"The legend of the seven infants of Lara" : a commentary and translation

The text published in this issue has two parts: a critical apparatus consisting of the introduction and footnotes, and a translation into Polish of the prose version of the Legend of the Seven Infants of Lara from manuscript E2 of Estoria de Espanna by Alfonso X the Wise. The critical part contains a discussion of three main research problems, which include the historicity of events and characters, potential sources of inspiration for the authors of subsequent variants of the Legend, and the relationship between these variants. Here we also find the characteristics of the source text of the translation, i.e. the royal chronicle mentioned above. The discussion of historical events and characters appearing in the legend is based on a comparative analysis of the canonical study of the subject by Ramón Manéndez Pidal included in the monograph La leyenda de los Infantes de Lara (3rd edition, 1971), as well as historical sources and the latest studies by Spanish and foreign scholars, often critical of Pidal’s research. Potential influences on the shape of the legend, originating mainly from the French epic, have been indicated for each of the threads, the content of which brings to mind associations with the texts written earlier. The relationship between the different variants of the legend is explained by the evolution of the text from the oldest song of an informative character (Spanish canto noticiero), to first and second epic songs, which have not survived to date, to the prose versions in the chronicles Estoria de Espanna and Crónica de 1344 by Pedro Alfonso, Count de Barcelos. The description of the different variants is complemented by a tabular summary of the most important differences between the prose versions of the legend from both chronicles. The translation of the chapters of Estoria de Espanna containing the story of seven infants is based on a variant of the chronicle called Versión amplificada de 1289 (Extended Version from 1289), which belongs to the so-called post-Alfonsian chronicles and was written after the death of Alfonso X, during the reign of his son, Sancho IV the Brave. It is the oldest preserved version of the Legend of the Seven Infants of Lara, which is the basis for the later variants. The source for the translation is manuscript E2 (MS X-I-4, Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo, El Escorial, Madrid) known in its two modern editions: Primera Crónica General de España, edited by Ramón Menédez Pidal, and Estoria de Espanna Digital, an online edition.