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:
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:
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:
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
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 biẽ'[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:
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:
Thy flock in this dark vale alone,
In cheerless solitude to grieve,
Whilst Thou to endless rest art gone?
Untended wilt Thou leave to mourn?
The lambs, once cherished at Thy breast,
Forlorn,—oh! whither shall they turn?
That pine Thy gracious glance to see?
What can they hear but sounds of woes,
Sad exiles from discourse with Thee?
When Thou no more amidst the gloom
Shalt chide the wrathful winds to sleep,
And guide the labouring vessel home?
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:
The balm for sorrow's inward thorn,
The hope, that, gladd'ning more and more,
Out-brighten'd all the springs of morn.
Holds back thy freeborn spirit's flight?
Oh break it, disenthrall'd from pain,
And mount those azure depths of light.
Is on thee, with thy choice at strife
The soul no dying pang can quell,
But loss of Christ is death in life.
Than all the names Earth's love hath found,
Through darkest gloom I'll follow Thee,
Or cheer'd with beaming glory round.
Now there is no question of mere executive skill and simple craftsmanship in Luis de Leon's poems. He is, indeed, always sound and competent in these respects; but artistry is not his supreme virtue as a poet. He is ever prone to be a little rugged in his manner, and this ruggedness has proved something of a trap to the unwary. Luis de Leon has no real mannerisms, and is no more to be parodied than is Shakespeare. Yet it is sometimes difficult to distinguish him at his worst from his imitators at their best. Though withheld so long from the public, Luis de Leon's poems, while still in manuscript, were repeatedly imitated—especially by Augustinians. To my way of thinking, he is most nearly approached by his friend Arias Montano. But it should be said that this is not the general verdict. That goes decisively in favour of Miguel Sanchez, el Divino. Miguel Sanchez is the author of a beautiful Cancion de Cristo Crucificado, a poem which, though not published till 1605 with the real writer's name attached to it, has constantly been ascribed to Luis de Leon.[274] The Cancion is no doubt a composition of great charm and mystic unction; but it lacks the concentrated force of Luis de Leon. Luis de Leon has a lofty dignity of his own; he outstrips all rivalry by virtue of his nobility, by virtue of his intellectual vigour, by virtue of sheer excellence rather than by curious refinements of technique. These positive qualities defy reproduction by even the most accomplished of imitators. It has been said that Luis de Leon's verse, as well as his prose, has noticeable roughnesses; but let us not derive a wrong impression from this assertion. Luis de Leon is not 'finicking'. Withal he is a master of his art. Retrograde as we may perhaps think him in some matters, he was on the side of the reformers in the matter of metrics. He was a partisan of Boscan's innovating methods: so much might be expected from a man of his period. It is to be noted that, in his best poems, he shows a decided preference for liras, a form apparently invented by Bernardo Tasso before it was transplanted to Spain by Garcilasso de la Vega. Luis de Leon was of opinion that those who violate poetry, using it for purposes of a meretricious kind, deserved punishment as public corrupters of two most sacred things: poetry and morals. It is one of the curious ironies of art that the measure which the seductive Garcilasso used for amatory purposes should have appealed to Luis de Leon as the vehicle most suited to enraptured chants and hymns of philosophic meditation.
It is obvious that Luis de Leon took a keen interest in all the real essentials of his art. It is no less obvious that he saw matters in their actual perspective, that he attached no undue importance to technique, as such, and that he gave no less weight to the choice of matter than to the choice of form. Luis de Leon was not incapable of metrical audacities: as when he divides into two separate words adverbs in -mente occurring at the end of a line. This practice was audacious, but it was not an innovation. Juan de Almeida defended it by citing a host of precedents from other literatures and, had Almeida been a prophet, he might have foretold that this device was destined to be repeated hundreds of years later by that innovating genius Rubén Darío. But Almeida was not a prophet. His titles to remembrance are that he was learned, and that he may rank with Miguel Sanchez, with Alonso de Espinosa, and with Benito Arias Montano as among the least unsuccessful of Luis de Leon's followers. They often follow his lead with undeniable adroitness. Yet they never attain his incomparable concentration, his majestic vision of nature and his characteristic note of ecstatic aloofness. Nowhere is he more himself than in the immortal stanzas dedicated to Oloarte under the title of Noche serena of which Churton has bequeathed us an English version which I will quote, though it gives but a far-off echo of the original's magic melody:
I view the stars their files unnumber'd leading,
Then see the dark earth lie
In deathlike trance, unheeding
How Life and Time with those bright orbs are speeding:
Wake in my heart a fire with anguish burning;
The tear-drops fall like rain,
Mine eyes to fountains turning,
And my sad voice pours forth its tones of mourning:
Bright temple of bright saints in beauty dwelling,
The soul, once born to mate
With these, what force repelling
Hath bound to earth, its light in darkness quelling?
