Información sobre el texto

Título del texto editado:
“Castilian poetry” [2: Edad Media. Berceo. Juan Ruiz]
Autor del texto editado:
Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes 1792-1836
Título de la obra:
Foreign Review, vol. I
Autor de la obra:
Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes [atribución muy probable; el texto apareció sin firma]
Edición:
London: Black, Young, and Young, 1828


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The poem of de Cid was succeeded by the verses of Gonzalo, a native of Berceo in Guipuscoa, and brother of the Benedictine convent of San Milan, who, to judge from his more polished language, more deficient in Arabic than in Provençal words, flourished about 1240, in the first years of the reign of San Fernando. The subjects on which he treated correspond with his monastic life; he celebrates, in verses of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen syllables, marked by more devotion than poetic spirit, the Signs of the Day of Judgment, the Tears and Sorrows of our Lady, and the Lives of San Millan and San Domingo de Silos. He has left also a poem on the battle of Simancas, where the Moors were beaten by Ramirez the Second, king of Navarre, which, from the nature of the subject, we regret should remain in manuscript. A yet purer Castilian distinguishes the poem on Alexander the Great, by Juan Lorenzo, a clerk of Astorga, who wrote towards the year 1280. His performance, though deformed by the most grotesque singularities, and the wildest defects of invention, contains some passages of no mean merit, as in the following description of Babylon:

'It standes in a salubrious spot, wele planted, in a clyme
Nor mistye with the vernal rayne, nor chilled by wynter ryme;
In all riche bounties bountifull beyonde desyre, and Tyme
Has with the gyftes of mony an age still stored it from his pryme.

The folke that in that citye bide wan sickenesse hurteth ne'er; [5]
There the choice gummes and balsames be, and spice beyonde compare;
Of ginger, frankincense and myrrhe the place is nothyng spare.
Nor of the nuttemeg, nor the clove, nor spikenard moche more rare.

The verie treen give odours forth soe swete that they dispell
Or strippe disease of all its force; the people there that dwelle [10]
Are of a ryght gode tynte, and men may soothlie swear that well
The tribes that jorneye farre and neare perceyve the plesaunt smelle.

The three most holie rivers flowe neare, beneath whose stremes
O mony a perle and precious stone of richest vertue gleames!
Some that all nyght illumine earth with their resplendente beames, [15]
And some that to the sycke give strength, when dead the patient seemes.

*

And all throughout the citye daunce fountaynes fresh and gay,
Lukewarme in the colde mornynge and coole at noone of day;
Within them neither newt nor frogge is ever born, for they
Ryghte helthfull are, and verie cleare, and never know decay.

And founded on a spacious plaine, most plesaunt was the site, [5]
Riche in all kyndes of game wherein the hunter takes delyte;
By verdaunt mountaynes compassed round, by nibbling flockes made whyte,
Well tempered passed the vernal daye and eke the wynter nighte.

There fly the brilliaunt loorie and the curious paroqueete
That somtimes even men of brayne with their sage conynge beat; [10]
And when the lesser birdes too sing, the motheres, wele I weet,
Forget their own dere babies in lystening soundes soe swete.

The men are men of substaunce, and generous in their pryde;
They all goe robed in garments with goodlie colours dyed;
Caparisoned sleeke palfries and ambling mules they ryde, [15]
And the poore in satyn and in silke goe marchyng at their side.

Built by a rare gode master were the palaces soe vaste,
Wele mesured by the quadrante and the tymbers morticed fast;
With mervellous care and labour were the deep foundacyons caste,
Stronge to withstande the fyre and floode, the erthquake and the blaste. [20]

The gates were all of marble, natyve marble pure and whyte,
All shyning like fyne cristal, and brave as they were brighte
With sculptured werke; the quarter that soared to greatest height
Was the Kynge's own home, and kyngly it might be termed of ryghte.

Four hundred columns had they, those mansions every one, [25]
With base and capital of goolde, reflecting backe the sunne;
Had they been polished brasiers they colde not more have shone,
Their partes so welle the chizel and burnisher had done.

There too was musicke chanted to the harp and pastoral quille,
The quavers soothing sorrowe and the trebles rising shrill; [30]
The milde flute's grieving pathos and the lute's ecstaticke thrille
Of all excepte the verie deaf entranced the captive wille.

There is not in the worlde a man that fytlie can declare
The perfect sweetnesse and delight that filled all places there;
For whilst in that faire Eden a mortal lived, he ne'er [35]
Felt hunger or the parchinge thirst, or paine, or vexing care.'






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