We must not, however, go beyond the limits of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, without noticing two remarkable attempts to enlarge, or at least to change, the forms of romantic fiction, as they had been thus far settled in the books of chivalry.
The first of these attempts was made by Diego de San Pedro, a senator of Valladolid, whose poetry is found in all the Cancioneros Generales.[701] He was evidently known at the court of the Catholic sovereigns, and seems to have been favored there; but, if we may judge from his principal poem, entitled “Contempt of Fortune,” his old age was unhappy, and filled with regrets at the follies of his youth.[702] Among these follies, however, he reckons the work of prose fiction which now constitutes his only real claim to be remembered. It is called the Prison of Love, “Carcel de Amor,” and was written at the request of Diego Hernandez, a governor of the pages in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella.
It opens with an allegory. The author supposes himself to walk out on a winter’s morning, and to find in a wood a fierce, savage-looking person, who drags along an unhappy prisoner bound by a chain. This savage is Desire, and his victim is Leriano, the hero of the fiction. San Pedro, from natural sympathy, follows them to the castle or prison of Love, where, after groping through sundry mystical passages and troubles, he sees the victim fastened to a fiery seat and enduring the most cruel torments. Leriano tells him that they are in the kingdom of Macedonia, that he is enamoured of Laureola, daughter of its king, and that for his love he is thus cruelly imprisoned; all which he illustrates and explains allegorically, and begs the author to carry a message to the lady Laureola. The request is kindly granted, and a correspondence takes place, immediately upon which Leriano is released from his prison, and the allegorical part of the work is brought to an end.
From this time the story is much like an episode in one of the tales of chivalry. A rival discovers the attachment between Leriano and Laureola, and making it appear to the king, her father, as a criminal one, the lady is cast into prison. Leriano challenges her accuser and defeats him in the lists; but the accusation is renewed, and, being fully sustained by false witnesses, Laureola is condemned to death. Leriano rescues her with an armed force and delivers her to the protection of her uncle, that there may exist no further pretext for malicious interference. The king, exasperated anew, besieges Leriano in his city of Susa. In the course of the siege, Leriano captures one of the false witnesses, and compels him to confess his guilt. The king, on learning this, joyfully receives his daughter again, and shows all favor to her faithful lover. But Laureola, for her own honor’s sake, now refuses to hold further intercourse with him; in consequence of which he takes to his bed and with sorrow and fasting dies. Here the original work ends; but there is a poor continuation of it by Nicolas Nuñez, which gives an account of the grief of Laureola and the return of the author to Spain.[703]
The style, so far as Diego de San Pedro is concerned, is good for the age; very pithy, and full of rich aphorisms and antitheses. But there is no skill in the construction of the fable; and the whole work only shows how little romantic fiction was advanced in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella. The Carcel de Amor was, however, very successful. The first edition appeared in 1492; two others followed in less than eight years; and before a century was completed, it is easy to reckon ten, beside many translations.[704]
Among the consequences of the popularity enjoyed by the Carcel de Amor was probably the appearance of the “Question de Amor,” an anonymous tale, which is dated at the end, 17 April, 1512. It is a discussion of the question, so often agitated from the age of the Courts of Love to the days of Garcilasso de la Vega, who suffers most, the lover whose mistress has been taken from him by death, or the lover who serves a living mistress without hope. The controversy is here carried on between Vasquiran, whose lady-love is dead, and Flamiano, who is rejected and in despair. The scene is laid at Naples and in other parts of Italy, beginning in 1508, and ending with the battle of Ravenna and its disastrous consequences, four years later. It is full of the spirit of the times. Chivalrous games and shows at the court of Naples, a hunting scene, jousts and tournaments, and a tilting-match with reeds, are all minutely described, with the dresses and armour, the devices and mottoes, of the principal personages who took part in them. Poetry, too, is freely scattered through it,—villancicos, motes, and invenciones, such as are found in the Cancioneros; and, on one occasion, an entire eclogue is set forth, as it was recited or played before the court, and, on another, a poetical vision, in which the lover who had lost his lady sees her again as if in life. The greater part of the work claims to be true, and some portions of it are known to be so; but the metaphysical discussion between the two sufferers, sometimes angrily borne in letters, and sometimes tenderly carried on in dialogue, constitutes the chain on which the whole is hung, and was originally, no doubt, regarded as its chief merit. The story ends with the death of Flamiano from wounds received in the battle of Ravenna; but the question discussed is as little decided as it is at the beginning.
The style is that of its age; sometimes picturesque, but generally dull; and the interest of the whole is small, in consequence both of the inherent insipidity of such a fine-spun discussion, and of the too minute details given of the festivals and fights with which it is crowded. It is, therefore, chiefly interesting as a very early attempt to write historical romance; just as the “Carcel de Amor,” which called it forth, is an attempt to write sentimental romance.[705]
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Cancioneros of Baena, Estuñiga, and Martinez de Burgos. — The Cancionero General of Castillo. — Its Editions. — Its Divisions, Contents, and Character.