Page images
PDF
EPUB

Gently the windings of those curls unfold,
Like the sun's rays in parallels arrange them,
And thro' the labyrinth shape thy paths of gold,
Ere yet to silver envious Time shall change them.*

The third ridicules those descriptions which are sometimes introduced when neither the poet nor the reader can tell why or wherefore.

Down to a valley from the mountain's height
Precipitate the melted ices flow,

There, between shores where fragile fern-tufts grow,
And elms and woodland vines, a sylvan sight,
The chrystal waters sleep; the nymphs delight
Disporting there to bathe their breasts of snow ;-
Sweet ships of love, who plough a narrower main
Than the tall barks that leave the shores of Spain.
A valley, like a vassal, lies below,

Which to supply with sap the floral brood,
Draws from its icy breast at every vein,
Insatiate still, the hoary mountain's blood:
And on this mount, and by this lake so fair,

There happened to me-nothing, I declare.†

Of all Lope's works, Lord Holland tells us his burlesque pieces are those which are most generally admired by his countrymen. The Gatomaquia, he adds, is esteemed the best, and often cited as a model of versification. In this point indeed the author is never deficient but in structure this mock heroic is as faulty as his epic attempts, and we do not recollect any poem of the kind of which the conception is so silly. It is a war between two cats for love of a third one of them rides in full dress upon a monkey to visit her, and each raises an army to fight for her.

For an account of the Corona Tragica we must refer the reader to the work before us, where he will find a masterly translation of one of the best passages in Lope de Vega's writings. Our limits will only permit us to notice, and that briefly, one other of his A un peyne que no sabia el

[ocr errors]

Súlca del mar de Amor las rubias ondas,
Barco de Barcelona, y por los bellos
Lazos navega altivo aunque por ellos
Tal vez te muestras, y tal vez te escondas.
Ya no flechas Amor, doradas ondas
Taxe de sus esplendidos cabellos;
Tu con los dientes no le quites dellos,
+ Describe un monte,
Caen de un monte á un valle entre pizarras
Guarnecidas de fragiles elechos
A su margen carambanos deshechos
Que cercan olmos y silvestres parras;
Nadan en su cristal Niufas bizarras
Compitiendo con el candidos pechos,
Dulces naves de amor, en mas estrechos

Poeta si era de box, o de marfil.

Para que a tanta dicha correspondas.
Desenvoelve los rizos con decoro
Los paralelos de mi sol desata,
Box, o colmillo de elefante Moro,
Y en tanto que esparcidos los dilata
Forma por la madexa sendas de oro
Antes que el tiempo los converta en plata.
sin que, ni para que.

Que las que salen de Españolas barras.
Tiene este monte por vasallo á un prado,
Que para tantas flores le importuna
Sangre las venas de su pecho elado.
Y en este monte y liquida laguna.
Para decir verdad, como hombre honrado,
Jamas me sucedió cosa ninguna.

longer

longer compositions, the Dorothea. This is not a pastoral, as it might be supposed to be from the manner in which Lord Holland mentions it; it is what the author calls an Accion en prosa, a story told in dialogue, having nothing of the regularity even of a Spanish drama, and far exceeding all dramatic bounds in length: there exist several specimens of such works both in Spanish and Portugueze. In the Eclogue to Claudio, Lope calls this his last and his favourite work:

