Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 31.djvu/305

Rh three times the number already published. I am quite sure, however, that the décima is not so popular in New Mexico as it is in Porto Rico, where it seems to be cultivated with special enthusiasm and vigor.

Of the five types of Porto-Rican décimas in octosyllabic verse here published, there are traditional Spanish models for all. décima strophes of various types, especially the type abaabcdcdc, have been used since the fifteenth century. Juan de Mena, Frey Inigo de Mendoga, and other poets of the court of John II, used these poetic forms. A more conventional décima strophe was used in Spanish literature by Vicente Martinez Espinel (1550-1624), the famous author of the "Diversas Rimas" and "Marcos de Obregón." For this reason the décima is often called in Spanish espinela. As used by Espinel and the many poets who used it later, the décima is a strophe of ten octo-syllabic verses or lines, the first rhyming with the fourth and fifth, the second with the third, the sixth with the seventh and tenth, and the eighth with the ninth. This is the traditional structure of the décima employed by its creator Espinel and those who followed him; and in general it is the structure of the popular décima to the present day. This rhyme arrangement, abbaaccddc, seems to be followed also in a very large number of the octosyllabic décimas from Porto Rico, Chile, and New Mexico; but there are many new alterations. The fact that the old traditional literary type is still followed, however, shows clearly the traditional character of the material. Certainly there are no popular schools of poetry in Porto Rico, New Mexico, or anywhere, where the popular poet may learn to compose décimas in Old-Spanish fashion. Not only in the matter of metre and rhyme-arrangement have the popular poets followed the traditional type of octosyllabic décima: there seems to be a fixed type found in Spanish tradition, although its old models are not very abundant in literary history; and this special type has suffered little or no change in the oral tradition of the people. Inasmuch as, of all the types of octo-syllabic décimas here published, the one just mentioned is the all-important one, and the one that seems to have preserved all the earmarks of a well-known and conventionally-fixed traditional type, we shall limit the following observations largely to this type.

The word décima may be used in various senses. In the first place, it is the strophe of ten octosyllabic verse-lines in the rhyme-arrangement already mentioned, or other rhyme-arrangements developed from it. One such strophe is called a décima. By extension a series of any number of such strophes, or a series of any number of décimas, treating of the same matter, came to be called a décima. Later, when other metres were used, the décima was again the single strophe or a