Modern Spanish Lyrics (Líricos Español Modernos) by Elijah Clarence. Hills, Ph.D S. Griswold Morley, - HTML preview

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MODERN SPANISH

LYRICS

EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES AND

VOCABULARY

BY

ELIJAH CLARENCE HILLS, PH. D., LITT.D.

Professor of Romance Languages in Colorado College

AND

S. GRISWOLD MORLEY, PH. D.

University of Colorado

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1913

iii

PREFACE

The present volume aims to furnish American studentsof Spanish with a convenient selection of theCastilian lyrics best adapted to class reading. It wasthe intention of the editors to include no poem whichdid not possess distinct literary value. On the otherhand, some of the most famous Spanish lyrics do notseem apt to awaken the interest of the average student:it is for this reason that scholars will miss thenames of certain eminent poets of the siglo de oro.The nineteenth century, hardly inferior in merit andnearer to present-day readers in thought and language,is much more fully represented. No apology is neededfor the inclusion of poems by Spanish-American writers,for they will bear comparison both in style andthought with the best work from the mother Peninsula.

The Spanish poems are presented chronologically,according to the dates of their authors. The Spanish-Americanpoems are arranged according to countriesand chronologically within those divisions. Omissionsare indicated by rows of dots and are due in all cases tothe necessity of bringing the material within the limitsof a small volume. Three poems (the Fiesta de toros ofMoratín, the Castellano leal of Rivas and the Leyenda of Zorrilla) are more narrative than lyric.

The romances ivselected are the most lyrical of their kind. Afew songs have been added to illustrate the relationof poetry to music.

The editors have been constantly in consultation inall parts of the work, but the preparation of the Prosody,the Notes (including articles on Spanish-American literature)and the part of the Introduction dealing with thenineteenth century, was undertaken by Mr. Hills,while Mr. Morley had in charge the Introduction priorto 1800, and the Vocabulary. Aid has been receivedfrom many sources. Special thanks are due to ProfessorJ.D.M. Ford and Dr. A.F. Whittem ofHarvard University, Don Ricardo Palma of Peru,Don Rubén Darío of Nicaragua, Don Rufino Blanco-Fombonaof Venezuela, Professor Carlos Bransby ofthe University of California, and Dr. Alfred Coesterof Brooklyn, N.Y.

E.C.H.

S.G.M.

v

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

I. Spanish Lyric Poetry to 1800

II. Spanish Lyric Poetry of the Nineteenth Century

III. Spanish Versification

ESPAÑA

ROMANCES:

Abenámar

Fonte-frida

El conde Arnaldos

La constancia

El amante desdichado

El prisionero

VINCENTE (GIL) (1470-1540?)

Canción

TERESA DE JESÚS (SANTA) (1515-1582)

Letrilla (que llevaba por registro en su breviario)

LEÓN (FRAY LUIS DE) (1527-1591)

Vida retirada

ANÓNIMO

Á Cristo crucificado

VEGA (LOPE DE) (1562-1635)

Canción de la Virgen

Mañana

QUEVEDO (FRANCISCO DE) (1580-1645)

Epístola satírica al conde de Olivares

Letrilla satírica

VILLEGAS (ESTEBAN MANUEL DE) (1589-1669)

Cantilena: De un pajarillo

CALDERÓN DE LA BARCA (PEDRO) (1600-1681)

"Estas que fueron pompa y alegría,"

Consejo de Crespo á su hijo

GONZÁLEZ (FRAY DIEGO) (1733-1794)

El murciélago alevoso

vi

MORATÍN (NICOLÁS F. DE) (1737-1780)

Fiesta de toros en Madrid

JOVELLANOS (GASPAR M. DE) (1744-1811)

Á Arnesto

MELÉNDEZ VALDÉS (JUAN) (1754-1817)

Rosana en los fuegos

QUINTANA (MANUEL JOSÉ) (1772-1857)

Oda á España, después de la revolución de marzo

SOLÍS (DIONISIO) (1774-1834)

