With Death I must ever strive,
And never from Death find relief.
So that Hope must desert me at last,
Since Death has not failed to see
That life will revive in me
The moment his arrow is cast.[722]
This was thought to be a tender compliment to the lady whose coldness had made her lover desire a death that would not obey his summons.
Thirty-seven Ballads succeed; a charming collection of wild-flowers, which have already been sufficiently examined when speaking of the ballad poetry of the earliest age of Spanish literature.[723]
After the Ballads we come to the “Invenciones,” a form of verse peculiarly characteristic of the period, and of which we have here two hundred and twenty specimens. They belong to the institutions of chivalry, and especially to the arrangements for tourneys and joustings, which were the most gorgeous of the public amusements known in the reigns of John the Second and Henry the Fourth. Each knight, on such occasions, had a device, or drew one for himself by lot; and to this device or crest a poetical explanation was to be affixed by himself, which was called an invencion. Some of these posies are very ingenious; for conceits are here in their place. King John, for instance, drew a prisoner’s cage for his crest, and furnished for its motto,—
Even imprisonment still is confessed,