[125] Ibid., p. 283.
[126] The immoral tendency of many of the poems is a point that not only embarrasses the editor of the Archpriest, (see p. xvii. and the notes on pp. 76, 97, 102, etc.,) but somewhat disturbs the Archpriest himself. (See stanzas 7, 866, etc.) The case, however, is too plain to be covered up; and the editor only partly avoids trouble by quietly leaving out long passages, as from st. 441 to 464, etc.
[127] St. 61-68.
[128] There is some little obscurity about this important personage (st. 71, 671, and elsewhere); but she was named Urraca, (st. 1550,) and belonged to the class of persons technically called Alcahuetas, or “Go-betweens”; a class which, from the seclusion of women in Spain, and perhaps from the influence of Moorish society and manners, figures largely in the early literature of the country, and sometimes in the later. The Partidas (Part. VII. Tít. 22) devotes two laws to them; and the “Tragicomedia of Celestina,” who is herself once called Trota-conventos, (end of Act. II.,) is their chief monument. Of their activity in the days of the Archpriest a whimsical proof is given in the extraordinary number of odious and ridiculous names and epithets accumulated on them in st. 898-902.
[129] St. 72 etc., 88 etc., 95 etc.
[130] When the affair is over, he says quaintly, “El comiò la vianda, è a mi fiso rumiar.”
[131] St. 119, 142 etc., 171 etc., 203 etc. Such discoursing as this last passage affords on the seven deadly sins is common in the French Fabliaux, and the English reader finds a striking specimen of it in the “Persone’s Tale” of Chaucer.
[132] St. 557-559, with 419 and 548. Pamphylus de Amore, F. A. Ebert, Bibliographisches Lexicon, Leipzig, 1830, 4to, Tom. II. p. 297. P. Leyseri Hist. Poet. Medii Ævi, Halæ, 1721, 8vo, p. 2071. Sanchez, Tom. IV. pp. xxiii., xxiv. The story of Pamphylus in the Archpriest’s version is in stanzas 555-865. The story of the Archpriest’s own journey is in stanzas 924-1017. The Serranas in this portion are, I think, imitations of the Pastoretas or Pastorelles of the Troubadours. (Raynouard, Troubadours, Tom. II. pp. 229, etc.) If such poems occurred frequently in the Northern French literature of the period, I should think the Archpriest had found his models there, since it is there he generally resorts; but I have never seen any that came from north of the Loire so old as his time.
[133] St. 1017-1040. The “Bataille des Vins,” by D’Andeli, may be cited, (Barbazan, ed. Méon, Tom. I. p. 152,) but the “Bataille de Karesme et de Charnage” (Ibid., Tom. IV. p. 80) is more in point. There are others on other subjects. For the marvellously savory personages in the Archpriest’s battle, see stanzas 1080, 1169, 1170, etc.
[134] St. 1184 etc., 1199-1229. It is not quite easy to see how the Archpriest ventured some things in the last passage. Parts of the procession come singing the most solemn hymns of the Church, or parodies of them, applied to Don Amor, like the Benedictus qui venit. It seems downright blasphemy against what was then thought most sacred.