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XVI.

SPANISH BALLADS.

EVERY one of any imagination, every one at all addicted to that grand art of dreaming with the eyes open, and building what are called castles in the air, has, I suppose, his own peculiar realm of dream-land, his own chosen country, his own favorite period; and from my earliest hour of fanciful idleness, down to this present moment, Spain, as it existed when the Moors ruled over the fairest part of that fair country, has been mine. It is probable that I am not singular in my choice. Our vivacious neighbors, the Gauls, when they call their air-castles châteaux en Espagne, give some token of their preference for that romantic. locality, and the finest creations of Italian poetry, although tolerably anomalous as to place and time, may yet as a whole be referred to the same period and the same country.

Who

My fancy for the Moors, however, long preceded my acquaintance with Ariosto. What gave rise to it I can not tell. can analyze or put a date to any thing so impalpable! as well try to grasp a rainbow. Perhaps it arose from the melodious stanzas of "Almanzor and Zayda," the favorite of my childhood; perhaps from the ballads in "Don Quixote," or from Don Quixote himself, the darling of my youth; perhaps from an old folio translation of Mariana's history, a book which I devoured at fifteen as girls of fifteen read romances, finding the truth, if truth it were, fully as amusing as fiction; perhaps from the countless English comedies founded on Spanish subjects; perhaps from Corneille's Cid; perhaps from Le Sage's Gil Blas; perhaps from Mozart's Don Juan! Who can tell from what plant came the seed, or what wind wafted it? Certain it is that at eighteen the fancy was full blown, and that ever since it has been fed by countless hands and nurtured by innumerable streams. Lord Holland's

charming book on Lope de Vega, Murphy's magnificent work on Granada, Mr. Prescott's Spanish Histories, Washington Irving's graphic Chronicles, a host of French and English travelers in Spain, a host of Spanish travelers in South America, the popular works of Ford and Borrow, of Dumas and Scribe, Southey's poetry, Sir Walter's prose-all conspired to keep alive the fancy.

But beyond a doubt, the works that have most fed the flame, have been Mr. Lockhart's spirited volume of Spanish ballads, to which the art of the modern translator has given the charm of the vigorous old poets; and Mr. Ticknor's " History of Spanish Literature," that rarest of all works in these days, when literature, like every thing else, goes at railway speed, a conscientious book, which being the labor of a lifetime, will remain a standard authority for many generations.

In one of his recently published letters, Southey, himself a powerful though somewhat fantastic ballad writer, denies all merit to the Spanish ballads, accusing them of sameness, of want of action and of want of interest. To this there needs but Mr. Lockhart's book to reply; even if the transmittal of so long a series of poems floating upon the memories and living in the hearts of a whole people were not answer enough even if the very materials and accessories of these ballads, the felicity of climate, the mixture of race, of Moor and Christian, of vailed beauty and armed knight, of fountained garden and pillared court, of gigantic cathedral and fantastic mosque, of mountains crowned with chestnut and cork-tree, and clothed with cistus and lavender; of streams winding through tufted oleanders, amid vineyards, orangegroves and olive-grounds, of the rich halls of the Alhambra, of the lordly towers of Seville, of shrine and abbey, of pilgrim and procession, of bull-fight and tournament, of love and of battle; of princely paladins and learned caliphs, and still more learned Jews! Why this is the very stuff of which poetry is made, and strange indeed it would have been, if born among such beauty, and happy in a language at once stately, flowing and harmonious, the great old minstrels, who, like their compeers of the Middle Ages, the equally great old architects, have bequeathed to us their works and not their names, had failed to find it.

The first specimen that I shall select is the ballad which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, when at Toboso, overheard a peasant singing as he was going to his work at daybreak.

THE ADMIRAL GUARINOS.

The day of Roncesvalles was a dismal day for you,

Ye men of France, for there the lance of King Charles was broke in two. Ye well may curse that rueful field, for many a noble peer

In fray or fight the dust did bite beneath Bernardo's spear.

Then captured was Guarinos, King Charles's Admiral,

Seven Moorish kings surrounded him, and seized him for their thrall;
Seven times when all the chase was o'er, for Guarinos lots they cast;
Seven times Marlotes won the throw, and the knight was his at last.

Much joy had then Marlotes, and his captive much did prize,
Above all the wealth of Araby, he was precious in his eyes.
Within his tent at evening he made the best of cheer,
And thus, the banquet done, he spake unto his prisoner.

"Now, for the sake of Allah, Lord Admiral Guarinos,

Be thou a Moslem, and much love shall ever rest between us.
Two daughters have I !-all the day shall one thy handmaid be—
The other (and the fairest far) by night shall cherish thee.

"The one shall be thy waiting-maid, thy weary feet to lave,
To scatter perfumes on thy head, and fetch thee garments brave:
The other-she the pretty one-shall deck her bridal bower,
And my field and my city they both shall be her dower.

"If more thou wishest, more I'll give. Speak boldly what thy thought is." Thus earnestly and kindly to Guarinos said Marlotes :

But not a minute did he take to ponder or to pause,

Thus clear and quick the answer of the Christian Captain was.

