Part 24

LOPE DE ESTÚÑIGA. Estúñiga, or Stúñiga, fought under Alfonso V. of Aragon (1416-58) in Italy, and played a prominent part in the passage of honor held by his cousin, Suero de Quiñones. The fact that two of his pieces stand at the head of a certain collection of poems—the _Cancionero de Stúñiga_—caused it to be called by his name. Cf. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, II, 163 ff.

SUERO DE QUIÑONES. Noted as the originator of the famous passage of honor (_paso honroso_), which lasted from July 10 to August 9, 1434, and during which, in order to dissolve his chivalric vow of wearing an iron chain in his lady’s honor, he and nine other champions held the bridge of Órbigo, near León, against all knightly comers. Cf. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, II, 477.

JUAN ALFONSO DE BAENA. Probably a converted Jew. His verse is contained in the _Cancionero de Juan Baena_, an anthology which he himself compiled around 1445, as a typical collection of the productions of the court poets of Juan II.’s time (cf. the ed. of Pidal, etc., Madrid, 1851, and of Michel, Leipzig, 1860).

MANUEL DE LANDO was one of these poets and a reputed disciple of Imperial, like whom he shows the influence of Dante. The system of poetical pleas, replications, replies, etc., here illustrated, was frequently employed in the court poetry of the time. It is but a continuation of the _jeu parti_ and the _joex partitz_ of French and Provençal poetry.

*Page 39.*—ll. 7-8. *Quando ... ygualante*, i.e., _when it has recourse to the sun, so that the latter, which has equalizing powers, may subdue its diverging rays_.

*l. 11. otealla*, see note to p. 36, l. 34, and cf. *cobralla*, p. 40, l. 2.

*l. 12.* *Syn ser demandante*: Baena contends that actual verbal wooing is requisite.

*Page 40.*—l. 1. *vista de amor*: Lando, like the Italian _dolce stil nuovo_ poets, maintained that the love-glance constitutes sufficient wooing. Vergil is mentioned because of the importance which Dante gave to him.

CARVAJAL (CARVAJALES). A Spanish poet who followed the Aragonese arms into Italy during the reign of Alfonso V., and at Naples wrote in both Spanish and Italian. Two _romances_ of his, contained in the _Cancionero de Stúñiga_ (cf. ed. 1872)—a compilation of Spanish verse written at Naples—are thought to be among the earliest of the kind. Cf. Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, II, 181 ff.

GÓMEZ MANRIQUE. Uncle of the more illustrious Jorge Manrique, and a poet of considerable lyric merit. Cf. the edition of his _Cancionero_ by Paz y Melia (1885). As in the work of his nephew, so in his poems, pathos is a distinguishing trait. He had some success also in political satire.

*Page 40.*—l. 21. *lo no puedes*: this order of pronoun and negative adverb is not infrequent in earlier Spanish.

*Page 41.*—l. 24. *solares*, i.e., mere _sites_ formerly occupied by edifices.

JORGE MANRIQUE. The most eminently successful of the Spanish lyric poets of the fifteenth century, Jorge Manrique fell in battle when but thirty-eight years old. The greater part of his verse is to be found in the _Cancionero General_ of 1511. The love-poems and humorous pieces given there and in other _Cancioneros_ are of no decided merit, except perhaps an occasional poem, such as that printed here on p. 42. His real title to enduring fame is based upon the exquisite _coplas_, in which he commemorates the death of his father, the Maestre de Santiago, and proclaims the vanity and fleetingness of all earthly things. In sweetness and mournfulness of tone, as in finish of form, they are surpassed by nothing prior to them. The calm beauty and dignity of the original, and to some degree its metre, have been excellently rendered into English verse by Longfellow in his translation, beginning: “_O let the soul her slumbers break_.” Cf. Ticknor, I, 366 ff., 391 ff.

*Page 44.*—l. 3. *se acabar*: an Old Spanish order of infinitive and object pronoun.

l. 15. *yerva secreta*: so in Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, III, 102. The rhyme seems to require *yervas secretas*.

l. 20. Cf. St. John i. 10.

