Book: Fray Luis de Leon

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It is sometimes alleged against Luis de Leon that he is restricted in
his choice of themes, and it is impossible to deny that his sacred
profession acted as something of a limitation to him. Still, when the
mood was on him, he rent his chains asunder as readily as Samson broke
the seven green withs at Gaza: 'as a thread of tow is broken when it
toucheth the fire.' Perhaps nobody would guess off-hand that the
_Profecia del Tajo_ was the handiwork of a sixteenth-century monk, a
dweller in the rarefied atmosphere of mysticism. It only remained for
a friar in the opposition camp to discover nearly three hundred years
later a tendency in Luis de Leon to treat sensual themes in a sensual
fashion.[272] To deal seriously with a belated judgement based on
malignant ignorance would be a waste of time. It is the very irony of
fate that the poem which has been the subject of severe censure should
prove to be a translation from Cardinal Bembo.[273] The standard of
the twentieth century is not the standard of the sixteenth, and it is
certain that Luis de Leon has not the unfettered liberty of a godless
layman. He is restrained by his austere temperament, by his monk's
habit, by Christian doctrine. Nevertheless he moves with easy grace
and dignity on planes so far apart as those of patriotism, of
devotion, of human sympathy, of introspection. His patriotism finds
powerful expression, as already noted, in the _Profecia del Tajo_,
besprinkled with sonorous place-names, these growing fewer as the
movement is accelerated, and Father Tagus describes with a mixture of
picturesque mediaeval sentiment and martial music the onset of the
Arabs and the clangour of arms as they meet the doomed Gothic host. In
the sphere of devotional poetry Luis de Leon nowhere displays more
unction, more ecstatic piety than in the verses on the Ascension
beginning with the line:

Y dexas, Pastor santo.

It will be observed that the conjunction _y_, so superabundant in _La
Perfecta Casada_, is the first word of this poem, of which Churton has
supplied a well-known rendering:

And dost Thou, holy Shepherd, leave
Thy flock in this dark vale alone,
In cheerless solitude to grieve,
Whilst Thou to endless rest art gone?

The sheep, in Thy protection blest,
Untended wilt Thou leave to mourn?
The lambs, once cherished at Thy breast,
Forlorn,--oh! whither shall they turn?

Where shall those eyes now find repose,
That pine Thy gracious glance to see?
What can they hear but sounds of woes,
Sad exiles from discourse with Thee?

And who shall curb this troubled deep,
When Thou no more amidst the gloom
Shalt chide the wrathful winds to sleep,
And guide the labouring vessel home?

For Thou art gone! that cloud so bright
That bears Thee from our gaze away,
Springs upward into dazzling light,
And leaves us here to weep and pray.

Four additional stanzas, accepted as authentic by perhaps the most
painstaking of Luis de Leon's editors, are thus Englished by Churton:

Our life has lost its richest store,
The balm for sorrow's inward thorn,
The hope, that, gladd'ning more and more,
Out-brighten'd all the springs of morn.

Ah me! my soul, what hateful chain
Holds back thy freeborn spirit's flight?
Oh break it, disenthrall'd from pain,
And mount those azure depths of light.

Why should'st thou fear? What earth-born spell
Is on thee, with thy choice at strife
The soul no dying pang can quell,
But loss of Christ is death in life.

Dear Lord, and Friend, more dear to me
Than all the names Earth's love hath found,
Through darkest gloom I'll follow Thee,
Or cheer'd with beaming glory round.

