Note 209 — Chapter VII
Reading edition
The ballad beginning “En Corte del casto Alfonso,” in the ballad-book of 1555, is taken from the “Crónica General,” (Parte III. ff. 32, 33, ed. 1604,) as the following passage, speaking of Bernardo’s first knowledge that his father was the Count of Saldaña, will show:—
Quando Bernaldo lo supo Pesóle a gran demasia, Tanto que dentro en el cuerpo La sangre se le volvia. Yendo para su posada Muy grande llanto hacia, Vistióse paños de luto, Y delante el Rey se iba. El Rey quando asi le vió, Desta suerte le decía: “Bernaldo, por aventura Cobdicias la muerte mia?”
The Chronicle reads thus: “E el [Bernardo] quandol supo, que su padre era preso, pesol mucho de coraçon, e bolbiosele la sangre en el cuerpo, e fuesse para su posada, faziendo el mayor duelo del mundo; e vistióse paños de duelo, e fuesse para el Rey Don Alfonso; e el Rey, quando lo vido, dixol: ‘Bernaldo, cobdiciades la muerte mia?’” It is plain enough, in this case, that the Chronicle is the original of the ballad; but it is very difficult, if not impossible, from the nature of the case, to show that any particular ballad was used in the composition of the Chronicle, because, we have undoubtedly none of the ballads in the form in which they existed when the Chronicle was compiled in the middle of the thirteenth century, and therefore a correspondence of phraseology like that just cited is not to be expected. Yet it would not be surprising, if some of these ballads on Bernardo, found in the Sixth Part of the “Flor de Romances,” (Toledo, 1594, 18mo,) which Pedro Flores tells us he collected far and wide from tradition, were known in the time of Alfonso the Wise, and were among the Cantares de Gesta to which he alludes. I would instance particularly the three beginning, “Contandole estaba un dia,” “Antesque barbas tuviesse,” and “Mal mis servicios pagaste.” The language of those ballads is, no doubt, chiefly that of the age of Charles V. and Philip II., but the thoughts and feelings are evidently much older.