*Page 45.*—l. 1. *fué*: in modern Spanish *fuera* or *sería* would be more natural.

ll. 5-6. *Es ... atendemos*, i.e., _It serves for the gaining of that world (Paradise) which we await_, i.e., _hope for_.

l. 19. *D’ellas*: partitive, _some of them_.

*Page 46.*—l. 1. *arraval*: _limit, bounds_.

ll. 12-14. *Otros que por*, etc.: an ellipsis. *Otros* is in the same construction as *unos* of l. 9. Translate: _How low and abject do people deem others who, since they have nothing, maintain themselves by means of undeserved offices!_

*Page 48.*—l. 19. *al Rey Don Juan*: Juan II. of Castile (1406-54), a weak sovereign, but a munificent patron of letters in his splendid court.

*Page 49.*—l. 10. *Don Enrique*: Enrique IV., the Impotent († 1474). Unsuccessful in war, degraded and deposed by his subjects (1465), he was finally allowed to end his life on the throne only after consenting to the right of succession of his sister Isabel as opposed to that of his alleged daughter Juana.

l. 33. *su hermano el innocente*: the Infante Alfonso, to whom the throne was offered after the deposition of Enrique in 1465. Alfonso died, poisoned it is said, in 1468.

*Page 50.*—l. 11. *Condestable*: Álvaro de Luna; cf. note to p. 28.

l. 13. *tan privado*, _so great a favorite_.

*Page 51.*—l. 25. Longfellow inserts here the translation of two other stanzas not to be found in the text as published by Menéndez y Pelayo. A legend has it that they were discovered in the pocket of the author after his death on the battlefield.

l. 28. *El Maestre don Rodrigo*: Rodrigo Manrique, the father of the poet, died in 1476.

*Page 52.*—l. 9. *para*: equivalent to *para con*.

l. 15. *Octaviano*: the allusions to events in ancient history conveyed by this and the following names will readily suggest themselves.

l. 24. *En ... Archidano*: cf. Longfellow: “_The arm of Hector_.”

l. 28. *en ygualdad*, etc.: i.e., _in placidity of countenance_.

*Page 54.*—l. 5. The order of _Santiago de la Espada_ was a military and religious one, the charter of which was confirmed by Pope Alexander III. in 1175.

l. 16. *el*, i.e., *el rey*.

*Page 55.*—l. 34. *contra*, i.e., in battle against.

CARTAGENA: a member of a family of converted Jews that rose to prominence in the Church. The present song is from the _Cancionero General_ of 1511, and has been translated into English verse by Ticknor, I, 398. The theme is the same as that of St. Theresa in the _Glosa_ on p. 82.

RODRÍGUEZ DEL PADRÓN. Also called Juan Rodríguez de la Cámara, the last representative of the Galician tradition in Spanish poetry. His poems are in the _Cancionero General_, and the _Cancioneros_ of Stúñiga and Baena. A legend makes him the lover of the wife of the Castilian monarch of the time. Cf. the somewhat fictitious account of him given by Pidal in the notes to the _Cancionero_ of Baena (ed. 1860, II, 347), and see also Ticknor, I, 355.

*Page 58.*—l. 11. *Penetre*: in assonance only with *Contemple*.

MOSSÉN JUAN TALLANTE. The title of this personage may indicate an Aragonese origin for him. His devotional poems are found in the _Cancionero General_. A verse translation of this one is given by Ticknor, I, 395; cf. note there.

EL COMENDADOR ESCRIBÁ. These exquisitely mournful verses are attributed in the _Cancionero General_ to a Comendador Escribá (or Escrivá). They appealed strongly to the great writers of the _siglo de oro_, for Calderón cited the first stanza (with some variation) in his dramas _El mayor monstruo los celos_ and _Manos blancas no ofenden_, Cervantes repeated it in _Don Quijote_, II, ch. 38, and Lope de Vega wrote a gloss upon the poem. Cf. Ticknor, I, 246 f. and II, 386, note. Both Longfellow (Riverside ed. VI, p. 218) and Archdeacon Churton have made poetical versions of it.

*Page 59.*—l. 9. *de contigo*, i.e., *de estar contigo*.

JUAN ÁLVAREZ GATO. The author of love-songs and devotional lyrics that show in him considerable mastery of form. His individual _Cancionero_ exists in manuscript; only the poems found in the _Cancionero General_ have been published. Cf. _Romanische Forschungen_ of Vollmöller, X, 13.

