La moza de cántaro | Page 2

Lope de Vega
to Madrid about 1582, was married and, after a duel with a nobleman, was obliged to flee to Valencia, where he remained until he enlisted in the Invincible Armada in 1588, but recent research[1] has proved the case to be quite otherwise. It would seem that, on leaving the University about 1582, he became Secretary to the Marqués de las Navas and that for four or five years he led in Madrid a dissolute life, writing verses and frequenting the society of actors and of other young degenerates like himself and enjoying the favor of a young woman, Elena Osorio, whom he addressed in numberless poems as "Filis" and whom he calls "Dorotea" in his dramatic romance of the same name. In the latter work he relates shamelessly and with evident respect for truth of detail many of his adventures of the period, which, as Ticknor says, "do him little credit as a young man of honor and a cavalier."
[Note 1: Professor Hugo Albert Rennert, in his excellent and exhaustive work entitled The Life of Lope de Vega, from which many of the details of this Introduction are taken, quotes at length from Tomillo and Pérez Pastor's Datos Desconocidos the Spanish criminal records of the Proceso de Lope de Vega por Libelos contra unos Cómicos. In the course of the procedure much light is thrown upon this period of Lope's life.]
In the light of the recent information cited above, we know also that Lope's career immediately after 1587 was quite different from what his contemporary Montalvan had led the world long to believe. In the Proceso de Lope de Vega por libelos contra unos Cómicos, it is shown that the poet, having broken with "Filis," circulated slanderous verses written against her father, Jerónimo Velázquez, and his family. The author was tried and sentenced to two years' banishment from Castile and eight more from within five leagues of the city of Madrid. He began his exile in Valencia, but soon disobeyed the decree of banishment, which carried with it the penalty of death if broken, and entered Castile secretly to marry, early in 1588, Do?a Isabel de Urbina, a young woman of good family in the capital. Accompanied by his young wife, he doubtless went on directly to Lisbon, where he left her and enlisted in the Invincible Armada, which sailed from that port, May 29, 1588. During the expedition, according to his own account, Lope fought bravely against the English and the Dutch, using, as he says, his poems written to "Filis" for gun-wads, and yet found time to write a work of eleven thousand verses entitled la Hermosura de Angélica. The disastrous expedition returned to Cadiz in December, and Lope made his way back to the city of his exile, Valencia, where he was joined by his wife. There they lived happily for some time, the poet gaining their livelihood by writing and selling plays, which up to that time he had written for his own amusement and given to the theatrical managers.
Of the early literary efforts of Lope de Vega, such as have come down to us are evidently but a small part, but from them we know something of the breadth of his genius. In childhood even he wrote voluminously, and one of his plays, El Verdadero Amante, which we have of this early period, was written at the age of twelve, but was probably rewritten later in the author's life. He wrote also many ballads, not a few of which have been preserved, and we know that, at the time of his banishment, he was perhaps the most popular poet of the day.
The two years following the return of the Armada, Lope continued to live in Valencia, busied with his literary pursuits, but in 1590, after his two years of banishment from Castile had expired, he moved to Toledo and later to Alba de Tormes and entered the service of the Duke of Alba, grandson of the great soldier, in the capacity of secretary. For his employer he composed about this time the pastoral romance Arcadia, which was not published until 1598. The remaining years of his banishment, which was evidently remitted in 1595, were uneventful enough, but this last year brought to him a great sorrow in the death of his faithful wife. However, he seems to have consoled himself easily, for on his return to Madrid the following year we know of his entering upon a career of gallant adventures which were to last many years and which were scarcely interrupted by his second marriage in 1598 to Do?a Juana de Guardo.
Aside from his literary works the following twelve years of the life of Lope offer us but little of interest. The first few years of the period saw the appearance of La Dragontea,
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