Del Princepe Alexandre, · que fue rey de Grecia, Que fue franc è ardit · è de grant sabencia. Venció Poro è Dário, · dos Reyes de grant potencia, Nunca conosció ome su par · en la sufrencia. El infante Alexandre · luego en su ninnéz Comenzó à demostrar · que seríe de grant prez: Nunca quiso mamar leche · de mugier rafez, Se non fue de linage · è de grant gentiléz. Grandes signos contiron · quando est infant nasció: El ayre fue cambiado, · el sol escureció, Todol mar fue irado, · la tierra tremeció, Por poco quel mundo · todo non pereció. Sanchez, Tom. III. p. 1. Then comes the history of Alexander, mingled with the fables and extravagances of the times; given generally with the dulness of a chronicle, but sometimes showing a poetical spirit. Before setting out on his grand expedition to the East, he is knighted, and receives an enchanted sword made by Don Vulcan, a girdle made by Doña Philosophy, and a shirt made by two sea fairies,--_duas fadas enna mar_.[83] The conquest of Asia follows soon afterwards, in the course of which the Bishop of Jerusalem orders mass to be said to stay the conqueror, as he approaches the Jewish capital.[84] [83] Coplas 78, 80, 83, 89, etc. [84] Coplas 1086-1094, etc. In general, the known outline of Alexander’s adventures is followed, but there are a good many whimsical digressions; and when the Macedonian forces pass the site of Troy, the poet cannot resist the temptation of making an abstract of the fortunes and fate of that city, which he represents as told by Don Alexander himself to his followers, and especially to the Twelve Peers, who accompanied him in his expedition.[85] Homer is vouched as authority for the extraordinary narrative that is given;[86] but how little the poet of Astorga cared for the Iliad and Odyssey may be inferred from the fact, that, instead of sending Achilles, or Don Achilles, as he is called, to the court of Lycomedes of Scyros, to be concealed in woman’s clothes, he is sent, by the enchantments of his mother, in female attire, to a convent of nuns, and the crafty Don Ulysses goes there as a peddler, with a pack of female ornaments and martial weapons on his back, to detect the fraud.[87] But, with all its defects and incongruities, the “Alexandro” is a curious and important landmark in early Spanish literature; and if it is written with less purity and dignity than the “Partidas” of Alfonso, it has still a truly Castilian air, in both its language and its versification.[88] [85] Coplas 299-716. [86] Coplas 300 and 714. [87] Coplas 386, 392, etc.