Hath exiled so from Truth the mind unstable?
Why of its blest reward
Forgetful, lost, unable,
Seeks it each shadowy fraud and guileful fable?
Like one that of his danger hath no feeling,
The while with silent tread
Those restless orbs are wheeling,
And, as they fly, his hours of life are stealing.
Think of the loss that on your lives is pressing;
The soul, that never dies,
Ordain'd for endless blessing,
How shall it live, false shows for truth caressing?
To that firm sphere which still new glory weareth,
And scorn the low disguise
The flattering world prepareth,
And all the world's poor thrall hopeth or feareth.
Brief scene of man's proud strife and vain endeavour,
Weigh'd with that deep profound,
That tideless Ocean-river,
That onward bears Time's fleeting forms for ever?
That fix'd accord in wondrous variance given,
The mighty harmony
Of courses all uneven,
Wherein each star keeps time and place in heaven.
Of light unspent, and not, with very sighing,
Burst earth's frail bonds, and soar,
With soul unbodied flying,
From this sad place of exile and of dying?
There is the reign of Peace; there, throned in splendour,
As one pre-eminent,
With dove-like eyes so tender,
Sits holy Love,—honour and joy attend her.
Of Beauty thought can reach; the source internal
Of purest Light, that ne'er
To darkness yields; eternal
Bloom the bright flowers in clime for ever vernal.
Those quiet fields and pleasant meads exploring,
Where Truth immortally,
Her priceless wealth outpouring,
Feeds through the blissful vales the souls of saints adoring.
The fact that the original is cast in the lira form would compel one to assign this composition to a date not earlier than 1542, when Garcilasso's poems were first published. Nothing, however, could be more remote from Garcilasso's nebulous half-pagan melancholy; we are no less distant from the pseudonymous nymphs of Cetina and Francisco de la Torre: the elegant Amaryllis of the one, the elusive Filis of the other, though destined to be re-incarnated by a tribe of later poets, find no place in these stately numbers. Luis de Leon does not emulate Alcázar's epigrammatic wit, nor Herrera's Petrarchan sweetness, nor Ercilla's tumultuous rhetoric. He has an individuality all his own, the moral purpose of the man is wedded to the poet's art in such wise that he strikes a note individual and completely new in Spanish literature—a note rarely heard in any literature till we catch its strain in the verses of him who tells us that
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.
In Luis de Leon, as in Wordsworth, art is raised to a hieratic dignity: both have a splendid simplicity, a most lofty expression of sublime meditation—qualities rare everywhere in every age, and rarest of all in the flamboyant, if gloomy, Spain of the sixteenth century.
