Note 1183 — Chapter XIV

Duran in preface to his Romancero of 1832. These Spanish collections of songs and ballads, called Cancioneros and Romanceros, are very scarce, and there is some uncertainty among bibliographers as to their editions. According to Duran, this of Antwerp contains many romances unpublished before and far older than those of the fifteenth century, collected in the Cancionero General of 1516. It does not appear, perhaps, that the number which can be referred with probability to a period anterior to 1400 is considerable, but they are very interesting. Among these are Los Fronterizos, or songs which the Castilians used in their incursions on the Moorish frontier. These were preserved orally, like other popular poetry. We find in these early pieces, he says, some traces of the Arabian style, rather in the melancholy of its tone than in any splendour of imagery, giving as an instance some lines quoted by Sismondi, beginning, Fonte frida, fonte frida, Fonte frida y con amor, which are evidently very ancient. Sismondi says (Littérature du Midi, iii. 240) that it is difficult to explain the charm of this little poem, but by the tone of truth and the absence of all object; and Bouterwek calls it very nonsensical. It seems to me that some real story is shadowed in it under images in themselves of very little meaning, which may account for the tone of truth and pathos it breathes.