pp. 242-244.]
[Footnote 250: The whole episode is clearly set forth by Blanco
García, _Fr. Luis de León: estudio biográfico_, pp. 246-250.]
[Footnote 251: Blanco García, _Fr. Luis de León: estudio biográfico_,
pp. 248-249; Alonso Getino, _op. cit._, pp. 349-351.]
[Footnote 252: A passage in Alonso Getino (_op. cit._, p. 349)
describes Santa Maria as 'contemporáneo de los sucesos'. This, though
literally true, is somewhat misleading. Santa Maria was twenty-four
the year that Luis de Leon died. See Gallardo, _op. cit._, vol. IV,
col. 489.]
[Footnote 253: '...al principal de ellos [los que habían procurado el
Breve] y pretensor de mitra, le costó la vida el sentimiento que tuvo
de ver tan indignado al Rey Católico'. I have not been able to consult
Jesús y Maria's work. My quotation, like Alonso Getino's (_op. cit._,
p. 354), is taken at second-hand from Vicente de la Fuente's edition
of Saint Theresa's works.]
[Footnote 254: January 26, 1591, is the latest date attached to the
_Documentos_ published by Cristóbal Pérez Pastor, _Bibliografía
madrileña_ (Madrid, 1907), Parte III, pp. 404-409. On January 25,
1591, Luis de Leon signed a document undertaking to accept 1,000
_reales_ in lieu of 2,800 due to him by the estate of Cornelio Bonard,
formerly a bookseller at Salamanca; see Cristóbal Pérez Pastor,
_Bibliografía madrileña_ (Madrid, 1906), Parte II, pp. 454-455.]
[Footnote 255: F. Blanco García, _Segundo proceso_, p. 53. The
Salamancan Inquisitors reported to the Supreme Inquisition:
'...havemos entendido que los de su orden se xatan y alaban de que en
este sto offiº se a declarado ser verdad lo que el dho frai luis
sustentó...']
[Footnote 256: F. Blanco García, _Segundo proceso_, p. 49.]
[Footnote 257: C. Muiños Sáenz, _Sobre el 'Decíamos ayer'... y otros
excesos_ in _La Ciudad de Dios_ (1909), vol. LXXIX, p. 540.]
[Footnote 258: Alonso Getino, _op. cit._, p. 355.]
[Footnote 259: C. Muiños Sáenz, _Sobre el 'Decíamos ayer'... y otros
excesos_ in _La Ciudad de Dios_ (1909), vol. LXXIX, p. 540, _n._ 1.]
[Footnote 260: Alonso Getino writes (_op. cit._, p. 355): 'al ser
elegido Provincial, nueve dias antes de morir, no puede suponerse que
estuviera enfermo de consideración'. This is a guess very wide of the
mark. F. de Méndez, in the _Revista Agustiniana_ (1881), quoted (p.
351) Juan Quijano, a contemporary whose chronicle is now lost, as
saying that when Luis de Leon was elected Provincial he was already
confined to his bed with the illness of which he died.]
[Footnote 261: The portrait and character-sketch will be found in the
photo-chromotype reproduction of Francisco Pacheco, _Libro de
descripcion de verdaderos retratos de illustres y memorables
varones_. The original is dated Sevilla, 1599. The reproduction, due
to José María Asensio y Toledo, was photo-chromotyped between 1881 and
1884. Owing to the rarity of the reproduction, it has been thought
desirable to reprint in an appendix the passage in which Pacheco deals
with Luis de Leon.]
[Footnote 262: The reference is given by C. Muiños Sáenz, _Sobre el
'Decíamos ayer'... y otros excesos_ in _La Ciudad de Dios_ (1909),
vol. LXXX, p. 119.]
