His plays are not now acted in Madrid. The theatre, indeed, has declined in Spain, and melodrames and vaudevilles have taken place of the higher species of drama. Still Lope's works are a mine of wealth for any dramatist, whence to draw situations, plots, and dialogue. Dryden borrowed much from him; and, notwithstanding his faults, there may be found in his plays a richness of invention, a freshness and variety of ideas, and a vivacity of dialogue unsurpassed by any author.
[74]In an epistle he mentions his father as having emigrated to Madrid—he speaks of him as living in the valley of Carriedo, but deficiency of means caused him to leave his ancestral inheritance of Vega, and to remove to Madrid. There had been a quarrel between him and his wife, who was jealous, and with reason, as Lope tells us he loved a Spanish Helen; she however followed him, and they were reconciled:
"Y aquel dia
fu piedra en mi primero fundamento
la paz de su zelosa phantasia.
En fin por zelos soy; que nascimiento!
imaginalde vos, que haver nacido
de tan inquieta causa fue portento."
Belardo á Amarylis.
[75]Pellicer, Tratado sobre el origen de la Comedia.
"Efectos de mi genio y mi fortuna,
que me eseñastes versos en la cuna,
dulce memoria del principio amado
del ser que tengo, á quien la vida debo,
en este panagyrico me llama
ingrato y olvidado,
pero si no me atrevo,
no fue falta de amor, sino de fama,
que obligacion me fuerza, amor mi inflama.
Ma si Felix de Vega no la tuvo,
basta saber que en el Parnaso estuvo,
haviendo hallado yo sus borradores,
versos eran á Dios llenos de amores;
y aunque en el tiempo que escribió los versos,
no eran tan crespos como ahora y tersos,
ni las Musas tenían tantos brios,
mejores me parecen que los mios."
Laurel de Apolo.
[77]Lope often mentions having been a soldier in early youth. These expressions are generally used in reference to his having served on board the Invincible Armada, but there is a stanza in the "Huerto Deshecho," that intimates that he had entered the army at fifteen.
"Ni mi fortuna muda
ver en tres lustros de mi edad primera
con la espada desnuda
al bravo Portugues en la Tercera,
ni después en las naves Españolas
del mar Ingles los puertos y las olas."