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:
aunque sané del mal y su accidente
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.
M. Menéndez y Pelayo, Antología de poetas líricos castellanos (1908), vol. XIII, p. 332.
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.