Part 17 (1/2)
is reminiscent of the pantomime days of our youth. Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly contents himself by remarking about this ballad that it scarcely calls for comment.
Count Fernan Gonzalez
”The Escape of the Count Fernan Gonzalez, which is based on the old Estoria del n.o.ble caballero Fernan Gonzalez,” a popular arrangement of the Cronica General (1344), is later than two other ballads which Mr Kelly and others believe represent a lost epic which was worked into the Cronica in question. A wealth of legend certainly cl.u.s.tered round the name of this cavalier, and he has a string of romanceros to his credit. But are we to believe that in every case where ballads crystallize round a great name these are the broken lights of a disintegrated epic, worn down by attrition into popular songs? Is there, indeed, irrefragable proof that such a process ever took place anywhere? Or its reverse, for that matter? Practical writers of verse (if a writer of verse can be practical) do not take kindly to the hypothesis. They recognize the generic differences between the spirit of epic and that of folk-poetry, and prefer to believe that when both have fixed upon the same subject the choice was fortuitous and not necessarily evolutionary.
Fernan Gonzalez of Castile owed not a little of his romantic reputation to his wife, who delivered him from captivity on at least two occasions. On that celebrated in the ballad she played the part of a faithful lover and a true heroine. Gonzalez, taken by his enemies, had been carried to a stronghold in Navarre. A Norman knight pa.s.sing through that country requested the governor of the castle for an audience with the captive, and as he offered a suitable bribe the official gladly conceded the request. The interview over, the knight departed and sought the palace of King Garcia of Navarre, who held Gonzalez in bondage. One of the counts against the prisoner seems to have been that he had asked Garcia for the hand of his daughter, and to this princess, who secretly loved the captive, the knight now addressed himself:
The Moors may well be joyful, but great should be our grief, For Spain has lost her guardian when Castile has lost her chief.
The Moorish host is pouring like a river o'er the land: Curse on the Christian fetters that bind Gonzalez' hand!
At 'mirk of night' the Infanta rose, and, proceeding alone to the castle where Gonzalez was confined, proffered such a heavy bribe to the governor to set him at liberty that he permitted his prisoner to go free. But the hero was still hampered by his chains, and when the pair were stopped by a hunter-priest who threatened to reveal their whereabouts to the King's foresters unless the Infanta paid him a shameful ransom, Gonzalez was unable to punish him as he deserved. But as the wretch embraced the princess she seized him by the throat, and Gonzalez grasped the spear which he had let fall and drove it through his body. Shortly afterward they encountered a band of Gonzalez'
own men-at-arms, with which incident their night of adventure came to a close.
The Infantes of Lara
Few Spanish romanceros celebrate incidents more tragic or memorable than those which cl.u.s.ter round the ma.s.sacre of the unfortunate Infantes or Princes of Lara by their treacherous uncle, Ruy or Roderigo Velasquez. Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly thinks that one of these originated from a lost epic written between 1268 and 1344, ”or perhaps from a lost recast of this lost epic.” Strange that such epics should all be lost! He pleads that Lockhart might have utilized other more 'energetic' ballads to ill.u.s.trate this legend, but I think in this does some despite to the very fine and spirited translation ent.i.tled ”The Vengeance of Mudara”:
Oh, in vain have I slaughter'd the Infants of Lara; There's an heir in his halls--there's the b.a.s.t.a.r.d Mudara, There's the son of the renegade--sp.a.w.n of Mahoun: If I meet with Mudara, my spear brings him down.
As I read these lines I recall a big drawing-room, the narrow cas.e.m.e.nts of which look upon a wilderness of garden woodland made magical by the yellow shadows of the hour when it is neither evening nor afternoon. Upon a table of mottled rosewood lies a copy of the Spanish Ballads in the embossed and fretted binding of the days when such books were given as presents and intended for exhibition. A child of ten, I had stolen into this Elysium redolent of rose-leaves and potpourri, and, opening the book at random, came upon the lines just quoted. For the first time I tasted the delights of rhythm, of music in words. The verses photographed themselves on my brain. Searching through the book until darkness fell, it seemed to me that I could find nothing so good, nothing that swung along with such a gallop. But the cup had been held to my lips, and my days and nights became a quest for words wedded to music. I had to look for some time before I encountered anything better than, or equal to, the haunting rhythm of ”The Vengeance of Mudara.” The years have brought discoveries beside which the first pales into insignificance, adventures in books of a spirit more subtle, carrying the thrill of a keener amazement; but none came with the force of such revelation as was vouchsafed by that page in an unforgotten book in an unforgettable room.
