The wheels of course represent the past, present, and future, each governed by the seven planets. Providence points out the various personages distinguished in the wheel of the past and the present; and the poet has thus occasion to make great display of knowledge on every subject, and deduces from time to time maxims upon the conduct of life and the government of nations; and thus, as Dante intended in his Commedia, does Juan de Mena introduce instruction on all the sciences then known. In common with every writer of his class, he thinks more of what he has to say, than of the melody of his versification; sometimes his subject suggests lines at once animated and sonorous; at other times they are tame or turgid. He is not backward in giving moral lessons, either to prince or people; yet Quintana regards this work probably with too much partiality when he says that we shall always dip into it with pleasure. We regard it with some curiosity, and more respect, and with but little liking.
One other name we will mention, since it is connected with the Spanish theatre; and dramatic writing became in progress of time the most truly national as well as original and perfect form in which the genius of Spanish poetry embodied itself. [Juan de Enzina] wrote the first Spanish plays. It is true that Villena wrote an allegorical drama, which is lost, and other compositions took the form of dialogue; but Enzina, who was a musical composer, converted mere pastoral eclogues into real dramas. He was born at Salamanca, in the reign of Isabella. He travelled to Jerusalem, in company with the marquis de Tarifa, and he lived some time at Rome, as maestro da capella, or director of music, to pope Leo X. These travels and residences at a distance from his native country, must have stored his mind with ideas; but though Italy had reached the zenith of her poetic glory at that time, he became no pupil of hers. Perhaps he found Spanish metres, and the Spanish poetic diction did not lend itself to any but the Spanish style; and he never dreamt, as Boscan afterwards so admirably succeeded in doing, of enlarging the sphere of Spanish poetry by introducing Italian modes of rhythm: his songs and lyrics are in the style of the cancioneros; and the very quips and cranks in which he indulged have the rough humour and extravagant imagination of Castile, not the pointed wit or airy lightness of Italy. Among other things, he published a song of contraries, or absurdities, (disparates,) which has made his name proverbial in Spain. He converted Virgil's eclogues into ballads, and applied to the sovereigns and nobles of Spain the compliments Virgil addressed to the emperor Augustus. His sacred and profane eclogues were acted at court at Christmas-eve and carnival: these are lost. Some of his songs, calculated to become popular from their spirit, and the tone they seized, which was suited to the hour, remain. There is one translated by Dr. Bowring, which is a Farewell to the Carnival (Antruejo), which, in the Spanish at least, has all the zest and animation of a drinking song:—
"Come let us eat and drink to-day.
And sing, and laugh, and banish sorrow,
For we must part to-morrow.
In Antruejo's honour—fill
The laughing cup with wine and glee,
And feast and dance with eager will,
And crowd the hours with revelry,
For that is wisdom's counsel still—
To day be gay, and banish sorrow,
For we must part to-morrow.
Honour the saint—the morning ray
Will introduce the monster death;
There's breathing space for joy to-day,
To-morrow ye shall gasp for breath;
So now be frolicsome and gay,
And tread joy's round and banish sorrow,
For we must part to-morrow."[10]
Meanwhile the state of Spain had wholly changed. The struggle with the Moors had ended, and its civil dissentions were no more. The union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile under Ferdinand and Isabella placed the country under one sovereign; and the conquest of Granada put an end to the last Moorish kingdom. The Spaniards, with their constitutional Cortes, made a noble struggle for civil liberty at the beginning of the reign of Charles V.; but they failed, and an absolute monarchy, guarded by the most nefarious of all institutions, the inquisition, was established; the vaunted privileges of the grandees of Spain became matters of court etiquette, instead of lofty manifestations of their equality with their sovereign; the conquest of America brought money to the country, which was quickly drained from it by the wars in Italy; while the Lutheran heresy again set alight those cruel fires which were at first destined for aliens,—such Jews and Moors might be termed. Liberty of thought, as well as of action, was destroyed; and though the terrors of the inquisition were displayed more in Flanders than in the Peninsula itself, that arose from the circumstance that in the one country it was resisted, while in the other it was submitted to with a prostration of soul unknown to any other country or age.
For a time, however, the energies of the nation were rather turned aside than checked by these events. The noble spirit of Padilla existed in the Spanish bosom, though turned from its elevated patriotism. The achievements of Charles V. awoke enthusiastic loyalty; while his enterprises gave birth to a series of warriors and heroes. Their vast acquisitions in what they named the Indies, added to the splendour of the Spanish name. Glory, if not liberty; pride, though not independence, awoke in them a courageous and daring, though stern and cruel spirit, which led to those successes which spread a lustre over their name and age. But at the same time it must be observed, that these very wars and conquests drained Spain of those ardent and enterprising spirits, who, if they had not been so employed, had probably exerted themselves to free their country, and to withstand those encroachments of royalty, and the church, which, after the lapse of a few years, acted so detrimentally on the prosperity of Spain.
The crown of Castile also rose in eminence over that of Aragon, and the Castilian became the language of the court. Writers, in whatever province their birthplace might be cast, adopted Castilian as the classic language of the country.
Juan de Enzina, though he had sojourned in Italy, became imbued by none of its spirit. It could not always be thus. The Neapolitan wars in the time of Ferdinand caused numbers of Spaniards to visit Italy. From the very beginning of the reign of Charles V., these wars increased in importance, and the intercourse between the two countries became more frequent and intimate. The time therefore was at hand when Spain would learn from Italy that poetic art in which she was yet a child, though a child of genius. At this epoch we commence the lives of the literary men of Spain. They came out many at once, like a constellation. The first in the list were born either quite at the end of the fifteenth, or at the very commencement of the sixteenth century, and accordingly were contemporaries of Charles V.