Now there is no question of mere executive skill and simple
craftsmanship in Luis de Leon's poems. He is, indeed, always sound and
competent in these respects; but artistry is not his supreme virtue as
a poet. He is ever prone to be a little rugged in his manner, and this
ruggedness has proved something of a trap to the unwary. Luis de Leon
has no real mannerisms, and is no more to be parodied than is
Shakespeare. Yet it is sometimes difficult to distinguish him at his
worst from his imitators at their best. Though withheld so long from
the public, Luis de Leon's poems, while still in manuscript, were
repeatedly imitated--especially by Augustinians. To my way of
thinking, he is most nearly approached by his friend Arias Montano.
But it should be said that this is not the general verdict. That goes
decisively in favour of Miguel Sanchez, _el Divino_. Miguel Sanchez is
the author of a beautiful _Cancion de Cristo Crucificado_, a poem
which, though not published till 1605 with the real writer's name
attached to it, has constantly been ascribed to Luis de Leon.[274] The
_Cancion_ is no doubt a composition of great charm and mystic unction;
but it lacks the concentrated force of Luis de Leon. Luis de Leon has
a lofty dignity of his own; he outstrips all rivalry by virtue of his
nobility, by virtue of his intellectual vigour, by virtue of sheer
excellence rather than by curious refinements of technique. These
positive qualities defy reproduction by even the most accomplished of
imitators. It has been said that Luis de Leon's verse, as well as his
prose, has noticeable roughnesses; but let us not derive a wrong
impression from this assertion. Luis de Leon is not 'finicking'.
Withal he is a master of his art. Retrograde as we may perhaps think
him in some matters, he was on the side of the reformers in the
matter of metrics. He was a partisan of Boscan's innovating methods:
so much might be expected from a man of his period. It is to be noted
that, in his best poems, he shows a decided preference for _liras_, a
form apparently invented by Bernardo Tasso before it was transplanted
to Spain by Garcilasso de la Vega. Luis de Leon was of opinion that
those who violate poetry, using it for purposes of a meretricious
kind, deserved punishment as public corrupters of two most sacred
things: poetry and morals. It is one of the curious ironies of art
that the measure which the seductive Garcilasso used for amatory
purposes should have appealed to Luis de Leon as the vehicle most
suited to enraptured chants and hymns of philosophic meditation.

It is obvious that Luis de Leon took a keen interest in all the real
essentials of his art. It is no less obvious that he saw matters in
their actual perspective, that he attached no undue importance to
technique, as such, and that he gave no less weight to the choice of
matter than to the choice of form. Luis de Leon was not incapable of
metrical audacities: as when he divides into two separate words
adverbs in _-mente_ occurring at the end of a line. This practice was
audacious, but it was not an innovation. Juan de Almeida defended it
by citing a host of precedents from other literatures and, had Almeida
been a prophet, he might have foretold that this device was destined
to be repeated hundreds of years later by that innovating genius Ruben
Dario. But Almeida was not a prophet. His titles to remembrance are
that he was learned, and that he may rank with Miguel Sanchez, with
Alonso de Espinosa, and with Benito Arias Montano as among the least
unsuccessful of Luis de Leon's followers. They often follow his lead
with undeniable adroitness. Yet they never attain his incomparable
concentration, his majestic vision of nature and his characteristic
note of ecstatic aloofness. Nowhere is he more himself than in the
immortal stanzas dedicated to Oloarte under the title of _Noche
serena_ of which Churton has bequeathed us an English version which I
will quote, though it gives but a far-off echo of the original's magic
melody:

When nightly through the sky
I view the stars their files unnumber'd leading,
Then see the dark earth lie
In deathlike trance, unheeding
How Life and Time with those bright orbs are speeding:

Strong love and equal pain
Wake in my heart a fire with anguish burning;
The tear-drops fall like rain,
Mine eyes to fountains turning,
And my sad voice pours forth its tones of mourning:

O mansion of high state,
Bright temple of bright saints in beauty dwelling,
The soul, once born to mate
With these, what force repelling
Hath bound to earth, its light in darkness quelling?

What mortal disaccord
Hath exiled so from Truth the mind unstable?
Why of its blest reward
Forgetful, lost, unable,
Seeks it each shadowy fraud and guileful fable?

Man lies in slumber dead,
Like one that of his danger hath no feeling,
The while with silent tread
Those restless orbs are wheeling,
And, as they fly, his hours of life are stealing.

O mortals, wake and rise;
Think of the loss that on your lives is pressing;
The soul, that never dies,
Ordain'd for endless blessing,
How shall it live, false shows for truth caressing?

Ah, raise your fainting eyes
To that firm sphere which still new glory weareth,
And scorn the low disguise
The flattering world prepareth,
And all the world's poor thrall hopeth or feareth.

O what is all earth's round,
Brief scene of man's proud strife and vain endeavour,
Weigh'd with that deep profound,
That tideless Ocean-river,
That onward bears Time's fleeting forms for ever?

Once meditate, and see
That fix'd accord in wondrous variance given,
The mighty harmony
Of courses all uneven,
Wherein each star keeps time and place in heaven.

