[199] Chronicle, books 9 and 10. Every reader of Spanish history knows how fiercely the story of the Infantes has been discussed. I shall not burden my pages with a statement of the arguments, but I think that the balance is very much in favour of the truth of the story. Mr. Southey's remark is judicious. "The conduct of the Infantes of Carrion is certainly improbable. There are instances enough of such cruelty, but none of such folly. Yet nothing can be so improbable as that such a story should be invented and related so soon after their death; of persons who had really existed, and were of such rank: and that it should be accredited and repeated by all the historians who lived nearest the time." [200] Hallam's Middle Ages, iii. 482. 2d edit. [201] The world has generally been acquainted with the fall of Grenada by the work of Genez Perez de Hita, which was translated into French, and acquired popularity when Florian made it the foundation of his Gonsalvo de Cordova. There is very little historical truth in the volume, and the value of the pictures of manners it contains has been much overrated: those pictures, moreover, are Moorish rather than chivalric, and therefore not of service to the present work. [202] Warton on the Gesta Romanorum, in the first volume of his History of English Poetry. [203] De Marca, Marca Hispanica, p. 1428. [204] Con razon (dize) nos quitais las armas del linage, pues las ponemos à tan graves peligros, y traucos: vos las mereceis mejor, que como mas recatado, les teneis mejor guardados. Mariana, Hist. de Espana, xiii. 7. [205] Mariana, xiii. 7. This last story of Garcia Perez de Vargas is the subject of a beautiful ballad, which Mr. Lockhart has translated. The stanzas regarding the scarf are particularly pleasing. "He look'd around, and saw the scarf, for still the Moors were near, And they had pick'd it from the sward, and loop'd it on a spear. 'These Moors,' quoth Garci Perez, 'uncourteous Moors they be-- Now, by my soul, the scarf they stole, yet durst not question me! "'Now reach once more my helmet.' The esquire said him nay, 'For a silken string why should you fling, perchance, your life away?' --'I had it from my lady,' quoth Garci, 'long ago, And never Moor that scarf, be sure, in proud Seville shall show.'-- "But when the Moslems saw him, they stood in firm array: --He rode among their armed throng, he rode right furiously. --'Stand, stand, ye thieves and robbers, lay down my lady's pledge,' He cried, and ever as he cried, they felt his faulchion's edge. "That day when the lord of Vargas came to the camp alone, The scarf, his lady's largess, around his breast was thrown: Bare was his head, his sword was red, and from his pommel strung Seven turbans green, sore hack'd I ween, before Garci Perez hung." Lockhart's Ancient Spanish Ballads, p. 75.