Note 285 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
This Chronicle affords us, in one place that I have noticed,—probably not the only one,—a curious instance of the way in which the whole class of Spanish chronicles to which it belongs were sometimes used in the poetry of the old ballads we so much admire. The instance to which I refer is to be found in the account of the leading event of the time, the violent death of the Great Constable Alvaro de Luna, which the fine ballad beginning “Un Miercoles de mañana” takes plainly from this Chronicle of John II. The two are worth comparing throughout, and their coincidences can be properly felt only when this is done; but a little specimen may serve to show how curious is the whole.
The Chronicle (Anno 1453, Cap. 2) has it as follows:—“E vidó a Barrasa, Caballerizo del Principe, e llamóle é dixóle: ‘Ven acá, Barrasa, tu estas aqui mirando la muerte que me dan. Yo te ruego, que digas al Principe mi Señor, que dé mejor gualardon a sus criados, quel Rey mi Señor mandó dar á mi.’”
The ballad, which is cited as anonymous by Duran, but is found in Sepúlveda’s Romances, etc., 1584, (f. 204,) though not in the edition of 1551, gives the same striking circumstance, a little amplified, in these words:—
Y vido estar a Barrasa, Que al Principe le servia, De ser su cavallerizo, Y vino a ver aquel dia A executar la justicia, Que el maestre recebia: “Ven aca, hermano Barrasa, Di al Principe por tu vida, Que de mejor galardon A quien sirve a su señoria, Que no el, que el Rey mi Señor Me ha mandado dar este dia.”
So near do the old Spanish chronicles often come to being poetry, and so near do the old Spanish ballads often come to being history. But the Chronicle of John II. is, I think, the last to which this remark can be applied.
If I felt sure of the genuineness of the “Centon Epistolario” of Gomez de Cibdareal, I should here cite the one hundred and third Letter as the material from which the Chronicle’s account was constructed.