V
By his contemporaries Luis de Leon was perhaps more esteemed as a
theologian or a scholar than as a man of letters. This judgement has
been reversed by posterity mainly on the strength of the Spanish poems
which were little known during the author's lifetime beyond a small
circle of his personal friends.[263] Experts tell us that as a
theologian he ranks below his master Melchor Cano; and in the annals
of scholarship Luis de Leon is less conspicuous than Benito Arias
Montano and than Francisco Sanchez (_el Brocense_). Few now read for
pleasure the treatises which Luis de Leon composed in a dead language:
in any case these treatises can add nothing to his reputation as a
writer of Spanish, and it is solely as a Spanish author that he
concerns us here and now. He was by no means the earliest of devout
writers to use Spanish as a literary medium. There is a long and
illustrious bead-roll of authors from Bernardino de Laredo to Saint
Theresa to prove the contrary. Much less was Luis de Leon the first
post-Renaissance scholar to recognize that Spanish had a great future
before it. Yet, if we take leave to assume that Luis de Granada was an
ascetic rather than an extatic, we may account Luis de Leon as perhaps
the first professional scholar to perceive that Spanish was adequate
to convey the subtleties of theology and the ravishments of mysticism.
His chief prose works in Castilian include the _Exposicion del libro
de Job_, a commentary dedicated to Madre Ana de Jesús, but not
published till near the end of the eighteenth century (1779). The
_provenance_ of this work calls for no explanation. Apart from the
quotation of a passage in Jorge Manrique's _Coplas_, the _Exposicion
del libro de Job_ offers few indications of Spanish origin and fewer
personal touches. Equally Biblical in origin are a rendering of the
_Song of Songs_ and a corresponding commentary; the existence of both
has a personal interest inasmuch as they prove that Luis de Leon was
enabled to carry out a long cherished design by means of which he
hoped, as he declared at Valladolid, to counterbalance the indiscreet
prying of Fray Diego de Leon. _La Perfecta Casada_ (1583) and _De los
nombres de Cristo_ (1583-1585) likewise have their roots in Scripture.
_La Perfecta Casada_ is avowedly based on the thirty-first chapter of
_Proverbs_, and _De los nombres de Cristo_, the first part of which
appeared simultaneously with _La Perfecta Casada_,[264] discusses the
various symbolic names applied to the Saviour in the Bible.
_La Perfecta Casada_ is dedicated to Maria Varela Osorio, a recently
wedded bride, who may have been a distant kinswoman of the
author's.[265] Nowhere more clearly than in this treatise does Luis de
Leon justify the statement that he had a Hebrew soul. He takes for
granted the Oriental point of view, and illustrates his imperious
thesis with ample quotations from writers of all types--pagans,
Christians, saints, and laymen. There are references to Simonides, to
Sophocles, to Euripides, to Plutarch, to Saint Clement of Alexandria,
to Saint Cyprian, to Saint Ambrose, to Garcilasso de la Vega. It seems
likely that _La Perfecta Casada_ was written after _De los nombres de
Cristo_, which was almost certainly begun in prison. But there is
perhaps nothing in the internal evidence of the style which would
point to that conclusion. The style of _La Perfecta Casada_ is
vigorous and clear; but it is marred by gusts of rhetoric and by an
excess of copulative conjunctions. These peculiarities produce the
effect of relative inexperience, and might easily mislead a too
confident critic.
_De los nombres de Cristo_ is cast in the Platonic form of dialogue,
and, in the section entitled _Pastor_, Plato is quoted by name. But
the Hellenic influence, though present, is not dominant. Already
Alonso de Orozco had anticipated Luis de Leon with _De los nueve
nombres de Cristo_,[266] and there are points of contact in the
handling as is inevitable from the similarity of the subject. But it
cannot be denied that Luis de Leon's work is suffused with a warmer,
more human interest than Orozco's brief sketch. These more intimate
personal elements are present on almost every page of _De los nombres
de Cristo_. Nobody can read far without perceiving that Marcello,
hindered by his _poca salud y muchas occupaciones_, is manifestly a
double of Luis de Leon; there are passages which gloss themes
developed metrically elsewhere; there are retrospicient glances at the
Valladolid trial; the scene of the dialogue is laid within view of La
Flecha, and the details of the landscape are reproduced with exact
fidelity; Luis de Leon has a freer hand in _De los nombres de Cristo_
than in his other prose works, but here again in his paraphrases of
the Biblical passages relating to Christ his interpretation is at one
with the interpretation of the prophets. And this identity of
sentiment has in it nothing dramatic. Those who have alleged that Luis
