Eminent literary and scientific men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Vol. 3 (of 3) — Text and Context

; Now that I have learnt to love thee. Seeking thee in vain I rove.'

'But the fault was thine, young warrior, Thine it was--it was not mine; He who brought thy earliest letter, Was a messenger of thine; And he told me--graceless traitor-- Yes! he told me--lying one-- That thou wert already married In the province of Leon; Where thou hadst a lovely lady, And, like flowers too, many a son.'

'Lady! he was but a traitor. And his tale was all untrue, In Castille I never entered-- From Leon too, I withdrew When I was in early boyhood, And of love I nothing knew.'"[7]

In addition to these ballads we must mention the romances of chivalry. There is an undying discussion as to the nation in which these works originated. According to Spanish writers, the real author of the first or genuine Amadis was Vasco Lobeira, a native of Portugal, who flourished at the end of the thirteenth century, and lived till the year 1325. Perverted as history and geography are in this and other similar works, they are full of invention, and alive with human feeling. Heroic deeds are blended with fairy machinery, borrowed from Arabian tales; every thing is brought in to adorn and to exalt the character of the knight, in war and in love. Even now Amadis preserves its charm; hew great must have been its influence among nobles whose lives were dedicated to the hardships of war, and whose own hearts were the birthplace of passion, as sincere and vehement as any that warmed the heart of fictitious cavalier.

Already, however, had various kings and nobles of Spain cultivated letters. The first authors whose names appear were less of poets than many whose works appear in the various Cancioneros. Elevated in rank, they addicted themselves to study from a love of knowledge. Eagerly curious about the secrets of nature, or observant of the philosophy of life, they were desirous of instructing their countrymen. They deserve infinite praise for their exertions, and the motives that animated them; but their productions cannot have the same interest for us as the genuine emanations of the feelings. The heart of man, its passions and its emotions, endures for ever the same, and the poet who touches with truth the simplest of its chords remains immortal; but our heads change their fashion and furniture. We disregard obsolete knowledge as a ruin, out of proportion and fallen to pieces; while the language of the passions, like vegetation for ever growing, is always fresh. Alphonso X., surnamed the Wise, loved learning. He rendered a great service to his country by the cultivation he bestowed on the Castillian language. His verses bear the marks of the attention he paid to correctness, and by his command the Spanish language was substituted for Latin in public instruments. Through him the Bible was translated into Castillian, and a Chronicle of Spain was commenced under his directions. He favoured the troubadours, and himself aspired to write verses. There is an entire book of Cantigas or Letras, composed in the Gallician dialect, by him. El Teroso is his principal work; it detailed his alchymical secrets, and is written in Castillian, in versos de arte mayor: much of this work remains still undeciphered. To him also is attributed a poem called Las Querellas, of which two stanzas only are preserved, and those so superior in versification to the Tesoro, that it is doubted whether they can be the production of the same man and age. The most useful work that owed its existence to his superintendence was the Alphonsine Tables, containing calculations truly extraordinary for that period.

Alphonso XI. followed in his footsteps in the cultivation of the Castillian language. He is said to have composed a General Chronicle of Redondillas, which is lost.

It was in the time of Alphonso XI. that Don Juan Manuel wrote his Count Lucanor, a series of tales put together somewhat in the style of the "Seven Wise Masters." An inexperienced prince, when in any difficulty, applies to his minister for advice, who replies by relating some tale or fable, concluded by a maxim in verse, as the moral of the story. These show his knowledge of the world; and one, in opposition to that of the Grecian sage, who said, men were to treat their friends as if they were one day to become their enemies, deserves to be recorded in honour of the more noble-minded Castilian;

"Quien te conseja encobrir de tus amigos, engañarte quiera assaz, y sin testigos."