HEROIC

CHAPTER XII.

ROMANCE.-POLEXANDRE.-CLEOPATRA.-CASSAN

DRA.—IBRAHIM.-CLÉLIE, ETC.

BOILEAU, and several other French writers, have deduced the origin of the heroic from the pastoral romance, especially from the Astrea of D'Urfé; and indeed Mademoiselle Scudéry, in her preface to Ibrahim, one of her earliest productions, affirms that she had chosen the Astrea as her model. To that species of composition may, no doubt, be attributed some of the tamest features of the heroic romance, its insipid dialogues and tedious episodes; but many of the elements of which it is compounded must be sought in anterior and more spirited compositions.

Thus, we find in the heroic romance a great deal of ancient chivalrous delineation. Dragons, necromancers, giants, and enchanted castles, are indeed banished; but heroism and gallantry are still preserved. These attributes, however, have assumed a different station and importance. In romances of chivalry, love, though a solemn and serious passion, is subordinate to heroic achievement. A knight seems chiefly to have loved his mistress, because he obtained her by some warlike exploit; she formed an excuse for engaging in perilous adventures, and he mourned her loss, as it was attended with that of his dearer idol-honour. In the heroic romance, on the other hand, love seems the ruling passion, and military exploits are chiefly performed for the sake of a mistress: glory is the spring of the one species of composition, and love of the other; but in both, according to the expression of Sir Philip Sidney, the heroes are knights who combat for the love of honour and the honour of love.

Much of the heroic romance has been also derived from

The spirit of these composi

the ancient Greek romances. tions had been kept alive during the middle ages, and had never been altogether extinguished, even by the prevalence and popularity of tales of chivalry. The Philocopo of Boccaccio, said to have been composed for the entertainment of Mary, natural daughter of the king of Naples, bears a close resemblance to the Greek romance. This work is taken from a French metrical tale1 of the thirteenth century, which has been imitated in almost all the languages of Europe, (Ellis's "Metrical Romances," vol. iii.) In Boccaccio's version of this story, Florio, prince of Spain, falls in love with Blancafior, an orphan, educated at his father's court. To prevent the risk of his son forming an unequal alliance, the king sells the object of his attachment to some Asiatic merchants, and hence the romance is occupied with the search made for her by Florio, under the name of Philocopo. The work is chiefly of the tenor of the heroic romance, but it presents an example of almost every species of fiction. Heathen divinities appear in disguise, and the rival lover of Blancafior is transformed into a fountain: stories of gallantry are related at the court of Naples, which Florio visits, and the account of the gardens and seraglio of the Egyptian emir resembles the descriptions in fairy and oriental tales.

Theagenes and Chariclea [of Heliodorus] was translated into French by Amyot, in 1547, and ten editions were printed before the end of the sixteenth century. The story of Florizel, Clareo, and the Unfortunate Ysea [of Alonzo Nuñez de Reinoso], the first part of which is a close imitation of the Clitophon and Leucippe [of Achilles Tatius], was translated from the Castilian in which it was originally published at Venice in 1552, into French in 1554, and soon became a popular production."

1 Published by Immanuel Bekker, Berlin, 1844. For accounts of Flore and Blanchefleur, see Graesse, ii. 3, p. 274, etc.; Emil Sommer's remarks on Conrad Flecke's "Flore and Blantschflur" in the Bibliothek der Gesammten deutschen National-Literatur, abth. i. Bd. 12, and Ward's " Catalogue of MSS. Romances in the British Museum," p.

714, etc.

2 See the account of this romance, pp. 22-36 of vol. i.

The Sorrows of Persiles and Sigismunda, by Cervantes, is an imi

On the decline of romances of chivalry, it was natural to search for some species of fiction to supply their place with the public. The spiritual and pastoral romances

