A history of Spanish literature - Cristo Raul

THE JUGLAR 27
early verse, is used to lessen the strain on the juglar's
was that the
memory. The commonest arrangement
juglar de boca sang the trovador's words, the juglar de
ptfiola accompanying on some simple instrument, while
the remendador gave the story in pantomime.
All the world over the history of early literatures is
identical. With the Greeks the minstrel attains at last
an important post in the chieftain's train. Seated on a
high chair inlaid with silver, he entertains the guests,
or guards the wife of Agamemnon, his patron and his
friend. Just so does Phemios sing amid the suitors of
has told us
Penelope. It was not always thus. Bentley
in his pointed way that "poor Homer in those circum-
stances and early times had never such aspiring thoughts"
and that " he wrote a
as mankind and everlasting fame ;
sequel of songs and rhapsodies to be sung by himself
for small earnings and good cheer, at festivals, and other
days of merriment." This rise and fall occurred in Spain
as elsewhere. For her early trovadores vrjuglares, as for
Demodokos in the Odyssey, and as for Fergus Maclvor's
sennachie, a cup of wine "
sufficed. Dat nos del vino si
non tenedes dinneros," says the juglar who sang the Cid's
exploits :
" Give us wine, if you have no money." Gon-
zalo de Berceo, the first Castilian writer whose name
reaches us, is likewise the first Castilian to use the word
trovador in his Loores de Nuestra Seilora (The Praises of
Our Lady) :
"Aun merced te pido par el tu trobador"
(Thy favour I irrplore for this thy troubadour.)
But, though a priest and a trovador proud of his double
office, Berceo claims his wages without a touch of false