During the period, however, of which we have been speaking, and which embraces the century before the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catalan modification of Provençal poetry had its chief success, and produced all the authors that deserve notice. At its opening, Zurita, the faithful annalist of Aragon, speaking of the reign of John the First, says, that, “in place of arms and warlike exercises, which had formerly been the pastime of princes, now succeeded trobas and poetry in the mother tongue, with its art, called the ‘Gaya Sciencia,’ whereof schools began to be instituted”;—schools which, as he intimates, were so thronged, that the dignity of the art they taught was impaired by the very numbers devoted to it.[538] Who these poets were the grave historian does not stop to inform us, but we learn something of them from another and better source; for, according to the fashion of the time, a collection of poetry was made a little after the middle of the fifteenth century, which includes the whole period, and contains the names, and more or less of the works, of those who were then best known and most considered. It begins with a grant of assistance to the Consistory of Barcelona, by Ferdinand the Just, in 1413; and then, going back as far as to the time of Jacme March, who, as we have seen, flourished in 1371, presents a series of more than three hundred poems, by about thirty authors, down to the time of Ausias March, who certainly lived in 1460, and whose works are, as they well deserve to be, prominent in the collection.
Among the poets here brought together are Luis de Vilarasa, who lived in 1416;[539] Berenguer de Masdovelles, who seems to have flourished soon after 1453;[540] Jordi, about whom there has been much discussion, but whom reasonable critics must place as late as 1450-1460;[541] and Antonio Vallmanya, some of whose poems are dated in 1457 and 1458.[542] Besides these, Juan Rocaberti, Fogaçot, and Guerau, with others apparently of the same period, are contributors to the collection, so that its whole air is that of the Catalan and Valencian imitations of the Provençal Troubadours in the fifteenth century.[543] If, therefore, to this curious Cancionero we add the translation of the “Divina Commedia” made into Catalan by Andres Febrer in 1428,[544] and the romance of “Tirante the White,” translated into Valencian by its author, Joannot Martorell,—which Cervantes calls “a treasure of contentment and a mine of pleasure,”[545]—we shall have all that is needful of the peculiar literature of the northeastern part of Spain during the greater part of the century in which it flourished. Two authors, however, who most illustrated it, deserve more particular notice.
The first of them is Ausias or Augustin March. His family, originally Catalan, went to Valencia at the time of the conquest, in 1238, and was distinguished, in successive generations, for the love of letters. He himself was of noble rank, possessed the seigniory of the town of Beniarjó and its neighbouring villages, and served in the Cortes of Valencia in 1446. But, beyond these few facts, we know little of his life, except that he was an intimate personal friend of the accomplished and unhappy Prince Carlos of Viana, and that he died, probably, in 1460,—certainly before 1462,—well deserving the record made by his contemporary, the Grand Constable of Castile, that “he was a great Troubadour and a man of a very lofty spirit.”[546]
So much of his poetry as has been preserved is dedicated to the honor of a lady, whom he loved and served in life and in death, and whom, if we are literally to believe his account, he first saw on a Good Friday in church, exactly as Petrarch first saw Laura. But this is probably only an imitation of the great Italian master, whose fame then overshadowed whatever there was of literature in the world. At any rate, the poems of March leave no doubt that he was a follower of Petrarch. They are in form what he calls cants; each of which generally consists of from five to ten stanzas. The whole collection, amounting to one hundred and sixteen of these short poems, is divided into four parts, and comprises ninety-three cants or canzones of Love, in which he complains much of the falsehood of his mistress, fourteen moral and didactic canzones, a single spiritual one, and eight on Death. But though March, in the framework of his poetry, is an imitator of Petrarch, his manner is his own. It is grave, simple, and direct, with few conceits, and much real feeling; besides which, he has a truth and freshness in his expressions, resulting partly from the dialect he uses, and partly from the tenderness of his own nature, which are very attractive. No doubt, he is the most successful of all the Valencian and Catalan poets whose works have come down to us; but what distinguishes him from all of them, and indeed from the Provençal school generally, is the sensibility and moral feeling that pervade so much of what he wrote. By these qualities his reputation and honors have been preserved in his own country down to the present time. His works passed through four editions in the sixteenth century, and enjoyed the honor of being read to Philip the Second, when a youth, by his tutor; they were translated into Latin and Italian, and in the proud Castilian were versified by a poet of no less consequence than Montemayor.[547]
The other poet who should be mentioned in the same relations was a contemporary of March, and, like him, a native of Valencia. His name is Jaume or James Roig, and he was physician to Mary, queen of Alfonso the Fifth of Aragon. If his own authority is not to be accounted rather poetical than historical, he was a man of much distinction in his time, and respected in other countries as well as at home. But if that be set aside, we know little of him, except that he was one of the persons who contended for a poetical prize at Valencia in 1474, and that he died there of apoplexy on the 4th of April, 1478.[548] His works are not much better known than his life, though, in some respects, they are well worthy of notice. Hardly any thing, indeed, remains to us of them, except the principal one, a poem of three hundred pages, sometimes called the “Book of Advice,” and sometimes the “Book of the Ladies.”[549] It is chiefly a satire on women, but the conclusion is devoted to the praise and glory of the Madonna, and the whole is interspersed with sketches of himself and his times, and advice to his nephew, Balthazar Bou, for whose especial benefit the poem seems to have been written.
It is divided into four books, which are subdivided into parts, little connected with each other, and often little in harmony with the general subject of the whole. Some of it is full of learning and learned names, and some of it would seem to be devout, but its prevailing air is certainly not at all religious. It is written in short rhymed verses, consisting of from two to five syllables,—an irregular measure, which has been called cudolada, and one which, as here used, has been much praised for its sweetness by those who are familiar enough with the principles of its structure to make the necessary elisions and abbreviations; though to others it can hardly appear better than whimsical and spirited.[550] The following sketch of himself may be taken as a specimen of it; and shows that he had as little of the spirit of a poet as Skelton, with whom, in many respects, he may be compared. Roig represents himself to have been ill of a fever, when a boy, and to have hastened from his sick bed into the service of a Catalan freebooting gentleman, like Roque Guinart or Rocha Guinarda, an historical personage of the same Catalonia, and of nearly the same period, who figures in the Second Part of Don Quixote.
Bed I abjured,
Though hardly cured,
And then went straight
To seek my fate.