Chapter XI (8)

The point of honour, loyalty, love, and jealousy, form the standard groundwork of the dramas of Lope. Lord Holland has analysed the "Star of Seville," in which the interest depends on an affianced lover killing the brother of his betrothed at the instance of the king, and then refusing to betray his royal master's secret. Love and jealousy take singular forms. It was the custom of the lover to watch beneath the barred windows of the house of his lady, and she, if she favoured him, descended and conversed with him from her casement. They never hesitate to acknowledge their love, but it must never be suspected by others. Were it known that a cavalier were thus favoured, the relations of the lady would at once assassinate him, and stab her or shut her up in a convent. Yet when the lovers have escaped these dangers, they marry, and at the sound of wedlock the honour of the family is secured; the injury, to be so mortally avenged, is no longer an injury, and all is well and happy. If a husband is jealous, it is not that he doubts the fidelity of his wife, or even her attachment, but that she has been placed in a situation which might have led to dishonour. Others know this, and she must expiate the fault with her life. In the "Certain for the Doubtful," a lady wishing to dissuade the king from marrying her, confesses that his brother, who is his rival, had once kissed her without her permission. The king instantly resolves to have him assassinated, since he cannot marry the lady till his brother's death has freed her from the dishonour that must accrue, while the perpetrator of such an act lives. He says at the same time "I know that there is no reality in what you tell me, but, although this strange incident be a falsehood invented for the purpose of inducing me not to marry you, it suffices that it has been said, to force me to revenge it. If love makes me in any manner give credit to your story--Henriquez shall die, and I marry his widow; for then, if what you tell me shall be discovered, we shall neither of us be dishonoured; for you will be the widow of this kiss, as others are of a husband." Accordingly assassins are commissioned to waylay his brother. Meanwhile Henriquez and the lady marry, and the king seeing the evil without remedy, and his honour safe, pardons the lovers.

Schlegel observes, "Honour, love, and jealousy are uniformly the motives: the plot arises out of their daring and noble collision, and is not purposely instigated by knavish deception. Honour is always an ideal principle, for it rests, as I have elsewhere shown, on that higher morality which consecrates principles without regard to consequences: the honour of the women consists in loving only one man, of pure, unspotted honour, and loving him with perfect purity: inviolable secrecy is required till a lawful union permits it to be publicly declared. The power of jealousy, always alive, and always breaking out in a dreadful manner,--not like that of eastern countries, a jealousy of possession, but of the slightest emotions of the heart, and its most imperceptible demonstrations, serves to ennoble love. In tragedies, this jealousy causes honour to become a hostile destiny for him who cannot satisfy it, without either annihilating his own felicity, or becoming even a criminal."

Schlegel, in his hatred of the French, espouses with too much warmth, and elevates too highly the nobleness of the passions on which the interest of the Spanish drama is founded. Where jealousy is the main spring of every action, there is little tenderness; however, it is in the comedies that this passion displays itself in the worst light. In tragedies, death, hovering over the scene, gives dignity and elevation to that which otherwise must seem the excess of self-love. The comedies present a tissue of intrigues and embroglios; but these are arranged with so much art, carried on with so much spirit, and aided by sparkling and natural dialogue, that it is impossible not to be amused, and even interested.

To these subjects are added plays in which religion is the master passion, where Catholicism is raised to the height which makes its assumed truth a justification for the worst crimes; and the vengeance which Moor or Jew pursue for infinite injuries, be considered a crime to be expiated by a cruel death. In the same way, the point of honour led to falsehood and dishonourable actions, all of which were considered venial, as founded on, or tending to, a lofty aim. Even in the lighter comedies, there is a dangerous and ticklish sense of honour always on the alert to create danger, and enliven the interest.

Lope also wrote many sacred dramas and Autos Sacramentales. Some of these are allegorical; others founded on the lives of the saints. God Almighty, the Virgin, the Saviour, and Satan are among his dramatis personæ. But in this species of writing he was far surpassed by Calderon. It required sublimity to give a proper tone to such subjects, and to this quality Lope cannot pretend. His _entremeses_ or interludes, farces they may be called, are full of merriment; his vast facility in inventing plots enabled him to bestow a subject that might easily be drawn out into a comedy of five, on a piece of one act. French and English writers have consulted him as a mine. In him originated also the introduction of the Grazioso, or jester--a clown who makes ludicrous observations on what is going on, and turning tragic sentiment into burlesque, acts as censor upon the motives and actions of the personages, and often disturbs the current of interest excited; but often also the sprightly wit he thus introduces, relieves the monotony of passion on stilts, and he is always a convenient personage in explaining away a difficulty, and disclosing a secret.

Lope, of course, wholly disregards unity of time and place. The incongruities of his plots are manifold. Success, popular success, was what he aimed at, and he gained it; but he was aware of the barbarism of many of his dramas, and has himself warmly censured his plays. In his "Arte de hacer Comedias" he says[103]:--

"I, doomed to write, the public taste to hit, Resume the barbarous dress 'twas vain to quit: I lock up every rule before I write, Plautus and Jerome drive from out my sight, Lest rage should teach those injured wits to join, And their dumb books cry shame on works like mine. To vulgar standards then I square my play, Writing at ease, for, since the public pay, 'Tis just methinks we by their compass steer, And write the nonsense that they love to hear:"

And again in the same poem:--

"None than myself more barbarous or more wrong, Who, hurried by the vulgar taste along, Dare give my precepts in despite of rule, Whence France and Italy pronounce me fool. But what am I to do? who now of plays, With one complete within these seven days, Four hundred eighty-three, in all have writ, And all, save six, against the rules of wit."