Who can behold that store
Of light unspent, and not, with very sighing,
Burst earth's frail bonds, and soar,
With soul unbodied flying,
From this sad place of exile and of dying?

There dwelleth sweet Content;
There is the reign of Peace; there, throned in splendour,
As one pre-eminent,
With dove-like eyes so tender,
Sits holy Love,--honour and joy attend her.

There is reveal'd whate'er
Of Beauty thought can reach; the source internal
Of purest Light, that ne'er
To darkness yields; eternal
Bloom the bright flowers in clime for ever vernal.

There would my spirit be,
Those quiet fields and pleasant meads exploring,
Where Truth immortally,
Her priceless wealth outpouring,
Feeds through the blissful vales the souls of saints adoring.

The fact that the original is cast in the _lira_ form would compel one
to assign this composition to a date not earlier than 1542, when
Garcilasso's poems were first published. Nothing, however, could be
more remote from Garcilasso's nebulous half-pagan melancholy; we are
no less distant from the pseudonymous nymphs of Cetina and Francisco
de la Torre: the elegant Amaryllis of the one, the elusive Filis of
the other, though destined to be re-incarnated by a tribe of later
poets, find no place in these stately numbers. Luis de Leon does not
emulate Alcazar's epigrammatic wit, nor Herrera's Petrarchan
sweetness, nor Ercilla's tumultuous rhetoric. He has an individuality
all his own, the moral purpose of the man is wedded to the poet's art
in such wise that he strikes a note individual and completely new in
Spanish literature--a note rarely heard in any literature till we
catch its strain in the verses of him who tells us that

The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

In Luis de Leon, as in Wordsworth, art is raised to a hieratic
dignity: both have a splendid simplicity, a most lofty expression of
sublime meditation--qualities rare everywhere in every age, and rarest
of all in the flamboyant, if gloomy, Spain of the sixteenth century.

Luis de Leon has his weak points. He does not attain to the angelic
melody of St. John of the Cross. He is apt to be indifferent to sheer
beauty of form; though he often reaches it, this success seems with
him to be a happy accident. Lucidity is not his main object; though he
uses simple terms, his immense range of knowledge tempts him at whiles
to indulge in allusions which it might tax all the ingenuity of
commentators to explain. Commentators of Luis de Leon have a
sufficiently heavy task before them in reconstructing the text of his
poems--the heavier because the originals no longer exist. Sr. de Onis
has given us some idea of the problems to be solved.[275] Whatever
flaws are revealed in Luis de Leon's manner, he is nearly always
vital, nearly always has something elevating, illuminating and
beautiful to say. As a human being, too, he is not above criticism.
There is an unpleasant savour in the story that he asked Antonio Perez
to let him have the Chrysostom manuscript which he proposed to
translate in Paris, the profits to be divided. We need not believe
this perhaps calumnious little tale. Antonio Perez is open to
suspicion of being an assassin and a traitor; he may also have been
untruthful. Luis de Leon is not a candidate for canonization. He was
no icicle of perfection. He was something vastly more interesting than
a chill intellectual: a man ardent, austere, conscious of resplendent
intellectual faculties, perhaps a little arrogant when off his guard,
incautious but wary, individualistic but self-sacrificing, emotional,
sensitive, reticent: a mass of conflicting qualities blended, unified
and held in subjection by sheer strength of will, fortified by a
professional discipline, deliberately embraced and rigorously
followed. Add to this that he had in a supreme degree the creative
impulse, an irrepressible instinct for self-expression. It is not
strange that the self-expression of a personality so fine, so complex,
so rich, so rare, should produce the series of compositions which
entitle Luis de Leon to rank among the very greatest of Spanish
poets, and beside the most glorious figures in the history of any
literature. He stands a little apart from the rest of Spanish poets in
a splendid solitude which befits him; he must perforce be solitary,
dwelling as he most often does at altitudes inaccessible to ordinary
mortals.

Those solemn heights but to the stars are known,
But to the stars, and the cold lunar beams:
Alone the sun arises, and alone
Spring the great streams.




V


[Footnote 263: They must have been known to the dedicatee of the
_Noche serena_, whom I am inclined to identify with Diego de Olarte
who appeared before the Valladolid tribunal (_Documentos ineditos_,
vol. XI, pp. 301-302). But the only positive evidence on this head is
given by Francisco de Salinas who testified 'que era amigo del dicho
fray Luis de Leon, el cual venia muchas veces a casa deste testigo, y
oyo deste testigo la especulativa, y comunicaba con este testigo cosas
de poesia y otras cosas del arte' (_Documentos ineditos_, vol. XI, pp.
302-303).]