La pregunta de la niña

GALLEGO (JUAN NICASIO) (1777-1853)

El Dos de Mayo

MARTÍNEZ DE LA ROSA (FRANCISCO) (1787-1862)

El nido

RIVAS (DUQUE DE) (1791-1865)

Un castellano leal

AROLAS (PADRE JUAN) (1805-1849)

"Sé más feliz que yo"

ESPRONCEDA (JOSÉ DE) (1808-1842)

Canción del pirata

Á la patria

ZORRILLA (JOSÉ) (1817-1893)

Oriental

Indecisión

La fuente

Á buen juez, mejor testigo

TRUEBA (ANTONIO DE) (1821-1889)

Cantos de pájaro

La perejilera

SELGAS (JOSÉ) (1821-1882)

La modestia

ALARCÓN (PEDRO ANTONIO DE) (1833-1891)

El Mont-Blanc

El secreto

BÉCQUER (GUSTAVO A.) (1836-1870)

Rimas: II

VII

LIII

LXXIII

vii

QUEROL (VINCENTE WENCESLAO) (1836-1889)

En Noche-Buena

CAMPOAMOR (RAMÓN DE) (1817-1901)

Proximidad del bien

¡Quién supiera escribir!

El mayor castigo

NÚÑEZ DE ARCE (GASPAR) (1834-1903)

¡Excelsior!

Tristezas

¡Sursum Corda!

PALACIO (MANUEL DEL) (1832-1895)

Amor oculto

BARTRINA (JOAQUÍN MARÍA) (1850-1880)

Arabescos

REINA (MANUEL) (1860-)

La poesía

ARGENTINA

ECHEVERRÍA (O. ESTEBAN) (1805-1851)

Canción de Elvira

ANDRADE (OLEGARIO VICTOR) (1838-1882)

Atlántida

Prometeo

OBLIGADO (RAFAEL) (1852-)

En la ribera

COLOMBIA

ORTIZ (JOSÉ JOAQUÍN) (1814-1892)

Colombia y España

CARO (JOSÉ EUSEBIO) (1817-1853)

El ciprés

MARROQUÍN (JOSÉ MANUEL) (1827-)

Los cazadores y la perrilla

CARO (MIGUEL ANTONIO) (1843-1909)

Vuelta á la patria

viii

ARRIETA (DIÓGENES A.) (1848-)

En la tumba de mi hijo

GUTIÉRREZ PONCE (IGNACIO) (1850-)

Dolora

GARAVITO A. (JOSÉ MARÍA) (1860-)

Volveré mañana

CUBA

HEREDIA (JOSÉ MARÍA) (1803-1839)

En el teocalli de Cholula

El Niágara

"PLÁCIDO" (GABRIEL DE LA CONCEPCIÓN VALDÉS) (1809-1844) Plegaria á Dios

AVELLANEDA (GERTRUDIS GÓMEZ DE) (1814-1873)

Á Wáshington

Al partir

ECUADOR

OLMEDO (JOSÉ JOAQUÍN) (1780-1847)

La victoria de Junín

MÉXICO

PESADO (JOSÉ JOAQUÍN DE) (1801-1861)

Serenata

CALDERÓN (FERNANDO) (1809-1845)

La rosa marchita

ACUÑA (MANUEL) (1849-1873)

Nocturno: Á Rosario

PEZA (JUAN DE DIOS) (1852-1910)

Reír llorando

Fusiles y muñecas

NICARAGUA

DARÍO (RUBÉN) (1864-)

Á Roosevelt

ix

VENEZUELA

BELLO (ANDRÉS) (1781-1865)

Á la victoria de Bailén

La agricultura de la zona tórrida

PÉREZ BONALDE (JUAN ANTONIO) (1846-1892)

Vuelta á la patria

MARTÍN DE LA GUARDIA (HERACLIO) (1830-)

Ultima ilusión

CANCIONES

La carcelera

Riverana

La cachucha

La valenciana

Canción devota

La jota gallega

El trágala

Himno de Riego

Himno nacional de México

Himno nacional de Cuba

NOTES

VOCABULARY[a]