*Page 60.*—l. 5. *Que aquel*; equivalent to *Que á aquel*.

ANÓNIMO. A wide-spread conceit, given Spanish form in this poem. Cf. C. M. de Vasconcellos, _Antología Española_ (Leipzig, 1875), I, 53.

POESÍAS DE LOS SIGLOS XVI-XVII

JUAN DEL ENCINA. A member of the household of the Duke of Alba, whence he passed over into Italy. There he became master of the papal choir; he then took orders and went to Jerusalem. He is supposed to have died at Salamanca. Of his lyrics, which belong to his earlier period, the more important have been published by Menéndez y Pelayo, _Antología_, IV, 135 ff. His eclogues were, perhaps, the first Spanish dramas actually staged. Cf. F. Wolf, _Studien_, etc., pp. 270 ff.

*Page 64.*—l. 14. *mancilla*: here used in the older sense of _pity_, _compassion_.

PEDRO MANUEL DE URREA. This noble published his lyrics in 1513 in a volume dedicated to his mother. They are partly secular and partly religious in nature, and show some Italian influence. Urrea also cultivates popular Spanish forms. His _Cancionero_ has been reprinted in the _Biblioteca de escritores aragoneses. Secc. lit. II_ (1876). Cf. the verse translation of this _romance_ in Ticknor, I, 371.

GIL VICENTE. A Portuguese disciple of Encina’s, who wrote dramas in both Portuguese and Spanish. The present song occurs in his play, _El auto de la Sibila Casandra_. See the edition of his works, Hamburg, 1834, and cf. Ticknor, I, 259, where there is a metrical translation of the song.

JUAN BOSCÁN ALMOGAVER. A Catalonian who wrote in Castilian with great success. He served in the Spanish army in Italy, and was later a tutor to the Duke of Alba. His earlier verses are in the national manner. Prompted, it is said, by the Venetian ambassador Navagiero, he became an Italianate, and, following the lead of Imperial and Santillana, was much more influential than they in establishing Italian verse methods in Castilian. He has made a large use of the hendecasyllable, the _verso suelto_ or blank verse (imitated from the Italian _versi sciolti_), the _ottava rima_ and the sonnet, and has frequently imitated Dante, Petrarch, and the _cinque cento_ poets of Italy. Among his more important poetical works are the _Hero y Leandro_ and the _Octava rima_, this latter being an allegorical poem from which the verses on p. 68 ff. are an excerpt. The influence of the Italian poet Bembo is clear in the _Octava rima_. In his translation of Castiglione’s _Cortegiano_, Boscán showed a mastery of Castilian prose. Cf. W. T. Knapp, _Las obras de Juan Boscán_, Madrid, 1875, and G. Baist, _Spanische Literatur_ (Gröber’s _Grundriss_, II, 2, 449 ff.).

*Page 68.*—ll. 6-8. A reminiscence of Dante, _Inferno_, Canto V, the words of Francesca: “Nessun maggior dolore, | Che ricordarsi del tempo felice | Nella miseria.”

l. 11. *Por do*: _wherefore_.

*Page 69.*—l. 17. Cf. the translation of this stanza in Ticknor, I, 445.

l. 30. *quexaros*, i.e., *quejaros*.

GARCILASO DE LA VEGA. This soldier-poet, a native of Toledo, took part in the battle of Pavia, distinguished himself in several succeeding campaigns, and was killed in an assault when but thirty-three years of age. A friend of Boscán, he represents the same Italianizing tendencies in Spanish literature. His verses, along with those of Boscán, were first published by the latter’s widow in 1543. The bulk of his poetry is small—some early _villancicos_, a few eclogues and elegies, an epistle, several _canciones_, and between thirty and forty sonnets—but it suffices to show him to be a greater poet than Boscán. But very little of his work is in the old Castilian manner; the Italians are his masters in the important part of his production, although the eclogues show also a Vergilian influence. Cf. _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, vols. 32 and 42, and see Baist in Gröber’s _Grundriss_, II, 2, p. 449; Ticknor, I, 446 ff.

