Father Pedro de Ezinas, a monk of the order of the Predicadores, in the Convent of St. Domingo at Huete, was preparing to submit several of his poems to the press when he suddenly died. Some monks of his order, determined on carrying out the intention of the writer, and the poems were accordingly printed under the following title, Versos espirituales que tratan de la convercion del pecador, menosprecio del mundo, y vida de Nuestro Señor, con unas sucintas declaraciones sobre algunos pasos del libro, compuestos por el Reverende Padre, Fray Pedro de Ezinas de la orden de Santo Domingo. En Cuenca en casa de Miguel Serrano de Vargas, año de, 1597.
(F).
“Greatly as you admire the verses of Ezinas, I must confess that they are not so pleasing to me, nor do they sound so harmoniously to my ear as the poetry of Aldana, or that of an Aragonian writer named Alonzo de la Sierra.” (Page 112).
Francisco de Aldana, the writer here alluded to was honoured by his contemporaries with the surname of the Divine. He had, however, but little claim to that distinction, for his versification is frequently inharmonious and his language harsh. A collection of his poems was published at Milan, in the year 1589, under the following title, La primera parte de las obras que hasta agora se han podido hallar del Capitan Francisco de Aldana, Alcaide de San Sebastian, el qual murio peleando en la jornada de Africa. Agora nuevamente puestas en luz por su hermano Cosme de Aldana gentil hombre del Rey Don Felipe nuestro Señor, &c. The first part of the works (hitherto found) of Captain Francisco de Aldana, Alcalde of San Sebastian, who died in battle in Africa. Now published by his brother, Cosme de Aldana, Gentleman in the service of King Don Philip, our Lord, &c.
(G).
“Al buen callar llaman Sago.” (Page 118).
The meaning of this proverb is that it is wise to know when to hold one’s tongue. As sabio, not sago, is the Spanish adjective meaning wise, it has been conjectured that sago is a corruption of some other word. This appears the more probable, as the proverb, both in speaking and writing is frequently quoted thus, “Al buen callar llaman Sancho,” which literally construed is, he who knows when to hold his tongue is called Sancho, possibly in allusion to King Don Sancho of Navarre, surnamed The Wise. But be this as it may, the proverb occurs in the poem of the Conde Lucanor, and in other old Spanish writings with the word Sago, as it is given by Cervantes in the Buscapié.
A shrewd French writer has observed that proverbs are the wisdom of a nation, and with equal truth it may be said that no people possess so large a share of this sort of national wisdom as the Spaniards. There is scarcely one of their countless stock of every day proverbs that is not a wise maxim founded on experience and truth. Two classes of proverbs with which the Spanish language abounds, viz.: those embodying philosophic and medical maxims, have furnished materials for two curious old treatises, the one entitled La Filosofía vulgar, by Juan de Mal Lara, published at Salamanca in 1568, the other, La Medecina española contenida en proverbios vulgares de nuestra lengua[68] by Doctor Juan Sorapan de Rieros, Granada, 1616.
In the preface to this last mentioned work, the author states that he has opened a new road, previously unknown to any author, ancient or modern, Greek, Latin, or Spanish. For though it is true that many have collected proverbs and made comments on them, yet no one has written a word on the proverbs of the class to which this work refers: no one has collected the Spanish proverbs relating to medicine and formed upon them a system for preserving human health. “I have,” he says, “been the first to enter upon this new path, in which, short and crooked though it be, the reader will find all the essential knowledge transmitted to us by the Arab and Greek masters of rational medicine; the superfluous knowledge being left to those who are disposed to travel by the broad and even path which learning has opened.”