"Sulca del mar de amor las rubias ondas,
barco de Barcelona, y por los bellos
lazos navega altivo, aunque por ellos
tal vez te muestres, y tal vez te escondas.
Ya no flechas, Amor, dorados ondas
teje de sus esplendidos cabellos;
tu con los dientes no lo quites dellos,
para que a tanta dicha correspondas.
Desenvuelve los rizos con decoro,
los paralelos de mi sol desata,
box o colmillo de elephante Moro,
y en tanto que esparcidos los dilata
forma por la madeja sendas de ora
antes que el tiempo los convierta en plata."
"Era del año la estacion florida,
en que el mentido robador de Europa
(media Luna las armas de su frente,
y el Sol todos los rayos de su pelo)
luziente honor del cielo
en campos de zafiro pace las estrellas,
quando el que ministrar podia la copa
a Jupiter, mejor que el garçon de Ida
naufragò, y desdeñado sobre ausente
lagrimosas de Amor, dulces querellas
Dá al mar, que condolido
fue a las ondas, que al viento
el misero gemido,
segundo de Arion dulce instrumento
del siempre en la montaña opuesto pino,
al enemigo Noto
piadoso miembro roto,
breve tabla, Delfin no fue pequeño
al inconsiderado peregrino,
que a una Libia de ondas su camino
fio, y su vida a un leño
del oceano, pues antes sorvido
y luego vomitado,
no lexos de un escollo coronado
de secos juncos, de calientes plumas,
(Alga todo, y espumas)
hallò hospitalidad donde hallò nido
de Jupiter el ave,
besa la arena, y de la reta nave
aquella parte poca
que lo expuso en la playa, dio a la roca,
que aun se dexan las peñas
lisongear de agradecidas señas,
desnudo el joven, quanto ya el vestido
oceano ha bevido
restituir le haze a las arenas,
y al sol lo estiende luego,
que lamiendolo apenas
su dulce lengua de templado fuego
lento lo embiste, y con suave estilo
la menor honda chupa al menor hilo."
[QUEVEDO]
1580-1645.
Spaniards may look back with pride to this epoch, so fertile in genius, so prolific of the talent and high character that germinates in the Spanish soul, and which it required unexampled despotism and cruelty to crush and efface. Not that the inborn greatness of that people is lost, but its outward demonstration, after this period, became the unheard and sightless prey of political oppression. The words of Gray, wherein he speaks of the heroes and poets who may have been born and died without achieving distinction, or performing any act capable of winning it, is so true, perhaps, in no country as in Spain: but with them it cannot be said, that
"Chill penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul."
It was the stake and the dungeon, a system of misrule, and the aspect of the merciless deeds committed by their governors on helpless multitudes, that destroyed the energies, and blighted the genius, of the people. When we read of such acts as the banishment of the Moriscos, and the history of all that high-hearted people suffered—torn from their native vales and hills, and cast out upon the stranger—we wonder what manner of men lived in Spain, and feel that these inhuman and impious deeds must have poisoned the very air. But, politically speaking, it is not the act, but its effects, that are so baneful; national crime influences by causing the degeneracy of the race. The youth may live a life of sin; it is the man that is the sufferer. And thus the heroes of Spain of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, might glory in their children of the sixteenth; but the infection of evil had touched these, and their descendants made good the awful denunciation,—that the children are to suffer for their parents' crimes—an annunciation of divine will, so carried out in the vast system of the world, though often omitted in particular instances, as to demonstrate that it is one of the laws bestowed by heaven to govern the human race.
Among the men who, last of the Spaniards of renown, flourished at that epoch, Quevedo deserves particular mention. He was a man of genius—a man who acted as well as wrote, and displayed in both originality, penetration and rectitude; whose character was as admirable as his intellect. He was the victim, also, of the most frightful misrule; and the fate of Quevedo alone might be brought forward as an example of the infamy of the political institutions of Spain.
Don Francisco Gomez de Quevedo Villegas, was born at Madrid in September 1580. His father, Pedro Gomez de Quevedo, was a courtier. He had been secretary to the empress Mary, and afterwards filled the same situation to queen Anne, wife of Philip II. His mother, donna Maria de Santibanez, also was attached to the court, and was a lady of the bedchamber to the queen. They were both of noble family, and descended from the most ancient landed proprietors of the Montana, in the Valle de Toranzo.