Now, God forbid! Marlotes, and Mary his dear mother,

That I should leave the faith of Christ and bind me to another.
For women-I've one wife in France, and I'll wed no more in Spain,

I change not faith, I break not vow, for courtesy or gain."

Wroth waxed King Marlotes, when thus he heard him say,
And all for ire commanded, he should be led away;
Away unto the dungeon-keep, beneath its vaults to lie,
With fetters bound in darkness deep, far off from sun and sky.

With iron bands they bound his hands; that sore unworthy plight
Might well express his helplessness, doomed never more to fight.
Again, from cincture down to knee, long bolts of iron he bore,
Which signified the knight should ride on charger never more.

Three times alone in all the year it is the captive's doom

To see God's daylight bright and clear, instead of dungeon gloom;

Three times alone they bring him out, like Samson long ago,
Before the Moorish rabble-rout to be a sport and show.

On these high feasts they bring him forth, a spectacle to be-
The Feast of Pasque and the great day of the Nativity;

And on that morn, more solemn yet, when the maidens strip the bowers, And gladden mosque and minaret with the first fruits of the flowers.

Days come and go of gloom and show. Seven years are past and gone.
And now doth fall the festival of the holy Baptist John;

Christian and Moslem tilts and jousts, to give it honor due,
And rushes on the paths to spread, they force the sulky Jew.

Marlotes in his joy and pride a target high doth rear,

Below the Moorish knights must ride and pierce it with the spear;
But 'tis so high up in the sky, albeit much they strain.
No Moorish lance may fly so far, Marlotes' prize to gain.

Wroth waxed King Marlotes, when he beheld them fail,

The whisker trembled on his lip, and his cheek for ire was pale.

The herald's proclamation made, with trumpets, through the town,

"Nor child shall suck, nor man shall eat, till the mark be tumbled down!"

The cry of proclamation and the trumpet's haughty sound

Did send an echo to the vault where the Admiral was bound.

'Now help me, God!" the captive cries. "What means this cry so loud? O, Queen of Heaven! be vengeance given on these thy haters proud!

"Oh! is it that some Paynim gay doth Marlotes' daughter wed, And that they bear my scorned fair in triumph to his bed?

Or is it that the day is come-one of the hateful three

When they, with trumpet, fife and drum, make heathen game of me?"

These words the jailer chanced to hear, and thus to him he said:
"These tabours, lord, and trumpets clear conduct no bride to bed;
Nor has the feast come round again, when he that hath the right
Commands thee forth, thou foe of Spain, to glad the people's sight.

"This is the joyful morning of John the Baptist's day,

When Moor and Christian feasts at home, each in his nation's way;
But now our King commands that none his banquet shall begin,
Until some knight, by strength or sleight, the spearman's prize do win."

Then out and spoke Guarinos: "Oh! soon each man should feed,
Were I but mounted once again on my own gallant steed.
Oh, were I mounted as of old, and harnessed cap-a-pie,
Full soon Marlotes' prize I'd hold whate'er its price may be.

"Give me my horse, my old gray horse, so be he is not dead,
All gallantly caparisoned with plate on breast and head;

And give me the lance I brought from France, and if I win it not
My life shall be the forfeiture, I'll yield it on the spot."

The jailer wondered at his words. Thus to the knight said he :
"Seven weary years of chains and gloom have little humbled thee.
There's never a man in Spain, I trow, the like so well might bear,
An' if thou wilt I with thy vow will to the King repair."

The jailer put his mantle on and came unto the King,
He found him sitting on the throne within his listed ring;
Close to his ear he planted him, and the story did begin,
How bold Guarinos vaunted him the spearman's prize to win.

That were he mounted but once more on his own gallant gray,
And armed with the lance he bore on the Roncesvalles day,
What never Moorish knight could pierce, he would pierce it at a blow,
Or give with joy his life-blood fierce at Marlotes' feet to flow.

Much marveling, then said the King: "Bring Sir Guarinos forth,
And in the grange go seek ye for his gray steed of worth;
His arms are rusty on the wall, seven years have gone, I judge,
Since that strong horse hath bent him to be a common drudge.

"Now this will be a sight indeed to see the enfeebled lord
Essay to mount that ragged steed, and draw that rusty sword;
And for the vaunting of his phrase he well deserves to die:
So, jailer, gird his harness on, and bring your champion nigh."

They have girded on his shirt of mail, his cuisses well they've clasped, And they've barred the helm on his visage pale, and his hand the lance

hath grasped;

And they have caught the old gray horse, the horse he loved of yore,

And he stands pawing at the gate, caparisoned once more.

When the knight came out the Moors did shout, and loudly laughed the King,

For the horse he pranced and capered and furiously did fling;

But Guarinos whispered in his ear, and looked into his face,

Then stood the old charger, like a lamb, with calm and gentle grace.

Oh! lightly did Guarinos vault into the saddle-tree,

And slowly riding down made halt before Marlotes' knee;
Again the heathen laughed aloud. "All hail, Sir Knight !" quoth he,
"Now do thy best, thou champion proud; thy blood I look to see."

With that Guarinos, lance in rest, against the scoffer rode,
Pierced at one thrust his envious breast, and down his turban trode.
Now ride, now ride, Guarinos! nor lance nor rowel spare,
Slay, slay, and gallop for thy life! The land of France lies there!

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