University of Virginia Library

Although the English are remarkable for the number and variety of their ancient Ballads, and retain perhap sa greater fondness for these old simple rhapsodies of their ancestors, than most other nations; they are not the only people who have distinguished themselves by compositions of this kind. The Spaniards have great multitudes of them, many of which are of the highest merit. They call them in their language Romances, and have collected them into volumes under the titles of El Romancero, El Cancionero

, &c. Most of them relate to their conflicts with the Moors, and display a spirit of gallantry peculiar to that romantic people. But of all the Spanish ballads, none exceed in poetical merit those inserted in a little Spanish “History of the civil wars of Granada,” describing the dissensions which raged in that last seat of Moorish empire before it was conquered in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1491. In this History (or perhaps, Romance) a great number of heroic songs are inserted and appealed to as authentic vouchers for the truth of facts. In reality, the prose narrative seems to be drawn up for no other end, but to introduce and illustrate these beautiful pieces.

The Spanish editor pretends (how truly I know not) that they are translations from the Arabic or Morisco language. Indeed the plain unadorned nature of the verse, and the native simplicity of language and sentiment, which runs through these poems, prove that they are ancient; or, at least, that they were written before the Castillians began to form themselves on the model of the Tuscan poets, and had imported from Italy that fondness for conceit and refinement, which has for these

two centuries past so miserably infected the Spanish poetry, and rendered it so unnatural, affected, and obscure.

As a specimen of the ancient Spanish manner, which very much resembles that of our old English Bards and Minstrels, the Reader is desired candidly to accept the two following poems. They are given from a small Collection of pieces of this kind, which the Editor some years ago translated for his amusement when he was studying the Spanish language. As the first is a pretty close translation, to gratify the curious it is accompanied with the original. The Metre is the same in all these old Spanish songs: and its plain unpolished nature strongly argues its great antiquity. It runs in short stanzas of four lines, of which the second and fourth alone correspond in their terminations; and in these it is only required that the vowels should be alike, the consonants may be altogether different, as

pone casa meten arcos

Yet has this kind of verse a sort of simple harmonious flow, which atones for the imperfect nature of the rhyme, and renders it not unpleasing to the ear. The same flow of numbers has been studied in the following versions. The first of them is given from two different originals, both of which are printed in the Hist. de las civiles guerras de Granada. Mad. 1694. One of them hath the rhymes ending in AA, the other in IA. They both of them begin with the same line,

Rio verde, rio verde ,

which could not be translated faithfully;

Verdant river, verdant river,

would have given an affected stiffness to the verse; the great merit of which is its easy simplicity; and therefore a more simple epithet was adopted, though less poetical or expressive.

In the Spanish original of the foregoing ballad, follow a few more stanzas, but being of inferior merit were not translated.

Renegado properly signifies an apostate; but it is sometimes used to express an infidel in general; as it seems to do above in ver. 21. &c.

The image of the Lion, &c. in ver. 37. is taken from the other Spanish copy, the rhymes of which end in IA, viz,