A lady fair, as fair could be;
Her children bright as flowers to see.”
“Who told that tale, who spoke those words,
No truth he spoke, my lady, no!
For Castile’s lands I never saw,
Of Leon’s mountains nothing know,
Save as a little child, I ween,
Too young to know what love should mean.”[191]
Several of the other anonymous ballads in this little collection are not less curious and ancient, among which may be noted those beginning, “Decidme vos pensamiento,”—“Que por Mayo era por Mayo,”—and “Durandarte, Durandarte,”—together with parts of those beginning, “Triste estaba el caballero,” and “Amara yo una Señora.”[192] Most of the rest, and all whose authors are known, are of less value and belong to a later period.
The Cancionero of Castillo, where they appeared, was enlarged and altered in eight subsequent editions, the last of which was published in 1573; but in all of them this little collection of ballads, as originally printed in the first edition, remained by itself, unchanged, though in the additions of newer poetry a modern ballad is occasionally inserted.[193] It may, therefore, be doubted whether the General Cancioneros did much to attract attention to the ballad poetry of the country, especially when we bear in mind that they are almost entirely filled with the works of the conceited school of the period that produced them, and were probably little known except among the courtly classes, who placed small value on what was old and national in their poetical literature.[194]