Luis de Leon has his weak points. He does not attain to the angelic melody of St. John of the Cross. He is apt to be indifferent to sheer beauty of form; though he often reaches it, this success seems with him to be a happy accident. Lucidity is not his main object; though he uses simple terms, his immense range of knowledge tempts him at whiles to indulge in allusions which it might tax all the ingenuity of commentators to explain. Commentators of Luis de Leon have a sufficiently heavy task before them in reconstructing the text of his poems—the heavier because the originals no longer exist. Sr. de Onís has given us some idea of the problems to be solved.[275] Whatever flaws are revealed in Luis de Leon's manner, he is nearly always vital, nearly always has something elevating, illuminating and beautiful to say. As a human being, too, he is not above criticism. There is an unpleasant savour in the story that he asked Antonio Perez to let him have the Chrysostom manuscript which he proposed to translate in Paris, the profits to be divided. We need not believe this perhaps calumnious little tale. Antonio Perez is open to suspicion of being an assassin and a traitor; he may also have been untruthful. Luis de Leon is not a candidate for canonization. He was no icicle of perfection. He was something vastly more interesting than a chill intellectual: a man ardent, austere, conscious of resplendent intellectual faculties, perhaps a little arrogant when off his guard, incautious but wary, individualistic but self-sacrificing, emotional, sensitive, reticent: a mass of conflicting qualities blended, unified and held in subjection by sheer strength of will, fortified by a professional discipline, deliberately embraced and rigorously followed. Add to this that he had in a supreme degree the creative impulse, an irrepressible instinct for self-expression. It is not strange that the self-expression of a personality so fine, so complex, so rich, so rare, should produce the series of compositions which entitle Luis de Leon to rank among the very greatest of Spanish poets, and beside the most glorious figures in the history of any literature. He stands a little apart from the rest of Spanish poets in a splendid solitude which befits him; he must perforce be solitary, dwelling as he most often does at altitudes inaccessible to ordinary mortals.
But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams:
Alone the sun arises, and alone
Spring the great streams.
V
They must have been known to the dedicatee of the Noche serena, whom I am inclined to identify with Diego de Olarte who appeared before the Valladolid tribunal (Documentos inéditos, vol. XI, pp. 301-302). But the only positive evidence on this head is given by Francisco de Salinas who testified 'que era amigo del dicho fray Luis de Leon, el cual venia muchas veces á casa deste testigo, y oyó deste testigo la especulativa, y comunicaba con este testigo cosas de poesía y otras cosas del arte' (Documentos inéditos, vol. XI, pp. 302-303).
In the early editions—those of 1583, 1585, 1587, 1595, and 1603—De los nombres de Cristo and La Perfecta Casada are bound up together. Each treatise has a separate pagination in all five cases.
Luis de Leon's mother was 'Inés de Valera, hija de Juan de Valera, vecino que fué de la villa de Belmente, escudero, que vivia de su hacienda' (Documentos inéditos, vol. X, pp. 170-171). The substitution of Varela for Valera, or vice versa, is easy in Spanish. An example of such a substitution in the case of Luis de Leon's mother is given by Blanco García, Fr. Luis de León, p. 24, n. 1. Blanco García mentions a tombstone in the monastery of San Jerónimo at Granada with the following inscription:
'En esta capilla está enterrado el noble hidalgo el Lic. Lope de Leon del Cº del Rey nuestro Señor, Oidor que fué de Granada, y Asistente de Sevilla: falleció á 24 de Julio de 1562 años: y Doña Inés Barela (sic), y Alarcon, su mujer, dotó esta capilla para entierro suyo y de sus descendientes.'
The name of Luis de Leon's maternal grandmother was Mencía Alvarez Osorio. From these circumstances, it appears possible that some relationship existed between the dedicatee of La Perfecta Casada and the author of that treatise. Luis de Leon had four maternal uncles, three of whom were laymen—Francisco de Valera, Bernardino de Valera, and Cristóbal de Alarcon, 'capitan que fué en Italia'. All three had died before April 15, 1572 (Documentos inéditos, vol. X, p. 181).
It is also possible that Isabel Osorio (Documentos inéditos, vol. XI, p. 271), to whom the manuscript of the vernacular version of the Song of Songs was lent, may likewise have been related to Luis de Leon.
Orozco's treatise was printed in La Ciudad de Dios (1888), vol. XXI, pp. 393-401, and vol. XXII, pp. 543-550. It is reproduced by Sr. D. Federico de Onís in his edition of De los nombres de Cristo in the series of Clásicos Castellanos (1914), vol. XXVIII, pp. 261-281, and (1917), vol. XXXIII, pp. 257-271.
Nowhere have I found an indication of Portocarrero's birth-date. He became Bishop of Calahorra in 1587, and was translated to Córdoba in 1594; he died on September 20, 1600.
Alonso Getino (op. cit., p. 48) writes, however: 'la Canción del conocimiento de sí mismo, que es la primera cuya fecha se puede averiguar, la escribió diez años después de entrar en religión'. This is an inference from the closing lines of the poem:
diez años há que soy convaleciente.