'Postuma de mis Musas, Dorotea,

Y por dicha, de mi la mas querida,
Ultima de mi vida.'—

Fernando, the hero of the piece, is a young poet richer in genius than in fortune, very much in love with Dorothea, who is equally in love with him, though it appears, much to the surprize of the reader, in the course of the story, that she has a husband living abroad. Fernando is at the same time the favourite of a rich and handsome widow named Marfisa; he draws upon her bounty; and a hypocritical procuress contrives to introduce Don Bela, a wealthy creole, to Dorothea, and by dint of costly presents to obtain for him a gracious reception. Both parties have their fits of jealousy, with apparent reason on both sides. Fernando leaves Madrid, and returns to it. A friend who had studied astrology casts his nativity; the horoscope is to this purport, that Dorothea and her mother will persecute him till he is banished from the realm; a little before this banishment he will marry, much to the displeasure of his relations, and lose his wife to his own excessive grief seven years afterwards. He will then return to Madrid, where Dorothea, being then a widow, will wish to marry him, but the sense of honour and resentment on his part will resist all the temptation of her caresses and her wealth. He will afterwards be very unfortunate in love, but by the help of prayer will come out of these troubles well, and enter into a different state of life. Marfisa is to marry twice, and be murdered by her last husband for jealousy. The story disposes of two other personages more speedily. Don Bela is killed in a chance quarrel, and the old procuress falls into a well and is drowned. This was the end of Don Bela, Martisa, and Gerarda. What remains are the troubles of Don Fernando. The poet could not fail in truth, for the story is true.-Look to the example, for which end it hath been written.' In these words Fame addresses the imaginary spectators at the end. Such is the story of the Dorothea, which has neither plan, interest, nor catastrophe; and why it should have been the author's favourite is incomprehensible, unless in the person of Fernando he has related some of the adventures of his own early life.

Many pieces of poetry are inserted with little artifice in the Do

rothea,

rothea, indeed some of his most admired minor poems are to be found in this work and in the Arcadia. But the characteristic merits and faults of this remarkable writer are no where more strikingly exemplified than in his Rimas Sacras, where he has written sometimes with the utmost extravagance of fancy and perversion of taste; at other times, with a strength of religious feeling which commands from the reader something more than approbation. By the dedication of this volume to Frey Martin de San Cirilo, it appears that this Carmelite was the person who effected his conversion from the world: he offers it to him as the fruits of that field which his paternity had cultivated. Among the extraordinary compositions in this collection is a sonnet to St. Sebastian, in which God and man are described shooting at him as at a mark, and he dies by the arrows of divine love before those of human cruelty can reach him. There is a sermon of the Archbishop of Toledo's, versified in trinal rhyme by the poet in the course of the day in which he heard it delivered. There is a Villanesca (which may perhaps in this place be best translated a Carrol) al Santissimo Sacramento; it begins by addressing the wafer as a knight in masquerade, and ends in a sort of epigram, which it is more fitting to transcribe than to translate.

Mas siendo verdad que un dia
Verbum caro factum est,
Quien dio su palabra en carne

No es mucho que en Pan se de.

There is a song to St. Francisco, a personage whose history, gloss it as the Romanists may, is one of the most audacious instances of Romish impiety and imposture. A young merchant, says Lope, wishes to be married; two beautiful damsels are proposed to him; Humility is the one, Poverty the other: he marries them both; the articles being made for him by Chastity. Christ comes to give them away, and pledges his five wounds for their dowry; the writings are made by God himself upon his hands and his feet and his side.

A la boda, a la boda,

Virtudes bellas,
Que se casa Francisco
Y ay grandes fiestas.

To the marriage then away

All ye Virtues so fair,

'Tis Francisco's wedding day,

And there's merry-making there.

There is a second and more serious poem upon this atrocious legend, in which Christ is represented stamping himself upon Francisco as upon yielding wax, body upon body, and soul upon

soul!

soul!* And there is a sonnet upon a relic of St. Lorenzo, recently, as it appears, acquired by the crown of Spain, which may vie with any specimen of this peculiar class of poems. It calls upon the angels to spread a clean table for Christ that he may eat of the victim, the smoke of which is ascending in an aromatic cloud. 'It takes a rose colour upon the gridiron; Love has seasoned it; broil it quickly; turn it on the other side that it may be done; and when the table is ready, O ye angels, say that the meat must be eaten with all speed, because the most Christian king is waiting for a bone'!

Yet in this same volume there are strains of sober piety and elevated devotion, in which a true Christian might devoutly join, and bless the man who has expressed for him so well the aspirations of hope and faith. Such, for instance, are these lines in the Introduction.

