The mention of this great dramatist reminds one that the Cid underwent another transformation in the theatre. Guillén de Castro introduced him in Las Mocedades del Cid as the central figure in a dramatic conflict between love and filial duty; Corneille took over the situation, and created a masterpiece which completely overshadowed Castro’s play. The names of other dramatists who treated the same theme are very properly forgotten: another great dramatisation of the Cid’s story is about as likely as another great dramatisation of the story of Romeo and Juliet. But the poetic possibilities of the Cid legend are inexhaustible. Nearly fifty years ago Victor Hugo, then in the noontide of his incomparable genius, reincarnated the primitive Cid in the first series of La Légende des siècles. Who can forget the impression left by the first reading of Quand le Cid fut entré dans le Généralife, by the sixteen poems which form the Romancero du Cid, by the interview between the Cid and the sheik Jabias in Bivar, and by that wonder of symbolism Le Cid exilé? It is as unhistorical as you please, but marvellous for its grandiose vision and haunting music:—
Et, dans leur antichambre, on entend quelquefois
Les pages, d’une voix féminine et hautaine,
Dire:—Ah oui-da, le Cid! c’était un capitaine
D’alors. Vit-il encor, ce Campéador-là?
The question was soon answered. Within three years a fiercer—perhaps a more melodramatic—aspect of the Cid was revealed by Leconte de Lisle in three pieces which contributed to the sombre splendour of the Poèmes barbares, and now appear among the Poèmes tragiques; and thirty years later, in our own day, José Maria de Heredia, the Benvenuto of French verse, included a figure of the Cid among his glittering Trophées. These three are masters of their craft, and one of them is the greatest poet of his time; but their puissant art has not superseded the virile creation of the nameless, candid, patriotic singer who wrote the Poema del Cid some eight hundred years ago.
CHAPTER II
THE ARCHPRIEST OF HITA
Many of the earliest poems extant in Castilian are anonymous, impersonal compositions, more or less imitative. The Misterio de los Reyes Magos, for instance, is suggested by a Latin Office used at Orleans; the Libro de Apolonio, the Vida de Santa María Egipciacqua, the Libro dels tres Reyes dorient, and the Libro de Alixandre are from French sources. French influence is likewise visible in the work of Gonzalo de Berceo, the earliest Spanish poet whose name we know for certain; writing in the first half of the thirteenth century, Berceo draws largely on the Miracles de Nostre Dame, a collection of edifying legends versified by Gautier de Coinci, Prior of the monastery at Vic-sur-Aisne. As Gautier died in 1236, the speed with which his version of these pious stories passed from France to Spain goes to show that literary communication had already been established between the two countries. At one time or another during the Middle Ages all Western Europe followed the French lead in literature. From about 1130, when Konrad wrote his Rolandslied, French influence prevailed in Germany for a century, affecting poets so considerable as Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and Gottfried von Strassburg. French influence was dominant in Italy from before the reign of Frederick II., the patron of the Provençal poets and the chief of the Sicilian school of poetry, till the coming of Dante; French [26]versions of tales of Troy, Alexander, Cæsar and Charlemagne were translated; so also were French versions of the Arthurian legend, as we gather from the celebrated passage in the fifth canto of the Inferno:—