The reference is given by C. Muiños Sáenz, Sobre el 'Decíamos ayer'... y otros excesos in La Ciudad de Dios (1909), vol. LXXX, p. 119.
V
By his contemporaries Luis de Leon was perhaps more esteemed as a theologian or a scholar than as a man of letters. This judgement has been reversed by posterity mainly on the strength of the Spanish poems which were little known during the author's lifetime beyond a small circle of his personal friends.[263] Experts tell us that as a theologian he ranks below his master Melchor Cano; and in the annals of scholarship Luis de Leon is less conspicuous than Benito Arias Montano and than Francisco Sanchez (el Brocense). Few now read for pleasure the treatises which Luis de Leon composed in a dead language: in any case these treatises can add nothing to his reputation as a writer of Spanish, and it is solely as a Spanish author that he concerns us here and now. He was by no means the earliest of devout writers to use Spanish as a literary medium. There is a long and illustrious bead-roll of authors from Bernardino de Laredo to Saint Theresa to prove the contrary. Much less was Luis de Leon the first post-Renaissance scholar to recognize that Spanish had a great future before it. Yet, if we take leave to assume that Luis de Granada was an ascetic rather than an extatic, we may account Luis de Leon as perhaps the first professional scholar to perceive that Spanish was adequate to convey the subtleties of theology and the ravishments of mysticism. His chief prose works in Castilian include the Exposicion del libro de Job, a commentary dedicated to Madre Ana de Jesús, but not published till near the end of the eighteenth century (1779). The provenance of this work calls for no explanation. Apart from the quotation of a passage in Jorge Manrique's Coplas, the Exposicion del libro de Job offers few indications of Spanish origin and fewer personal touches. Equally Biblical in origin are a rendering of the Song of Songs and a corresponding commentary; the existence of both has a personal interest inasmuch as they prove that Luis de Leon was enabled to carry out a long cherished design by means of which he hoped, as he declared at Valladolid, to counterbalance the indiscreet prying of Fray Diego de Leon. La Perfecta Casada (1583) and De los nombres de Cristo (1583-1585) likewise have their roots in Scripture. La Perfecta Casada is avowedly based on the thirty-first chapter of Proverbs, and De los nombres de Cristo, the first part of which appeared simultaneously with La Perfecta Casada,[264] discusses the various symbolic names applied to the Saviour in the Bible.
La Perfecta Casada is dedicated to Maria Varela Osorio, a recently wedded bride, who may have been a distant kinswoman of the author's.[265] Nowhere more clearly than in this treatise does Luis de Leon justify the statement that he had a Hebrew soul. He takes for granted the Oriental point of view, and illustrates his imperious thesis with ample quotations from writers of all types—pagans, Christians, saints, and laymen. There are references to Simonides, to Sophocles, to Euripides, to Plutarch, to Saint Clement of Alexandria, to Saint Cyprian, to Saint Ambrose, to Garcilasso de la Vega. It seems likely that La Perfecta Casada was written after De los nombres de Cristo, which was almost certainly begun in prison. But there is perhaps nothing in the internal evidence of the style which would point to that conclusion. The style of La Perfecta Casada is vigorous and clear; but it is marred by gusts of rhetoric and by an excess of copulative conjunctions. These peculiarities produce the effect of relative inexperience, and might easily mislead a too confident critic.
