iejos_.

A few of the _romances_ were printed in the _Cancionero
general_ of 1511, and more in loose sheets (_pliegos
sueltos_) not much later in date; but the great
collections which contain nearly all the best we know were
the _Cancionero de romances "sin ano,"_ (shortly before
1550), the _Cancionero de romances_ of 1550 and the
_Silva de varios romances_ (3 parts, 1550). The most
comprehensive modern collection is that of A. Duran,
_Romancero general_, 2 vols., Madrid, 1849-1851 (vols. 10
and 16 of the _Biblioteca de Autores espanoles_). The best
selected is the _Primavera y flor de romances_ of Wolf and
Hofmann (Berlin, 1856), reprinted in vols. VIII and IX
of Menendez y Pelayo's _Antologia de poetas liricos
castellanos_. This contains nearly all the oldest and best
_romances_, and includes poems from _pliegos sueltos_ and
the second part of the _Silva_, which were not known to
Duran. Menendez y Pelayo, in his _Apendices a la Primavera
y flor (_Antol._ vol. IX) has given still more texts,
notably from the third part of the _Silva_, one of the
rarest books in the world. The fundamental critical works
on the _romances_ are: F. Wolf, _Ueber die Romanzenpoesie
der Spanier_ (in _Studien_, Berlin, 1859); Mila y
Fontanals, _De la poesia heroico-popular castellana_
(1874); and Menendez y Pelayo, _Tratado de los romances
viejos_ (vols. XI and XII of the _Antologia_, Madrid,
1903-1906).

The _romances_, as usually printed, are in octosyllabic
lines, with a fixed accent on the seventh syllable of each
and assonance in alternate lines.

Many English translators have tried their hand at Spanish
ballads, as Thomas Rodd (1812), J. C. Lockhart (1823),
John Bowring (1824), J.Y. Gibson (1887) and others.
Lockhart's versions are the best known and the least
literal.

In the six _romances_ included in this collection the
lyrical quality predominates above the narrative page 255
(cf. the many rimes in-_or_ in _Fonte-frida_ and _El
prisionero_). _Abenamar_ is properly a frontier ballad,
and _La constancia_, perhaps, belongs with the Carolingian
cycle; but the rest are detached poems of a romantic
nature. (See S.G. Morley's _Spanish Ballads_, New York,
1911.)

=1.--Abenamar= is one of a very few _romances_ which are
supposed to have their origin in Moorish popular poetry.
The Christian king referred to is Juan II, who defeated
the Moors at La Higueruela, near Granada, in 1431. It is
said that on the morning of