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Irregular Hemistichs in The Milagros of Gonzalo De Berceo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

H. H. Arnold
H. H. Arnold*
Affiliation:
The Pennsylvania State College
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Extract

El cuento septenario es de grant santidad.—Berceo, Loores 143a. There are in Berceo's verses besides the prevailing Alexandrine half-lines of seven syllables a few hemistichs of five, six, eight, nine, and even ten syllables. These may be considered as due to the alterations and mistakes of the copyist. Such is the position taken by Fitz-Gerald in his critical edition of La Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos and in his treatise on the versification of the same work. He is supported by Henríquez Ureña, who finds the regularity of Berceo quite exceptional in Old Spanish poetry, and who believes him to be the only versifier we can call correct from the Cid to D. Pero López de Ayala. Others, not finding credible this unique position of the poet, may care to see in his lines traces of the tendency to ametric verse that is supposed to have influenced all the other writers of the cuaderna vía stanza. A third position has been championed by Lang, who, remaining silent about the odd lengths other than those of eight syllables, affirms “that no convincing argument has as yet been advanced against the thesis that Gonzalo de Berceo admitted the native octosyllable quite as much as the other authors of the cuaderna vía.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , June 1935 , pp. 335 - 351
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1935

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References

1 La Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos, ed. J. D. Fitz-Gerald (Paris, 1904). Versification of the Cuaderna Via as found in Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (New York, 1905).

2 P. Henriquez Ureña, La Versificación Irregular en la Poesía Castellana (Madrid, 1933), p. 18.

3 H. R. Lang, “Metrical Forms of the Poem of the Cid,” PMLA, xlii (1927), 530.

4 This and the corrections for the Milagros to be considered below are from Miscelánea de Versificación Castellana (Santiago de Chile, 1897), in this case §5. A useful list of the metrical works of Hanssen is given by Henríquez Ureña, op. cit., p. 11.

5 Notas a la Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (Santiago de Chile, 1907), p. 13.

6 Versification, p. 103.

7 Cantar de Mio Çid (Madrid, 1908), p. 273, Note 1.

8 Op. cit., p. 529.

9 C. C. Marden, Cuatro Poemas de Berceo (Madrid, 1928), p. 11.

10 Fitz-Gerald, Santo Domingo, Introduction.

11 Cuatro Poemas, p. 26.

12 Cf. op. cit., p. 31 and A. G. Solalinde, El Sacrifiçio de la Misa por Gonzalo de Berceo (Madrid, 1913).

13 Cuatro Poemas, pp. 39–42.

14 The missing quatrains are 1–73, 106–121, 154–169, 186–201, 362–377, 391, 459–474, 506–521, 618–649.

15 Veintitrés Milagros, pp. 16–17.

18 This may be the key to Loores 17b, Profeta se levantará. I do not recall a form erzdrá (or erzrá), but it is possible. Cf. iazdré (203d) and erzerse=levantarse, Fernán González 750c.

17 It is not clear why E's conjunction should be retained in S. Dom. 69a e codia fria dada in order to make a monosyllable of fria, while MSS. HV read cayef. e. Cf. Menéndez Pidal, op. cit., p. 273, Note 1.

18 Erik Staaff, Étude sur Les Pronoms Abrégées en Ancien Espagnol (Uppsala, 1906).

19 S. Dom. 581c (all MSS.) segunt mj cu-idar should read segundo mj cuidar as in ib. 459c, where segunt is the incorrect reading of E. Cf. Menéndez Pidal, op. cit., p. 162, 15.

20 It is better, however, to read Sant Migad de (la) Tumba, cf. 433a.

21 Op. cit., pp. 591–592.—This list contains five hemistichs of nine syllables: 44c, quando fue evangelistero; 442c, fuerte miente escarmentados; 771b, meli en nuestros coraçmes; 35d, 527b, leuaronlo a la iglesia; unless in these alone Professor Lang allows synalepha, in which case the last example is heptasyllabic.

22 “Contributions to the Restoration of the Poema del Çid,” Rev. Hisp. lxvi (1926), 14.

23 Against S. Dom. 80d, ouo en este comedio are S. Mill. 144a, demás en est c., ibid. 395a, Diólis en est c., Milag. 161c, Cuntiól en est c.

24 181c, 202a, 233c, 242b, 695a.

25 Poema de Fernan Gonzalez, Texto Critico por C. C. Marden, Baltimore, 1904. Synalepha between hemistichs: 26d, 43c, 68a, 164b, 233b, 242b, 281a, 241d, 360a, 410c, 424a, 471b, 535b, 558a, 558d, 578c, 623c, 650c, 667d, 740a.

26 233c, 250c, 256c, 337a, 378b, 571a, 741a, 801c.

27 584c is of nine syllables in MS. A, 797d is nondescript in MS. I.

28 In A the following are of eight syllables: 256c, 378b, 896a.

29 F. Hanssen, Gramática Histórica (Halle, 1913), §234.

30 The same list in Versification, pp. 43–45, and (except sixes) in Lang's list. Cf. note 21.

31 As follows, 69a, 73a, 73b, 83d, 201c, 204d, 206a, 217b, 219d, 245d, 443c, 511c, 683c, 685c, 714d, 740d, 762b, 765c.

32 As follows, 82b, 304b, 553c, 581c, 702a, 703d; with -ia, 7a, 15c, 21b, 61c, 120d, 173a, 182d, 229c, 337c, 369d, 403a, 642b, 748a, 751d. In view of the readings of the new manuscripts it has become harder than before to claim any values for the imperfect tense (in -er and -ir verbs) in Berceo but -ía (2 syl.), -iés, -té (-ía, 2 syl., used only in rime), -iemos, -iedes, -ién, in which the combination ie is always monosyllabic. The evidence also points to the total exclusion of monosyllabic -ia.

33 Rev. de Fil. Esp., iv, 126–127.

34 Some of the irregularities of the Roncesvalles are very questionable. E.g., 26b con grant dolor que avjáe, in an a-e assonance, had better be heptasyllabic and read ave (= ha), historical present as in 11b, 14a, 30b, 86b, 100b.

35 Op. cit., p. 18.

36 Rev. Hisp., lxvi (1926), 14.

37 C. C. Marden, Libro de Apolonio (Baltimore, 1917, and Princeton, 1922), Pt. i, p. xiv, Pt. ii, p. 32.