And in his eclogue to Claudio:--

"Then spare, indulgent Claudio, spare The list of all my barbarous plays; For this with truth I can declare, And though 'tis truth, it is not praise, The printed part, though far too large, is less Than that which yet unprinted waits the press."

To this severe censure of his own works was joined considerable study of the dramatic art. It had engaged his attention, he says, since he was ten years old; and in the "Dramatic Art" from which we have just quoted, he shows great good taste and penetration in his observations.

His plays are not now acted in Madrid. The theatre, indeed, has declined in Spain, and melodrames and vaudevilles have taken place of the higher species of drama. Still Lope's works are a mine of wealth for any dramatist, whence to draw situations, plots, and dialogue. Dryden borrowed much from him; and, notwithstanding his faults, there may be found in his plays a richness of invention, a freshness and variety of ideas, and a vivacity of dialogue unsurpassed by any author.

[Footnote 74: In an epistle he mentions his father as having emigrated to Madrid--he speaks of him as living in the valley of Carriedo, but deficiency of means caused him to leave his ancestral inheritance of Vega, and to remove to Madrid. There had been a quarrel between him and his wife, who was jealous, and with reason, as Lope tells us he loved a Spanish Helen; she however followed him, and they were reconciled:

"Y aquel dia fu piedra en mi primero fundamento la paz de su zelosa phantasia. En fin por zelos soy; que nascimiento! imaginalde vos, que haver nacido de tan inquieta causa fue portento."

_Belardo á Amarylis._]

[Footnote 75: Pellicer, Tratado sobre el origen de la Comedia.]

[Footnote 76: "Efectos de mi genio y mi fortuna, que me eseñastes versos en la cuna, dulce memoria del principio amado del ser que tengo, á quien la vida debo, en este panagyrico me llama ingrato y olvidado, pero si no me atrevo, no fue falta de amor, sino de fama, que obligacion me fuerza, amor mi inflama. Ma si Felix de Vega no la tuvo, basta saber que en el Parnaso estuvo, haviendo hallado yo sus borradores, versos eran á Dios llenos de amores; y aunque en el tiempo que escribió los versos, no eran tan crespos como ahora y tersos, ni las Musas tenían tantos brios, mejores me parecen que los mios."

_Laurel de Apolo._]

[Footnote 77: Lope often mentions having been a soldier in early youth. These expressions are generally used in reference to his having served on board the Invincible Armada, but there is a stanza in the "Huerto Deshecho," that intimates that he had entered the army at fifteen.

"Ni mi fortuna muda ver en tres lustros de mi edad primera con la espada desnuda al bravo Portugues en la Tercera, ni después en las naves Españolas del mar Ingles los puertos y las olas."

Yet in the following stanza he calls himself "Soldado de una guerra." In these verses, and in many others indeed in which he speaks of himself, his expressions are so obscure, and the whole stanza so ill worded, that it is scarcely possible to guess even at what he means. The translation of these verses seems to be:--"Nor did my fortune change on seeing me in the third lustre of my tender age, with a drawn sword among the brave Portuguese at Tercera, nor afterwards in the English ports and waves on board a Spanish fleet."]

[Footnote 78: Quarterly Review, vol XVIII.]

[Footnote 79: Quarterly Review, vol. XVIII.]

[Footnote 80: In this and other quotations the reader must not expect sense. Even while reprehending Gongora for obscurity, from carelessness or from a notion of fine writing, Lope's meaning can very often only be guessed at. This may partly be attributed to misprints; in his best poems he is, for a Spaniard, singularly perspicuous.]

[Footnote 81: Lord Holland calls Lope's antagonist, a gentleman of considerable rank and importance--Montalvan's expressions denote the contrary: "un hidalgo entre dos luces, de poca hacienda, &c."]

[Footnote 82: Lord Holland's Life of Lope de Vega. Were these MSS. examined, we might discover the real history of Lope's life at this period.]

[Footnote 83: Vide Sonnets 46, 66, 82, 92, &c. of Rimas Humanas, parte 1.]

[Footnote 84: "Crióme don Geronimo Manrique: estudié en Alcalá, bachilleréme, y aun estuve de ser clerigo á pique: cegóme una muger, aficionéme, perdoneselo Dios, ya soy casado, quien tiene tanto mal, ninguno teme."

_Epistola undecima._]

[Footnote 85: "Este y otros desayres de la fortuna, ya negociados de su juventud, y ya encarecedos de sus opuestos, le obligaron á dejar su casa, su patria y su esposa, con harto sentimiento."--_Fama, Postuma á la Vida de Lope de Vega._]

[Footnote 86: Bouterwek says that all the panegyrics and epitaphs written on Lope, ought to be carefully consulted as to the circumstances of his life. We accordingly looked them over; but amidst an incredible abundance and variety of hyperbolical praise, there are but two or three that allude to any events of his life--the one above quoted, which, after all, speaks vaguely and confusedly; the other is an elegy by Andres Carlos de Balmaseda, which mentions his sailing with the Armada, and his two marriages. But it tells nothing new. One or two others recount some anecdotes of his old age to prove his charity and piety.]

[Footnote 87: "Sirvió Jacob los siete largos años, breves, si al fin, qual la esperanza fuera, á Lia goza--y á Rachel espera otros siete después, llorando engaños, assí guardan palabra los estranos. Pero in efecto vive, y considera que la podra gozar antes que muera, y que tuvieron termino sus daños; triste de mi, sin limite que mida lo que un engaño al sufrimiento cuesta, y sin rimedio que el agravio pida. Ay de aquel alma á padecer dispuesta que espera su Rachel en la otra vida, y tiene á Lia para siempre en esta."

