More directly and more characteristically Spanish in its origin is the royal epic entitled _Anséis de Carthage_. Here, after the manner of your epic poet, chronology is scattered to the winds, and we learn that Charlemagne left in Spain a king who dishonoured the daughter of one of his barons; hence the invasion by the Arabs, whom the baron lets loose upon his country as avengers. The basis of the story is purely Spanish, being a somewhat clumsy arrangement of the legend of Roderic, Cora, and Count Julian; the city of Carthage standing, it may be, for the Spanish Cartagena. Hence it is clear that the mutual literary debt of Spain and France is, at this early stage, unequally divided. Spain, like the rest of the world, borrows freely; but, with the course of time, the position is reversed. Molière, the two Corneilles, Rotrou, Sorel, Scarron, and Le Sage, to mention but a few eminent names at hazard, readjust the balance in favour of Spain; and the inexhaustible resources of the Spanish theatre, which supply the arrangements of scores of minor French dramatists, are but a small part of the literature whose details are our present concern. FOOTNOTES: [1] See Milá y Fontanals, _Los Trovadores en España_ (Barcelona, 1889), and the same writer's _Resenya histórica y crítica dels antichs poetas catalans_ in the third volume of his _Obras completas_ (Barcelona, 1890). CHAPTER II THE ANONYMOUS AGE 1150-1220