de Leon came of Jewish stock may have been--apparently were--mistaken;
but their mistake is comprehensible, for more than any contemporary
Spanish poet--more even than Herrera in his odes--is he saturated with
the Jewish spirit. In all his work Luis de Leon adheres closely to the
Bible. In the _De los nombres de Cristo_ he is also a Platonist within
limits: not so much as regards the manner (which tends to an
oratorical pomp more reminiscent of Cicero) as in his conciliatory
method. With the Jewish and Hellenic blend of influence we must rate
the Latin influence--that of Horace and of Virgil. The influence of
Horace on Luis de Leon has been often noted. It exists no doubt, but
has perhaps been exaggerated: why should we suppose that his love of
moderation was learnt from Horace and was not partly, at least,
temperamental? May not the references to Horace be a characteristic of
humanism? An opinion backed by the weight of classical authority must
reach us with irresistible force, must it not? However this may be,
the predominant influence in _De los nombres de Cristo_, as in all
Luis de Leon's prose, is Scriptural and Christian. In maturity of
development, in intellectual force, in beauty of expression, and in
general adequateness, _De los nombres de Cristo_ exhibits Luis de
Leon's prose at its culmination. The book is dedicated to Pedro
Portocarrero,[267] Bishop of Calahorra, who had previously twice been
rector of Salamanca University. It seems probable that Luis de Leon's
friendship with him dates back to 1566-1567, when Portocarrero held
the office of rector for the second time. Besides _De los nombres de
Cristo_ Luis de Leon dedicated to Portocarrero _In Abdiam prophetam
Explanatio_ (1589) and the manuscript collection of his poems. For
some reason not very obvious this collection of verses was not
published till 1631 when it was issued by Quevedo, who hoped that it
would help to stem the current of Gongorism in Spain. The poems,
printed forty years after the author's death, appeared too late to
affect the public taste. Góngora himself had died in 1627, but his
influence was undiminished. Quevedo, who had obtained his copies of
Luis de Leon's verses from Manuel Sarmiento de Mendoza, a canon of
Seville cathedral, did his share as editor by writing two prefaces,
one addressed to Sarmiento de Mendoza, and the other to Olivares who
was manifestly expected to pronounce against Gongorism. Olivares,
however, had no reason to love Quevedo, and was resolved to take no
active part in what he doubtless regarded as a scribblers' quarrel.
Gongorism pursued its way unchecked. Quevedo's edition, though
incomplete and disfigured by certain errors, was reprinted at Milan
during the same year (1631), and then all interest in Luis de Leon
flickered out for a while.
In the prefatory note of the 1631 Madrid edition--entitled _Obras
propias, y traduciones latinas, griegas y italianas_--Luis de Leon
speaks of his poems slightingly as mere playthings of his youth, now
brought together at the request of an anonymous friend--perhaps Benito
Arias Montano--to whom they had been ascribed. Luis de Leon arranges
the material in three books, containing respectively his original
compositions, his translations from authors profane, and his versions
of certain psalms, a hymn, and chapters from the Book of Job. But,
beyond the general statement as to the early date of composition, Luis
de Leon gives no precise information as to when individual poems were
written. The assertion that the poems date back almost to the author's
childhood is contradicted by concrete facts. Take, for instance, the
celebrated _Noche serena_ dedicated to Oloarte. If, as I conjecture,
the dedicatee of the _Noche serena_ is identical with the Diego de
Loarte, archdeacon of Ledesma, who gave evidence at Salamanca on
January 27, 1573, and who on that date had known Luis de Leon for
fourteen years, the _Noche serena_ cannot have been composed earlier
than 1559 when Luis de Leon was thirty-one--youthful, indeed, but long
past his _niñez_. On January 17, 1573, Francisco Salinas testified at
Salamanca to having known Luis de Leon for six years: whence it
follows that _El aire se serena_ cannot have been written before 1567,
when Luis de Leon was bordering on his fortieth year. As Don Carlos
died on July 24, 1568, the _Cancion a la muerte de don Carlos_ and the
_Epitafio al túmulo del príncipe don Carlos_ must necessarily have
been composed after that date; that is, when Luis de Leon was just
forty and had left his _niñez_ far behind him. Besides a general
dedication to Portocarrero, the collection includes three individual
poems which are dedicated to that personage: (1) _Virtud, hija del
Cielo_; (2) _No siempre es poderosa_; (3) _La cana y alta cumbre_. In
_La cana y alta cumbre_ there is a reference to
la cruda guerra
que agora el Marte airado
despierta en la alta sierra.
