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PREFACE.

THIS Chronicle of the Cid is wholly translation, but it is not the translation of any single work. The three following have been used.

1. CHRONICA DEL FAMOSO CAVALLERO CID RUYDIEZ CAMPEADOR. Burgos 1593.

The First and only other edition of this Chronicle was printed in 1552. The Infante Don Fernando, who was afterwards Emperor, seeing the manuscript at Cardeña, ordered the Abbot Don Fr. Juan de Velorado to publish it, and obtained an order from his grandfather Fernando the Catholic King to the same effect. The Abbot performed his task very carelessly and very inaccurately, giving no account of the manuscript, and suffering many errors to creep into the text, which might have been corrected by collating it with the original.

Beuther, Escolano, and others, ascribe it to Abenalfarax, the nephew of Gil Diaz. Berganza is of opinion that the main part was written by Gil Dias himself, because the manuscript at Cardeña, says, 'Then Abenfax the Moor, who wrote this Chronicle in Arabic, set down the price of food: And Abentaxi, according to him, was the name of Gil Diaz before his conversion. Abenalfarax is named in the end of the book as the author: he concludes therefore that it was completed by him; . . and this the Coronica General con

firms by saying, Segun cuenta la Estoria del Cid, que de aqui adelante compuso Aben Alfarax su sobrino de Gil Diaz en Valencia. The printed Chronicle however says Abenalfarax where Berganza reads Abenfax, and writes Alfaraxi for the Moorish name of Gil Diaz. This question is not easily decided. There is nothing Arabian in the style of the Chronicle, except the lamentation for Valencia, which is manifestly so. It is most probably the work of a Spaniard, who used Arabic documents.

It is equally impossible to ascertain the age of this Chronicle. The Abbot who published it judged that it was as old as the days of the Cid himself. This supposition is absurd. Lucas of Tuy and the Archbishop Rodrigo are frequently cited in it. It was however an old manuscript in 1552. A much older was seen in 1593 by Don Gil Ramirez de Arellano, which according to his account was in Portugueze, but agreed in the main with that which had been published. The older the language, the more it would resemble Portugueze. Another question is, whether it has been inserted in the Coronica General, or extracted from it: for that the one copied from the other is certain but it is equally certain from the variations, that each must have had some other original; . . perhaps the Arabic. If the Chronica del Cid be extracted from the General Chronicle, which is giving it the latest date, even in that case it was written before the end of the 13th century; that is, little more than 150 years after the Cid's death; and whatever fiction has been introduced into the story, must have been invented long before, or it would not have been received as truth, and incorporated into the general history of Spain. This question has not been, and perhaps cannot be decided. There are some errors in the Chronicle of the Cid which are corrected in the General Chronicle, and sometimes it contains passages which are necessary to explain an after circumstance, but are not found in the other.'

'The language of the Chr. del Cid is sometimes of greater antiquity

2. Las quatro partes enteras de la Cronica de España, que mando componer el Serenissimo Rey Don Alonso Ulmado el sabio, donde se contienen los acontescimientos y hazañas mayores y mas señaladas que sucedieron en España, desde su primera poblacion hasta casi los tiempos del dicho señor Rey. Vista y emendada mucha parte de su impresion por el maestro Florian Docampo Cronista del emperador rey nuestro señor. Con previlegio imperial.

Fue impressa la presente Cronica general de España en la magnifica, noble y antiquissima cibdad de Zamora por los honrrados varones Augustin de paz y Juan Picardo compañeros inpressores de libros, vezinos de la dicha cibdad. A costa y espensas del virtuso varon Juan de Spinosa mercader de libros vezino de Medina del Campo. Acabose en nueve dias del mes de deziembre. Año del nascimiento de nuestro salvador Jusu Christo de mill y quinientos y quarenta y un años, Reynando en España el Emperador Don Carlos nuestro Señor y Rey natural.