_Parte I. de las Rimas Humanas de Lope de Vega_, 1604. Soneto V.]

[Footnote 88: "Quando la Madre antigua reverdeze, bello pastor, y à quanto vive aplaze, quando en agua la nieve se dehaze, por el sol que en el Aries resplandeze, la yerba nace, la nacida crece, canta el silguero, el corderillo pace, tu pecho a quien su pena satisface del general contento se entristece. No es mucho mal la ausencia que es espejo de la cierta verdad ó la fingida; si espera fin, ninguna pena es pena. ¡ Ay del que tiene por su mal consejo El remedio impossible de su vida En la esperanza de la muerte agena!"

_Ibid. Soneto_ XI.]

[Footnote 89: "Postuma de mis Musas Dorotea, y por dicha de mi la mas querida, ultima de mi vida publica luz desea, desea el sol de rayos de oro lleno entre la niebla de Guzman el Bueno."

_Ecloga á Claudio._]

[Footnote 90: Prologo del Editor.]

[Footnote 91: In his epistle to don Antonio de Mendoza, Lope alludes to his military life, but without assigning any cause for its assumption. "True it is," he says, "that in early life I left my country and friends to encounter the vicissitudes of war. I sailed on a wide sea towards foreign lands--where I served first with my sword, before I described events with my pen. My inclinations caused me to break off the career of arms, and the Muses gave me a more tranquil life."]

[Footnote 92: There is a very obscure stanza following this, it runs thus:--

"¿ Quien te dixera che al exento labio, que apenas de un cabello se ofendia, amanciera dia de tan pesado agravio que cubierto de nieve agradecida? ¡ no separaos si fu e cometa ó vida!"

In the Quarterly Review this is translated. "Who would have thought that this chin which had scarcely a hair upon it, should have sometimes been found in the morning so shagged with snow that it might have been mistaken for a comet?" This is obviously wrong. He alludes to his youth at the time of sailing with the Armada, and his age at the time of writing the eclogue to Claudio; and the swiftness with which the interval had passed. "Who could have told thee that there should come a day when the lip then scarcely deformed by a hair, should be so heavy covered with welcome snow (his beard turned white), [and that so swiftly that], we do not know whether it was a comet or life?" Nothing, however, can be so ill expressed and obscure.]

[Footnote 93: Quarterly Review, vol. XVIII.]

[Footnote 94: Ecloga á Claudio. Quarterly Review, XVIII.]

[Footnote 95: Montalvan and the other biographers mention only one daughter, Feliciana, the child of his second wife. The reader will presently see that we derive our knowledge of the existence of Marcella from Lope himself. It seems probable that she was the offspring of his first marriage, since when he speaks of Feliciana as an infant, he mentions that Marcella was fifteen. She entered a convent and was perhaps dead when Montalvan wrote.]

[Footnote 96: That unknown ladies should write anonymous letters to poets expressive of their admiration and sympathy, is, it seems, no mere modern fashion. The epistle trom Amaryllis to Belardo, was certainly not written by Lope himself--it is too full of enthusiastic praise; and the style is not his. It is well written, and interesting. Amaryllis addresses him from the New World. She describes herself as a creole, born of noble parents, in Peru. She and her sister were left early orphans--both endowed with beauty and talent. Her sister marries, but she dedicates herself to a life of celibacy, though she does appear to be a nun; she loves and cultivates poetry. She writes to Lope de Vega to offer her friendship--_una alma pura á tu valor rendida--accepta el don, que puedes estimallo_--and to exhort him to write religious poetry; and in particular, to celebrate St. Dorothea--a saint hitherto unsung, whom she and her sister hold in particular reverence. Lope replies with praises of her talents, and enters into a succinct account of his life, from which we have quoted, and says "I have written to you, Amaryllis, more than I ever thought to do concerning myself--this freedom proves my friendship for you." He concludes by inviting her to celebrate St. Dorothea herself, and bids her immortalise the memory of her heroic ancestors, and bestow on them the eternal laurel of her pen.]

[Footnote 97: Pellicer.]

[Footnote 98: Lord Holland.]

[Footnote 99: The translation is from Lord Holland. The Spanish runs thus:--

"Que no es minimo parte, aunque es exceso, De lo que está por imprimir, lo impreso."]

[Footnote 100: Montalvan.]

[Footnote 101: We cannot take leave of Montalvan without saying something of his merits as an author, and noticing his career. He was regarded by Lope as his favourite pupil and friend. He was notary to the inquisition. At the age of seventeen he wrote plays in the style of his friend and teacher, and continued to write after the death of Lope, with an assiduity and speed that rivalled him. He died in 1639, at the age of thirty-five only; and had already written nearly a hundred comedies and autos as well as several novels. These last are imaginative and entertaining. His comedies are not so finished nor well arranged as Lope's, but they have great merit, and indicate still greater powers, had he flourished in an age when such could have been developed, or if he had lived long enough to bring them to perfection.]

[Footnote 102: Peliccer--Tratado sobre el Origen de la Comedia. Quarterly Review, No. 117.]

[Footnote 103: Arte de hacer Comedias. Lord Holland's Translation.]

VICENTE ESPINEL

1544-1634.

ESTEBAN DE VILLEGAS

1595-1669.

The vast number of poets who flourished in Spain at this epoch renders the task of furnishing the biography of even a selection from among them, hopeless. When we turn to the "Laurel de Apolo" of Lope de Vega, and see stanza after stanza devoted to different poets; and when, in the "Voyage to Parnassus" of Cervantes we find poets rain in showers, we give up the task as hopeless--especially when we are told that, although many of those so brought forward are unknown, many there are, who wrote well, who are not mentioned at all in these works.