In a note to the passage quoted above, Alonso Getino refers to the Canción al nacimiento de la hija del Marqués de Alcañices, written, as he thinks, 'en un tono impropio de un imberbe'. He appears to have no doubt as to the authenticity of this composition: the correctness of the ascription of this poem to Luis de Leon is at least questionable.
The pieces printed by Sanchez are translations of Ode X, Book II; Ode XXII, Book I; Ode XIII, Book IV; and Epode II.
Obras del excelente poeta Garcilasso de la Vega, Salamanca, 1577. This (second) edition is the earliest to which I have access. On pp. 91-92 Sanchez writes: 'Trato este elegantemente Horacio, Oda 10. lib. I. Y porque vn docto destos reynos la traduxo biẽ, y ay pocos casos destos en nuestra lengua, le pondre aqui todo: y ansi entiẽdo hazer en el discurso destas sentencias quando se ofreciere'. On p. 94, Sanchez writes: 'Por traer el lugar de Horacio, donde todo esto se toma, aure de poner toda la Oda, sacada por el mismo que traduxo la otra'. On pp. 97-98 Sanchez writes: 'Al reues desto se burla Horacio de vna dama, motejandola de vieja: y q̃ ya se le passo la flor, aunque ella no lo piensa. Y por estar traduzida por el mismo q̃ las pasadas, põgo aqui la Oda, que es del libro 4 l. 13.'
This slip has been pointed out by Menéndez y Pelayo in both editions (Madrid, 1878[?] and 1885) of his Horacio en España. Solaceas bibliográficas.
Alonso Getino (op. cit., p. 50) and in El Correo Español (1908). A reply to these views has been made in the form of an open letter to Sr. Berrueta, Director of El Lábaro, by P. Conrado Muiños Sáenz. The reply of Muiños Sáenz will be found in La Ciudad de Dios (1909), vol. LXXVIII, pp. 479-495, 544-560, vol. LXXIX, pp. 18-34, 107-124, 191-212, 353-374, 529-552; vol. LXXX, pp. 99-125, 177-197.
It is printed among Luis de Leon's poems in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles desde la formacion del lenguaje hasta nuestros dias, vol. XXXVII, pp. 12-13. As this is perhaps the best-known edition of Luis de Leon's poems, most of my quotations are taken from it.
Sobre la transmisión de la obra literaria de Fr. Luis de León in Revista de Filología española (1915), vol. II, pp. 217-257.
APPENDIX
EL MAESTRO FRAI LVIS DE LEON
Silas obras acertadas de algun Artifice le estan (como dize el Sabio) alabando siempre, con cuanta mayor razon las de Dios nos dan motivo para engrandecer su infinita Sabiduria. i mas cuando vemos que nacen algunos ombres, acõpañados de tantas gracias que parece que fueron hechos, sin otro medio, por sus divinas manos, sien alguno se puede esto verificar, es en el gran Maestro (como veremos) sus Progenitores fueron de Belmonte, de clarissimo linage, en el cual resplandecieron muchos varones insignes en letras i Santidad. El Licenciado Lope de Leon su Padre, siendo uno de los mayores letrados de su tiempo, vino por Oidor a Sevilla, donde hizo oficio de Asistente, i en ella tuvo (para onra de nuestra Patria) este ilustre hijo, que siendo promovido luego ala chancilleria de Granada, nacio en ella, elaño 1528 para engrandecer l' Andaluzia la Nacion Española, i el mundo. En lo natural, fue pequeño de cuerpo, en devida proporcion, la cabeça grande, bien formada, poblada de cabello algo crespo, i el cerquillo cerrado, la frente espaciosa, el rostro mas redondo que aguileño, (como lo muestra el Retrato) trigueño el color, los ojos verdes i vivos. En lo moral, con especial don de Silencio, el ombre mas callado que sea conocido, si bien de singular agudeza en sus dichos, con estremo abstinente i templado, en la comida bevida, i sueño. de mucho secreto, verdad, i fidelidad: puntual en palabra i promessas; compuesto, poco onada risueño. Leiasse en la gravedad de su rostro, el peso de la nobleza de su alma, resplandecia enmedio desto por eccelencia una umildad profunda. fue limpissimo, mui onesto i recogido, gran Religioso, i observante de las Leyes. Amava ala santissima Virgen ternissimamente, ayunava las visperas de sus fiestas, comiendo alas tres de la tar de, ino haziendo colacion. de aqui nacio aqella regalada Cancion que comienca; Virgen q'el Solmas pura. fue mui espiritual, i de mucha Oracion, i en ella en tiempo de sus mayores trabajos, favorecido de Dios particularissimamente. con ser