A history of Spanish literature - Cristo Raul

JORGE MANRIQUE 115
but the theory is untenable, for it is not pretended that
Jorge Manrique could read Arabic, and lofty common-
places on death abound in all literature, from the Bible
downwards.
In this unique composition Jorge Manrique approves
himself, for once, a poet of absolute genius, an exquisite
in lyrical orchestration. The poem opens with a slow
movement, a solemn lament on the vanity of grandeur,
the frailty of life ; it modulates into resigned acceptance
of an inscrutable decree ;
it closes with a superb sym-
phony, through which are heard the voices of the
seraphim and the angelic harps of Paradise. The work-
manship is of almost incomparable excellence, and in
scarcely one stanza can the severest criticism find a
technical flaw. Jorge Manrique's sincerity touched a
chord which vibrates in the universal heart, and his
poem attained a popularity as immediate as it was
imperishable. CamOes sought to imitate it ; writers
like Montemor and Silvestre glossed it ; Lope de Vega
declared that it should be written in letters of gold ;
was done into Latin and set to music in the sixteenth
century by Venegas de Henestrosa ; and in our century
it has been admirably translated by Longfellow in a
version from which these stanzas are taken :
" Behold of what delusive worth
The bubbles we pursue on earth,
The shapes we chase
Amid a world of treachery;
They "vanish ere death shuts the eye,
And leave no trace.
Time steals tJtem from us, chances strange^
Disastrous accidents, and change,
That come to all;
it