De los nombres de Cristo is cast in the Platonic form of dialogue, and, in the section entitled Pastor, Plato is quoted by name. But the Hellenic influence, though present, is not dominant. Already Alonso de Orozco had anticipated Luis de Leon with De los nueve nombres de Cristo,[266] and there are points of contact in the handling as is inevitable from the similarity of the subject. But it cannot be denied that Luis de Leon's work is suffused with a warmer, more human interest than Orozco's brief sketch. These more intimate personal elements are present on almost every page of De los nombres de Cristo. Nobody can read far without perceiving that Marcello, hindered by his poca salud y muchas occupaciones, is manifestly a double of Luis de Leon; there are passages which gloss themes developed metrically elsewhere; there are retrospicient glances at the Valladolid trial; the scene of the dialogue is laid within view of La Flecha, and the details of the landscape are reproduced with exact fidelity; Luis de Leon has a freer hand in De los nombres de Cristo than in his other prose works, but here again in his paraphrases of the Biblical passages relating to Christ his interpretation is at one with the interpretation of the prophets. And this identity of sentiment has in it nothing dramatic. Those who have alleged that Luis de Leon came of Jewish stock may have been—apparently were—mistaken; but their mistake is comprehensible, for more than any contemporary Spanish poet—more even than Herrera in his odes—is he saturated with the Jewish spirit. In all his work Luis de Leon adheres closely to the Bible. In the De los nombres de Cristo he is also a Platonist within limits: not so much as regards the manner (which tends to an oratorical pomp more reminiscent of Cicero) as in his conciliatory method. With the Jewish and Hellenic blend of influence we must rate the Latin influence—that of Horace and of Virgil. The influence of Horace on Luis de Leon has been often noted. It exists no doubt, but has perhaps been exaggerated: why should we suppose that his love of moderation was learnt from Horace and was not partly, at least, temperamental? May not the references to Horace be a characteristic of humanism? An opinion backed by the weight of classical authority must reach us with irresistible force, must it not? However this may be, the predominant influence in De los nombres de Cristo, as in all Luis de Leon's prose, is Scriptural and Christian. In maturity of development, in intellectual force, in beauty of expression, and in general adequateness, De los nombres de Cristo exhibits Luis de Leon's prose at its culmination. The book is dedicated to Pedro Portocarrero,[267] Bishop of Calahorra, who had previously twice been rector of Salamanca University. It seems probable that Luis de Leon's friendship with him dates back to 1566-1567, when Portocarrero held the office of rector for the second time. Besides De los nombres de Cristo Luis de Leon dedicated to Portocarrero In Abdiam prophetam Explanatio (1589) and the manuscript collection of his poems. For some reason not very obvious this collection of verses was not published till 1631 when it was issued by Quevedo, who hoped that it would help to stem the current of Gongorism in Spain. The poems, printed forty years after the author's death, appeared too late to affect the public taste. Góngora himself had died in 1627, but his influence was undiminished. Quevedo, who had obtained his copies of Luis de Leon's verses from Manuel Sarmiento de Mendoza, a canon of Seville cathedral, did his share as editor by writing two prefaces, one addressed to Sarmiento de Mendoza, and the other to Olivares who was manifestly expected to pronounce against Gongorism. Olivares, however, had no reason to love Quevedo, and was resolved to take no active part in what he doubtless regarded as a scribblers' quarrel. Gongorism pursued its way unchecked. Quevedo's edition, though incomplete and disfigured by certain errors, was reprinted at Milan during the same year (1631), and then all interest in Luis de Leon flickered out for a while.
In the prefatory note of the 1631 Madrid edition—entitled Obras propias, y tradvciones latinas, griegas y italianas—Luis de Leon speaks of his poems slightingly as mere playthings of his youth, now brought together at the request of an anonymous friend—perhaps Benito Arias Montano—to whom they had been ascribed. Luis de Leon arranges the material in three books, containing respectively his original compositions, his translations from authors profane, and his versions of certain psalms, a hymn, and chapters from the Book of Job. But, beyond the general statement as to the early date of composition, Luis de Leon gives no precise information as to when individual poems were written. The assertion that the poems date back almost to the author's childhood is contradicted by concrete facts. Take, for instance, the celebrated Noche serena dedicated to Oloarte. If, as I conjecture, the dedicatee of the Noche serena is identical with the Diego de Loarte, archdeacon of Ledesma, who gave evidence at Salamanca on January 27, 1573, and who on that date had known Luis de Leon for fourteen years, the Noche serena cannot have been composed earlier than 1559 when Luis de Leon was thirty-one—youthful, indeed, but long past his niñez. On January 17, 1573, Francisco Salinas testified at Salamanca to having known Luis de Leon for six years: whence it follows that El aire se serena cannot have been written before 1567, when Luis de Leon was bordering on his fortieth year. As Don Carlos died on July 24, 1568, the Cancion a la muerte de don Carlos and the Epitafio al túmulo del príncipe don Carlos must necessarily have been composed after that date; that is, when Luis de Leon was just forty and had left his niñez far behind him. Besides a general dedication to Portocarrero, the collection includes three individual poems which are dedicated to that personage: (1) Virtud, hija del Cielo; (2) No siempre es poderosa; (3) La cana y alta cumbre. In La cana y alta cumbre there is a reference to
la cruda guerra
que agora el Marte airado
despierta en la alta sierra.