Even as a culprit strives to reach
Some Noble's house for privilege,
So from thy wrath to hide my head,
My God, within thy gates I fled :
I knew thy mercy, Lord, how great:
Father, thy love how infinite!

When from thy justice I would flee,
The surest refuge was with thee.t

Such too is the following Sonnet, though it falls feebly at the close.

My mother bore me mortal; the free sky
Gave me its common boon of light and air,
And the first breath I uttered was a cry.
Kings are as helpless at their birth as I.
My limbs, with no defence of down or hair,
Were wrapt in clothes when Earth and Misery
Received me for a guest in Life's huge inn,
Where all my hours and ways were written down.
So I
pursue my road: the soul aspires
To immortality, her promised crown;

Entonces con fuego ardiente
El Serafin encendido,
Haziendose todo un sello,
Con ser su ser infinito,
Imprimiole como estampa
Viendole papel tan limpio,

En el cuerpo a Christo muerto,
Y en el alma a Christo vivo.
Tal suele obediente cera

Mostrar el blason antiguo
Sobre la nema a su dueño
Eu un instante esculpido.

How little is the mythology of this abominable Church at this time known in England; and how little, in consequence of this ignorance, is its real character understood!

+ Qual delinquante que passa

Por casa de grande fuy,

Andava huyendo de ti

Y entreme en tu misma casa,

Luego en esto bien senti

De essa tu bondad inmensa,
Porque no ay mayor defensa
Que contigo, para ti,

The

The body nothing is, nor aught desires.
This is our course; we end as we begin ;
Equal we all are born, and when we die,
Nature restores a like equality.*

Such too is this other, with which, being best as well as last, we shall conclude our specimens of Lope de Vega's poetry.

I must lie down and slumber in the dust,
And if to-morrow thou should'st call me, Lord,
Perhaps it were too late-perhaps thy word
Might find no entrance in the ear of death.
O, Sovereign Power, and merciful as just,
The influence of thy present grace afford:
Visit me now, for what am I but breath,
Dust, ashes, smoke that vanisheth away!
Full well I know that at the judgement-day,
I shall again put on these bones of mine;
These eyes shall see my
Saviour and my God.
O sure and only joy! O thought divine,
To comfort and sustain me on the road
That leads to poor Mortality's abode.†

Here then we conclude. It would be too wide a field to enter upon Lope's dramatic works, and it is the less needful because it is that part of his writings upon which Lord Holland has dwelt most at length. And we conclude the more willingly with this sonnet, because we could imagine nothing which would leave upon the reader an impression more favourable to the poet,-or more salutary to himself (let us be permitted to add) if he should, in some degree, partake of the feeling with which it has been translated as well as written.

* Hombre mortal mis padres me engendra-Yo dormire en el polvo, y si mañana

ron,

Ayre comun y luz los cielos dieron,
Y mi primera voz lagrimas fueron,
Que assi los Reyes en el mundo entraron.
La tierra y la miseria me abrazaron,
Paños, no piel o pluma me embolvieron ;
Por huesped de la vida me escrivieron,
Y las horas y passos me contaron.
Assi voy prosiguiendo la jornada,
A la immortalidad el alma asida,
Que el cuerpo es nada, y no pretende
nada,

Un principio y un fin tiene la vida,
Porque de todas es igual la entrada,
Y conforme a la entrada la salida.

Me buscares, Señor, sera possible
No hallar en el estado convenible
Para tu forma la materia humana.
Imprime agora, O Fuerza soberana,
Tus efetos en mi, que es impossible
Conservarse mi ser incorruptible,
Viento, humo, polvo, y esperanza vana.
Bien se que he de vestirme el postrer dia
Otra vez estos huessos, y que verte
Mis ojos tienen, y esta carne mia.
Esta esperanza vive en mi tan fuerte,
Que con ella, no mas tengo alegria
En las tristes memorias de la muerte.

ART.

« PreviousContinue »