Chapter 19

[89]"Postuma de mis Musas Dorotea,y por dicha de mi la mas querida,ultima de mi vidapublica luz desea,desea el sol de rayos de oro llenoentre la niebla de Guzman el Bueno."Ecloga á Claudio.

[89]

"Postuma de mis Musas Dorotea,y por dicha de mi la mas querida,ultima de mi vidapublica luz desea,desea el sol de rayos de oro llenoentre la niebla de Guzman el Bueno."Ecloga á Claudio.

"Postuma de mis Musas Dorotea,y por dicha de mi la mas querida,ultima de mi vidapublica luz desea,desea el sol de rayos de oro llenoentre la niebla de Guzman el Bueno."

Ecloga á Claudio.

[90]Prologo del Editor.

[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."

[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 diade tan pesado agravioque 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.

[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 diade tan pesado agravioque 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.

[93]Quarterly Review, vol. XVIII.

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

[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.

[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.

[97]Pellicer.

[98]Lord Holland.

[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."

[100]Montalvan.

[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.

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

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

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 Spanishpoetry, 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—afraidThat 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 beFrom doubtful favour's smiles to fallTo 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 storyIn 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 speakIn words ungentle—O, my heart would break!"

"A thousand, thousand times, I seek[104]My lovely maid;But I am silent still—afraidThat 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 beFrom doubtful favour's smiles to fallTo 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 storyIn 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 speakIn 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 farfavoured 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 childOf 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 dreadHer anger now.So may the Gods—so may the calm blue sky,For the fair time that thou in gentle mirthSport'st in the air, with love benign denySnows 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 hailWound thy fine wings!"

"TO THE ZEPHYR.

"Sweet neighbour of the green, leaf-shaking grove,Eternal guest of April, frolic childOf 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 dreadHer anger now.

So may the Gods—so may the calm blue sky,For the fair time that thou in gentle mirthSport'st in the air, with love benign denySnows 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 hailWound thy fine wings!"

[104]" Mil veces voy á hablará mi zagala,pero mas quiero callar,por no esperarque me envie noramalaVoy á decirla mi dañopero tengo por mejor,tener dudoso el favorque no cierto el desengaño;y aunque me suele animarsu gracia y gala,el temer me hace callar,por no esperarque me envie noramala.Tengo por suerte mas buenamostrar mi lingua á ser muda,que estando la gloria en dudano estara cierta la penay aunque con disimularse desiguala,tengo por mejor callar,que no esperarque me envie noramala."

[104]

" Mil veces voy á hablará mi zagala,pero mas quiero callar,por no esperarque me envie noramalaVoy á decirla mi dañopero tengo por mejor,tener dudoso el favorque no cierto el desengaño;y aunque me suele animarsu gracia y gala,el temer me hace callar,por no esperarque me envie noramala.Tengo por suerte mas buenamostrar mi lingua á ser muda,que estando la gloria en dudano estara cierta la penay aunque con disimularse desiguala,tengo por mejor callar,que no esperarque me envie noramala."

" Mil veces voy á hablará mi zagala,pero mas quiero callar,por no esperarque me envie noramala

Voy á decirla mi dañopero tengo por mejor,tener dudoso el favorque no cierto el desengaño;y aunque me suele animarsu gracia y gala,el temer me hace callar,por no esperarque me envie noramala.

Tengo por suerte mas buenamostrar mi lingua á ser muda,que estando la gloria en dudano estara cierta la penay aunque con disimularse desiguala,tengo por mejor callar,que no esperarque me envie noramala."

[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."

