Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/679

Rh ROMANCE 655 slays Aravigo. Lisuarte then consents to the marriage of his daughter with Amadis on the Firm Island, whose wonders are brought to an end by Oriana entering a certain magic chamber, a feat only to be accomplished by the fairest and most faithful of women. 1 The Amadis is one of the best of the romances and contains many passages of much beauty and even tender- ness. The boyish attachment between the Child of the Sea and Oriana is well told. The princess is weak and jealous, and not altogether a pleasing character. Amadis is a fine creation and is well distinguished from his brother Galaor. Both are brave, but the elder is grave and the younger gay. Amadis is the type of a constant lover ; his brother is more changeful. A modern reader may be wearied by the intolerable length of the Amadis and by the continual recurrence of similar adventures all ending in the same way. But these repetitions seemed no fault to readers whose tastes were easily satisfied and to whom such fictions came as an entirely new source of delight. i- The continuations are inferior to their prototype and become na- more full of complicated incidents and strange adventures as they is proceed. The characters alter : for instance, the Urganda of the ry. develops into an enchantress of a more Eastern and malignant nature like her rivals Zirfea and Melia. Besides his redaction of the Amadis, Montalvo composed about 1485 an original work, about one-third as long, giving the history of a son of the hero, called Esplandian. In order that it might share in the popularity of the father's achievements, it came forth as Quinto Libra d' Amadis de Gaula, o las Sergas del Cavallero Esplandiano. The curate justly decreed that ' ' the merits of the father must not be imputed to the son" when he cast the volume on the bonfire in Don Quixote's courtyard. Although perhaps the best of the continuations, it is not equal to the original. We read that before marriage Oriana bore a child to Amadis, and in order to hide her shame the boy is sent to a distant country. While those in charge of him are passing through a forest a lioness carries him off, but a hermit meets and rebukes the animal, which subsequently suckles the young Esplandian. When he grows up the lioness continues her care and accompanies him to the chase. King Lisuarte one day witnesses this, which is the cause of Oriana recognizing her son by certain marks on his body. He is brought up at the court of Lisuarte and receives knighthood. He then begins his adventures under the title of the Black Knight (from his armour), and sails for Turkey, where most of his exploits take place. The Christians are assisted by the enchantress Urganda and the infidels by her rival Melia. Amadis, Galaor, Esplandian, and the knights being in great danger of death, Urganda saves them by putting them all to sleep on the Firm Island until Lisuarte, son of Esplandian, could obtain possession of a certain magic sword. The romance was first printed in 1510, and five editions appeared before the end of the century. This was soon followed by other similar romances, each with an illegitimate descendant of Amadis for a hero, with a son who performs exploits still more wonderful than those of his father, a perpetual succession of heroes. At the end of the Esplandian Montalvo speaks of writing another book to carry on the history still further. This caused some one, believed to be Paez de Ribera, to bring out El Sexto Libro, en que se cuentan los Grandes Hechos de Florisando, nephew of Amadis, taken from an Italian source. This was translated into English and Italian, but not into French. The Septinio Libro, en el qual se trata de los Grandes Hechos en armas de Lisuarte de Grecia y Perion de Gaula, deals with the life of the son of Esplandian and Leonorina. The other character is Perion, son of Amadis and Oriana, and the type of the fickle lover, as opposed to Lisuarte, who is more like Amadis. The book com- mences with the voyage of Perion from England to Ireland, but a lady in a boat with a crew of four monkeys separates him from his followers. He goes to Trebizond and falls in love with Gricileria, daughter of the emperor. When Lisuarte is a prisoner in charge of the king of the Giants' Isle, Gradaffile, the daughter of the latter, escapes with him to Constantinople, where after many combats he obtains the magic sword and enables Amadis and the knights to escape from the magic sleep in the Firm Island (see Esplandian above). Lisuarte eventually marries Onoloria, sister of Gricileria. The work continues Florisand and is attributed to Feliciano de Silva. Juan Diaz, the author of El Octavo Libro, que trata de 1 This kind of incident, which is frequently to be found in the subse- quent books as a test of chastity, is connected with the kindred story of the ill-fitting cloak in the Arthurian legend. Spenser uses it in the Faerie Queene (iii. 12) where, " The maske of Cupid and th' enchant-ed Chamber are displayed." Lisuarte de Grecia y de la Muerte del Rey Amadis, pretended that his work was taken from the Greek. It also is a continuation of Florisand and was not translated. We now come to Libro Noveno, que es la Chronica del Principe y Cavallero de la Ardiente Espada, Amadis de Grecia, a continuation of the seventh and not of the