are their crested helms until they touch the saddle-bow;
Fiercely they strike their horses' sides with streaming rowels red,
And onward to the encounter run: earth trembles to their tread.
****
Don Martin Antolinez, with the drawing of his sword,
Illumined all the field.——
No record is left for us to ascertain who was the author of this first faint breath of Spanish poetry. Two writers flourished in the following age, in whom we trace the improvement and progress which the versification and language had now made. In the sacred poems of Don Gonzalo de Bercéo, and in the Alexandro of Juan Lorenzo, are discovered more fluency, more connexion, and forms more determinate. The march of these authors, although difficult, is not so trailing and jejune as that of the preceding poet. The difference that subsists between the two later poets is, that Bercéo, if we except his narrative and some of his moral counsels, shows neither copiousness of erudition, variety of knowledge, nor fancy for invention; a deficiency arising from the nature of his subjects, which for the most part turn upon legends of the saints. Juan Lorenzo, on the contrary, is more rapt with his subject, and manifests an information so extensive in history, mythology, and moral philosophy, as to make his work the most important of all that were written in that age. The following verses on the same subject may serve to show the style of both.
"I, hight Gonzalo de Bercéo, going
On pilgrimage, came one day to a mead,
Green, and well-peopled with fair plants, which blowing
Made it a place desirable indeed
To a tired traveller; the sweet-scented flowers
Gave forth a smell that freshened not alone
Men's faces, but their fancies, whilst in showers
Clear flowing fountains to the sky were thrown,
Each singing to itself as on it rolled,
Warm in midwinter, and in summer cold."
Bercéo.
"It was the month of May, a glorious tide,
When merry music make the birds in boughs,
Dressed are the meads with beauty far and wide,
And sighs the ladye that has not a spouse:
Tide sweet for marriages; flowers and fresh winds
Temper the clime; in every village near
Young girls in bevies sing, and with blythe minds
Make each to each good-wishes of the year.
Young maids and old maids, all are out of doors,
Melting with love, to gather flowers at rest
Of noon—they whisper each to each, amours
Are good—and the most tender deem the best."
Lorenzo.
Alfonso the Tenth was then reigning in Castile; a prince, to whom, to render his glory complete, fortune ought to have given better sons, and vassals less ferocious. Posterity has given him the surname of The Wise; and beyond all doubt it was merited by the extraordinary man, who in an age of darkness could unite in himself the paternal and beneficent regards of the legislator, the profound combinations of the mathematician and astronomer, the talent and knowledge of the historian, and the laurels of the poet. He it was who raised his native language to its due honours, when he gave command that the public instruments, which before were engrossed in Latin, should be written in Spanish. Mariana, less favourable to his merits, asserts that this measure was the cause of the profound ignorance that afterwards ensued. But what was known before? The Latin then in use was as barbarous, was yet more barbarous than the Romance. The new uses to which the Romance was applied by that decree, the dignity and authority it acquired, influenced its culture, its polish, and its progress. Can it by any chance be believed that these advantages of the language had no literary influence, or that there can be diffused knowledge and a national literature, whilst the native language remains uncultivated? The assertion of Mariana then must be considered as a result of the somewhat pedantic prejudices of the age in which he lived; but, even leaving out of consideration the political convenience of the law, let us regard it as one of the causes, which having had an influence on the improvement of the language, must necessarily have influenced also the advancement of Spanish poetry.