De esta santa Virgen romanzar su dictado.
[29] Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. II. p. iv.; Tom. III. pp. xliv.-lvi. As Berceo was ordained Deacon in 1221, he must have been born as early as 1198, since deacon’s orders were not taken before the age of twenty-three. See some curious remarks on the subject of Berceo in the “Examen Crítico del Tomo Primero de el Anti-Quixote,” (Madrid, 1806, 12mo, pp. 22 et seq.,) an anonymous pamphlet, written, I believe, by Pellicer, the editor of Don Quixote.
[30] The second volume of Sanchez’s Poesías Anteriores.
[31] The metrical form adopted by Berceo, which he himself calls the quaderna via, and which is in fact that of the poem of Apollonius, should be particularly noticed, because it continued to be a favorite one in Spain for above two centuries. The following stanzas, which are among the best in Berceo, may serve as a favorable specimen of its character. They are from the “Signs of the Judgment,” Sanchez, Tom. II. p. 274.
Esti sera el uno · de los signos dubdados:
Subira a los nubes · el mar muchos estados,
Mas alto que las sierras · è mas que los collados,
Tanto que en sequero · fincaran los pescados.
Las aves esso mesmo · menudas è granadas
Andaran dando gritos · todas mal espantadas;