[Footnote 264: In the early editions--those of 1583, 1585, 1587, 1595,
and 1603--_De los nombres de Cristo_ and _La Perfecta Casada_ are
bound up together. Each treatise has a separate pagination in all five
cases.]

[Footnote 265: Luis de Leon's mother was 'Ines de Valera, hija de Juan
de Valera, vecino que fue de la villa de Belmente, escudero, que vivia
de su hacienda' (_Documentos ineditos_, vol. X, pp. 170-171). The
substitution of Varela for Valera, or vice versa, is easy in Spanish.
An example of such a substitution in the case of Luis de Leon's mother
is given by Blanco Garcia, _Fr. Luis de Leon_, p. 24, _n._ 1. Blanco
Garcia mentions a tombstone in the monastery of San Jeronimo at
Granada with the following inscription:

'_En esta capilla esta enterrado el noble hidalgo el Lic. Lope de Leon
del Cº del Rey nuestro Senor, Oidor que fue de Granada, y Asistente de
Sevilla: fallecio a 24 de Julio de 1562 anos: y Dona Ines Barela_
(sic), _y Alarcon, su mujer, doto esta capilla para entierro suyo y de
sus descendientes._'

The name of Luis de Leon's maternal grandmother was Mencia Alvarez
Osorio. From these circumstances, it appears possible that some
relationship existed between the dedicatee of _La Perfecta Casada_ and
the author of that treatise. Luis de Leon had four maternal uncles,
three of whom were laymen--Francisco de Valera, Bernardino de Valera,
and Cristobal de Alarcon, 'capitan que fue en Italia'. All three had
died before April 15, 1572 (_Documentos ineditos_, vol. X, p. 181).

It is also possible that Isabel Osorio (_Documentos ineditos_, vol.
XI, p. 271), to whom the manuscript of the vernacular version of the
_Song of Songs_ was lent, may likewise have been related to Luis de
Leon.]

[Footnote 266: Orozco's treatise was printed in _La Ciudad de Dios_
(1888), vol. XXI, pp. 393-401, and vol. XXII, pp. 543-550. It is
reproduced by Sr. D. Federico de Onis in his edition of _De los
nombres de Cristo_ in the series of _Clasicos Castellanos_ (1914),
vol. XXVIII, pp. 261-281, and (1917), vol. XXXIII, pp. 257-271.]

[Footnote 267: Nowhere have I found an indication of Portocarrero's
birth-date. He became Bishop of Calahorra in 1587, and was translated
to Cordoba in 1594; he died on September 20, 1600.]

[Footnote 268: Alonso Getino (_op. cit._, p. 48) writes, however: 'la
_Cancion del conocimiento de si mismo_, que es la primera cuya fecha
se puede averiguar, la escribio diez anos despues de entrar en
religion'. This is an inference from the closing lines of the poem:

aunque sane del mal y su accidente
diez anos ha que soy convaleciente.

In a note to the passage quoted above, Alonso Getino refers to the
_Cancion al nacimiento de la hija del Marques de Alcanices_, written,
as he thinks, 'en un tono impropio de un imberbe'. He appears to have
no doubt as to the authenticity of this composition: the correctness
of the ascription of this poem to Luis de Leon is at least
questionable.]

[Footnote 269: The pieces printed by Sanchez are translations of Ode
X, Book II; Ode XXII, Book I; Ode XIII, Book IV; and Epode II.]

[Footnote 270: _Obras del excelente poeta Garcilasso de la Vega_,
Salamanca, 1577. This (second) edition is the earliest to which I have
access. On pp. 91-92 Sanchez writes: 'Trato este elegantemente
Horacio, Oda 10. lib. I. Y porque un docto destos reynos la traduxo
bi[~e], y ay pocos casos destos en nuestra lengua, le pondre aqui
todo: y ansi enti[~e]do hazer en el discurso destas sentencias quando
se ofreciere'. On p. 94, Sanchez writes: 'Por traer el lugar de
Horacio, donde todo esto se toma, aure de poner toda la Oda, sacada
por el mismo que traduxo la otra'. On pp. 97-98 Sanchez writes: 'Al
reves desto se burla Horacio de una dama, motejandola de vieja: y [~q]
ya se le passo la flor, aunque ella no lo piensa. Y por estar
traduzida por el mismo [~q] las pasadas, pogo aqui la Oda, que es
del libro 4 l. 13.']