[Transcriber's note a: The vocabulary section has

not been submitted for transcription.}

xi

INTRODUCTION

I

SPANISH LYRIC POETRY TO 1800

It has been observed that epic poetry, which is collectiveand objective in its nature, always reaches its fulldevelopment in a nation sooner than lyric poetry, whichis individual and subjective. Such is certainly the casein Spain. Numerous popular epics of much merit existedthere in the Middle Ages.1 Of a popular lyric there arefew traces in the same period; and the Castilian lyric as anart-form reached its height in the sixteenth, and again inthe nineteenth, centuries. It is necessary always to bear inmind the distinction between the mysterious product calledpopular poetry, which is continually being created butseldom finds its way into the annals of literature, and artisticpoetry. The chronicler of the Spanish lyric is concernedwith the latter almost exclusively, though he willhave occasion to mention the former not infrequently asthe basis of some of the best artificial creations.

Footnote 1: (return) The popular epics were written in assonating lines of variable length.There were also numerous monkish narrative poems (mester de clereçia) in stanzas of four Alexandrine lines each, all riming (cuaderna vía).

If one were to enumerate ab origine the lyric productionsof the Iberian Peninsula he might begin with the vaguereferences of Strabo to the songs of its primitive inhabitants,xii and then pass on to Latin poets of Spanish birth, suchas Seneca, Lucan and Martial. The later Spaniards whowrote Christian poetry in Latin, as Juvencus and Prudentius,might then be considered. But in order not to embracemany diverse subjects foreign to the contents of this collection,we must confine our inquiry to lyric production in thelanguage of Castile, which became the dominating tongueof the Kingdom of Spain.

Such a restriction excludes, of course, the Arabic lyric, ahighly artificial poetry produced abundantly by the Moorsduring their occupation of the south of Spain; it excludesalso the philosophical and religious poetry of the SpanishJews, by no means despicable in thought or form. Catalanpoetry, once written in the Provençal manner and of latehappily revived, also lies outside our field.

Even the Galician poetry, which flourished so freelyunder the external stimulus of the Provençal troubadours,can be included only with regard to its influence uponCastilian. The Galician dialect, spoken in the northwestcorner of the Peninsula, developed earlier than the Castilianof the central region, and it was adopted by poets in otherparts for lyric verse. Alfonso X of Castile (reigned 1252-1284)could write prose in Castilian, but he must needsemploy Galician for his Cantigas de Santa María. ThePortuguese nobles, with King Diniz (reigned 1279-1325) attheir head, filled the idle hours of their bloody and passionatelives by composing strangely abstract, conventional poemsof love and religion in the manner of the Provençal canso,dansa, balada and pastorela, which had had such a luxuriantgrowth in Southern France in the eleventh and twelfthcenturies. A highly elaborated metrical system mainlyxiiidistinguishes these writers, but some of their work catchesa pleasing lilt which is supposed to represent the imitationof songs of the people. The popular element in the Galicianproductions is slight, but it was to bear importantfruit later, for its spirit is that of the serranas of Ruiz andSantillana, and of villancicos and eclogues in the sixteenthcentury.

It was probably in the neighborhood of 1350 that lyricsbegan to be written in Castilian by the cultured classes ofLeon and Castile, who had previously thought Galician theonly proper tongue for that use, but the influence of theGalician school persisted long after. The first real lyric inCastilian is its offspring. This is the anonymous Razónfeyta d'amor or Aventura amorosa (probably thirteenthcentury), a dainty story of the meeting of two lovers. Itis apparently an isolated example, ahead of its time, unless,as is the case with the Castilian epic, more poems are lostthan extant. The often quoted Cántica de la Virgen ofGonzalo de Berceo (first half of thirteenth century), withits popular refrain Eya velar, is an oasis in the long religiousepics of the amiable monk of S. Millán de la Cogolla. Onemust pass into the succeeding century to find the nextexamples of the true lyric. Juan RUIZ, the mischievousArchpriest of Hita (flourished ca.

