1.2 "El romance del rey moro” 👑

5 min read•november 12, 2020

AP Spanish Literature 💃🏽

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"El romance del rey moro que perdió Alhama," or commonly known as "El rey moro" among students of literature 📚, is a romance of the 15th century. Given that most of the legends in the Iberian Peninsula were transmitted orally 🔊 , there is no doubt that the fusion of music 🎵🎻🥁and poetry ✍ gave rise to a rich tradition of "romances" in medieval literature, including this notable work.

The romance of the Middle Ages as a literary work has several characteristics:

It is octosyllabic, meaning that each verse has 8️⃣ syllables
Romances have assonant rhyme 🅰️🅰️ on even verses
Often, they include a chorus 🎶, or a repeated verse that harkens back to the central idea
They have an unlimited ♾️number of verses

"El romance del rey moro" is set in the last stage of Al-Ándalus, around the year 1490. The titular Moorish king 👑 was Boabdil, a weak king who ruled the south of the peninsula from the city of Granada. Each stanza highlights the inevitability of the Catholic kings conquering ⚔ Alhama and the rest of Al-Andalus.

Battle of the Reconquista, from the margins of the Cántiga de Santa María. Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

The poetic voice begins the romance in medias res (in the middle of the action). It features the Moorish king walking through his city 🌆 when he receives news 📰 that Alhama, a strategic hill in Al-Andalus, has been conquered by Christians. The king 👑is unable to cope with the news, “las cartas echó en el fuego 🔥 / y al mensajero matara."Meanwhile, the chorus—"Ay de mi Alhama" —represents the voices of the despairing 😲 Muslims ☪ faced with the news.

In stanzas 3 and 4, the king 👑 seeks to mount a resistance. When he "descabalga de una mula / y en un caballo 🐎 cabalga," he seeks to make himself look more powerful and more like the leader he thinks he is. He orders the trumpets 🎺 to sound to encourage his soldiers' desire to fight ⚔ Later, the poetic voice presents the resistance as futile despite “uno a uno y dos a dos / juntado se ha gran batalla.” Meanwhile, the chorus continues to remind the audience of the impact of the loss of Alhama 😭

In the climax of the romance, as the king 👑 tries to foster the spirit of fighting among his soldiers, he is confronted by an old Moor who announces to all the news that “cristianos de braveza / ya nos han ganado Alhama” In addition, an alfaquí—a cultured and wise man 🧓in the Arab communities of Al-Ándalus—scolds the Moorish king for having killed the Bencerrajes (a noble family with whom the royal family competed), as well as having accepted converts to Christianity ✝ in the court. Lastly, the alfaquí declares that the king 👑 deserves to lose his kingdom and that the Moors deserve to lose Granada and Al-Andalus forever. 🔚

"La salida de la familia de Boabdil de la Alhambra"—The Departure of Boabdil's Family from the Alhambra, Manuel Gómez-Moreno González (1834-1918). Image courtesy of Wikimedia.

“El romance del rey moro”: Connections to the Course Themes, Literary Devices, and Selected Quotes 📝

Connections to the Themes

🤝 Sociedades en contacto / Societies in Contact: "El romance del rey moro" presents the characteristics of this theme in two ways. First, it portrays the Reconquista of Spain 🇪🇸 and the geographical 🌐 context of its final stage. Furthermore, despite the fact that the plot of the romance has to do with the history of the Moors in Spain, the poetic voice is Christian ✝️ The bias of the Christian poetic voice can be found in the verse "cristianos de braveza," something that no Muslim ☪ in Al-Andalus would have said. In addition, the last scene between the alfaquí and the Moorish king 👑would probably not happen in reality and only occurs in the romance to advance the agenda of the Christian author who sought to minimize Boabdil's legacy
⏳Tiempo y espacio / Time and Space: The poetic voice narrates the fall of the Moorish kingdom linearly ⬆, in addition to establishing the setting of the king forebodingly surrounded by Christians in the distance, something that indicates that the fall of Al-Andalus is inevitable ⌛

Literary Devices

This romance is octosyllabic 8️⃣ and has an assonant rhyme scheme in even verses (e.g.. “por la ciudad de Granada . . .“hasta la de Vivarrambla”). It includes a chorus 🎶—“¡Ay de mi Alhama!”—which highlights the devastating end of Al-Andalus
To preserve the number of syllables throughout the romance, the author ✍ uses sinalefa to reduce the number of syllables to 8 in the verses that have more. The sinalefa combines 🔀 vowel syllables into a single syllable when necessary. See the following examples:

“y en un caballo cabalga” has 9 syllables (y/en/un/ca/ba/llo/ca/bal/ga). To protect the 8**-syllable meter** of the romance, sinalefa is used to combine 🔀 the first two syllables in one (y-en/un/ca/ba/llo/ca/bal/ga)
Sinalefa can also be used to combine 🔀 two syllables even if the second begins with an h-. For example, the verse “juntado se ha gran batalla” includes 9 syllables (jun/ta/do/se/ha/gran/ba/ta/lla), but by combining syllables 4 and 5 (jun/ta/do/se-ha/gran/ba/ta/lla), the poetic voice maintains the eight-syllable meter

The author also uses the hyperbaton several times to preserve the rhyme of the poem. Hyperbaton changes the order of words within a verse so that it ends with the desired rhyming sound. For example, the author of the romance could have written “echó las cartas en el fuego / y matara al mensajero” in the second stanza, but given that the prior rhyming verse ended with an –a, the author shuffled words around so that the verse “y matara al mensajero” also ended with an –a , “y al mensajero matara” 🔀.

Selected Quotes

“Que cristianos de braveza / ya nos han ganado Alhama” It is revealed in this verse that the poetic voice is Christian ✝️ because a Muslim ☪ poetic voice would not have had a positive perspective faced with the Christian Reconquista.

“Mataste los Bencerrajes, / que eran la flor 🌷 de Granada; cogiste los tornadizos / de Córdoba la nombrada.” The alfaquí highlights the bad decisions of the Moorish king and then concludes that the king deserves losing his kingdom. 👑

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