[Footnote 271: This slip has been pointed out by Menendez y Pelayo in
both editions (Madrid, 1878[?] and 1885) of his _Horacio en Espana.
Solaceas bibliograficas_.]

[Footnote 272: Alonso Getino (_op. cit._, p. 50) and in _El Correo
Espanol_ (1908). A reply to these views has been made in the form of
an open letter to Sr. Berrueta, Director of _El Labaro_, by P. Conrado
Muinos Saenz. The reply of Muinos Saenz will be found in _La Ciudad de
Dios_ (1909), vol. LXXVIII, pp. 479-495, 544-560, vol. LXXIX, pp.
18-34, 107-124, 191-212, 353-374, 529-552; vol. LXXX, pp. 99-125,
177-197.]

[Footnote 273: M. Menendez y Pelayo, _Antologia de poetas liricos
castellanos_ (1908), vol. XIII, p. 332.]

[Footnote 274: It is printed among Luis de Leon's poems in the
_Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles desde la formacion del lenguaje hasta
nuestros dias_, vol. XXXVII, pp. 12-13. As this is perhaps the
best-known edition of Luis de Leon's poems, most of my quotations are
taken from it.]

[Footnote 275: _Sobre la transmision de la obra literaria de Fr. Luis
de Leon_ in _Revista de Filologia espanola_ (1915), vol. II, pp.
217-257.]