Poetry was then the fashion; and it was easy to spin many hundred lines with few ideas, and those few common-place, though pretty and graceful. Despotism and the inquisition gave the creative or literary spirit of Spain no other outlet. Thought was forbidden. Description, moral reflection, where no originality nor boldness was admitted, and love and sentiment,--these were all the subjects that Spanish poets rung the changes on, till we wonder where they found fresh words for the same thoughts. In any longer poems they wholly failed: and the only compositions we read with pleasure are songs, madrigals, redondillas, and romances, which are often fresh and sparkling--warm from the heart, either dancing with animal spirits or soft with pathetic tenderness. Among the writers of such, none excelled Vicente Espinel. The following is a specimen, and may be taken as an example of that style of Spanish poetry, simple, feeling and elegant, which preceded the innovations of the refined school. It is taken from Dr. Bowring's translation, and is good, though not comparable to the charming simplicity of the original:--

"A thousand, thousand times, I seek[104] My lovely maid; But I am silent still--afraid That if I speak, The maid might frown, and then my heart would break.

I've oft resolved to tell her all, But dare not--what a woe 't would be From doubtful favour's smiles to fall To the harsh frown of certainty. Her grace, her music cheers me now; The dimpled roses on her cheek; But fear restrains my tongue--for how, How should I speak, When, if she frown'd, my troubled heart would break?

No, rather I'll conceal my story In my full heart's most secret cell: For though I feel a doubtful glory, I 'scape the certainty of hell. I lose, 't is true--the bliss of heaven,-- I own my courage is but weak,-- That weakness may be well forgiven, For should she speak In words ungentle--O, my heart would break!"

Vicente Espinel was born at Ronda, a city of Granada, in the year 1544. He was of poor parentage, and left his native town early to seek his fortunes. A countryman, don Francisco Pacheco, bishop of Malaga, so far favoured as to ordain him, and he became a beneficiary of the church at Ronda. He sought better preferment at court, but met with no success, either in his own native place nor out of it. In Ronda itself he had enemies, who pursued him with such calumnies and malignity that he withdrew into a sort of voluntary exile, which, loving Granada as he did, he bitterly lamented. He was at first a friend, and then an attacker, of Cervantes, which circumstance does not redound to his credit.[105] Lope de Vega speaks of his poetry with the approbation it deserved. He was a musician as well as a poet, and added a fifth string to the Spanish guitar. He died poor and in obscurity at Madrid, in 1634, in the ninetieth year of his age. He describes himself in some spirited and comic verses, as singularly ugly--a tub with a priest's cap at top, a monster of fat;--large face, short neck, short arms, each hand looking like a tortoise, slow of foot: "whoever sees me," he says, "so fat and reverend-looking, might think that I were a rich and idle epicure.--What a pretty figure for a poet!"

Another writer of the natural school; named the Anacreon of Spain, more easy, sweet and spirited even than Vicente Espinel, was Estévan Manuel de Villegas. He was born in the city of Nagera of Naxera, in the province or Rioja, in Old Castile, in the year 1595. He was of a noble and distinguished family. He spent his boyish years at Madrid. At fourteen he was entered in the university of Salamanca, and studied the law. His tastes inclined him, however, to the more agreeable parts of literature: he was a proficient in Latin and Greek; and, at fourteen, translated from Anacreon and Horace; and at the same time wrote original anacreontics, which he published in 1618, in his twenty-third year.

On the death of his father, he returned to Nagera, to assist his widowed mother, and attend to the interests of his estate. Here, in retirement and peace, he dedicated himself to the acquirement of knowledge and the cultivation of poetry. He married, in the year 1626, donna Antonia de Leyva Villodas, a beautiful and distinguished lady. Having six children, he endeavoured, by means of powerful friends, to obtain some employment that might add to his scanty income, and give him leisure at the same time to prosecute various designs in literature and poetry which he projected on a large scale, but he only succeeded in being appointed to a place of slight importance and emolument "Thus," says Sedano, "this great man was, in common with almost every other person of eminence, pursued by adversity, which was the cause that his talents did not shine as brilliantly as they might have done, and that his name has not come down with due celebrity to our days." At last, giving up hope of worldly advancement, he retired to his estate, where he died in 1669, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

Although the conceits, the fashion of the age, sometimes deteriorate from Villegas's poetry, he has more natural facility, added to classical correctness, than almost any other Spanish poet. His verses flow on with elegance and softness, joined to a nature and feeling quite enchanting. His translations of Anacreon have the simplicity and pure unencumbered expression of the original; that of the "Dove" breathes Anacreon himself. For the sake of the Spanish reader it is appended at the bottom of the page[106], and he can compare it with the Greek, and perceive that Anacreon never found poet so capable of transfusing into another language the vivacity, and grace of his lyrics.

His original Anacreontics may almost be said to deserve a place beside the immortal Greek. We copy from Mr. Wiffen's pages one of his sapphics, rendered pre-eminent by its delicacy and beauty:--

"TO THE ZEPHYR.

"Sweet neighbour of the green, leaf-shaking grove, Eternal guest of April, frolic child Of a sad sire, life-breath of mother Love, Favonius, Zephyr mild!

If thou has learned like me to love,--away! Thou who hast borne the murmurs of my cry; Hence--no demur--and to my Flora say, Say that 'I die!'

Flora once knew what bitter tears I shed; Flora once wept to see my sorrows flow; Flora once loved me--but I dread, I dread Her anger now.

So may the Gods--so may the calm blue sky, For the fair time that thou in gentle mirth Sport'st in the air, with love benign deny Snows to the earth!