de natural colerico fue mui sufrido i piadoso para los que le tratavan. tan penitente i austero consigo, que las mas noches no se acostava en cama, i el que la avia hecho la hallava ala mañana de la misma manera certificalo el Padre Maestro frai Luis Moreno de Bohorquez (onra de su Religion, que estuvo 4 años en su compañia) a quien devemos la verdad deste discurso, Professo en el Monesterio de San Agustin de Salamanca, en 29 de Enero de 1544, siendo de edad de 16 años. en lo adquisito, fue gran Dialetico i Filosofo, Maestro graduado en Artes, i Dotor en Teologia, por aquella insigne Universidad; donde fue Catedratico mas de 36 años, en la Catedra de Santo Tomas de Durando, de Filosofia moral, i de Prima de Sagrada Escritura, que tuvo con crecido premio, por que leyesse una leccion, supo Escolastico tan aventajadamente, como sino tratava de Escritura, i de Escritura, como sino tratava de Escolastico. fue la mayor capacidad de ingenio que sea conocida en su tiempo, para todas Ciencias i Artes; escrevia no menos que nuestro Francisco Lucas, siendo famosso Matematico, Aritmetico, i Geometra; i gran Astrologo, i Judiciario, (aunque lo uso con templança) fue eminente en el uno i otro derecho, Medico superior, que entrava en el General con los desta Facultad, i arguía en sus actos. fue gran Poeta Latino i Castellano, como lo muestran sus versos. estudio sin Maestro la Pintura, i la exercitò tan diestramente que entre otras cosas hizo (cosa dificil) su mesmo Retrato. tuvo otras infinitas abilidades, que callo por cosas mayores. La lengua Latina, Griega, i Hebrea, la Caldea i Siria, supo como los Maestros della. pues la muestra con cuanta grandeza? siendo el primero que escrivio en ella con numero i elegãcia; digalo el Libro de los Nombres de Cristo i perfeta casada, encarecido i admirado de los doctos, que no sabe acabar de loarlo Antonio Possevino en su Biblioteca. escrivio en Latin Comentarios sobre los Cantares, i fue el primero que allanò las dificultades de la letra: i sobre el Psalmo 26 i el Profeta Abdias, i la Epistola ad Galatas, i un tratado de utriusq agni: expuso otros libros de la Escritura que no estan impressos. ai muchas obras suyas de mano en verso, divididas en tres partes, la primera de las cosas proprias, la segunda lo que traduxo de autores Profanos, la tercera de los Psalmos, Cantares i Capitulos de Job. lo cual asido siempre estimadissimo, con la carta a don Pedro Puertocarrero, a quien lo dirige, escrivio otra en san Felipe de Madrid año 1587 alas Carmelitas descalças, en favor del espiritu i escritos de Santa Teresa de Jesus, que anda con su libro, digna de la eccelencia de su ingenio. Al passo destas grandezas, fue la invidia que le persiguio, pero descubrio altamente sus quilates, saliendo en todo superior, i con el mayor triumfo i onra que en estos Reinos sea visto. fue varon de tanta autoridad, que parecia mas a proposito para mostrar alos otros, que para aprender de ninguno. grande su juizio i prudencia en materias de govierno, alcançò mucha estimacion en España i fuera della con los mayores ombres; consultavalo el Rei Filipo Segundo en todos los casos graves de conciencia enviandole correos estraordinarios a Salamanca; i despues yendo por orden de la Universidad, con particular comision, a su Magestad, lo tratò i comunicò, haziendole especial favor imerced. i en los acometimientos onrosos de Obispados, i del Arçobispado de Mexico, descubrio su valor i animo grande, no solo para desnudarse de la dignidad (cosa intentada de pocos) mas aun de todo cuanto tenia en la tierra: varon de veras Evangelico. en estos santos exercicios i con esta continuacion de vida, siendo Provincial de la Provincia de Castilla, acabò su curso santamente (dexando en todos harto desconsuelo, aun que mayor certeza de su gloria) en la villa de Madrigal en 24 de Agosto del año 1595. de 63 años de edad. traxeronle con la devida onra a san Agustin de Salamanca donde avia tomado el abito, i yaze sepultado en el claustro de aquel ilustre Convento. I para cumplimiento de su Elogio i de mi desseo no me contentè con menos (en onra de tan insigne varon) de que los versos Latinos fuessen del Licenciado Rodrigo Caro, i los Castellanos de Lope de Vega, en su Laurel de Apolo, con que se encarecen bastãtemẽte.