eighth book, and more full of marvels than any of its predecessors. Amadis of Greece, the son of Lisu- arte and Onoloria, is carried off by pirates when an infant and sold to a Moorish king. He derived his name from the figure of a flam- ing sword upon his breast. The exploits commence, like those in the Esplandian, at the Forbidden Mountain, and the family history concludes, as in the same romance, with the enchantment by Zirfea of all the heroes and princesses in the Tower of the Universe in order to prevent their death at a fated moment. Feliciano de Silva is the reputed author. Stimulated by the success of his two anonymous productions, the same writer continued the series with four more parts, of which the Coronica de los Valientes Caballeros D. Florisel de Niquea y el Fuerte Anaxartes forms the tenth book and contains the first two parts. Genealogically the romance is a con- tinuation of Lisuarte and Amadis de Grecia. Florisel is the son of the latter person and the princess of Niquea. In these fictions a new character is introduced, Darinel, a kind of comic shepherd, in love with the heroine Sylvia, daughter of Lisuarte and Onoloria, through whom Florisel becomes acquainted with the heroine. All three go to the relief of Anastarax, who is confined by enchantment in a fiery prison. But the achievement of the exploit is reserved for the Amazon Alastraxerea, whose adventures occupy a great portion of the tale, which culminates in the siege of Constantinople by all the potentates of western Europe in consequence of Florisel having carried off Helena, princess of Apollonia. Among other new characters are the enchantress Armida and the "strong" Anaxartes, who marries young Oriana, sister of Florisel. The amount of bloodshed throughout the work is only equalled by the number of marriages. The third part of Florisel forms the eleventh book of Amadis and is known as Chronica de Don Florisel de Niquea, en la qual se trata de D. Rogel de Grecia y el Segundo Agesilao. Rogel is the son of Florisel and Helena, and brother of Agesilao the Second, so called to distinguish him from Agesilao of Colchos. A few years later Feliciano de Silva published the fourth part of Don Florisel, in two books, the second of which treats of the loves of Rogel of Greece and Archisidea, and of Agesilao and Diana, daughter of Queen Sidonia. The author in his preface implies that the work was intended as an allegorical celebration of the military and domestic virtues of Charles V. The hero of La Dozcna Parte que tracta de los grandes Hechos en Armas del Cav. Don Silves de la Selva, was the son of Amadis of Greece and Finistea. Born on a desert island, Don Silvio first dis- tinguishes himself at the siege of Constantinople described in the tenth book. The Greek empresses and princesses having been carried off by enchantment, he accompanies the knights who go in search of them. The ladies are rescued, but during their absence have become mothers, among others of Spheramond, son of Rogel, and Amadis of Astre, son of Agesilao. Feliciano de Silva some- times passes for the author, who was really Pedro de Lujan. The work is in two parts, which in French make the thirteenth and fourteenth books. Lepolemo 6 el Caballero de la Cruz and Leandro el Bel are considered to make the thirteenth and fourteenth books. From a unique first edition (1521) of Lepolemo discovered a few years since it appears that it professed to be a translation by Alonso de Salazar. The hero was the son of the emperor Maximilian and was carried away in infancy to the East. N. Antonio speaks of a certain romance composed by a Portuguese, entitled Penalva, the last of the line of the original Amadis. It is supposed to have dealt with the last exploits and death of Lisuarte of Greece, but if it existed at all no printed copy has ever yet been seen. The other Spanish romances usually appended to the Amadis series are mentioned in the bibliographical list below. In the French series more and more liberties are taken with the The original as the work proceeds. As shown in the table below, the French numbers of the books do not tally. The fifteenth, entirely due to series of Antoine Tyron, describes the feats of Sferamond (so called fromcontinu- a birthmark representing a globe) of Greece and Amadis d' Astre. ations. The sixteenth to the twenty-first books continue the adventures of ' Sferamond and were translated from the Italian of Mambrino Roseo by Gabriel Chappuys. Duplicate versions from the Italian were made by Nicolas de Montreux of the sixteenth, by Jacques Chariot of the nineteenth, and by Jean Bovion of the twentieth books. The twenty-second to the twenty -fourth books, devoted to Fulgoran, Safiraman, and Hercules d' Astre, continue and form a new conclusion of the French Amadis. Only one edition appeared (Paris, 1615, 3 vols. 8vo), now extremely rare. The naive and pure style of the earliest of the series degenerates into an uninteresting succession of coarse and obscene incidents. In the twenty-third book we are taken for the first time to America. Flares de Grece (1552) is con- sidered to form the twenty-fifth book. Genealogically it would be the sixth, as the hero is the second sou of Esplandian. In the 16th century the French Amadis library extended to 30 vols. of various
 * lie first four books is a fairy like Morgan la Fay, but subsequently she