So never may the grey cloud's cumbrous sail, When from on high the rosy day-break springs, Beat on thy shoulders, nor its evil hail Wound thy fine wings!"

[Footnote 104: " Mil veces voy á hablar á mi zagala, pero mas quiero callar, por no esperar que me envie noramala

Voy á decirla mi daño pero tengo por mejor, tener dudoso el favor que no cierto el desengaño; y aunque me suele animar su gracia y gala, el temer me hace callar, por no esperar que me envie noramala.

Tengo por suerte mas buena mostrar mi lingua á ser muda, que estando la gloria en duda no estara cierta la pena y aunque con disimular se desiguala, tengo por mejor callar, que no esperar que me envie noramala."]

[Footnote 105: Viardôt, in his life of Cervantes, mentions that Vicente Espinel became his enemy. I have not discovered on what he grounds this assertion. In the postscript to the "Voyage to Parnassus", one of the latest of Cervantes's works, he feigns that Apollo sent messages to various Spanish poets "You will give my compliments," the God writes, "to Vicente Espinel, as to one of the oldest and truest friends I have."]

[Footnote 106: "Amada Palomilla, ¿ de dónde, di, ú adonde vienes con tanta prisa, vas con tantos olores? ¿ Pues a ti que te importa? Sabras que Anacreonte me envía a su Batílo, Señor de todo el orbe: que como por un himno me emancipo Dione: nómbrome su page, y el por tal recibióme. Suyas son estas cartas, suyos estos renglones, por lo qual me prometo libertad quando torno. Pero yo no la quiero, ni quiero que me ahorre; porque¿ de que me sirve andar cruzando montes comer podridas bacas, ni pararme en los robres? A mi pues me permite el mismo Anacreonte comer de sus viandas, beber de sus licores: Y quando vien brindada doy saltos voladores, le cubro con mis alas, y el dulce las acoge. Su citara es mi cama, sus cuerdas mis colchones, en quien suavamente duermo toda la noche. Mi historia es esta, amigo, pero queda á los dioses, que me has hecho parlera mas que graja del bosque."]

GONGORA

1561-1627.

Don Luis de Gongora y Argote was born at Cordova on the 11th July 1561. His father was don Francisco de Argote, corregidor of Cordova, his mother was donna Leonor de Gongora, both of ancient and distinguished noble families; and, as the name of his father was equally patrician with that of his mother, his having given preference to the latter has excited surprise among his Spanish biographers. At the age of fifteen he entered the university of Salamanca, and studied the law; but his inclination led him rather to the cultivation of poetry and general literature; and while at Salamanca, he wrote many amatory, satirical, and burlesque poems. At this time he had so severe an illness, that for three days he was believed to be dead, and his resuscitation was regarded almost as a miracle.

He passed his early life at Cordova, known and esteemed as a poet and a man of talent. His spirit was high, his character ardent and penetrating, and his pen ready, so that he was induced to indulge in personal satire, a circumstance which in after years he deeply regretted; and he changed so much that a friend of his writes, "he became the most ingenuous, candid, and unoffending man in conversation and writing that Spain ever saw." At the age of forty-five he took holy orders, and soon after visited Madrid, invited by several nobles who, esteeming his worth, and regretting his slender means, believed that he would there be enabled to increase them. But though he frequented the society of the great, he was but slightly benefited. However, through the patronage of the duke of Lerma and the marques de Siete Iglesias, he was named honorary chaplain to Philip III. He was held in much esteem by those nobles who cultivated literature, on account of his great talents; and he founded a sort of school of literature whose disciples were bigoted, zealous, and intolerant.

He thus wasted eleven years at court, not deceived by vain hopes, for his experienced understanding prevented his entertaining any such illusions, but forced by necessity. He was then taken suddenly and dangerously ill, while attending on the king in a journey to Valentia, away from all his friends; the queen, however, hearing of his illness, sent a physician to attend him. His head was attacked in a manner not so much to destroy reason, as to take from him all memory; and in this manner he continued lost to the end of his life. At one time, during a short interval of comparative health, he returned to Cordova that he might be buried in his native place. Not long after he died, on the 24th May, 1627, at the age of sixty-six.

In person Gongora was tall and robust, his face large, his eyes penetrating and lively, his whole appearance venerable, though severe and adust, hearing marks of the causticity and satire of his disposition, which however softened as he grew older. He was a disappointed man. His talents, his understanding, the grasp of mind of which he felt himself capable, nourished an internal ambition, which being ungratified, turned to discontent. It was some satisfaction to his imperious disposition to found a school of poetry, and attack the chief writers of the day, Cervantes and Lope de Vega, the Argensolas and Quevedo, in reply to their just criticisms on his inflated and tortuous style; and it was balm to his pride to hear the applause of his followers. But it is greatly to his discredit that, while heretofore the disputes of the Spanish poets with regard to literature were conducted with temper, and for the most part with urbanity, Gongora indulged in scurrility and abuse. His excuse, Sedano tells us, is, that this sort of insolence was the fruit of youthful arrogance: yet, as he was a year older than Lope, and contemporary with most of the others, he could not have been so very young when he entered the lists against them. However, as he grew older, visited Madrid, went to court, and took orders, he threw off the presumption he nourished in his native town, and became gentle, humane, and modest, and regretted his former excesses of temper.