EPIGRAMMA
Municipem iactant te, Ludovice, suum.
Contigit id magno quondam certamen Homero:
Contigit Hesperio sicqȝ Melesigeni.
o dulce Analogia de Agustino!
conque verdad nos diste
al Rei Profeta en verso Castellano,
que con tanta elegancia tra duziste;
ô cuanto le deviste
(como en tus mismas obras encareces)
ala invidia cruel, porquien mereces
Laureles inmortales;
tu prosa, i verso iguales
conservaran la gloria de tu nombre;
i los Nombres de Cristo Soberano
tele daran eterno, porque asombre
la dulce pluma de tu heroica mano
de tu persecusion la causa injusta,
tu fuiste gloria de Agustino Augusta,
tu el onor de la lengua Castellana,
que desseaste introduzir escrita,
viendo que ala Romana tanto imita
que puede competir con la Romana.
Si en esta edad vivieras
fuerte Leon en su defensa fueras.
INDEX
A
| Abarca de Sotomayor (Ana) | 93 n. |
| Agustiniana, Revista | passim |
| Alarcon (Cristóbal de) | 234 n. |
| Alarcon (fulano de) | 110 n. |
| Alarcon (Inés de) | 27 n., 234 n. |
| Alarcon (María de) | 28 n. |
| Álava (Andrés de) | 90, 128 n., 139 n. |
| Albornoz (Francisco de) | 90, 139 n. |
| Alcañices (Marqués de) | 235 n. |
| Alcázar (Baltasar de) | 229 |
| Almansa (Francisco de) | 39, 40, 93 n., 94 n. |
| Almansa (Pedro de) | 94 n. |
| Almaraz (Antonio de) | 189 n. |
| Almeida (Juan de) | 33 n., 129 n., 224 |
| Alvarez (Luis) | 44 |
| Alvarez Guijarro (Carlos) | 193 n., 198 n. |
| Alvarez Osorio (Mencía) | 234 n. |
| Ambrose (Saint) | 205 |
| Ana de Jesús (La Madre) | 12, 30 n., 174, 180, 181, 203 |
| Antolinez (Agustin) | 180 |
| Aragon (Pedro de) | 165, 194 n. |
| Arboleda (Francisco de) | 56, 57, 112 n. |
| Arce (Antonio de) | 137 n. |
| Arias Montano (Benito) | 62, 63, 83, 119 n., 120 n., 202, 210, 221, 224 |
| Arias (Diego) | 59, 114 n. |
| Aristotle | 82 |
| Arresse (Juan de) | 166, 197 n. |
| Asensio y Toledo (José Maria) | 201 n. |
B
| Bañez (Domingo) | 10, 154, 161, 164, 194 n., 195 n., 196 n. |
| Barrera (Cayetano Alberto de la) | 190 n., 191 n. |
| Barrientos | 48, 100 n. |
| Béjar (Séptimo duque de) | 58 |
| Bembo (Pietro) | 83, 84, 218 |
| Bernal, Dr. | 170 |
| Berrueta | 237 n. |
| Blanco García (Francisco) | passim |
| Bolivar (Pedro) | 138 n. |
| Bonard (Cornelio) | 199 n. |
| Boscan Almogaver (Juan) | 223 |
| Braganza (Teutonio de) | 175 |
| Bravo | 33 n. |
C
| Cabrera de Córdoba (Luis) | 184 |
| Calderon de la Barca Henao de la Barreda y Riaño (Pedro) | 3 |
| Cáncer, Dr. | 66, 68, 77, 137 n. |
| Cano (Melchor) | 81, 131 n., 202 |
| Caravajal (Diego de) | 112 n. |
