Lopez de Vega, in describing an afflicted shepherdess, in one of his pastorals, who is represented weeping near the sea-side, says, "That the sea joyfully advances to gather her tears; and that, having enclosed them in shells, it converts them into pearls."
"Y el mar como imbidioso
A tierra por las lagrimas salia,
Y alegre de cogerlas
Las guarda en conchas, y convierte en perlas."
Villegas addresses a stream—"Thou who runnest over sands of gold, with feet of silver," more elegant than our Shakspeare's—"Thy silver skin laced with thy golden blood," which possibly he may not have written. Villegas monstrously exclaims, "Touch my breast, if you doubt the power of Lydia's eyes—you will find it turned to ashes." Again—"Thou art so great that thou canst only imitate thyself with thy own greatness;" much like our "None but himself can be his parallel."
Gongora, whom the Spaniards once greatly admired, and distinguished by the epithet of The Wonderful, abounds with these conceits.
He imagines that a nightingale, who enchantingly varied her notes, and sang in different manners, had a hundred thousand other nightingales in her breast, which alternately sang through her throat—
"Con diferancia tal, con gracia tanta,
A quel ruysenor llora, que sospecho
Que tiene otros cien mil dentro del pecho,
Que alterno su dolor por su garganta."
Of a young and beautiful lady he says, that she has but a few years of life, but many ages of beauty.
"Muchos siglos de hermosura
En pocos anos de edad."
Many ages of beauty is a false thought, for beauty becomes not more beautiful from its age; it would be only a superannuated beauty. A face of two or three ages old could have but few charms.
In one of his odes he addresses the River of Madrid by the title of the Duke of Streams, and the Viscount of Rivers—