But kings, that should uphold its power, · in thoughtlessness look down,
And forget the precious jewel · that gems their honored crown.
And many think by cruelty · its duties to fulfil,
But their wisdom all is cunning, · for justice doth no ill;
With pity and with truth it dwells, · and faithful men will still
From punishment and pain turn back, · as sore against their will.[163]
There is naturally a good deal in the Rimado de Palacio that savors of statesmanship; as, for instance, nearly all that relates to royal favorites, to war, and to the manners of the palace; but the general air of the poem, or rather of the different short poems that make it up, is fairly represented in the preceding passages. It is grave, gentle, and didactic, with now and then a few lines of a simple and earnest poetical feeling, which seem to belong quite as much to their age as to their author.
We have now gone over a considerable portion of the earliest Castilian literature, and quite completed an examination of that part of it which, at first epic, and afterwards didactic, in its tone, is found in long, irregular verses, with quadruple rhymes. It is all curious. Much of it is picturesque and interesting; and when, to what has been already examined, we shall have added the ballads and chronicles, the romances of chivalry and the drama, the whole will be found to constitute a broad basis, on which the genuine literary culture of Spain has rested ever since.
But, before we go farther, we must pause an instant, and notice some of the peculiarities of the period we have just considered. It extends from a little before the year 1200 to a little after the year 1400; and, both in its poetry and prose, is marked by features not to be mistaken. Some of these features were peculiar and national; others were not. Thus, in Provence, which was long united with Aragon, and exercised an influence throughout the whole Peninsula, the popular poetry, from its light-heartedness, was called the Gaya Sciencia, and was essentially unlike the grave and measured tone, heard over every other, on the Spanish side of the mountains; in the more northern parts of France, a garrulous, story-telling spirit was paramount; and in Italy, Dante, Petrarca, and Boccaccio had just appeared, unlike all that had preceded them, and all that was anywhere contemporary with their glory. On the other hand, however, several of the characteristics of the earliest Castilian literature, such as the chronicling and didactic spirit of most of its long poems, its protracted, irregular verses, and its redoubled rhymes, belong to the old Spanish bards in common with those of the countries we have just enumerated, where, at the same period, a poetical spirit was struggling for a place in the elements of their unsettled civilization.
But there are two traits of the earliest Spanish literature which are so separate and peculiar, that they must be noticed from the outset,—religious faith and knightly loyalty,—traits which are hardly less apparent in the “Partidas” of Alfonso the Wise, in the stories of Don John Manuel, in the loose wit of the Archpriest of Hita, and in the worldly wisdom of the Chancellor Ayala, than in the professedly devout poems of Berceo and in the professedly chivalrous chronicles of the Cid and Fernan Gonzalez. They are, therefore, from the earliest period, to be marked among the prominent features in Spanish literature.