The first of the ballads in which Lockhart deals with the subject of the Infantes of Lara--for the one we have been discussing follows it--is ent.i.tled ”The Seven Heads,” and details the circ.u.mstance of the ma.s.sacre of the unhappy princes. From the Historia de Espana of Juan de Marinia (1537-1624) we learn that in the year 986 Ruy Velasquez, lord of Villaren, celebrated his marriage with Donna Lombra, a lady of high birth, at Burgos. The festivities were on a scale of great splendour, and among the guests were Gustio Gonzalez, lord of Salas of Lara, and his seven sons. These young men, of the blood of the Counts of Castile, were celebrated for their chivalric prowess, and had all been knighted on the self-same day.
As evil chance would have it, a quarrel arose between Gonzalez, the youngest of the seven brothers, and one Alvar Sanchez, a relation of the bride. Donna Lombra thought herself insulted, and in order to avenge herself, when the young knights rode in her train as she took her way to her lord's castle, she ordered one of her slaves to throw at Gonzalez a wild cuc.u.mber soaked in blood, ”a heavy insult and outrage, according to the then existing customs and opinions of Spain.” What this recondite insult signified does not matter. But surely, whatever its meaning, and making all allowance for the rudeness of the age of which she was an ornament, the lady did greater despite to herself than to her enemy by the perpetration of such an act of crude vulgarity. The slave, having done as he was bid, fled for protection to his mistress's side. But that availed him nothing, for the outraged Infantes slew him ”within the very folds of her garment.”
Ruy Velasquez, burning with Latin anger at what he deemed an insult to his bride, and therefore to himself, was determined upon a dreadful vengeance. But he studiously concealed his intention from the young n.o.blemen, and behaved to them as if nothing of moment had occurred. Some time after these events he sent Gustio Gonzalez, the father of the seven young champions, on a mission to Cordova, the ostensible object of which was to receive on his behalf a tribute of money from the Moorish king of that city. He made Gustio the bearer of a letter in Arabic, which he could not read, the purport of which was a request to the Saracen chieftain to have him executed. But the infidel displayed more humanity than the Christian, and contented himself with imprisoning the unsuspecting envoy.
In furtherance of his plans Velasquez pretended to make an incursion into the Moorish country, in which he was accompanied by the Infantes of Lara with two hundred of their followers. With fiendish ingenuity he succeeded in leading them into an ambuscade. Surrounded on all sides by the Saracen host, they resolved to sell their lives at the highest possible price rather than surrender. Back to back they stood, taking a terrible toll of Moorish lives, and one by one they fell, slain but unconquered. Their heads were dispatched to Velasquez as an earnest of a neighbourly deed by the Moorish king, and were paraded before him and in front of their stricken father, who had been released in order that Velasquez might gloat over his grief. When he had satisfied his vengeance the lord of Villaren permitted the stricken father to return to his empty home.
But Ruy Velasquez was not destined to go unpunished. While Gustio Gonzalez had been imprisoned in the dungeons of the Moorish King of Cordova he had contracted an alliance with that monarch's sister, by whom he had a son, Mudarra. When this young man had attained the age of fourteen years his mother prevailed upon him to go in search of his father, and when he had found his now aged parent he learned of the act of treachery by which his brothers had been slain. Determined to avenge the cowardly deed, he bided his time, and, encountering Ruy Velasquez when on a hunting expedition, slew him out of hand. Gathering around him a band of resolute men, he attacked the castle of Villaren, and executed a fearful vengeance upon the haughty Donna Lombra, whom he stoned and burnt at the stake. In course of time he was adopted by his father's wife, Donna Sancha, who acknowledged him as heir to the estates of his father.
We have already indicated the stirring nature of the ballad in which Mudarra takes vengeance upon the slayers of his brethren. Its predecessor in Lockhart's collection, that in which the agonized father beholds the seven heads of his murdered sons, falls far short of it in power.
”My gallant boys,” quoth Lara, ”it is a heavy sight These dogs have brought your father to look upon this night; Seven gentler boys, nor braver, were never nursed in Spain, And blood of Moors, G.o.d rest your souls, ye shed on her like rain.”
He took their heads up one by one,--he kiss'd them o'er and o'er, And aye ye saw the tears run down--I wot that grief was sore.
He closed the lids on their dead eyes, all with his fingers frail, And handled all their b.l.o.o.d.y curls, and kissed their lips so pale.