These verses can scarcely allude to anything but the Alpujarras rising
of 1568-1571, and the conjecture hardens into certainty in view of the
mention of Alonso and Poqueira: this is clearly the Alonso
Portocarrero who, as Hurtado de Mendoza records, perished at Poqueira,
'trabado del veneno usado dende los tiempos antiguos entre cazadores'.
This poem must have been written when Luis de Leon was at least
forty-one. _Virtud, hija del cielo_, in mentioning the _Miño_, refers
to Portocarrero's appointment in Galicia; and as Portocarrero's term
of office appears to have lasted from 1571 to 1580, the poem cannot be
dated earlier than 1571 when Luis de Leon was over forty-three. If the
mention of _la morisca armada_ in the lines _A Santiago_ glances at
the battle of Lepanto which was fought on October 7, 1571, then the
poem must have been written after that date, when the author was close
on forty-four. The verses dedicated to Juan de Grial, with their
closing reference to the writer's trials:
Que yo, de un torbellino
traidor acometido, y derrocado
del medio del camino
al hondo, el plectro amado
y del vuelo las alas he quebrado;
the fervent entreaty _A todos los santos_ and its unreserved lament:
No niego, dulce amparo
del alma, que mis males son mayores
que aqueste desamparo;
mas cuanto son peores,
tanto resonaran mas tus loores;
the very beautiful and justly renowned _Virgen que el sol mas pura_,
with its heart-rending supplication:
los ojos vuelve al suelo
y mira un miserable en cárcel dura
cercado de tinieblas y tristeza:
possibly[268] the song _Del conocimiento de si mismo_, with its
significant simile:
el gusanillo de la gente hollado
un rey era, conmigo comparado;
and assuredly the famous _quintillas_ beginning _Aqui la envidia y
mentira_: these compositions were probably composed during, or after,
the writer's imprisonment at Valladolid, that is to say between the
spring of 1572 and the winter of 1576, when Luis de Leon was from
forty-four or forty-five to forty-eight or forty-nine. _Del mundo y su
vanidad_ glances at
la grave desventura
del lusitano, por su mal valiente,
la soberbia bravura
de su animosa gente
desbaratada miserablemente.
This passage obviously recalls the disastrous defeat of Sebastian I,
King of Portugal, at Al-Kaor al-Kebir in August 1578, when Luis de
Leon was more than fifty years of age. If these inferences are valid,
it would follow that many of his original poems were not composed till
he was nearly forty or more. It is difficult to reconcile these
conclusions with the author's categorical assertion that the poems
were produced during his early years. As Luis de Leon was the least
vain, as well as the most truthful of men, an explanation must be
found, and it is perhaps permissible to suggest that Luis de Leon
wrote a prefatory note to Portocarrero intending it to be placed at
the beginning of the Second Book which contains his poems translated
from Roman and other authors. By some mischance the poet's intention
was frustrated; perhaps a leaf was out of place in Sarmiento de
Mendoza's copy; perhaps Quevedo is directly responsible for what
occurred. At any rate, the letter dedicatory was bisected, the greater
part of it being transferred to the beginning of the First Book, while
a mere morsel came to be printed at the beginning of the Third Book.
This surmise may serve till a better explanation is forthcoming.
It is not to be inferred from the foregoing summary that all Luis de
Leon's original and graver compositions were written during his
maturity, but there is some reason to think that his earlier efforts
in verse took the form of translations. Though it is undoubtedly true
that his poems as a whole were not published till 1631, four isolated
pieces of his strayed into print as early as 1574 when they were
included by Francisco Sanchez, _el Brocense_, in the notes to his
edition of the _Obras del excelente poeta Garci-Lasso de la
Vega_.[269] At that date Luis de Leon was in the secret prison-cells
of the Inquisition at Valladolid. Sanchez had been a colleague of his
at Salamanca for some six years, was on friendly terms with him, knew
the exact turn things were taking, felt that no good, and possibly
some harm, might be done by mentioning the prisoner's name, and
accordingly gave a version of an Horatian ode with the comment: 'vn
docto destos reynos la traduxo bi[~e]'[270]. This needs
interpretation. There can be no doubt that Luis de Leon was a very
competent Latin scholar; neither is there any doubt that he had a
profound admiration for Horace. At his best, his Horatian versions,
if somewhat lacking in polish, are remarkably faithful and vigorous.
