Note 19 — Basque Poetry.

The first book printed in Basque, the “Linguæ Vasconum Primitiæ, per Dominum Bernardum Echepare” (Bordeaux, 1545), is a collection of his poems, religious and amatory, the latter predominating. Echepare was the parish priest of the pretty little village of St. Michel, on the Béhérobie Nive, above St. Jean Pied de Port; and, if Nature alone could inspire a poet, he ought at least to have rivalled those of our own English Lakes. But, in truth, his verses are of scant poetical merit, and of little interest save as a philological curiosity.19 They belong so distinctly to that irritating mediocrity which never can be excused in a poet. After Echepare the next author is Arnauld Oyhenart, of Mauléon, who published a collection of his youthful Basque poems in Paris, 1657. These have, if anything, less poetical value than Echepare’s; but Oyhenart’s collection of proverbs and his “Notitia Utriusque Vasconiæ” will always make his name stand high among Basque writers. Except hymns and noëls (Christmas carols), of which many collections and editions have been published from 1630 downwards, and some of which are noteworthy on account of higher than mere poetical merit, the deep and evidently genuine spirit of piety they evince,20 little else is preserved much older than the present century. One ballad indeed there is, “The Betrothed of Tardetz,” which may be somewhat older. No two versions of it are exactly alike, though the outline of the story is always the same. The Lord of the Castle of Tardetz wishes to give the elder of his two daughters in marriage to the King of Hungary, or of Portugal, as some have it. But the lady’s heart has been already won by Sala, the son of the miller of Tardetz, and she bitterly bewails being “sold like a heifer.” The bells which ring for her wedding will soon toll for her funeral. The romance in its present form is evidently incomplete, but apparently ended with the corpse of the bride being brought back to her father’s castle.