*Page 71.*—l. 34. *de consuno*, _at the same time_.

*Page 72.*—l. 12. *Tomando*: if *fe* is the object of *tomando*, then it is by a poetical license that *presupuesto* is left invariable. If *fe* is the subject of *tomando*, the participle agrees with the idea in *lo que no entiendo*.

l. 17. *nascí*, i.e., *nací*.

FERNANDO DE ACUÑA. A member of the court of Charles V. In imitation of Garcilaso de la Vega, he adopted the Italian measures, and was particularly successful with the sonnet. Cf. his _Varias poesías_, Madrid, 1803-04, and see Ticknor I, 458 ff.

GUTIERRE DE CETINA. Another follower of Garcilaso. Like the latter he was a soldier, and distinguished himself in Italy. About 1550 he appears to have wandered as far as Mexico. Cetina cultivated the sonnet with great skill. His madrigals are famous. Cf. the ed. of his _Obras_, Seville, 1895; and see Salvi López, _Un Petrarchista spagnuolo_ (1896); Ticknor I, 461 (with a verse translation of the first madrigal).

DIEGO HURTADO DE MENDOZA. Soldier, diplomat, historian, humanist, poet; one of the most illustrious figures in the history of Spain. His long sojourn in Italy acquainted him with the Italian verse methods, which he adopted, although he constantly recurred to the regular Spanish forms, such as the _quintillas_ and the _redondillas_. His fame rests secure, despite the unfounded attribution to him of the picaresque novel _Lazarillo de Tormes_. There is an edition of his verse by Knapp (1877); cf. also _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, vol. 32, and see J. D. Fesenmair, _Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, ein span. Humanist des 16. Jhs._, Munich, 1882.

*Page 74.*—l. 24. *de medroso*, _through fear_.

l. 25. *De desesperado*, _through despair_.

CRISTÓBAL DE CASTILLEJO. This writer was abroad for a long period as the secretary of Ferdinand I., king of Bohemia. Although he spent much time in Italy, and occasionally adopted the Italian manner, he usually protested loudly against the Italianizing tendencies in Spanish literature. Cf. _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, vol. 32.

*Page 75.*—l. 15. This poem is in double _quintillas_.

l. 26. *Anabaptistas*: allusion is here made to the fact that this sect does not recognize any but adult baptism. One baptized in unconscious childhood has to be rebaptized to enter this communion.

*Page 76.*—l. 3. *Petrarquistas*: imitators of the Italian poet Petrarch (1304-74).

l. 20. *Jorge Manrique*: cf. note to p. 42.

l. 23. *platique* (i.e., *pratique*), _because the old style is no longer practised_.

l. 24. *Garci-Sánchez*: Garci-Sánchez de Badajoz, the author of an allegorical poem entitled _El Infierno del Amor_, died in a mad-house at the end of the fifteenth or in the early sixteenth century. He appears here as an enemy of the Italianates.

l. 25. *¡Quien me otorgase*, _oh, if some one would only grant me_!

l. 30. *Cartagena*: cf. note to p. 57.

l. 34. *Torres Naharro*: one of the most important of the early Spanish dramatists. His plays were published at Naples in 1517. Following the rule of Horace, he was the first to divide the Spanish drama into five acts. Despite the large Italian influence upon him, he is here made an opponent of the Italian movement in Spain.

*Page 77.*—l. 5. *Boscán*: cf. note to p. 67.

l. 6. *Garcilaso*: cf. note to p. 70. The praise here given is, of course, ironical.

l. 22. *desmandados*, _astray_.

*Page 78.*—l. 10. *Luis de Haro*: although Castillejo singles this personage out as a leading Italianate, little is known of him. The few poems ascribed to him in the _Cancionero_ of Nájera (1554) hardly justify the importance here given to him. Cf. Ticknor, I, 461, note.

l. 13. *el otro*: seemingly, Luis de Haro; but Garcilaso also figured in the campaign against the Sultan.—*Solimán*: Solimán II, Sultan from 1520 to 1566.

