Des quando naci.
Santa Maria! nenbre uos de mi!
Castro, Bibl., Tom. II. p. 640.
This has, no doubt, a very Provençal air; but others of the Cántigas have still more of it. The Provençal poets, in fact, as we shall see more fully hereafter, fled in considerable numbers into Spain at the period of their persecution at home; and that period corresponds to the reigns of Alfonso and his father. In this way a strong tinge of the Provençal character came into the poetry of Castile, and remained there a long time. The proofs of this early intercourse with Provençal poets are abundant. Aiméric de Bellinoi was at the court of Alfonso IX., who died in 1214, (Histoire Littéraire de la France, par des Membres de l’Institut, Paris, 4to, Tom. XIX. 1838, p. 507,) and was afterwards at the court of Alfonso X. (Ibid., p. 511.) So were Montagnagout, and Folquet de Lunel, both of whom wrote poems on the election of Alfonso X. to the throne of Germany. (Ibid., Tom. XIX. p. 491, and Tom. XX. p. 557; with Raynouard, Troubadours, Tom. IV. p. 239.) Raimond de Tours and Nat de Mons addressed verses to Alfonso X. (Ibid., Tom. XIX. pp. 555, 577.) Bertrand Carbonel dedicated his works to him; and Giraud Riquier, sometimes called the last of the Troubadours, wrote an elegy on his death, already referred to. (Ibid., Tom. XX. pp. 559, 578, 584.) Others might be cited, but these are enough.
[58] The two stanzas of the Querellas, or Complaints, still remaining to us, are in Ortiz de Zuñiga, (Anales, p. 123,) and elsewhere.
[59] First published by Sanchez, (Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. pp. 148-170,) where it may still be best consulted. The copy he used had belonged to the Marquis of Villena, who was suspected of the black art, and whose books were burnt on that account after his death, temp. John II. A specimen of the cipher is given in Cortinas’s translation of Bouterwek (Tom. I. p. 129). In reading this poem, it should be borne in mind that Alfonso believed in astrological predictions, and protected astrology by his laws. (Partida VII. Tít. xxiii. Ley 1.) Moratin the younger (Obras, Madrid, 1830, 8vo, Tom. I. Parte I. p. 61) thinks that both the Querellas and the Tesoro were the work of the Marquis of Villena; relying, first, on the fact that the only manuscript of the latter known to exist once belonged to the Marquis; and, secondly, on the obvious difference in language and style between both and the rest of the king’s known works,—a difference which certainly may well excite suspicion, but does not much encourage the particular conjecture of Moratin as to the Marquis of Villena.
[60] Mariana, Hist., Lib. XIV. c. 7; Castro, Bibl., Tom. I. p. 411; and Mondejar, Memorias, p. 450. The last, however, is mistaken in supposing the translation of the Bible printed at Ferrara in 1553 to have been that made by order of Alfonso, since it was the work of some Jews of the period when it was published.
[61] La Gran Conquista de Ultramar was printed at Salamanca, by Hans Giesser, in folio, in 1503. That additions are made to it is apparent from Lib. III. c. 170, where is an account of the overthrow of the order of the Templars, which is there said to have happened in the year of the Spanish era 1412; and that it is a translation, so far as it follows William of Tyre, from an old French version of the thirteenth century, I state on the authority of a manuscript of Sarmiento. The Conquista begins thus:—
“Capitulo Primero. Como Mahoma predico en Aravia: y gano toda la tierra de Oriente.
“En aql. tiēpo q̄ eraclius emperador en Roma q̄ fue buē Xpiano, et mātuvo gran tiēpo el imperio en justicia y en paz, levantose Mahoma en tierra de Aravia y mostro a las gētes necias sciēcia nueva, y fizo les creer q̄ era profeta y mensagero de dios, y que le avia embiado al mundo por saluar los hombres qēle creyessen,” etc.