| Carlos (el maestro Don) | 33 n. |
| Carlos (el príncipe Don) | 211 |
| Caro (Rodrigo) | 244 |
| Carranza (Bartolomé de) | 21, 35 n., 85, 134 n. |
| Castañeda (Juan de) | 161, 194 n. |
| Castillo (Garcia del) | 33 n. |
| Castillo (Hernando del) | 66, 67, 89, 137 n. |
| Castro (Adolfo de) | 190 n. |
| Castro (Leon de) | 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 24 n., 31 n., 32 n., 33 n., 34 n., 35 n., 54, 62, 77, 80, 86, 110 n. |
| Castro (Pedro de) | 91, 139 n., 141 n. |
| Cayetano (see Vio). | |
| Cervantes Saavedra (Miguel de) | 3, 58, 155, 184, 191 n. |
| Cetina (Gutierre de) | 228 |
| Churton (Edward) | 219, 220, 225 |
| Cicero | 207 |
| Ciguelo (Juan) | 77, 78, 128 n. |
| Cipriano (el maestro) | 81 |
| Clement of Alexandria (Saint) | 205 |
| Copernicus (Nicolaus) | 61, 114 n., 115 n. |
| Coscojales (Martin de) | 165, 194 n. |
| Cruesen (Nicolaas) | 148, 149 |
| Cruz (Joan de la) (see Santa Cruz) | |
| Cueto (Francisco) | 71, 114 n., 117 n. |
| Cyprian (Saint) | 205 |
D
| Darío (Rubén) | 224 |
| Doria (Nicolás de Jesus Maria) | 174, 175, 176, 179 |
E
| Ercilla y Zúñiga (Alonso) | 229 |
| Espinosa (Alonso de) | 224 |
| Espinosa (Ana de) | 41, 95 n. |
| Estrada (Doctor) | 180 |
| Euripides | 205 |
F
| Fernandez (Alonso) | 193 n. |
| Frechilla (Doctor) | 77, 91, 139 n., 140 |
G
| Galileo | 57, 112 n. |
| Galvan (Juan) | 84 |
| Gallardo (Bartolome Jose) | 145, 185 n., 187 n., 191 n., 192 n., 199 n. |
| Gallego (Juan) | 36 n. |
| Gallo (Juan) | 33 n., 34 n., 190 n. |
| Gallo (Gregorio) | 9, 154 |
| Gaona (Diego de) | 107 n. |
| Garcia del Castillo | 146 |
| Garcilasso, see Lasso de la Vega (Garci). | |
| Getino (Luis G. Alonso) | passim |
| Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas (Francisco) | 209, 215 |
| Góngora (Luis de) | 209 |
| Gonzalez (Diego) | 21, 39, 94 n., 128 n. |
| Gonzalez de Tejada (J.) | 28 n., 29 n., 100 n. |
| Grajal (Gaspar de) | 10, 13, 20, 21, 22, 29 n., 33 n., 36 n., 37 n., 42, 108 n., 157, 162 |
| Granada (Luis de) | 203 |
| Grial (Juan de) | 213 |
| Guevara (Juan de) | 11, 33 n., 35 n., 81, 108 n., 190 n., 194 n., 195 n. |
| Guevara (Martin de) | 127 n. |
| Guigelmo | 132 n. |
| Guijano de Mercado (Doctor) | 91, 92, 128 n., 139 n., 140 n., 144 n. |
| Gustin (Celedon) | 46, 144 n., 163 |
| Gutiérrez (Juan) | 107 n. |
| Gutiérrez (Marcelino) | 115 n. |
| Guzman (Domingo de) | 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 160, 161, 164, 190 n., 191 n., 192 n., 197 n. |
H
| Haedo (Diego de) | 24 n., 96 n. |
| Henriquez (Dr. Diego) | 171 |
| Henry VIII | 1 |