APPENDIX

EL MAESTRO FRAI LVIS DE LEON


Silas obras acertadas de algun Artifice le estan (como dize el Sabio)
alabando siempre, con cuanta mayor razon las de Dios nos dan motivo
para engrandecer su infinita Sabiduria. i mas cuando vemos que nacen
algunos ombres, acopanados de tantas gracias que parece que fueron
hechos, sin otro medio, por sus divinas manos, sien alguno se puede
esto verificar, es en el gran Maestro (como veremos) sus Progenitores
fueron de Belmonte, de clarissimo linage, en el cual resplandecieron
muchos varones insignes en letras i Santidad. El Licenciado Lope de
Leon su Padre, siendo uno de los mayores letrados de su tiempo, vino
por Oidor a Sevilla, donde hizo oficio de Asistente, i en ella tuvo
(para onra de nuestra Patria) este ilustre hijo, que siendo promovido
luego ala chancilleria de Granada, nacio en ella, elano 1528 para
engrandecer l' Andaluzia la Nacion Espanola, i el mundo. En lo
natural, fue pequeno de cuerpo, en devida proporcion, la cabeca
grande, bien formada, poblada de cabello algo crespo, i el cerquillo
cerrado, la frente espaciosa, el rostro mas redondo que aguileno,
(como lo muestra el Retrato) trigueno el color, los ojos verdes i
vivos. En lo moral, con especial don de Silencio, el ombre mas callado
que sea conocido, si bien de singular agudeza en sus dichos, con
estremo abstinente i templado, en la comida bevida, i sueno. de mucho
secreto, verdad, i fidelidad: puntual en palabra i promessas;
compuesto, poco onada risueno. Leiasse en la gravedad de su rostro, el
peso de la nobleza de su alma, resplandecia enmedio desto por
eccelencia una umildad profunda. fue limpissimo, mui onesto i
recogido, gran Religioso, i observante de las Leyes. Amava ala
santissima Virgen ternissimamente, ayunava las visperas de sus
fiestas, comiendo alas tres de la tar de, ino haziendo colacion. de
aqui nacio aqella regalada Cancion que comienca; _Virgen q'el Solmas
pura_. fue mui espiritual, i de mucha Oracion, i en ella en tiempo de
sus mayores trabajos, favorecido de Dios particularissimamente. con
ser de natural colerico fue mui sufrido i piadoso para los que le
tratavan. tan penitente i austero consigo, que las mas noches no se
acostava en cama, i el que la avia hecho la hallava ala manana de la
misma manera certificalo el Padre Maestro frai Luis Moreno de
Bohorquez (onra de su Religion, que estuvo 4 anos en su compania) a
quien devemos la verdad deste discurso, Professo en el Monesterio de
San Agustin de Salamanca, en 29 de Enero de 1544, siendo de edad de 16
anos. en lo adquisito, fue gran Dialetico i Filosofo, Maestro graduado
en Artes, i Dotor en Teologia, por aquella insigne Universidad; donde
fue Catedratico mas de 36 anos, en la Catedra de Santo Tomas de
Durando, de Filosofia moral, i de Prima de Sagrada Escritura, que tuvo
con crecido premio, por que leyesse una leccion, supo Escolastico tan
aventajadamente, como sino tratava de Escritura, i de Escritura, como
sino tratava de Escolastico. fue la mayor capacidad de ingenio que sea
conocida en su tiempo, para todas Ciencias i Artes; escrevia no menos
que nuestro Francisco Lucas, siendo famosso Matematico, Aritmetico, i
Geometra; i gran Astrologo, i Judiciario, (aunque lo uso con
templanca) fue eminente en el uno i otro derecho, Medico superior, que
entrava en el General con los desta Facultad, i arguia en sus actos.
fue gran Poeta Latino i Castellano, como lo muestran sus versos.
estudio sin Maestro la Pintura, i la exercito tan diestramente que
entre otras cosas hizo (cosa dificil) su mesmo Retrato. tuvo otras
infinitas abilidades, que callo por cosas mayores. La lengua Latina,
Griega, i Hebrea, la Caldea i Siria, supo como los Maestros della.
pues la muestra con cuanta grandeza? siendo el primero que escrivio
en ella con numero i elegacia; digalo el Libro de los Nombres de
Cristo i perfeta casada, encarecido i admirado de los doctos, que no
sabe acabar de loarlo Antonio Possevino en su Biblioteca. escrivio en
Latin Comentarios sobre los Cantares, i fue el primero que allano las
dificultades de la letra: i sobre el Psalmo 26 i el Profeta Abdias, i
la Epistola ad Galatas, i un tratado de utriusq agni: expuso otros
libros de la Escritura que no estan impressos. ai muchas obras suyas
de mano en verso, divididas en tres partes, la primera de las cosas
proprias, la segunda lo que traduxo de autores Profanos, la tercera de
los Psalmos, Cantares i Capitulos de Job. lo cual asido siempre
estimadissimo, con la carta a don Pedro Puertocarrero, a quien lo
dirige, escrivio otra en san Felipe de Madrid ano 1587 alas Carmelitas
descalcas, en favor del espiritu i escritos de Santa Teresa de Jesus,
que anda con su libro, digna de la eccelencia de su ingenio. Al passo
destas grandezas, fue la invidia que le persiguio, pero descubrio
altamente sus quilates, saliendo en todo superior, i con el mayor
triumfo i onra que en estos Reinos sea visto. fue varon de tanta
autoridad, que parecia mas a proposito para mostrar alos otros, que
para aprender de ninguno. grande su juizio i prudencia en materias de
govierno, alcanco mucha estimacion en Espana i fuera della con los
mayores ombres; consultavalo el Rei Filipo Segundo en todos los casos
graves de conciencia enviandole correos estraordinarios a Salamanca; i
despues yendo por orden de la Universidad, con particular comision, a
su Magestad, lo trato i comunico, haziendole especial favor imerced. i
en los acometimientos onrosos de Obispados, i del Arcobispado de
Mexico, descubrio su valor i animo grande, no solo para desnudarse de
la dignidad (cosa intentada de pocos) mas aun de todo cuanto tenia en
la tierra: varon de veras Evangelico. en estos santos exercicios i con
esta continuacion de vida, siendo Provincial de la Provincia de
Castilla, acabo su curso santamente (dexando en todos harto
desconsuelo, aun que mayor certeza de su gloria) en la villa de
Madrigal en 24 de Agosto del ano 1595. de 63 anos de edad. traxeronle
con la devida onra a san Agustin de Salamanca donde avia tomado el
abito, i yaze sepultado en el claustro de aquel ilustre Convento. I
para cumplimiento de su Elogio i de mi desseo no me contente con menos
(en onra de tan insigne varon) de que los versos Latinos fuessen del
Licenciado Rodrigo Caro, i los Castellanos de Lope de Vega, en su
Laurel de Apolo, con que se encarecen bastatem[~e]te.

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