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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
The pages that follow embody an attempt to present the verse forms of the Poema as transmitted in the manuscript in greater completeness than was possible in the study recently published in the “Revue Hispanique,” and to invite a more detailed and serious investigation of this subject than is usually bestowed upon it. It is only on the basis of a strictly critical discussion of all the questions involved in the elucidation of the text of our epic, in its relation to other contemporary narrative documents and poetic works, that the difficult problem of its verse structure can be brought nearer to a satisfactory solution. Nothing can be more contrary to the spirit of science than to judge an admittedly anomalous and doubtful form without the light shed upon it by the organic whole to which it belongs, or to explain the fissures between hemistichs of three and twelve syllables with the supposition of the equalizing effect of musical rendition when there is no evidence of such rendition and the sense has suffered as much as the metrical symmetry.
1 “Contributions to the Restoration of the Poema del Cid,” LXVI (1926) pp. 1 509.
2 pp. 50-90.
3 Synaloephe between hemistichs, a phenomenon studied by Hanssen, Zur spanischen u. porlug. Metrik, p. 7, is not considered here.
4 In so far as the condition of the text renders it advisable, the numeration of the hemistichs is that adopted in the “edición crítica.”
5 In a combination of syllables such as we have in 1791 II “de mio Çid que avié algo” or 2741 I “Qual ventura serié esta,” it is a question whether beside -ié we should not assume the existence of -íe on the analogy of -ía.
6 “Gramatica de la lengua castellana (Salamanca 1492), best consulted in the fac-simile reproduction by E. Walberg (Halle, 1909) and in the critical edition of I. Gonzalez Llubera (London, 1926). A reprint of Viñaza's faulty edition may be found in Menéndez y Pelayo's Antología, V, p. 60 ff.
7 “Arte de trobar,” contained in Encina's “Cancionero” (Salamanca 1496), and printed in Menéndez y Pelayo's Antología, V, p. 31 ff.
8 Among others, by Menéndez Pidal, Leyenda de los Infantes de Lara, 1897, p. 423, n. 5, in support of v. 18: “tambien toviestes su seña en el vado de Cascajar”; by F. Hanssen, Zur span. u. port. Metrik, pp. 3, 43 ff., and by the present writer, Roman. Review V (1914), pp. 11, 20, 30.
9 Nebrija takes the term pies in the sense of “feet” (see his definition cap. VIII), whereas Encina, as Santillana and others before him, applies it to the line or verse.
10 See W. Meyer, Gesammelte Abhandlungen z. mittellat. Rhythmik, I, 176, 178 etc.; J. B. Beck, Die Melodien der Troubadours, pp 166-168; Hanssen, Zur latein. u. roman. Metrik, 1901, 8-19, and the present writer in Roman. Rev. V, 1-30, 295-349.—The suppression of the initial syllable is also discussed by Andrés Bello in his Principios de la ortología y métrica, Arte Métrica §5. In the present article hemistichs having this trait will be referred to by the term “procatalectic.”
11 The difficulty of interpreting such passages may have caused some errors in the registration of metres.
12 Cf. Contributions, pp. 94-376.
13 Roman. Rev., V, 315-322.
14 Fitz-Gerald's remarks (“Versification of the cuaderna via,” 1905, p. xi-xii) do not affect the value of the arguments of Restori and Morel-Fatio (Romania IV, 55) against attaching importance to such claims as Berceo's “a sílabas contadas.” Cf. the apposite observations of Menéndez Pidal, Cantar, I, 86, n. 1.
15 Revista de Filol. Esp. IV, 105-117. Cf. “Contributions,” 4-5.
16 See e. g. Hanssen, Sobre el metro del Poema de Fernán Gonzalez, 1904, 8-19; Zauner, Litblalt, 1905, col. 28-29, and the present writer in Roman. Rev., V, 15-16, 21.
17 See for instance the Marqués de Pidal, in the introduction to the Cancionero de Baena (Madrid, 1851) p. xxv, and Menéndez Pidal, Leyenda de los Infantes de Lara, p. 417; Cantar de Mio Cid, I, 124, §40.
18 Accessible in satisfactory editions since Wolf's Studien, 1859, p. 55 ff. In the 37 lines of this fragment there are 14 unmistakable octosyllables: 1 I, 2 II, 3 II, 5 II, 8 I, II, 12 I, II, 16 II, 19 I, II, 24 II, 26 II, 29 II.
