La moza de cántaro | Page 2

received
his bachelor's degree. The next five years of his life are shrouded in
considerable obscurity. It was formerly believed, as related by
Montalvan, that he returned from the University of Alcalá 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, Doña 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
Doña Juana