Note 128 — BOOK I. FROM THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
Thomasina Ross translation
Nicolas Antonio, Sarmiento, and Velasquez, give accounts of Juan de la Enzina. Some of his romances and songs, which however, possess no remarkable merit, are also contained in the Cancionero general and the Cancionero de romances. One of his compositions, styled an echo, or a song, in which the rhyme is repeated in the following word, with the effect of an echo, is inserted in the Cancionero general, as being something peculiar. The old collection, entitled, Cancionero de todas las obras de Juan del Enzina, certainly contains poems far superior to any already mentioned, though perhaps they do not rise above the poetry of his age. Velasquez quotes an edition published in 1516, which Dieze regards as a curiosity. Indeed one of the greatest literary curiosities in existence, is an old folio edition, (probably the first) of the Cancionero of Juan de la Enzina, printed at Seville, in gothic characters, in the year 1501, by two Germans named Pegnitzer and Herbst, at the expense of two merchants. The copy to which I have referred, which is probably the only one in Germany, is also mentioned in Dieze’s supplement to Velasquez; it belongs to the Ducal library at Wolfenbüttel. Notwithstanding the gothic characters, the print is so clear and neat, that in this respect alone it is highly interesting to bibliographists. Juan de la Enzina’s songs occupy the greater part of the volume. One of them, namely—an Apology for Women, (Contra los que dicen mal de Mugeres) is remarkable for poetic truth and pleasing versification. In this Apology for the fair sex, the author, among other things, says:
Piadosas en dolerse De todo ageno dolor, Con muy sana fe y amor, Sin su fama escurecerse, Ellas nos hacen hacer De nuestros bienes franquezas; Ellas nos hacen poner A procurar y querer Las virtudes y noblezas. Ellas nos dan ocasion, Que nos hagomas discretos, Esmerados y perfetos, Y de mucho presuncion. Ellas nos hacen andar Las vestiduras polidas, Los pundonores guardar, Y, por honra procurar, Tener en poco las vidas.
His imitations of Virgil’s eclogues have the same metrical form as many of his other poems. The first eclogue commences with the following graceful strophe:—
Tityro, tu sin cuidado Que te estas so aqueste haya, Bien tendido y rellanado. Yo triste y descarriado Yo no sè, por do me vaya. Ay, carillo! Tañes tu tu caramillo, No hay que en cordoja te trayga.
His sacred and profane pastoral dramas are merely eclogues in a style similar to the above, only that they are written in the dialogue form, and with remarkable lightness. The last, which is of the profane class, commences thus:—
Gil. Ha, Mingo, que das de atràs? Pasa, pasa, acà delante! A horas que no se espante, Como tu, tu primo Bras. Asmo, que tu pavor has. Entra! No estes revellado! Mingo. Dò me a Dios, que estoy asmado. No me mandes entrar mas.