[106]"Amada Palomilla,¿ de dónde, di, ú adondevienes con tanta prisa,vas con tantos olores?¿ Pues a ti que te importa?Sabras que Anacreonteme envía a su Batílo,Señor de todo el orbe:que como por un himnome emancipo Dione:nómbrome su page,y el por tal recibióme.Suyas son estas cartas,suyos estos renglones,por lo qual me prometolibertad quando torno.Pero yo no la quiero,ni quiero que me ahorre;porque¿ de que me sirveandar cruzando montescomer podridas bacas,ni pararme en los robres?A mi pues me permiteel mismo Anacreontecomer de sus viandas,beber de sus licores:Y quando vien brindadadoy saltos voladores,le cubro con mis alas,y el dulce las acoge.Su citara es mi cama,sus cuerdas mis colchones,en quien suavamenteduermo toda la noche.Mi historia es esta, amigo,pero queda á los dioses,que me has hecho parleramas que graja del bosque."

[106]

"Amada Palomilla,¿ de dónde, di, ú adondevienes con tanta prisa,vas con tantos olores?¿ Pues a ti que te importa?Sabras que Anacreonteme envía a su Batílo,Señor de todo el orbe:que como por un himnome emancipo Dione:nómbrome su page,y el por tal recibióme.Suyas son estas cartas,suyos estos renglones,por lo qual me prometolibertad quando torno.Pero yo no la quiero,ni quiero que me ahorre;porque¿ de que me sirveandar cruzando montescomer podridas bacas,ni pararme en los robres?A mi pues me permiteel mismo Anacreontecomer de sus viandas,beber de sus licores:Y quando vien brindadadoy saltos voladores,le cubro con mis alas,y el dulce las acoge.Su citara es mi cama,sus cuerdas mis colchones,en quien suavamenteduermo toda la noche.Mi historia es esta, amigo,pero queda á los dioses,que me has hecho parleramas que graja del bosque."

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 bythose 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 nothave 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 thecultostyle, 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. Thecultoristosthemselves 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 mustyedie—though ye appearSo fair—and night your curtain be;O take a lesson, flowers! from me.My fleeting being was consoledWhen 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 hoursAs 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 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 mustyedie—though ye appearSo fair—and night your curtain be;O take a lesson, flowers! from me.

My fleeting being was consoledWhen 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 hoursAs 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 mornWith lucid pearls o'erspread,I've gathered these jessamines, thus to adornWith 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, alarmedWatched over on jealous wing,Hoarse trumpeters seemed they all, and armedEach bee with a diamond sting:I tore them away, but each flower I toreHas 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 homeBe repaid by sweets from the golden comb.[107]"

Their blossoms, a host of bees, alarmedWatched over on jealous wing,Hoarse trumpeters seemed they all, and armedEach bee with a diamond sting:I tore them away, but each flower I toreHas 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 homeBe 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 reprovethe 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 purestyle, 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 ITWAS OF BOX OR IVORY."Sail through the red waves of the sea of love,O, bark of Barcelona, and betweenThe 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]

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

"Sail through the red waves of the sea of love,O, bark of Barcelona, and betweenThe 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 theestilo culto, or refined style, and themselvescultoristos: 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 hillassumes 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 theestilo 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 fillMure gracefully than Ida's shepherd boy,Was wrecked—and scorned as well as far away,The tears of love and amorous complaintsGave to the sea, which he then pityingImparts to rustling leaves, that to the windRepeats the saddest sighs,Soft as Arion's softest instrument—And from the mountain top a pine which ayeStruggled with its fierce enemy the North,There rent a pitying limb—and the brief plankBecame a no small dolphin to the youthWho wand'ring heedlessly, was forced t'intrustHis 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 topWas crowned with bulrushes, and feathers warmWith seaweed dank and foam besprent all o'er,And rest and safety found there where a nestThe bird of Jove had built.He kissed the sands, and of the broken skiff,The portion that was thrown upon the beachHe gave the rock—and let the rugged cliffsBehold his loveliness, for naked stoodThe youth.—The ocean first had drunk, and thenRestored his vestments to the yellow sands,And in the sunshine he extended them,And the sun licking them with his sweet tongueOf 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 inwhich 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 thecultoristos, such their hope in theestilo 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 thecultoristos), 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.

Back to Index Next