Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 31.djvu/306

296 series of any number of strophes. In any given composition of the class in question, therefore, the décima may be either the entire composition itself, or any one of the strophes which compose it. For this reason the word is rare in the singular. Since a composition of several strophes is really composed of various décimas (décima strophes), the composition usually has the title of décimas, in the plural. This is true of the old décimas of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and also of the modern ones. The use of the singular for the entire composition, however, is not altogether avoided.

If one may properly judge from the published collections of décimas of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and from the modern published popular collections, it seems that when series of décimas were composed on special subjects, the first strophe or décima was in the nature of an introduction; and the last, that of a conclusion. The number of strophes was not fixed. As Lenz points out in the publication already mentioned, we find in the "Cancionero" of Juan Fernandez de Constantina many décimas composed of six regular strophes, the last of which is generally called cabo or fin. The introductory strophe does not seem as yet developed. In the poetry of the seventeenth century, however, the introductory strophe was developed as a special part of the décimas, and it was reduced from its regular décima form to a strophe of four or five verses; in other words, the introduction to the décima is not ordinarily a décima strophe at all, but a quintilla, or a cuarteta, or redondilla. Here we have a gradual approach to a special type, with an introductory strophe, a series of décimas (no fixed number), and a final concluding strophe. In the literary sources known to me, I find numerous examples of décimas that have the introductory cuarteta or redondilla, and a few with the introductory quintilla. The next step in the development of the conventional types seemed to have been the limitation of the number of décima strophes of which a décima could consist. There were developed, therefore, various types; and we have examples of many in the classic poetry of the seventeenth century and also in modern popular tradition, as we shall soon see.

The most important work that I know of Old-Spanish décimas of the class that approaches the popular décimas under discussion, is the "Romancero y Cancionero Sagrados" of Justo de Sancha, Madrid, 1855 (BAE 35). Throughout various parts of this work we can find décimas and other compositions similar to those we now publish. The final strophe or cabo, fin, as called in the "Cancionero" of Constantina, does not seem to have survived long in literary tradition. As we shall see later, this element is not found in the Porto-Rican décimas, either. In New Mexico and Chile, however, it was developed side by side with the regular four-strophe arrangement, as well as the