Florian de Ocampo relates the history of this first edition in his epistle dedicatory to Don Luys de Stuniga y Avila. The printers of Zamora, he says, came to him and besought him to give them something which they might publish to the use and glory of those kingdoms whereof they and he were natives. He had at that time in his house a manuscript of this Chronicle, which had been lent him by the Licentiate Martin de Aguilar. Aguilar joyfully gave up the manuscript to the printers, and Ocampo undertook to correct the press as far as he could in those hours which he could spare from his studies and pursuits: this, says he, I did with such fidelity, that I would never permit the style, nor order, nor antique words to be changed, holding any such alteration to

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than the other, . . for instance; E tamaño fue el plazer del Rey D. Fernando e de los suyos quamaño fue el pesar del Rey D. Ramiro de Aragon e de los suyos.

In the Cor. Ger. quan grande and tan grande are the phrases. But this is a subject which none but a Spaniard can properly investigate.

be an offence committed upon the work of another. Notwithstanding this becoming respect for antiquity, Ocampo passes a censure upon the style at the end of the Sumario. He says, Todas estas cosas sobredichas van escritas en estas quatro partes con plabras antiguas y toscas, segun las usavan los Españoles al tiempo que las hazian, quando se presciavan mas de bien obrar que de bien hablar; puesto que siempre fue y sera gran alabança bien hablar a los que bien obran.

The Spanish Chronicles were all villanously printed, because the printers made use of the first manuscript they could find, and the correctors did their best to bring the language to that of their own times, after the newest and most approved fashion. This mischief Ocampo prevented as far as he could, but he should have done more; Ocampo was not a common Corrector of the Press! he was Chronicler to the King of Castille, and any manuscript in the kingdom which he had asked for would have been put into his hands as readily as that of his friend Aguilar. The copy which he implicitly followed happened to be remarkably faulty. Words and sentences are omitted in almost every column, whole chapters are wanting, and even one entire reign. Zurita collated the printed book with a manuscript of great antiquity, which had once belonged to the famous Marques de Santillana; and this copy, in which he had with his own hand inserted all the omissions, was in the possession of the Marques de Mondejar. An imperfect manuscript, which is likewise of great antiquity, is at Salamanca, in the Collegio de S. Bartolome: some man of letters has prefixed a note to it, saying that it contains many chapters which are not to be found in the printed book... y tiene tambien otra utilidad que es, el hallarse aqui los vocablos y voces castellanas antiguas en su pureza, sin haberse limado al tiempo presente, como la imprimio Florian de Ocampo. If this writer be accurate, the copier of Aguilar's manuscript had modernized the book as well as mutilated it.

Ocampo calls this work la Chronica de España, que mando

componer el Serenissimo Rey D. Alonso. The manuscript which Zurita collated has la Estoria de España que fizo el mui noble Rey D. Alonso. The Marques de Mondejar possessed three manuscripts, neither of which supported Ocampo's reading, nor afforded the slightest ground for supporting it. On the other hand, Don Juan Manual, Alonso's nephew, expressly says that the King made the Chronicle, and in the Prologue the King says so himself. That Florian de Ocampo, who printed the Prologue, should have overlooked this, is inconceivable; and why he should deny that the King wrote it, in direct contradiction of the King's own authority, is what he has not explained, and what nobody can explain for him. Don Francisco Cerda y Rico says, the real author was Maestre Jofre de Loaysa, Archdeacon of Toledo, and afterwards Abbot of Santander; and this he says he has proved in a dissertation which was ready for the press. I know not whether this dissertation has appeared, neither do I know that at the distance of more than five centuries any proof can possibly be obtained to show that Alonso the Wise did not write the history, which he himself says he wrote, and which we know he was capable of writing.

The printed Chronicle is divided into four parts, and the last part is not Alonso's work. Ocampo gives it as his own opinion, and that of many other intelligent persons, that it was not written by the author of the three former, because it contained nothing but what was to be found in other books; because the style was different, and the language ruder, . . the whole being in fact composed of fragments put together without any attempt at improving them, and because in many places the writer expressed himself as if he had been contemporary with the persons whose feats he was then recording. There is no doubt that this opinion is right. It ends with the death of King St. Fernando, Alonso's father. It is in this part that the history of the Cid is contained.

This very curious work was reprinted at Valladolid in 1604. It is the latest edition which I have used.

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