The terms in which his friends speak of him, prove that the honesty and integrity of his disposition, and his great understanding, inspired them with love and veneration; for, though their language be exaggerated, still it bears marks of sincerity. A friend and disciple writing his life, soon after his death, speaks of him as "the greatest man that not only Spain, but the world ever saw." He laments his brief career, as he names sixty-six years; but his praises being written in the excess of the _culto_ style, it is impossible almost to understand--quite impossible to translate them. In this style the literal translation only offers nonsense: there is a hidden meaning which is to be guessed at, and that, so metaphoric and obscure, that it very much resembles a Chinese puzzle--difficult to put together, and, when, discovered and arranged, not worth the trouble. The _cultoristos_ themselves nourished unbounded contempt for any thing that was at all explicable to common understandings in a common manner.

It is remarkable that in the early poetry of Gongora there is no trace of this style which he afterwards invented (as his followers called it), and insisted upon as a prodigy of good taste and poetic genius. His early poetry is peculiarly simple and plain. He wrote redondillas or seguidillas in the old Spanish style, on the most common-place topics, which yet he treats with spirit and power; others of his poems are softly pathetic; but all are written without inflation--without conceits, but with all that fire and brilliancy--that gaiety and poignancy which characterised his vivid imagination. Of the first mentioned, those that even verge on the common-place, we may mention the "Child's Address to his Sister," as to how they should amuse themselves on a holiday; in which he describes the pleasures of Spanish children, with infinite vivacity and nature. The subject of another, is the story of Hero and Leander. He transforms the hero and heroine of this romantic love story, into two poor peasants--she too poor to buy a lantern, he to hire a boat. The catastrophe, the last swimming of Leander, his coming to the dreary, stormy sea beach, and his throwing himself in--though tarnished by vulgarisms, is lively and picturesque. In all that he wrote there was fire and spirit, facility and a diction truly poetic. One of his sweetest lyrics is the "Song of Catherine of Arragon," lamenting her sad destiny; it will prepossess the reader in favour of Gongora's pure style, and we therefore quote the translation of Dr. Bowring:--

"THE SONG OF CATHERINE OF ARRAGON.

"O take a lesson, flowers! from me, How in a dawn all charms decay-- Less than my shadow doomed to be, Who was a wonder yesterday.

I, with the early twilight born, Found ere the evening shades, a bier, And I should die in darkness lorn, But that the moon is shining here. So must _ye_ die--though ye appear So fair--and night your curtain be; O take a lesson, flowers! from me.

My fleeting being was consoled When the carnation met my view: One hurrying day my doom has told-- Heaven gave that lovely flower but two. Ephemeral monarch of the wold-- I clad in gloom--in scarlet he; O take a lesson, flowers! from me.

The jasmin, sweetest flower of flowers, The soonest is its radiance fled; It scarce perfumes as many hours As there are starbeams round its head. If living amber fragrance shed, The jasmine sure its shrine must be: O take a lesson, flowers! from me.

The bloody-warrior fragrance gives, It towers unblushing, proud and gay; More days than other flowers it lives, It blooms through all the days of May. I'd rather like a shade decay, Than such a gaudy being be: O take a lesson, flowers! from me."

The following song, sent with flowers, and asking from his lady a kiss for every sting he received while gathering them, is tender and elegant:--

"From my summer alcove, which the stars this morn With lucid pearls o'erspread, I've gathered these jessamines, thus to adorn With a wreath thy graceful head. From thy bosom and mouth, they, as flowers, ere death, Ask a purer white, anti a sweeter breath.

Their blossoms, a host of bees, alarmed Watched over on jealous wing, Hoarse trumpeters seemed they all, and armed Each bee with a diamond sting: I tore them away, but each flower I tore Has cost me a wound which smarteth sore.

Now as I these jessamine flowers entwine, A gift for thy fragrant hair, I must have, from those honey-sweet lips of thine, A kiss for each sting I bear: It is just that the blooms I bring thee home Be repaid by sweets from the golden comb.[107]"

His poems in Spanish metres, his letrillas and romances, have the same brilliancy of expression, warmth of emotion, and vivid colouring. The "Ballad of Angelica and Medora" is particularly airy and fresh, but rich and strong as a deep clear inland river that reflects the gorgeous tints of the sky. Gongora surpasses every other Spanish lyrist, in the brilliant colouring of his poetry, and the vivacity of his expression.

But all this he voluntarily set at nought. Instead of writing as a poet, he adopted the crabbed critic's art, and, extreme in all things, gave no quarter even to the beauties of his own compositions. He might reprove the diluted interminable poems of Lope, and the unpoetic style of Cervantes; he might have been displeased with the poverty of ideas and enervated conceptions of many of his contemporaries; but he might have been satisfied with his own ease, purity, and strength: he, however, rejected even these, and instituted a system: a new dialect was invented, a new construction adopted,--new words, a dislocated construction, a profusion and exaggeration of figures were introduced. "He rose," one of his disciples writes, "to the sublime height of refinement (_cultura_), which ignorance holds in distaste, and accomplished the greatness off 'Polyphemus,' the 'Soledades,' and other shorter, but not less, poems." He grew almost frantic in the dissemination of his system; and in his vehemence against its opponents, he became lost to poetry, and lives, even to this day, more remembered as a fantastic and ill-judging innovator, than as one of the most natural, brilliant, and imaginative poets that Spain ever produced.

Lope de Vega has written a letter, or rather essay, upon Gongora and his system, and gives the following account of both:

"I have known this gentleman for eight-and-twenty years, and I hold him to be possessed of the rarest and most excellent talent of any in Cordova, so that he need not yield even to Seneca or Lucan, who were natives of the same town. Pedro Linan de Riaza, his contemporary at Salamanca, told me much of his proficiency in study, so that I cultivated his acquaintance, and improved it by the intercourse we had when I visited Andalusia; and it always appeared as if he liked and esteemed me more than my poor merits deserve. Many other distinguished men of letters at that time competed with him:--Herrera, Vicente Espinel, the two Argensolas, and others, among whom this gentleman held such place, that Fame said the same of him as the Delphic oracle did of Socrates.

