Ercilla presents the Araucanian heroes speaking to their countrymen as Spaniards might have spoken under similar circumstances. Evidently his knowledge of them was too superficial to enable him to set forth their psychological peculiarities, but he makes their individuality distinct by descriptions of their dress. His lack of intimate knowledge of the Indian mind may be indicated by the fact that apart from geographical terms he uses few words of a local origin or meaning, or that might not have been understood in Spain before the discovery of America. It is not merely descriptions of dress or of persons that certain critics have found admirable, but descriptions of events, of battles, as well. Considering this quality, however, there has existed a wide divergence of judgments, and the extreme unevenness of the poem suggests that some feature of it may be found to justify each view. The course of the narrative is here and there interrupted by the introduction of rhetorical speeches, and by reflections that seem to embody a philosophy or views of life, and these views indicate an uncheerful, if not a pessimistic, philosophy. In the fourth octave of the second canto he announces that “the most assured benefit of fortune is not to have ever had it”; and in the first octave of the twenty-sixth canto he finds that “the coming of one good after another is very doubtful, while one evil after another is always certain. The time of prosperity was never lasting, and the time of misery has never ceased.” This mournful note recurs frequently throughout the poem until the final lamentation of the last octave. [Sidenote: Barbarian innocence] But in certain passages there are anticipations of the doctrine that prevailed in France two hundred years later, the doctrine of the uncorrupted virtue of uncivilized society. This octave, the thirteenth of the thirty-sixth canto, is an indication: La sincera bondad y la caricia De la sencilla gente de estas tierras Daban bien a entender que la codicia Aún no había penetrado aquellas sierras; Ni la maldad, el robo y la injusticia (Alimento ordinario de las guerras) Entrada en esta parte habían hallado Ni la ley natural inficionado.[65] [Sidenote: _Orlando Furioso_] The marked attention given to _Orlando Furioso_ in Spain in the sixteenth century made inevitable its influence on Ercilla. This poem was twice translated into Spanish verse in the year 1549-1550, by Jerónimo de Urrea and Hernando de Alcocer, and later a prose translation was made by Vázquez de Contreras. Seven editions of Urrea’s translation were issued before 1564, and Ariosto appears to have been a principal source of Ercilla’s inspiration, but the vigorous and positive spirit of the Spaniard was not able to acquire the Italian’s gifts of facility, grace, and fancy.[66] [Sidenote: Style of _La Araucana_] [Sidenote: A view of Ercilla]