[198] “Mandó el Rey prender Virgilios” (Romancero, 1550). It is among the very old ballads, and is full of the loyalty of its time. Virgil, it is well known, was treated, in the Middle Ages, sometimes as a knight, and sometimes as a wizard.
[199] Compare the ballads beginning, “Las Huestes de Don Rodrigo,” and “Despues que el Rey Don Rodrigo,” with the “Crónica del Rey Don Rodrigo y la Destruycion de España” (Alcalá, 1587, fol., Capp. 238, 254). There is a stirring translation of the first by Lockhart, in his “Ancient Spanish Ballads,” (London, 1823, 4to, p. 5,)—a work of genius beyond any of the sort known to me in any language.
[200] Ortiz de Zuñiga (Anales de Sevilla, Appendix, p. 831) gives this ballad, and says it had been printed two hundred years. If this be true, it is, no doubt, the oldest printed ballad in the language. But Ortiz is uncritical in such matters, like nearly all of his countrymen. The story of Garci Perez de Vargas is in the “Crónica General,” Parte IV., in the “Crónica de Fernando III.,” c. 48, etc., and in Mariana, Historia, Lib. XIII. c. 7.
[201] See Appendix (B), on the Romanceros.
[202] Sismondi, Hist. des Français, Paris, 1821, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 257-260.
[203] Montesinos and Durandarte figure so largely in Don Quixote’s visit to the cave of Montesinos, that all relating to them is to be found in the notes of Pellicer and Clemencin to Parte II. cap. 23, of the history of the mad knight.
[204] These ballads begin, “Estabase el Conde d’ Irlos,” which is the longest I know of; “Assentado esta Gayferos,” which is one of the best, and cited more than once by Cervantes; “Media noche era por hilo,” where the counting of time by the dripping of water is a proof of antiquity in the ballad itself; “A caça va el Emperador,” also cited repeatedly by Cervantes; and “O Belerma, O Belerma,” translated by M. G. Lewis; to which may be added, “Durandarte, Durandarte,” found in the Antwerp Romancero, and in the old Cancioneros Generales.
[205] Memorias para la Poesía Española, Sect. 528.
[206] The story of Bernardo is in the “Crónica General,” Parte III., beginning at f. 30, in the edition of 1604. But it must be almost entirely fabulous.