Note 56 — LIFE OF CERVANTES. (continued 2)

Mingo Rebulgo is an old Spanish eclogue written to satirise the court of King John II. Its supposed author is Rodrigo de Cota, who flourished in the commencement of the fifteenth century. It is written in couplets, and is entitled “Las coplas de Mingo Rebulgo.” The romance of the Moor Calaynos is one of the oldest compositions of its class, and is supposed to have been written in the fourteenth century. It is also in coplas, or couplets. In the course of time, and when the forms of Spanish poetry began to improve, the old fashioned commonplace language of the romance of Calaynos began to appear vulgar and trivial, it gave birth to the proverb, “este no vale las coplas de Calaynos.” (This is not worth the couplets of Calaynos.) A saying which is employed to mark great depreciation of any object. In alluding to the little affinity between Mingo Rebulgo and Calaynos, Cervantes means to draw a very broad contrast between two things not merely dissimilar, but differing very much in worth.