How could I have deserved such bliss?
[727] The Villancicos are in the Cancionero of 1535 at ff. 120-125. See also Covarrubias, Tesoro, in verb. Villancico.
[728] Galatea, Lib. VI.
[729] The Preguntas extend from f. 126 to f. 134.
[730] The complete list of the authors in this part of the Cancionero is as follows:—Costana, Puerto Carrero, Avila, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Count Castro, Luis de Tovar, Don Juan Manuel, Tapia, Nicolas Nuñez, Soria, Pinar, Ayllon, Badajoz el Músico, the Count of Oliva, Cardona, Frances Carroz, Heredia, Artes, Quiros, Coronel, Escriva, Vazquez, and Ludueña. Of most of them only a few trifles are given. The “Burlas provocantes a Risa” follow, in the edition of 1514, after the poems of Ludueña, but do not appear in that of 1526, or in any subsequent edition. Most of them, however, are found in the collection referred to, entitled “Cancionero de Obras de Burlas provocantes a Risa” (Valencia, 1519, 4to). It begins with one rather long poem, and ends with another,—the last being a brutal parody of the “Trescientas” of Juan de Mena. The shorter poems are often by well-known names, such as Jorge Manrique, and Diego de San Pedro, and are not always liable to objection on the score of decency. But the general tone of the work, which is attributed to ecclesiastical hands, is as coarse as possible. A small edition of it was printed at London, in 1841, marked on its title-page “Cum Privilegio, en Madrid, por Luis Sanchez.” It has a curious and well-written Preface, and a short, but learned, Glossary. From p. 203 to the end, p. 246, are a few poems not found in the original Cancionero de Burlas; one by Garci Sanchez de Badajoz, one by Rodrigo de Reynosa, etc.
[731] This part of the Cancionero of 1535, which is of very little value, fills ff. 134-191. The whole volume contains about 49,000 verses. The Antwerp editions of 1557 and 1573 are larger, and contain about 58,000; but the last part of each is the worst part. One of the pieces near the end is a ballad on the renunciation of empire made by Charles V. at Brussels, in October, 1555; the most recent date, so far as I have observed, that can be assigned to any poem in any of the collections.
[732] There is a short poem by the Constable in the Commentary of Fernan Nuñez to the 265th Copla of Juan de Mena; and in the fine old Chronicle of the Constable’s life, we are told of him, (Título LXVIII.,) “Fue muy inventivo e mucho dado a fallar invenciones y sacar entremeses, o en justas o en guerra; en las quales invenciones muy agudamente significaba lo que queria.” He is also the author of an unpublished prose work, dated 1446, “On Virtuous and Famous Women,” to which Juan de Mena wrote a Preface; the Constable, at that time, being at the height of his power. It is not, as its title might seem to indicate, translated from a work by Boccaccio, with nearly the same name; but an original production of the great Castilian minister of state. Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. VI. p. 464, note.
[733] Obras Sueltas, Madrid, 1777, 4to, Tom. XI. p. 358.
[734] The bitterness of this unchristian and barbarous hatred of the Moors, that constituted not a little of the foundation on which rested the intolerance that afterwards did so much to break down the intellectual independence of the Spanish people, can hardly be credited at the present day, when stated in general terms. An instance of its operation, must, therefore, be given to illustrate its intensity. When the Spaniards made one of those forays into the territories of the Moors that were so common for centuries, the Christian knights, on their return, often brought, dangling at their saddle-bows, the heads of the Moors they had slain, and threw them to the boys in the streets of the villages, to exasperate their young hatred against the enemies of their faith;—a practice which, we are told on good authority, was continued as late as the war of the Alpuxarras, under Don John of Austria, in the reign of Philip II. (Clemencin, in Memorias de la Acad. de Hist., Tom. VI. p. 390.) But any body who will read the “Historia de la Rebelion y Castigo de los Moriscos del Reyno de Granada,” by Luis del Marmol Carvajal, (Málaga, 1600, fol.,) will see how complacently an eyewitness, not so much disposed as most of his countrymen to look with hatred on the Moors, regarded cruelties which it is not possible now to read without shuddering. See his account of the murder, by order of the chivalrous Don John of Austria, (f. 192,) of four hundred women and children, his captives at Galera;—“muchos en su presencia,” says the historian, who was there. Similar remarks might be made about the second volume of Hita’s “Guerras de Granada,” which will be noticed hereafter. Indeed, it is only by reading such books that it is possible to learn how much the Spanish character was impaired and degraded by this hatred, inculcated, during the nine centuries that elapsed between the age of Roderic the Goth and that of Philip III., not only as a part of the loyalty of which all Spaniards were so proud, but as a religious duty of every Christian in the kingdom.
[735] Bernaldez, Chrónica, c. 131, MS. Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, Tom. I. p. 72; Tom. II. p. 282.