"He wrote in all styles with elegance, and in gay and festive compositions his wit was not less celebrated than Martial's, while it was far more decent. We have several of his works composed in a pure style, which he continued for the greater part of his life. But, not content with having reached the highest step of fame in sweetness and softness, he sought (I have always believed with good and sincere intentions, and not with presumption, as his enemies have asserted), to enrich the art, and even language, with such ornaments and figures as were never before imagined nor seen. In my opinion he fulfilled his aim, if this was his intent; the difficulty rests in receiving his system: and so many obstacles have arisen, that I doubt they will never cease, except with their cause; for I think the obscurity and ambiguity of his expressions must be disagreeable to many. By some he is said to have raised this new style into a peculiar class of poetry; and they are not mistaken: for, as in the old manner of writing, it took a life to become a poet, in this new one it requires but a day: for, with these transpositions, four rules, and six Latin words or emphatic phrases, they rise so high that they do not know--far less understand themselves. Lipsius wrote a new Latin, which those who are learned in such things say Cicero and Quintilian laugh at in the other world; and those who have imitated him are so wise that they lose themselves. And I know others who have invented a language and style so different from Lipsius that they require a new dictionary. And thus those who imitate this gentleman produce monstrous births--and fancy that, by imitating his style, they inherit his genius. Would to God they imitated him in that part which is worthy of adoption; for every one must be aware that there is much that is deserving of admiration, while the rest is wrapt in the darkness of such ambiguity as I have found the cleverest men at fault when they tried to understand it. The foundation of this edifice is transposition, rendered the more harsh by the disjoining of substantives from adjectives, where no parenthesis is possible, so that even to pronounce it is difficult: tropes and figures are the ornaments, so little to the purpose, that it is as if a woman, when painting herself, instead of putting the rouge on her cheeks, should apply it to her nose, forehead and ears. Transpositions may be allowed, and there are common examples, but they must be appropriate. Boscan, Garcilaso, and Herrera use them. Look at the elegance, softness, and beauty of the divine Herrera, worthy of imitation and admiration! for, it is not to enrich a language, to reject its natural idiom, and adopt instead phrases borrowed from a foreign tongue; but, now, they write in the style of the curate who asked his servant for the "anserine reed," telling her that "the Ethiopian licour was wanting in the cornelian vase." These people do not attend to clearness or dignity of style, but to the novelty of these exquisite modes of expression, in which there is neither truth nor propriety, nor enlargement of the powers of language; but an odious invention that renders it barbarous, imitated from one who might have been an object of just admiration to us all."[108]

In addition to these grave and reasonable arguments, Lope attacked the culto style with ridicule, better suited to explode the would-be invention of the unintelligible. In several plays he alludes to it with good humoured raillery. In one of them, a cavalier desirous of making use of the talents of a poet to write for him, asks--

_Cav._ A plain or polished bard?[109]

_Poet._ Refined my style.

_Cav._ My secrets then remain with me to write.

_Poet._ Your secrets? Why?

_Cav._ For, with refinement penned. Their meaning sure no soul shall comprehend.[110]

In another play, a lady describing her rival, ridicules her as,

"She who writes in that high polished style, That language so charmingly Greek, Which never was heard in Castile, And her mother ne'er taught her to speak."[111]

In addition to these quotations, there are many more chance arrows let fly at the absurdity, in his volume of burlesque poetry, written under the name of Tomé de Burguillos, in the shape of parodies on this style. We select one which however ridiculous it reads, is a very moderate representation of the bombast Gongora brought into fashion.

"TO A COMB, THE POET NOT KNOWING WHETHER IT WAS OF BOX OR IVORY.

"Sail through the red waves of the sea of love, O, bark of Barcelona, and between The billows of those ringlets proudly move, And now be hidden there, and now be seen! What golden surges, Love, who lurks beneath, Weaves with the windings of that splendid hair! Be grateful for thy bliss, and leave him there, In joyance unmolested by thy teeth. O tusk of elephant, or limb of box, Gently unravel thou her tangled locks, Gently the windings of those curls unfold, Like the sun's rays, in parallels arrange them, And through the labyrinth shape thy paths of gold, Ere yet to silver envious time shall change them."[112]

While Lope on these occasions, and on many others, takes occasion to reprehend and satirise this new system, his disciples held it up as the wonder of the world; they called it the _estilo culto_, or refined style, and themselves _cultoristos_: each phrase was to be twisted, each word to receive a new and deeper meaning, while mythology, and all sorts of phantastic imagery, gave a bombastic gilding to the whole; and when they had written verses high in sound, but obscure and simple in meaning, they fancied they had arrived at sublimity. Thus, a petty hill assumes the proportions of a mountain in the evening mist. We may look at it with wonder, we may lose our way or tumble into a ditch in endeavouring to reach it; but; once at its summit, and we find ourselves scarcely elevated above the plain.

