The only peculiarity, in a poetical sense, is the extreme fondness for, and frequent employment of, allegory. In the love songs the fair one is constantly addressed under some allegorical disguise. It is a star the lover admires, or it is the nightingale who bewails his sad lot. The loved one is a flower, or a heifer, a dove or a quail, a pomegranate or an apple, figures common to the poets of other countries; but the Basques, even the rudest of them, never confuse these metaphors, as more famous poets sometimes do—the allegory is ever consistently maintained throughout. Even in prose they are accustomed to this use of allegory, and catch up the slightest allusion to it; but to others it often renders their poetry obscure, and very difficult of successful translation. The stranger is in doubt whether a given poem is really meant only for a description of the habits of the nightingale, or whether the bird is a pseudonym for the poet or the poet’s mistress. Curiously enough, sometimes educated Basques seem to have almost as much difficulty in seizing this allegory as have foreigners. Thus, in a work now in course of publication,[9] one of the most famous of these allegorical complaints is actually taken for a poetical description of the nightingale itself.
The historical songs, like all other historical remains among the Basques, are few and doubtful. There are two songs, however, for which are claimed a greater historical importance and a higher antiquity than any others can pretend to. These are the so-called “Leloaren Cantua” and the “Altabiskarco Cantua.” Both these are reputed by some writers to be almost contemporaneous with the events which they relate. The first is said to be founded on the wars of the Roman Emperor Augustus with the Cantabri; the second is an account of the defeat of Charlemagne’s rearguard at Roncesvalles, A.D. 778. The former may be some three hundred years old, but the latter is certainly a production of the nineteenth century, though none the less it is the most spirited offspring of the Basque muse. We will give the text and translation of each, and then justify our conclusions.
| Leloaren Cantua. 1. lelo. yl lelo; lelo. yl lelo; leloa çarat[10] il leloa. 2. Romaco armac aleguin eta Vizcayac daroa Zanzoa. 3. Octabiano munduco jauna le coby di[10] Vizcayocoa. 4. Ichasotati eta leorres y mini deusco molsoa. 5. leor celayac bereac dira menditan tayac leusoac. 6. lecu yronyan gagozanyan nocbera sendo daugogoa. 7. bildurric guichi armabardinas oramayasu guexoa. 8. Soyacgogorrac badyri tuys narrubiloxa surboa. 9. bost urteco egun gabean gueldi bagaric pochoa. 10. gurecobata ylbadaguyan bost amarren galdoa. 11. aecanista gue guichitaya asqugudugu lalboa. 12. gueurelurrean ta aen errian biroch ainbaten zamoa. 13. Ecin gueyago (The rest of this verse is lost through a rent in the paper.) 14. tiber lecua gueldico zabal Uchin tamayo grandoya. 15. (Torn.) 16. andiaristac gueisto syndoas beticonayas narraca. | Song of Lelo. 1. Lelo, dead (is) Lelo; Lelo, dead (is) Lelo; Lelo, Zara (?)[10] Killed Lelo. 2. The arms of Rome do all they can, and Biscay raises The song of war. 3. Octavianus, Of the world lord, Lecobidi (?)[10] of Biscay. 4. By sea and by land he has placed us the siege. 5. The dry plains are theirs; the high mountains, the caverns (are ours). 6. In favourable ground when we are, each one firm has heart (?) 7. Little fear (with) equal arms, (but) our kneading-trough (goes) ill. 8. Hard corselets wear they; Bare body; (more) agility (?) 9. For five years, by day, by night, without ceasing, (lasts) the siege (?) 10. One of ours when he is dead, five tens they lose (?) 11. They many and we few (?) at last we have made the peace. 12. In our land and in his village are tied in the same way the loads (of wood). 13. (It is) impossible more. 14. Tiber the place remains broad (?) Uchin Tamayo (?) very large. 16. The great oaks yield to the constant strokes (of) the woodpecker. |
The history of the above song is as follows: At the close of the sixteenth century a notary of Zornoza, J. Iñiguez de Ibargüen, was commissioned by the Junta of Biscay to search the principal libraries of Spain for documents relating to the Basques. In the archives of Simancas he discovered an ancient MS. on parchment, containing verses in Basque, some almost, others wholly obliterated. Of these he copied what he could, and inserted them in p. 71 of his “Cronica general de España y sumaria de Vizcaya,” a work which still exists in manuscript in the town of Marquina. From this history of Ibargüen the song was first reproduced by the celebrated Wilhelm von Humboldt, and published by him in 1817 in a supplement to Vater’s “Mithridates.” The text above given is taken from that of the “Cancionero Vasco,” Series 2, iii., pp. 18, 20, and claims to be a new and literal copy from the MS. “Cronica” of Ibargüen. From the date of its publication by Humboldt, this piece has been the subject of much discussion. That it is one of the oldest fragments of Basque poetry hardly admits of doubt. But, when asked to believe that it is contemporary with Augustus, we must hesitate. The question arises: Did Ibargüen copy the almost defaced original exactly as it was, or did he suffer his declared predilections unconsciously to influence his reading of it?[11] Many of the words are still very obscure, and the translation of them is almost guess work. The first verse has little or no apparent connection with the rest of the poem, and has given rise to the most fanciful interpretations. Lelo has been imagined by some to be the name of a Basque hero; Zara, or Zarat, who kills him, the name of another; and the two reproduce the story of Agamemnon and Ægisthus. Others, with more probability, take Lelo, as is certainly the case in other poems, for a mere refrain (the everlasting Lelo, as a Basque proverb has it) used by the singer merely to give the key to the tune or rhythm to which he modulates the rest. Chaho, with his usual audacity, would translate it “glory,” and render it thus:—
Finished is the glory! dead is the glory,
Our glory!
Old age has killed the glory,
Our glory!
But it has been very plausibly suggested[12] that the verse bears a suspicious likeness to a vague reminiscence of the Moslem cry “Lâ Êlah Ulâ Allah!” &c.; and if so, this, in the north of Spain, would at one bound place the poem some eight centuries at least after the time of Augustus. The proper names have a too correct look. Octabiano, Roma, and Tiber are far too much like the Latin; for if Greeks and Romans complained, as do Strabo and Mela, of the difficulty of transcribing Basque or Iberian names into their own language, the Basques might possibly find a somewhat corresponding difficulty in transcribing Greek and Latin names into Basque. Moreover, in a later verse appears “Uchin,” a sobriquet for “Augustino,” as a baptismal name in use among the Spanish Basques to this day. What the poem really refers to we dare not assert. We present the “Leloaren Cantua” to our readers simply as one of the oldest curiosities of Basque verse, without pledging ourselves to any particular date or interpretation thereof.
Fortunately, we shall be able to speak with much more decision of the “Altabiskarco Cantua,” of which the following is the latest text:—