Pois me faleceu ventura en o tempo de prazer, non espero aver folgura mas per sempre entristecer. Turmentado e con tristura chamarei ora por mi. _Deus meus, eli, eli,_ _eli lama sabac thani._
And shortly after the death of Macias another literary force came into play. As Professor Henry R. Lang observes in a note to his invaluable _Cancioneiro gallego-castelhano_, ‘the Italian Renaissance had taught the poet to combine myth and miracle and to pay homage to the fair lady in the language of religion as well as in that of feudal life.’ The conventions of chivalry were combined with the expressions of sacrilegious passion. So eminent a man as Álvaro de Luna set a lamentable example of impious preciosity. In one of his extant poems he belauds his mistress, declares that the Saviour’s choice would light on her if He were subject to mortal passions, and defiantly announces his readiness to contend with God in the lists—to break a lance with the Almighty—for so incomparable a prize:—
Aun se m’antoxa, Senyor, si esta tema tomáras que justar e quebrar varas fiçieras per el su amor. Si fueras mantenedor, contigo me las pegara, e non te alçara la vara, per ser mi competidor.
This is not an isolated instance of profanity in high places, for Álvaro de Luna’s repugnant performance was equalled in the _Letanía de Amor_ by the grave chronicler Diego de Valera, and was approached in innumerable copies of verse by many professed believers. The abundance of versifiers during the reign of Juan II. is embarrassing. In the _Ilustraciones_ to the sixth volume of his _Historia de la literatura española_, José Amador de los Ríos gives two lists of poets who flourished at this period, and (allowing for the accidental inclusion of three names in both lists) he arrives at a total of two hundred and fifteen. Even so, it seems that the catalogue is incomplete; but we should thank Ríos for his good taste, forbearance, or negligence in not making it exhaustive. It is extremely doubtful whether two hundred and fifteen poets of superlative distinction can be found in all the literatures of Europe put together; it is certain that no such number of distinguished poets has ever existed at one time in any one country, and many of the entries in Ríos’s lists are the names of mediocrities, not to say poetasters. We may exclude them from our breathless review this afternoon, just as we must pass hurriedly over the names of minor prose-writers. There is merit in Álvaro de Luna’s _Libro de las virtuosas e claras mugeres_ in which the Constable replies to Boccaccio’s _Corbaccio_ and takes up the cudgels for women; there is uncommon merit in a venomous and amusing treatise, branding the entire sex, by Juan II.’s chaplain, Alfonso Martínez de Toledo—a work which he wished to be called (after himself) the _Arcipreste de Talavera_, but to which a mischievous posterity has attached the title of _El Corbacho_ or the _Reprobación del amor mundano_. There is merit also in the allegorical _Visión delectable_ of Alfonso de la Torre, and in the animated (though perhaps too imaginative) narrative of adventures given by Gutierre Díez de Games in the _Crónica del Conde de Buelna, Don Pero Niño_. And no account of the writers of Juan II.’s reign would be complete without some mention of the celebrated Bishop of Ávila, Alfonso de Madrigal, best known as _El Tostado_. But _El Tostado_ wrote mostly in Latin, and, apart from this, his incredible productivity weighs upon him.