y,
--"Rise up, rise up," the Pope he said, "I do thy guilt away;--

VIII.
"I do thy guilt away," he said--"and my curse I blot it out--
God save Rodrigo Diaz, my Christian champion stout;--
I trow, if I had known thee, my grief it had been sore,
To curse Ruy Diaz de Bivar, God's scourge upon the Moor."

PART III.

COUNT ALARCOS AND THE INFANTA SOLISA.

Mr. Bouterweck has analyzed this ballad, and commented upon it at some
length, in his History of Spanish Literature. See Book I, Section 1.

He bestows particular praise upon a passage, which the reader will find
attempted in the fourth line of stanza xxxi. of the following version--

Dedes me aca este hijo amamare por despedida.

"What modern poet," says he, "would have dared to imagine that _trait_,
at once so natural and touching?"

Mr. Bouterweck seems to be of opinion that the story of the ballad had
been taken from some prose romance of chivalry; but I have not been able
to find any trace of it.

I.
Alone, as was her wont, she sate,--within her bower alone;--
Alone, and very desolate, Solisa made her moan,
Lamenting for her flower of life, that it should pass away,
And she be never wooed to wife, nor see a bridal day.

II.
Thus said the sad Infanta--"I will not hide my grief,
I'll tell my father of my wrong, and he will yield relief."--
The King, when he beheld her near, "Alas! my child," said he,
"What means this melancholy cheer?--reveal thy grief to me."--

III.
"Good King," she said, "my mother was buried long ago,
She left me to thy keeping, none else my griefs shall know;
I fain would have a husband, 'tis time that I should wed,--
Forgive the words I utter, with mickle shame they're said."--

IV.
'Twas thus the King made answer,--"This fault is none of mine,
You to the Prince of Hungary your ear would not incline;
Yet round us here where lives your peer?--nay, name him if you can,--
Except the Count Alarcos, and he's a married man."--

V.
"Ask Count Alarcos, if of yore his word he did not plight
To be my husband evermore, and love me day and night?
If he has bound him in new vows, old oaths he cannot break--
Alas! I've lost a loyal spouse, for a false lover's sake."--

VI.
The good King sat confounded in silence for some space,
At length he made this answer, with very troubled face,--
"It was not thus your mother gave counsel you should do;
You've done much wrong, my daughter; we're shamed, both I and you.