GREGORIO DE SILVESTRE. A Portuguese, organist of the cathedral at Granada. He imitated Castillejo in abusing the Italianates, yet he later wrote in the foreign manner. Simplicity of expression and considerable finish of form are the chief characteristics of his verse. Cf. Ticknor, I, 465 f.; Garcia Peres, _Catálogo de los autores portugueses que escribieron en castellano_, Madrid, 1890. His verse is in the _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, vol. 32.

*Page 78.*—l. 23-24. Cf. p. 77, ll. 5 ff. Castillejo’s praise was rather sarcastic.

*Page 80.*—l. 17. *Guarte*: i.e., *guárdate*.

JORGE DE MONTEMAYOR. Also a Portuguese, and originally named _Montemôr_. He is famous as the author of the prose pastoral romance _Diana Enamorada_. He wrote a good deal of verse in Spanish—satires, elegies, ballads, lyrics, etc.—that may be found in his _Cancioneros_ (Antwerp, 1554, etc.). Cf. G. Schönnherr, _Jorge de Montemayor_, etc., Halle, 1886.

LUIS DE CAMOENS. The glory of Portuguese literature, author of the Portuguese epic _Os Lusiadas_. Like so many of his countrymen, he wrote verse in Spanish as well as in his own language. Cf. his _Obras_, Lisbon, 1860-69; and see Ticknor, III, 77, note, and 58 (with a verse translation of the _Letrilla_).

*Page 81.*—l. 30. *vo*, i.e., *voy*.

*Page 82.*—l. 26. *fora*, i.e., *fuera*.

SANTA TERESA DE JESÚS (Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada). A Carmelite nun already in 1536, she devoted the rest of her laborious life to founding convents and thoroughly reforming her Order and to the composition of her devotional and mystical works (_El Camino de la perfección—El castillo interior_, etc.). She is one of the greatest of the Spanish mystics, and is in every way an attractive figure. Cf. _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, vols. 53 and 55, for her works; and see an account of her life by Mrs. Cunninghame Graham (1894).

*Page 85.*—l. 21. This _Letrilla_ has been translated by Longfellow (Riverside ed., 1886, VI, 216).

FERNANDO DE HERRERA. An ecclesiastic, and head of the so-called Seville school of lyric poetry in the sixteenth century. Not much is known of his life. Eminently a poet, and as such called the _Divine_ by his countrymen, he wrote with exceeding purity of style and greatly enriched Spanish poetic diction. His masterpiece is the ode: _Por la vitoria de Lepanto_. The influence of Petrarch is clear in his sonnets. See _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, vol. 32, for his poems; and cf. Ticknor, III, 7 ff. and E. Bourciez in the _Annales de la Faculté des lettres de Bordeaux_ (1891).

*Page 86.*—l. 1. This sonnet has been Englished by Archdeacon Churton (in his translations from Gongora, etc., London, 1862, vol. I, p. 223). The naval battle of Lepanto (near Corinth) took place on October 7, 1571, between the Turks on one side, and on the other the combined squadrons of Spain, Venice and Pope Pius V, under the command of Don John of Austria, a natural brother of Philip II. The Christians triumphed and Mohammedan inroads into the Occident were checked. Cervantes was crippled in this battle.—*Ponto*, _ocean_, _sea_.

l. 14. *El joven de Austria*, i.e., Don John.

l. 15. Cf. the _Cantiga_ of Villasandino, p. 24.

*Page 87.*—l. 14. *aquella*: cf. p. 88, l. 23.

*Page 88.*—l. 12. *efeto*, 15 *afeto*: i.e., *efecto*, *afecto*; cf. *vitoria*.

l. 23. *Pasitea*: one of the three Graces.

l. 24. Cf. note to p. 86, l. 1, and see the critical edition of this ode by A. Morel-Fatio, Paris, 1893.

l. 25. *Trace*, _Thracian_: here the _Turk_.

*Page 89.*—l. 20. *las dos Hesperias*, i.e., Italy and Spain.

ll. 27-28. Allusions to the campaigns of the Turks in Hungary and Dalmatia, and their seizure of Rhodes (1522).

*Page 91.*—l. 15. *Egito*: cf. _Ægyptus_, feminine in Latin.

l. 24. *dellas*, i.e., *de ellas*.

*Page 92.*—l. 21. *dragón*; 28. *león*: allusions to the arms of the Turk and of Castile and Leon.

