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."]