tation of the work of Heliodorus. It comprises four books, in which is narrated how Eusebia, queen of Friesland, sent her daughter, Sigismunda, away to Eustoquia, queen of Thule, to be there in safety from a war which was imminent. The queen of Thule sent the portrait of Sigismunda to her absent son, Maximinus, who falls in love with the original, and acquaints his mother with his wish to espouse the Frisian princess. His younger brother, Persiles, who has fixed his affections upon the same object, but controls and conceals his feelings from love to his brother, and consequently falls dangerously ill, and only discloses the cause of his malady to his mother upon her urgent entreaties. His mother, in order to save his life, communicates the real state of the case to Sigismunda. As the latter is not unfavourably inclined towards Persiles, the queen instigates her to make a journey to Rome, as if in performance of a vow, before Maximinus returns. Persiles accompanies her on this pilgrimage in guise of a brother, under the name of Periander, while she assumes the appellation of Auristela. Maximinus, upon his return, not finding Sigismunda, also betakes himself to Rome, where, however, the climate proves fatal to him immediately upon his arrival, though, before expiring, he is able to join the hands of the lovers. Indeed, it is only at the close that the relations of the hero and heroine are made clear to the reader, as their conduct and address is that of brother and sister, and the object of their journey to Rome remains a secret till the end. The romance abounds with the adventures of travel met with by the lovers, and, still more, with numerous and often uninteresting episodes, which destroy the unity of the work, and in which the principal personages are often left entirely out of sight, so that the fate of these occupies but a comparatively small share of the narrative. Their intercourse is wholly chaste and pure. An unpleasant effect, however, is produced upon the reader by the proposal of Sigismunda, after her arrival in Rome, that Persiles, who has endured so much for her sake, should espouse her younger sister. This kind of affection seems somewhat too ethereal to enlist_all_the_reader's sympathy. Valentin Schmidt (Beitraege zur Geschichte der Romantischen Poesie, p. 179) is disposed to consider the work as a spiritual romance, as might perhaps be inferred from several allegorical passages. But were it so, the whole treatment should have been more serious, the language in many places more worthy, and the aim of the author clearer. The occurrences narrated are mainly imaginary, and relate to lands washed by the Northern Seas; they lack probability and variety, but are of interest as showing what ideas and fables respecting such regions were current in Cervantes' time. Beaumont and Fletcher's "Custom of the Country" is composed of different portions of Persiles and Sigismunda, as we have seen already (Cinthio, vi. 6).—LIEB. Roxas' (born 1607) play of Persiles and Sigismunda is from the romance of Cervantes, which has also been imitated in the Buscapié, which has been the subject of so much controversy. See Ticknor, Appendix.

were not sufficiently entertaining nor abundant for this purpose, and the sale of ten editions of the work of Heliodorus was a strong inducement to attempt something original in a similar taste. In pursuance of this new object, the writers of that species of fiction, which may be peculiarly entitled Heroic Romance, resorted in search of characters partly to classical and partly to Moorish heroes.

The adoption of the former may, perhaps, have been owing to Amyot's translation of Plutarch, in which there were many interpolations savouring of the author of "La vie et faits de Marc Antoine Le Triumvir et de sa mie Cleopatre, translaté de l'historien Plutarque pour tres illustre haute et puissante dame Mad. Française de Fouez dame de Chateaubriand."

It was the well-known History of the Dissensions of the Zegris and Abencerrages,

HISTORIA DE LAS GUERRAS CIVILES DE GRANADA, that brought the Moorish stories and characters into

vogue in France. The Spanish writers attributed this

work to a Moor, who retired into Africa after the conquest of Granada. His grandson, who inherited the MS., gave it, they say, to a Jew; and he in turn, presented it to Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, count of Baylen, who ordered it to be translated by Ginés Perez de Hita. This account, however, is extremely apocryphal. The knowledge, indeed, displayed by the author, concerning the tribes and families of the Moors settled in Granada before the conquest of that city by the monarchs of Castile, renders it probable that Ginés de Hita consulted some Arabian MS. on the subject of the Moorish contentions; but, on the other hand, the partiality to the Christian cause, which runs through the whole work, proves that the pretended translator was the original author of the greater part of the composition, and that it was first written in the Spanish language.

This production may be regarded as historical in some of the leading political incidents recorded, but the harangues of the heroes, the loves of the Moorish princes, the games

and the festivals, are the superstructure of fancy. In these, however, national manners are faithfully preserved, and in the romance of Hita more information is afforded concerning the customs and character of the Moors than by any of the Spanish historians.1

The work commences with the early history of Granada, but we soon come to those events that preceded and accelerated its fall-the competitions for the sovereignty, and dissensions of the factions of the Zegris and Abencerrages. Of these the former race sprung from the kings of Fez and Morocco; the latter descended from the ancient princes of Yemen. In this work, and all those which treat of the factions of Granada, the Zegris are represented as a fierce and turbulent tribe. On the other hand, the Abencerrages, while their equals in valour, are painted as the most amiable of heroes, endowed with graceful manners and elegant accomplishments. The Zegris, however, remained faithful to the cause of their country, while the Abencerrages, by finally enlisting under the banners of Ferdinand, were the chief instruments of the downfall of Granada. The Spanish monarch, availing himself of the Moorish dissensions, and of the valour of Don Rodrigo of Arragon, Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava, vigorously attacked Granada, and finally accomplished its ruin by means of the Abencerrages, who revolted to him in revenge for the unheard-of cruelties exercised on their race by one of their native princes. This work also presents the strange, though not uncommon, spectacle of a nation expiring in the midst of revelry and amusement: the gates of its capital were assaulted by a foreign enemy-the energy of the people was employed, and their valour wasted in internal war, but

1 The obloquy which posterity has heaped upon Boabdil is largely traceable to "The Civil Wars of Granada." Florian has taken the fable of his Gonsalvo of Cordova from this work, which has in a great measure usurped the authority of real history, and is currently believed by the people, and especially the peasantry of Granada. The whole of it, however, is a mass of fiction, mingled with a few disfigured truths, which give it an air of veracity. It bears internal evidence of its falsity; the manners and customs of the Moors being extravagantly misrepresented in it, and scenes depicted totally incompatible with their habits and their faith, and which never could have been recorded by a Mahometan writer.-WASHINGTON IRVING, The Alhambra, 1832, vol. i. pp. 160-1.