The "Polyphemus" and the "Solitudes" of Gongora, are, as has been mentioned, the poems written in his most exaggerated style. The "Polyphemus" begins with a description of the giant, who "was a mountain of members eminent." His dark hair was a "knotty imitation of the turbid waves of Lethe; and, as the wind combs them stormily, they fly dishevelled, or hang down disordered: his beard is a torrent, the dried-up offspring of this Pyrenees! Trinacria has no wild beast in its mountains armed with such cruelty, shod with such wind, whose ferocity can defend, nor whose speed may save! Their skins, spotted with a hundred colours, are his cloak; and thus he drives in his oxen to their stall, treading the doubtful light of morn." His "Soledades" or "Solitudes," commence even more in the _estilo culto_, and with such very refined phrases and images that no one can make any thing of it. We give a short passage with Sismondi's translation, and the Spanish, that the reader may judge in what a jungle of interminable words, and heterogeneous ideas, this mistaken poet lost himself:--

"'T was in the flowery season of the year, When fair Europa's ravisher disguised, (A crescent moon, the arms upon his brow, And strewed with sunbeams all his glitt'ring skin), Shines out the glowing honour of the sky, And the stars pastures in the azure fields, When he who well the cup of Jove might fill Mure gracefully than Ida's shepherd boy, Was wrecked--and scorned as well as far away, The tears of love and amorous complaints Gave to the sea, which he then pitying Imparts to rustling leaves, that to the wind Repeats the saddest sighs, Soft as Arion's softest instrument-- And from the mountain top a pine which aye Struggled with its fierce enemy the North, There rent a pitying limb--and the brief plank Became a no small dolphin to the youth Who wand'ring heedlessly, was forced t'intrust His way unto a Libyan waste of sea, And his existence to an ocean-skiff, At first sucked in, and afterwards thrown forth, Where not far off a rock there stood, whose top Was crowned with bulrushes, and feathers warm With seaweed dank and foam besprent all o'er, And rest and safety found there where a nest The bird of Jove had built. He kissed the sands, and of the broken skiff, The portion that was thrown upon the beach He gave the rock--and let the rugged cliffs Behold his loveliness, for naked stood The youth.--The ocean first had drunk, and then Restored his vestments to the yellow sands, And in the sunshine he extended them, And the sun licking them with his sweet tongue Of tempered fire, slowly invests them round, And sucks the moisture from the smallest thread."[113]

Sismondi only gives half this sentence, but the latter part is the most intelligible; and besides it was difficult to refrain from presenting the reader with the refined image (_culta figura_) of the manner in which the shipwrecked boy's clothes were dried. In a hurried translation of this sort, the harmony of verse is not preserved; and that, it must be remarked, is great, and one of Gongora's chief beauties. There is, indeed, a sort of dusky gorgeousness throughout; but it makes the reader smile, to be told that this style of poetry was new and unknown, and "superior to aught that man ever before imagined or composed:" that it was to supersede Garcilaso, Herrera, and Gongora himself in his better days. Such was the faith of the _cultoristos_, such their hope in the _estilo culto._

Sismondi's translation of the first part of this sentence runs thus:--"C'était la saison fleurie de l'année dans laquelle le ravisseur déguisé d'Europe, portant sur son front pour armes une demie-lune, et tous les rayons du soleil disséminés sur son front, devenu un honneur brillant du ciel, menait paître des étoiles dans des champs de saphir; lorsque celui qui était bien plus fait pour présenter la coupe à Jupiter que le jeune homme d'Ida, fit naufrage, et confia à la mer de douces plaintes et des larmes d'amour; celle-ci pleine de compassion les transmit aux feuilles qui répétant le triste gémissement du vent comme le doux instrument d'Arion----" Here Sismondi breaks off, for here Gongora becomes particularly obscure. We guess (it is all guessing with the _cultoristos_), that the poet intends to say, that the pitying waves repeated to the winds the complaints of the wrecked youth, which in compassion tore from the pine the limb that served him as a skiff to save him. Whether the instrument, soft as Arion's, typifies the voice of the youth, or the waves, or the wind, or the pine tree, is an enigma beyond our solving.

[Footnote 107: This translation is from Mr. Wiffen, to show how simply and beautifully Gongora wrote in his young and unspoiled style, and we give the Spanish of this last song:

"A UNA DAMA PRESENTANDOLA UNAS FLORES.

"De la florida falda que oy de perlas bordó la Alba luciente, tegidos en guirnalda, traslado estos jazmines a tu frente, que piden con ser flores blanca a tus sienes, y a tu boca olores.

Guarda destos jazmines de avejas era un esquadron volante, ronco, si, de clarines, mas de puntas armado de diamante, puselas en huida y cada flor mi cuestra una herida.

Mas Clori que he texido jazmines al cabello desatado, y mas besos te pido que avejas tuvo el esquadron armado, lisonjas son iguales, servir yo en flores, pagar tu en panales."

_Obras de Gongora_, 1633.]

[Footnote 108: Discurso sobre la Nueva Poesia por Lope de Vega.]

[Footnote 109: Lord Holland's Life of Lope de Vega.]

[Footnote 110: _Lop._ Sois vulgar o culterano?

_Sev._ Culto soy.

_Lop._ Quedaos en casa Y escribireis mis secretos.

_Sev._ Sus secretos! por que cansa?

_Lop._ Porque nadie los entienda.]

[Footnote 111: "Aquella que escribe en culto por a quel Griego lenguage; que no lo supo Castilla, ni se enseñóle su madre."]

[Footnote 112: "A UN PEYNE, QUE NO SABIA EL POETA SI ERA DE BOX O DE MARFIL.

"Sulca del mar de amor las rubias ondas, barco de Barcelona, y por los bellos lazos navega altivo, aunque por ellos tal vez te muestres, y tal vez te escondas. Ya no flechas, Amor, dorados ondas teje de sus esplendidos cabellos; tu con los dientes no lo quites dellos, para que a tanta dicha correspondas. Desenvuelve los rizos con decoro, los paralelos de mi sol desata, box o colmillo de elephante Moro, y en tanto que esparcidos los dilata forma por la madeja sendas de ora antes que el tiempo los convierta en plata."]