But the Portuguese original can no longer be found. At the end of the sixteenth century, we are assured, it was extant in manuscript in the archives of the Dukes of Arveiro at Lisbon; and the same assertion is renewed, on good authority, about the year 1750. From this time, however, we lose all trace of it; and the most careful inquiries render it probable that this curious manuscript, about which there has been so much discussion, perished in the terrible earthquake and conflagration of 1755, when the palace occupied by the ducal family of Arveiro was destroyed with all its precious contents.[365]
The Spanish version, therefore, stands for us in place of the Portuguese original. It was made between 1492 and 1504, by Garcia Ordoñez de Montalvo, governor of the city of Medina del Campo, and it is possible that it was printed for the first time during the same interval.[366] But no copy of such an edition is known to exist, nor any one of an edition sometimes cited as having been printed at Salamanca in 1510;[367] the earliest now accessible to us dating from 1519. Twelve more followed in the course of half a century, so that the Amadis succeeded, at once, in placing the fortunes of its family on the sure foundations of popular favor in Spain. It was translated into Italian in 1546, and was again successful; six editions of it appearing in that language in less than thirty years.[368] In France, beginning with the first attempt in 1540, it became such a favorite, that its reputation there has not yet wholly faded away;[369] while, elsewhere in Europe, a multitude of translations and imitations have followed, that seem to stretch out the line of the family, as Don Quixote declares, from the age immediately after the introduction of Christianity down almost to that in which he himself lived.[370]
The translation of Montalvo does not seem to have been very literal. It was, as he intimates, much better than the Portuguese in its style and phraseology; and the last part especially appears to have been more altered than either of the others.[371] But the structure and tone of the whole fiction are original, and much more free than those of the French romances that had preceded it. The story of Arthur and the Holy Cup is essentially religious; the story of Charlemagne is essentially military; and both are involved in a series of adventures previously ascribed to their respective heroes by chronicles and traditions, which, whether true or false, were so far recognized as to prescribe limits to the invention of all who subsequently adopted them. But the Amadis is of imagination all compact. No period of time is assigned to its events, except that they begin to occur soon after the very commencement of the Christian era; and its geography is generally as unsettled and uncertain as the age when its hero lived. It has no purpose, indeed, but to set forth the character of a perfect knight, and to illustrate the virtues of courage and chastity as the only proper foundations of such a character.
Amadis, in fulfilment of this idea, is the son of a merely imaginary king of the imaginary kingdom of Gaula. His birth is illegitimate, and his mother, Elisena, a British princess, ashamed of her child, exposes him on the sea, where he is found by a Scottish knight, and carried, first to England, and afterwards to Scotland. In Scotland he falls in love with Oriana, the true and peerless lady, daughter of an imaginary Lisuarte, King of England. Meantime, Perion, King of Gaula, which has sometimes been conjectured to be a part of Wales, has married the mother of Amadis, who has by him a second son, named Galaor. The adventures of these two knights, partly in England, France, Germany, and Turkey, and partly in unknown regions and amidst enchantments,—sometimes under the favor of their ladies, and sometimes, as in the hermitage of the Firm Island, under their frowns,—fill up the book, which, after the broad journeyings of the principal knights, and an incredible number of combats between them and other knights, magicians, and giants, ends, at last, in the marriage of Amadis and Oriana, and the overthrow of all the enchantments that had so long opposed their love.
The Amadis is admitted, by general consent, to be the best of all the old romances of chivalry. One reason of this is, that it is more true to the manners and spirit of the age of knighthood; but the principal reason is, no doubt, that it is written with a more free invention, and takes a greater variety in its tones than is found in other similar works. It even contains, sometimes,—what we should hardly expect in this class of wild fictions,—passages of natural tenderness and beauty, such as the following description of the young loves of Amadis and Oriana.
“Now Lisuarte brought with him to Scotland Brisena, his wife, and a daughter that he had by her when he dwelt in Denmark, named Oriana, about ten years old, and the fairest creature that ever was seen; so fair, that she was called ‘Without Peer,’ since in her time there was none equal to her. And because she suffered much from the sea, he consented to leave her there, asking the King, Languines, and his Queen, that they would have care of her. And they were made very glad therewith, and the Queen said, ‘Trust me that I will have such a care of her as her mother would.’ And Lisuarte, entering into his ships, made haste back into Great Britain, and found there some who had made disturbances, such as are wont to be in such cases. And for this cause, he remembered him not of his daughter, for some space of time. But at last, with much toil that he took, he obtained his kingdom, and he was the best king that ever was before his time, nor did any afterwards better maintain knighthood in its rights, till King Arthur reigned, who surpassed all the kings before him in goodness, though the number that reigned between these two was great.