1350), possessed a geniussufficiently keen and human to infuse a personal vigor intostale forms.

In his Libro de buen amor he incorporatedlyrics both sacred and profane, Loores de Santa María and Cánticas de serrana, plainly in the Galician manner and ofcomplex metrical structure. The serranas are particularlyfree and unconventional. The Chancellor Pero LÓPEZ DEAYALA (1332-1407), wise statesman, brilliant historian and xivtrenchant satirist, wrote religious songs in the same styleand still more intricate in versification. They are includedin the didactic poem usually called El rimado de palacio.

Poetry flourished in and about the courts of the monarchsof the Trastamara family; and what may be supposed arepresentative collection of the work done in the reigns ofHenry II (1369-1379), John I (1379-1388), Henry III(1388-1406) and the minority of John II (1406-1454), ispreserved for us in the Cancionero which Juan Alfonso deBaena compiled and presented to the last-named king.Two schools of versifiers are to be distinguished in it. Theolder men, such as Villasandino, Sánchez de Talavera,Macías, Jerena, Juan Rodríguez del Padrón and Baenahimself, continued the artificial Galician tradition, now runto seed. In others appears the imitation of Italian modelswhich was to supplant the ancient fashion. Francisco Imperial,a worshiper of Dante, and other Andalusians suchas Ruy Páez de Ribera, Pero González de Uceda and FerránManuel de Lando, strove to introduce Italian meters andideas. They first employed the Italian hendecasyllable,although it did not become acclimated till the days ofBoscán. They likewise cultivated the metro de arte mayor,which later became so prominent (see below, p. lxxv ff.).But the interest of the poets of the Cancionero de Baena ismainly historical. In spite of many an illuminating side-lighton manners, of political invective and an occasionalglint of imagination, the amorous platitudes and wire-drawnlove-contests of the Galician school, the stiff allegories of theItalianates leave us cold. It was a transition period andthe most talented were unable to master the undevelopedpoetic language.xv

The same may be said, in general, of the whole fifteenthcentury. Although the language became greatly clarifiedtoward 1500 it was not yet ready for masterly originalwork in verse. Invaded by a flood of Latinisms, springingfrom a novel and undigested humanism, encumbered stillwith archaic words and set phrases left over from the Galicians,it required purification at the hands of the real poetsand scholars of the sixteenth century. The poetry of thefifteenth is inferior to the best prose of the same epoch; itis not old enough to be quaint and not modern enough tomeet a present-day reader upon equal terms.

These remarks apply only to artistic poetry. Popularpoetry,—that which was exemplified in the Middle Ages bythe great epics of the Cid, the Infantes de Lara and otherheroes, and in songs whose existence can rather be inferredthan proved,—was never better. It produced the lyrico-epic romances (see Notes, p. 253), which, as far as one mayjudge from their diction and from contemporary testimony,received their final form at about this time, though in manycases of older origin. It produced charming little songswhich some of the later court poets admired sufficiently togloss. But the cultured writers, just admitted to the splendidcultivated garden of Latin literature, despised thesesimple wayside flowers and did not care to preserve themfor posterity.

The artistic poetry of the fifteenth century falls naturallyinto three classes, corresponding to three currents of influence;and all three frequently appear in the work of oneman, not blended, but distinct. One is the conventionallove-poem of the Galician school, seldom containing a freshor personal note. Another is the stilted allegory with xvierotic or historical content, for whose many sins Dante waschiefly responsible, though Petrarch, he of the Triunfi, andBoccaccio cannot escape some blame. Third is a vein ofhighly moral reflections upon the vanity of life and certaintyof death, sometimes running to political satire. Its rootsmay be found in the Book of Job, in Seneca and, nearerat hand, in the Proverbios morales of the Jew Sem Tob( ca. 1350), in the Rimado de Palacio of Ayala, and in afew poets of the Cancionero de Baena.

