It is well known with what sanguine expectations of glorious victory the Invincible Armada sailed. The privateering or piratical expeditions of Drake and Hawkins though in accordance with the manners of the times, and, indeed, disgracefully imitated in late years, had excited feelings full of burning animosity and fierce vengeance in the hearts of the Spaniards. Added to these natural feelings, was the odium of English heresy, which, deep rooted and rankling in Philip II.'s heart, was participated in by his subjects; they considered the expedition of the Armada as holy, as well as patriotic. Lope felt the full force of these sentiments; he bade the invincible fleet go forth and burn the world; wind would not be wanting to the sails, nor fire to the artillery, for his breast, he said, would supply the one, and his sorrow the other. Such was his ardour and such his sighs.
Twelve of the largest vessels, according to the favourite Spanish custom, were named after the twelve apostles. Lope's brother had a commission in the galleon San Juan, and he embarked on board the same vessel. In accordance with the crusading spirit of the expedition, all persons sailing in it were called upon to be duly shriven, and receive the sacrament with humility and repentance; and the general order went on to forbid all blasphemy against God, our Lady, and the saints; all gambling, all quarrels, all duels. Lope felt the enthusiasm of such an hour, and of such a character: a soldier of God going to relieve many contrite spirits oppressed by heretics,—a patriot about to avenge the disasters brought on his country by her enemies.
Lope gives an animated description of the setting forth of the Armada,—its drums and clarions, its gay pendants, the ploughing up of the waves by the keels, and the gathering together of the busy crews.[92] Of himself, he says that Aristotle slept, with matter, forms, causes, and accidents; but he was not idle; and in another work, he mentions that in this expedition, in which, for a few years, he followed the career of arms, "my inclination prompted me to use my pen, and the general finished his enterprise when I did mine; for there, on the waters upon the deck of the San Juan, beneath the banners of the Catholic king, I wrote, 'The Beauty of Angelica.'" Thus, amidst storms and disasters, when his brother died in his arms, struck by a ball in a skirmish with the Dutch at the very commencement of the expedition; while the ships around them were a prey to winds, and waves, and the enemy; and the fury of the violent tempests spread destruction around, Lope wrapped himself in his imagination, and beguiled his sorrows and anxieties by the pleasures of composition. "The Beauty of Angelica" is a continuation of Ariosto's poem. The Italian leaves the heroine on her road to Cathay, and Lope brings them to Spain. His tale is unconnected. Carried away by Spanish diffuseness, he frames neither plot nor story, but rambles on as his fancy leads. It opens with the marriage of Lido, a king of Andalusia with Clorinarda, a daughter of the king of Fez, who, meanwhile, loves Cardiloro, a son of Mandricardo and Doralice; a pair familiar to all the readers of Ariosto. The unhappy bride dies of grief, and her husband follows her to the tomb, leaving his kingdom to the most beautiful, be that either man or woman. The judges sit in judgment, and give their stupid opinions, on which Lope exclaims—
"O dotards! through your spectacles who pry,
And ask the measure of a lovely face;
Measure the influence of a woman's eye,
And ye may then I ween compute the space;
That intervenes between the earth and sky."[93]
Many candidates arrive,—the old and ugly and decrepit, leaving their homes, and braving every danger,—to claim the reward of beauty. Among them, but surpassing all in charms, Angelica and Medoro appear. Angelica is described with the greatest minuteness,—brow, eyes, nose, ears, and teeth are all depicted. But more beautiful than this sort of Mosaic portraiture are the verses that portray her companion.
"Scarce twenty years had seen the lovely boy,
As ringlet locks and yellow down proclaim;
Fair was his height, and grave to gazers seemed
Those eyes, which where they turned with love and softness beamed."
The judges decide in favour of Angelica, and she and her husband are crowned. But their beauty gives rise to many a passion in the bosoms of others; and various are the incidents, brought about by enchantments and other means, which for a time disunite the beautiful pair, who, at last, discover their mistakes, and the poem ends with their happiness. This work possesses little merit, except here and there in short passages; but it is a singular specimen of Lope's power of composition, amidst circumstances so foreign to the subject in hand.
1590.
Ætat.
28.
On his return from the Armada, he quitted the career of arms, and entered the service, first, of the marquis de Malpica, and soon after of the count of Lemos, leaving him only on occasion of his second marriage to donna Juana de Guardio, a lady of Madrid, of whom he thus speaks:—
"Who could have thought that I should find a wife,
When from that war I reached my native shore,
Sweet for the love which ruled her life,
Dear for the sorrows which she bore?
Such love which could endure through cold and hot,
Could only have been mine or Jacob's lot."[94]