*Page 93.*—l. 6. *De Tiro*, i.e., _of the Turks_. Tyre had been in their hands since 1517.

FRAY LUIS DE LEÓN. Cleric, poet, humanist, mystic, professor at the University of Salamanca. Accused of a violation of church law in publishing a Spanish translation of the _Song of Solomon_, he was arrested by order of the tribunal of the Inquisition and spent five years in its dungeons. Then, his innocence being made clear, he was released, rehabilitated in the University, and promoted to high honors in his Order (the Augustinians). There is no good edition of his works, but his poems and his prose treatises in expositive theology may be found in vol. 37 of the _Biblioteca de autores españoles_. His verse is admirable, and is distinguished by its noble diction, the purity of its style, and the simplicity of its expression, qualities especially noticeable in the _Vida del Campo_ and the _Profecía del Tajo_. It shows generally a strongly marked mystical tendency, but bears also the impress of his humanistic temperament. The influence of Horace is everywhere patent in León’s works. With Herrera and Garcilaso, he occupies the highest place among the lyric poets of the age. See Menéndez y Pelayo, _De la poesía mística_ (_Estudios de crítica literaria_, Madrid, 1884); J. D. M. Ford, _Luis de León, the Spanish Poet, Humanist, and Mystic_ (_Publications of the Modern Language Association of America_, vol. XIV, No. 2); and Blanco-García’s recent treatise on León. See also English poetical versions of several of León’s lyrics made by H. Phillips (Philadelphia, 1883).

*Page 97.*—ll. 14-15. An extremely venturesome _enjambement_. But the entity of _mente_ in adverbs is always clear to the Spanish mind.

l. 24. This poem has been rendered into English verse by W. C. Bryant. Cf. Ticknor, II, 88.

l. 30. *agora*, i.e., *ahora*.

*Page 100.*—l. 6. *el arrebatado*, i.e., _the sudden, violent and abnormal movement_.

ll. 12-13. The Bears are, of course, boreal constellations and regularly above the horizon.

l. 26. León here deals with an unhistorical legend of Arabic origin, according to which the Moors were introduced into Spain in 711, through the treachery of an injured father, Count Julian, whose daughter, sometimes called _Cava_, King Roderick was said to have seduced. The Spanish poet imitates the situation in Horace’s ode, _Pastor quum traheret per freta navibus_.

*Page 101.*—l. 14. *Constantina*: a town of the province of Seville.

l. 17. *Sansueña*: the Spanish kingdom of Sansueña figures in the legends dealing with Charlemagne, and has been identified with Saragossa; cf. the _Don Quijote_, II, ch. xxvi. For an identification with Saxony cf. F. Hanssen, _Sobre la poesía épica de los Visigodos_, Santiago, 1892.

l. 19. *dende*: equivalent to the modern *desde*.

*Page 102.*—l. 12. *el hercúleo estrecho*, _the Strait of Gibraltar_.

l. 19. *el puerto ... sagrado*: the port of Tarifa.

l. 21. *el alta sierra*: el was used as the feminine article even before adjectives in earlier Spanish.

l. 30. *Betis*: the Latin river _Bætis_, the modern _Guadalquivir_.

*Page 103.*—l. 2. *luces*, i.e., *días*.—*haces*, _ranks_.

l. 6. Churton (_l. c._, II, 245) has made a poetical translation of the _Noche serena_.

*Page 104.*—l. 22. *luz*: i.e., Mercury.

23. *estrella*: i.e., Venus.

SAN JUAN DE LA CRUZ. St. John of the Cross (in the world, Juan de Yepes y Álvarez) was like St. Theresa a Carmelite, and like her also one of the most illustrious of the mystics and an energetic monastic reformer. His prose works of contemplative mysticism gained him the title of the _Ecstatic Doctor_. Of his poems, but few in number, the best is the _Canción_ printed here, in which we see illustrated the part played by the _Song of Solomon_ in the development of a highly sensuous element in Spanish mysticism. Cf. _Biblioteca de autores españoles_, vol. 27, and an ed. of the poems by W. Storck (1854); and see Ticknor, I, 208.

*Page 105.*—l. 21. David Lewis has made a rhythmical version in English of this beautiful poem.