John II was a dilettante who left the government of thekingdom to his favorite, Álvaro de Luna.

He gained morefame in the world of letters than many better kings byfostering the study of literature and gathering about hima circle of "court poets" nearly all of noble birth. Onlytwo names among them all imperatively require mention.Iñigo LÓPEZ DE MENDOZA, MARQUIS

OF SANTILLANA (1398-1458)was the finest type of grand seigneur, protector ofletters, student, warrior, poet and politician. He wroteverse in all three of the manners just named, but he willcertainly be longest remembered for his serranillas, thefine flower of the Provençal-Galician tradition, in whichthe poet describes his meeting with a country lass. Santillanacombined the freshest local setting with perfection ofform and left nothing more to be desired in that genre.

Healso wrote the first sonnets in Castilian, but they are interestingonly as an experiment, and had no followers. Juande MENA (1411-1456) was purely a literary man, withoutother distinction of birth or accomplishment. His workis mainly after the Italian model. The Laberinto de fortuna,by which he is best known, is a dull allegory with much ofDante's apparatus. There are historical passages where xviithe poet's patriotism leads him to a certain rhetoricalheight, but his good intentions are weighed down by threemillstones: slavish imitation, the monotonous arte mayor stanza and the deadly earnestness of his temperament. Heenjoyed great renown and authority for many decades.

Two anonymous poems of about the same time deservemention. The Danza de la muerte, the Castilian representativeof a type which appeared all over Europe, shows deathsummoning mortals from all stations of life with ghastlyglee. The Coplas de Mingo Revulgo, promulgated duringthe reign of Henry IV (1454-1474), are a political satire indialogue form, and exhibit for the first time the peculiarpeasant dialect that later became a convention of the pastoraleclogues and also of the country scenes in the greatdrama.

The second half of the century continues the same tendencieswith a notable development in the fluidity of thelanguage and an increasing interest in popular poetry.Gómez Manrique (d. 1491?) was another warrior of a literaryturn whose best verses are of a severely moral nature.

Hisnephew JORGE MANRIQUE (1440-1478) wrote a single poemof the highest merit; his scanty other works are forgotten.The Coplas por la muerte de su padre, beautifully translatedby Longfellow, contain some laments for the writer's personalloss, but more general reflections upon the instabilityof worldly glory. It is not to be thought that this famouspoem is in any way original in idea; the theme had alreadybeen exploited to satiety, but Manrique gave it a superlativeperfection of form and a contemporary applicationwhich left no room for improvement.

There were numerous more or less successful love-poets xviiiof the conventional type writing in octosyllabics and theinevitable imitators of Dante with their unreadable allegoriesin arte mayor.

The repository for the short poemsof these writers is the Cancionero general of Hernando deCastillo (1511). It was reprinted many times throughoutthe sixteenth century. Among the writers represented init one should distinguish, however, Rodrigo de Cota.His dramatic Diálogo entre el amor y un viejo has real charm,and has saved his name from the oblivion to which most ofhis fellows have justly been consigned. The bishop AmbrosioMontesino ( Cancionero, 1508) was a fervent religiouspoet and the precursor of the mystics of fifty years later.

The political condition of Spain improved immenselyin the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella (1479-1516) and thecountry entered upon a period of internal homogeneity andtranquility which might be expected to foster artistic production.Such was the case; but literature was not the firstof the arts to reach a highly refined state. The first halfof the sixteenth century is a period of humanistic study,and the poetical works coming from it were still tentative.JUAN DEL

ENCINA (1469-1533?) is important in the historyof the drama, for his églogas, representaciones and autos arepractically the first Spanish dramas not anonymous. As alyric poet Encina excels in the light pastoral; he was a musicianas well as a poet, and his bucolic villancicos and glosas instanzas of six-and eight-syllable lines are daintily writtenand express genuine love of nature.

The Portuguese GILVICENTE (1470-1540?) was a follower of Encina at first, buta much bigger man. Like most of his compatriots of thesixteenth centu