But when we find him in his translation of the eighteenth ode of the
Second Book rendering _salis avarus_ by _de sal avariento_--the second
person singular of the present indicative of the verb _salire_ being
mistaken for the genitive of the substantive _sal_[271]--we may
perhaps conclude that a boyish exercise has somehow escaped
destruction.
It is sometimes alleged against Luis de Leon that he is restricted in
his choice of themes, and it is impossible to deny that his sacred
profession acted as something of a limitation to him. Still, when the
mood was on him, he rent his chains asunder as readily as Samson broke
the seven green withs at Gaza: 'as a thread of tow is broken when it
toucheth the fire.' Perhaps nobody would guess off-hand that the
_Profecia del Tajo_ was the handiwork of a sixteenth-century monk, a
dweller in the rarefied atmosphere of mysticism. It only remained for
a friar in the opposition camp to discover nearly three hundred years
later a tendency in Luis de Leon to treat sensual themes in a sensual
fashion.[272] To deal seriously with a belated judgement based on
malignant ignorance would be a waste of time. It is the very irony of
fate that the poem which has been the subject of severe censure should
prove to be a translation from Cardinal Bembo.[273] The standard of
the twentieth century is not the standard of the sixteenth, and it is
certain that Luis de Leon has not the unfettered liberty of a godless
layman. He is restrained by his austere temperament, by his monk's
habit, by Christian doctrine. Nevertheless he moves with easy grace
and dignity on planes so far apart as those of patriotism, of
devotion, of human sympathy, of introspection. His patriotism finds
powerful expression, as already noted, in the _Profecia del Tajo_,
besprinkled with sonorous place-names, these growing fewer as the
movement is accelerated, and Father Tagus describes with a mixture of
picturesque mediaeval sentiment and martial music the onset of the
Arabs and the clangour of arms as they meet the doomed Gothic host. In
the sphere of devotional poetry Luis de Leon nowhere displays more
unction, more ecstatic piety than in the verses on the Ascension
beginning with the line:
Y dexas, Pastor santo.
It will be observed that the conjunction _y_, so superabundant in _La
Perfecta Casada_, is the first word of this poem, of which Churton has
supplied a well-known rendering:
And dost Thou, holy Shepherd, leave
Thy flock in this dark vale alone,
In cheerless solitude to grieve,
Whilst Thou to endless rest art gone?
The sheep, in Thy protection blest,
Untended wilt Thou leave to mourn?
The lambs, once cherished at Thy breast,
Forlorn,--oh! whither shall they turn?
Where shall those eyes now find repose,
That pine Thy gracious glance to see?
What can they hear but sounds of woes,
Sad exiles from discourse with Thee?
And who shall curb this troubled deep,
When Thou no more amidst the gloom
Shalt chide the wrathful winds to sleep,
And guide the labouring vessel home?
For Thou art gone! that cloud so bright
That bears Thee from our gaze away,
Springs upward into dazzling light,
And leaves us here to weep and pray.
Four additional stanzas, accepted as authentic by perhaps the most
painstaking of Luis de Leon's editors, are thus Englished by Churton:
Our life has lost its richest store,
The balm for sorrow's inward thorn,
The hope, that, gladd'ning more and more,
Out-brighten'd all the springs of morn.
Ah me! my soul, what hateful chain
Holds back thy freeborn spirit's flight?
Oh break it, disenthrall'd from pain,
And mount those azure depths of light.
Why should'st thou fear? What earth-born spell
Is on thee, with thy choice at strife
The soul no dying pang can quell,
But loss of Christ is death in life.
Dear Lord, and Friend, more dear to me
Than all the names Earth's love hath found,
Through darkest gloom I'll follow Thee,
Or cheer'd with beaming glory round.