“And now the author leaves Lisuarte reigning in peace and quietness in Great Britain, and turns to the Child of the Sea, [Amadis,] who was twelve years old, but in size and limbs seemed to be fifteen. He served before the Queen, and was much loved of her, as he was of all ladies and damsels. But as soon as Oriana, the daughter of King Lisuarte, came there, she gave to her the Child of the Sea, that he should serve her, saying, ‘This is a child who shall serve you.’ And she answered, that it pleased her. And the child kept this word in his heart, in such wise that it never afterwards left it; and, as this history truly says, he was never, in all the days of his life, wearied with serving her. And this their love lasted as long as they lasted; but the Child of the Sea, who knew not at all how she loved him, held himself to be very bold, in that he had placed his thoughts on her, considering both her greatness and her beauty, and never so much as dared to speak any word to her concerning it. And she, though she loved him in her heart, took heed that she should not speak with him more than with another; but her eyes took great solace in showing to her heart what thing in the world she most loved.
“Thus lived they silently together, neither saying aught to the other of their estate. Then came, at last, the time when the Child of the Sea, as I now tell you, understood within himself that he might take arms, if any there were that would make him a knight. And this he desired, because he considered that he should thus become such a man and should do such things, as that either he should perish in them, or, if he lived, then his lady should deal gently with him. And with this desire he went to the King, who was in his garden, and, kneeling before him, said, ‘Sire, if it please you, it is now time that I should be made a knight.’ And the king said, ‘How, Child of the Sea, do you already adventure to maintain knighthood? Know that it is a light matter to come by it, but a weighty thing to maintain it. And whoso seeks to get this name of knighthood and maintain it in its honor, he hath to do so many and such grievous things, that often his heart is wearied out; and if he should be such a knight, that, from faint-heartedness or cowardice, he should fail to do what is beseeming, then it would be better for him to die than to live in his shame. Therefore I hold it good that you wait yet a little.’ But the Child of the Sea said to him, ‘Neither for all this will I fail to be a knight; for, if I had not already thought to fulfil this that you have said, my heart would not so have striven to be a knight.’”[372]
Other passages of quite a different character are no less striking, as, for instance, that in which the fairy Urganda comes in her fire-galleys,[373] and that in which the venerable Nasciano visits Oriana;[374] but the most characteristic are those that illustrate the spirit of chivalry, and inculcate the duties of princes and knights. In these portions of the work, there is sometimes a lofty tone that rises to eloquence,[375] and sometimes a sad one full of earnestness and truth.[376] The general story, too, is more simple and effective than the stories of the old French romances of chivalry. Instead of distracting our attention by the adventures of a great number of knights, whose claims are nearly equal, it is kept fastened on two, whose characters are well preserved;—Amadis, the model of all chivalrous virtues, and his brother, Don Galaor, hardly less perfect as a knight in the field, but by no means so faithful in his loves;—and, in this way, it has a more epic proportion in its several parts, and keeps up our interest to the end more successfully than any of its followers or rivals.
The great objection to the Amadis is one that must be made to all of its class. We are wearied by its length, and by the constant recurrence of similar adventures and dangers, in which, as we foresee, the hero is certain to come off victorious. But this length and these repetitions seemed no fault when it first appeared, or for a long time afterwards. For romantic fiction, the only form of elegant literature which modern times have added to the marvellous inventions of Greek genius, was then recent and fresh; and the few who read for amusement rejoiced even in the least graceful of its creations, as vastly nearer to the hearts and thoughts of men educated in the institutions of knighthood than any glimpses they had thus far caught of the severe glories of antiquity. The Amadis, therefore,—as we may easily learn by the notices of it from the time when the great Chancellor of Castile mourned that he had wasted his leisure over its idle fancies, down to the time when the whole sect disappeared before the avenging satire of Cervantes,—was a work of extraordinary popularity in Spain; and one which, during the two centuries of its greatest favor, was more read than any other book in the language.