l. 28. De quien, equivalent to por quien.
[Page 12].—l. 3. Aquien, i.e., á quien.
l. 8. pecado, i.e., diablo.
[Page 13].—l. 4. bien fechores, i.e., bienhechores.
[DON JUAN MANUEL]. If the poem in octaves, A la muerte del Príncipe D. Alfonso, of which several stanzas are here given, were really the work of the Infante D. Juan Manuel (1282-1347), the author of the famous framework of prose tales entitled the Conde Lucanor, it would belong in the place here assigned to it. But the poems of the Infante are probably lost, and the pieces which, like the present one, are attributed to Don Juan Manuel in the Cancionero General, the Cancioneiro of Resende, and other collections, must belong to the writer so called who was attached to the court of King Emanuel of Portugal († 1524) and composed in both Spanish and Portuguese. Cf. Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, vol. I, p. 59, note 27, and Gröber’s Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, Band II, 2. Abteilung, p. 265, note 1, p. 270, note 5.
[EL CANCILLER PERO LÓPEZ DE AYALA]. One of the most important figures of the fourteenth century. Active in court and camp, he still found time to produce much prose and verse. He was a trusted servant of Don Pedro and the three succeeding monarchs, and was Chancellor of Castile from 1398 on. Several times taken in battle, he was once imprisoned at Oviedes for fifteen months. He was at one time the captive of the Black Prince, but there is probably no truth in the account that he was carried a prisoner to England.
Ayala’s most important work in verse is the satirical and didactic Rimado de Palacio (published in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, vol. 57). Here, in somewhat over 1600 stanzas, the author assails all abuses—social, political and others—of the time. Not merely the decay in court life, but general social degeneracy is his main theme. The first part of the poem consists of 705 strophes in cuaderna vía. In the second part, which opens with our first cantar, we find plaints, prayers and songs to the Virgin interspersed among 347 the didactic and satiric passages. The last are still in cuaderna vía; the former elements, more lyric in their nature, show the use of various measures, with a particular influence of Provençal and Galician forms. They mark Ayala as one of the earliest of the court poets, who were to become so numerous in the reign of Juan II.
Cantar. The shorter lines are arranged in redondillas. Note the inner rhymes in the longer lines, which might also be divided into octosyllabic verses.
[Page 14].—l. 9. dada. Occasionally the Old Spanish participle conjugated with haber is found agreeing with its object.
[Page 15].—l. 13. Cantar á la Virgen. This octosyllabic song begins with stanza 830 of the Rimado de Palacio.