19 Harden, p. lii of his edition (1904), explicitly recognized as octosyllables at least 15 out of 106 hemistichs cited as “irregular.”
20 Hanssen, Los metros de los cantares de Juan Ruiz, 1902, pp. 7, 23, 32 etc.
21 Fitz-Gerald, Paris, 1904.—The edition of Berceo's works contained in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Madrid, 1854, vol. LVII, may answer the present purpose in so far as the text is concerned.—As a single verse, the octosyllable is used in the earliest datable composition of the Cancionero de Baena, no. 11 (1374).
22 See the present writer's review of Hanssen's Spanische Grammatik auf historischer Grundlage in Roman. Rev. II (1911) p. 334, and Ford, Old Spanish Readings (1911), p. 120.
23 Versification, p. 70.
24 See below, p. 592, the instances cited from coplas 1-259.
25 Thus, for instance, 21 b II, 22 d II, 51 a I, 61 c II, 120 d I, 188 d I, 222 a I, 222 b I, 229 c I, 238 d I. In some cases, such as 188 a I, -ie is allowed to stand.
26 Versification, p. 86.
27 See below, pp. 591-592.
28 Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos, 1907, p. 13.
29 For other methods of shortening the names Maria and Santa Maria see Contributions, pp. 92, 297-298.
30 See Romanic Review V, 24-25, VIII, 413-414 and Contributions, 14.
31 The edition used is that of B. P. Bourland, Revue Hispanique, XVI (1911), 1-48. Among other accessible copies of the text may be mentioned Duran's “Romancero General” (Bibliot. de Aut. Esp. XVI) II, pp. 651-664.
32 Roman. Rev., V, 326 ff.
33 Prohemio, § XIV.
34 Arte de trobar, cap. VII.
35 The statement made by Menéndez y Pelayo, Antología XI, 91-92, is entirely at variance with the facts. As for Nebrija's quotation of the beginning of a romance in a double octosyllable, its significance is considerably impaired by the fact that he terms this line a tetrametro iambico (see Roman. Rev., IX, 63, n. 86 and the musical critic Pedrell there cited). The learned editor of Nebrija's Gramatica, Dr. Gonzalez-Llubera says very well (p. 189) with reference to this very chapter VIII: “Nebrija, in his attempts to latinize Spanish prosody, is only doing what we should expect from an exponent of the New Learning. And the man to whom the foundation of Lisbon by Ulysses was a historical fact, naturally thought it possible to scan Spanish lines in the Latin way.”
36 Ed. F. A. Barbieri (Madrid 1890). Nos. 64, 69, 81, 83, 97, 303, 315, 317, 318, 322, 327, 328, 329, 330, 332, 333, 334, 335, 343, 344.
37 See the text of two Cantigas on pp. 90-00.
38 G. Cirot, “Le Mouvement quarternaire dans les romances,” (Extrait du Bulletin hispanique XXI (1919), p. 103-142), advances no conclusive arguments against the musical division of the romances into quatrains.
39 Contained on fol. 250 of MS. G-126 of the Bibliot. Nac. of Madrid, and rather carelessly published in Memorial historico español, VIII, 336.
40 Cancionero Musical, p. 11, where a better copy of the text may be found.
41 See the extracts on p. 602-603. In a number of cuartetas, however, we find the scheme abcb.—A composition of similar structure, in praise of King Denis of Portugal, by the Leonese minstrel João, is quoted in full on p. 00. It alludes to D. Pedro, Conde de Barcellos and Alfonso XI of Castile.
42 Another version, found in Leon, has a refrain; still another version is recorded in the Cancionero de Salamanca, p. 162.
43 The refrain is cited in the Vocabulario de refranes of Gonzalo Correa.— For other instances see Wolf, Studien, pp. 326-8, 436-437; Duran, Romancero General, no. 1564.—It is hardly necessary to say that the six-syllable was used beside the octosyllable in the composition of romances. See, e. g. Wolf, l. c., p. 457.
1 Vió
2 Criador
3 fiziéredes
4 leváredes
1 vazías
1 See Note.
1 Wolf y Hofmann, Primavera y Flor de Romances. Cf. Antología de poetas líricos castellanos, VIII.
1 Zeitschrift für roman. Philol., XVI p. 83-94, with instructive commentary by Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcellos.