Part 18 (1/2)

The ballad recounts how Pedro, relenting somewhat, imprisoned the false Maria de Padilla, but there is no evidence that she either suggested the crime or suffered for it. Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly gives it as his opinion that the dramatic power of the romance is undeniable. Had he spoken of its melodramatic power I might feel inclined to agree with him.

”That Pedro was accessory to the violent death of the young and innocent princess whom he had married, and immediately afterward deserted for ever, there can be no doubt,” says Lockhart, referring to the marriage of Pedro with Blanche de Bourbon. But whether he murdered his queen or not, his paramour, Maria de Padilla, was innocent of all complicity in the affair, although the ballad makes her the instigator of the horrid deed, and it is plain that the poems which refer to her were written with a sinister political motive.

Mariana, who is sufficiently reliable, states that Pedro's conduct toward his queen had aroused the anger of many of his n.o.bles, who presented him with a remonstrance in writing. His fierce and homicidal temper aroused to fury at what he considered an unwarranted interference in his private concerns, he immediately gave the order that his unfortunate French consort should be put to death by poison in the prison where she, was confined. The poem makes Pedro and his paramour plot upon the death of the unhappy Queen in the crude manner of the balladeer all the world over.

”Maria de Padilla, be not thus of dismal mood, For if I twice have wedded me, it all was for thy good,”

may be good ballad-writing, but I confess the barbarous inversion in the second line appears to me to be unnecessary.

”But if upon Queen Blanche ye will that I some scorn should show, For a banner to Medina my messenger shall go.-- The work shall be of Blanche's tears, of Blanche's blood the ground, Such pennon shall they weave for thee, such sacrifice be found.”

With the example of many enchanted pa.s.sages of allusion no less recondite occurring in the ballads of his own country-side, Lockhart might reasonably have been expected to have done much better than the last couplet.

Fause luve, ye've shapit a weed for me In simmer amang the flowers; I will repay thee back again In winter amang the showers.

The snow so white shall be your weed, In hate you shall be drest, The cauld east wind shall wrap your heid And the sharp rain on your breist.

But I question if folk-poetry ever captured a lilt more exquisite than that of the first four lines of ”The Gardener” or a sharper note of anguish than that of the last quatrain. [53] To me at least Old Scots must always remain the language of the ballad par excellence, by virtue of the subtlety, the finely wrought and divinely coloured wealth of expressive idiom which bursts from its treasure-chest in a profusion of begemmed and enamelled richness, more various, more magical than any Spanish gold. Much of this Lockhart filched to give his Castilian bullion a replating. But in places he falls back most wretchedly upon the poetical trickeries of his day, falls to the level of Rogers and Southey, to the miserable devices and tinsel beggary of those bravely bound annuals beloved by the dames and damsels of the day before yesterday. In places, however, he outballads the ballad in pure gaucherie.

These words she spake, then down she knelt, and took the bowman's blow, Her tender neck was cut in twain, and out her blood did flow.

The next, and not the last of the series, as Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly has it, is obviously the handiwork of Walter Scott, than whom none could fail more miserably on occasion. We can picture him doling ”The Death of Don Pedro” from out the great thesaurus of his brain (that sadly drained mint, ever at the service of a friend or a publisher), as a dinted and defaced coin. Only in the last verse does the old fire blaze up.

Thus with mortal gasp and quiver, While the blood in bubbles well'd, Fled the fiercest soul that ever In a Christian bosom dwell'd.

On such a subject the composer of ”Bonnie Dundee” might well have felt the blood run faster, and the pen quiver in his fingers like an arrow on a tightened bow-string. Two royal brothers strive with hateful poniards for each other's lives. Pedro, a prisoner in the hands of Henry of Trastamara, his natural brother, is wantonly insulted by the victorious n.o.ble, and replies by flying at his throat in an outburst of animal courage and kingly rage. Dumbfounded at the death-struggle of monarch and usurper, Henry's allies look on, among them the great Du Guesclin. Pedro pins the lord of Trastamara to the ground. His dagger flashes upward. Du Guesclin turns to Henry's squire. ”Will ye let your lord die thus, you who eat his bread?” he scoffs. The esquire throws himself upon Pedro, clings to his arms and turns him over, and, thus aided, Henry rises, searches for a joint in the King's armour, and thrusts his dagger deep into that merciless heart. The murderer, the friend of Jew and Saracen, is slain. His head is hacked off, and his proud body trampled beneath mailed feet. Surely a subject for a picture painted in the lights of armour and the red shadows of blood and hate.

Down they go in deadly wrestle, Down upon the earth they go.

Fierce King Pedro has the vantage, Stout Don Henry falls below.

Marking then the fatal crisis, Up the page of Henry ran, By the waist he caught Don Pedro, Aiding thus the fallen man.

They had better have let the ballad alone, those two at Abbotsford. It does not seem to me ”a very striking ballad,” as Mr Fitzmaurice Kelly observes, but in its Castilian dress it is sufficiently dramatic and exciting.