Note 62 — Chapter IV · THE ROMANCERO
Reading edition
Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (London, 1765), vol. i., pp. 319-323. Percy’s version begins as follows:—
Gentle river, gentle river, Lo, thy streams are stained with gore, Many a brave and noble captain Floats along thy willow’d shore. All beside thy limpid waters, All beside thy sands so bright, Moorish chiefs and Christian warriors Join’d in fierce and mortal fight. Lords, and dukes, and noble princes On thy fatal banks were slain; Fatal banks that gave to slaughter All the pride and flower of Spain.
Percy also gives an adaptation of Durán, No. 53:—
Por la calle de su dama paseando se halla Zaide.
In a preliminary note he says:—‘The Spanish editor pretends (how truly I know not) that they are translations from the Arabic or Morisco language. Indeed the plain, unadorned nature of the verse, and the native simplicity of language and sentiment, which runs through these poems, prove that they are ancient; or, at least, that they were written before the Castillians began to form themselves on the model of the Tuscan poets, and had imported from Italy that fondness for conceit and refinement which has for these two centuries past so miserably infected the Spanish poetry, and rendered it so unnatural, affected, and obscure.’