In order to seize the occasion of applying eumolpique lines to a greater number of subjects, I am going to quote a sort of exposition of Ossian, the only one I believe, which is found in his poems; because Macpherson, for more originality, neglected nearly always to announce the subject of his songs. I will not give the text, because the English translation whence I obtained it does not give it. It concerns the battle of Lora. After a kind of exordium addressed to the son of the stranger, dweller of the silent cavern, Ossian said to him: Le chant plaît-il à ton oreille? Ecoute le récit du combat de Lora. Il est bien ancien, ce combat! Le tumulte Des armes, et les cris furieux des guerriers, Sont couverts par un long silence; Ils sont éteints depuis longtemps: Ainsi sur des rochers retentissants, la foudre Roule, gronde, éclate et n’est plus; Le soleil reparaît, et la cime brillante Des coteaux verdoyants, sourit à ses rayons. Son of the secret cell! dost thou delight in songs? Hear the battle of Lora. The sound of its steel is long since past. So thunder on the darkened hill roars, and is no more. The sun returns with his silent beams, The glittering rocks, and green heads of the mountains smile. This example serves to prove that eumolpique lines might easily adapt themselves to the dithyramb. [227] The tragedy of the _Cid_, given by Pierre Corneille in 1626, upon which were based the grandeur and dominant character of the Théâtre Français, as well as the renown of the author, is taken from a Spanish ballad very celebrated in Spain. The Cid, who is the hero of it, lived towards the close of the eleventh century. He was a type of the paladins and knights errant of the romanesque traditions. He enjoyed a wide reputation and attained a high degree of fortune. _Voyez_ Monte-Mayor, _Diana_, l. ii.; et Voltaire, _Essai sur les Mœurs_, t. iii., stéréotype, p. 86. In the course of the sixteenth century, the Spanish held a marked superiority over the other peoples: their tongue was spoken at Paris, Vienna, Milan, Turin. Their customs, their manners of thought and of writing, subjugated the minds of the Italians, and from Charles V. to the commencement of the reign of Philip III., Spain enjoyed an importance that the other peoples never had. _Voyez_ Robertson, _Introduction à l’Histoire de Charles-Quint_.