Don Francisco de Quevedo | Page 8

before his guilt or
innocence could be clearly proved. Quevedo afterward fought to clear
his protector's name. At least he has secured his fame to posterity by
the famous sonnet,
Faltar pudo su patria al grande Osuna, Pero no a su defensa sus hazañas;
Diéronle muerte y carcel las Españas, De quien el hizo esclava la
Fortuna. Lloraron sus invidias una a una Con las propias naciones las
extrañas; Su tumba son de Flandes las campañas, Y su epitafio la
sangrienta luna.

* * * * *
While Quevedo was enduring his enforced retirement Philip III died
(March, 1621) and was succeeded by his son Philip IV. Uceda, the
former's minister, was sent to follow his father Lerma into retirement
and disgrace. Olivares, who had already won the confidence of young
Philip, was installed as prime minister.
Superficial reforms by which Olivares signalized his arrival
momentarily led Quevedo to hope for better things. He wrote to
celebrate the wisdom of the new minister and to assure him of his
loyalty. He was soon at liberty to enjoy the fame and wholesome
respect that his political prominence and keen satire had won him. His
enemies were numerous, but they dared not attack him. Olivares
himself courted Quevedo, but the latter, grown discreet for the moment,
lent his ear and not his heart: he could not give himself to a minister
who was already beginning to show his unwillingness to go to the root
of the evils that were ruining the country.
During these years of comparative political inactivity Quevedo had
greater opportunity to study the vicious standards of living that stain
this period of Spanish history. His writings are full of the scathing
irony of his youth on the one hand, or of passionate religious fervor on
the other. At other moments he indulges his tendency to seek refuge
and comfort in the gentle stoicism of Seneca.
His reckless slurs on women did not prevent his taking a wife in 1633.
Perhaps Doña Esperanza de Aragón possessed the qualities that
Quevedo had flippantly demanded:
Noble, virtuous, and of good understanding, neither ugly nor beautiful;
of these two extremes I prefer her beautiful, because it is better to have
something to guard than some one to flee from. Neither rich nor poor,
that she may not be buying me, nor I her. I desire her cheerful, for in
our daily life we shall not lack for gloom. I wish her neither a young
girl nor an old woman, cradle nor coffin, because I have forgotten my
lullabies and not yet learned the prayers for the dying. I should thank
God infinitely if she were deaf and a stammerer. But after all I shall

esteem a woman such as I desire y sabré sufrir la que fuere como yo la
merezco.
Their married life was cut short by the death of Doña Esperanza in the
middle of the following year.
There can be no doubt of Quevedo's thinly-veiled distrust of the
administration of Olivares during these years, nor that he foresaw the
impending catastrophe. The campaign which he was now carrying on
against the favorite drew upon him not only the fear but the hatred of
Olivares. Philip himself was blind to the state of the peninsula, thanks
to Olivares' successful efforts to keep him amused.
Finally one day early in December of 1639 Philip found in his napkin a
petition in verse. It contained an eloquent description of the wretched
condition of the country and a bitter arraignment of Olivares. Every
circumstance pointed to Quevedo as the author. On the seventh of
December he was arrested and his papers were confiscated. His
disappearance was so sudden and complete that it was generally
believed that he had been summarily done to death, but in reality he
had been rushed to a dungeon in the monastery of San Marcos just
outside the walls of the city of León. Here he received treatment
probably intended to cause his death, for he wrote to his friend Adán de
la Parra:
Although at first I had a tower of this holy dwelling for my prison...
within a short time I was brought to another a great deal more
comfortless. There I remain. It is nothing more than an underground
room, as damp as a spring, so dark that it is almost always night in it,
and so cold that it never ceases to seem January. Clear enough! they
that take pleasure in seeing me suffer do not wish to cut once for all
that which they must finally cut, but they wish rather that the frequency
of their blows may make my martyrdom more painful by its longer
continuance; for thus their satisfaction gains in length.
The tomb where I am buried alive is barely twenty-four feet long and