Lope De Vega Quotes (8 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo

Lope De Vega

Desmayarse

Lope De Vega

Lope De Vega: 8 quotes 1 like

Famous Lope De Vega Quotes

“And what shall I say of the poets? Oh, this poor century of ours! In the coming year many of them will make their start, but not one of them is as bad as Cervantes, or idiotic enough to praise Don Quixote.”

Lope De Vega

De poetas no digo: buen siglo es éste. Muchos están en ciernes para el año que viene; pero ninguno hay tan malo como Cervantes ni tan necio que alabe a don Quijote.
Letter dated August 14, 1604; cited from Nicolás Marín (ed.) Cartas (Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, 1985) p. 68. Translation by Ilsa Barea, from Sebastià Juan Arbó Cervantes: Adventurer, Idealist, and Destiny's Fool (London: Thames and Hudson, 1955) p. 204.

“Harmony is pure love, for love is complete agreement.”

Lope De Vega Fuenteovejuna

Armonía es puro amor, porque el amor es concierto.
Fuenteovejuna (1613), Barrildo, Act I.

“In ancient days they said truth had fled to heaven: attacked on every side, it's not been heard of since. We live in different ages, non-Spaniards and ourselves: they in the age of silver, we in the age of brass.”

Lope De Vega book La Dorotea

Dijeron que antiguamente
se fue la verdad al cielo;
tal la pusieron los hombres,
que desde entonces no ha vuelto.
En dos edades vivimos
los propios y los ajenos:
la de plata los estraños,
y la de cobre los nuestros.
Act I, sc. iv. Translation from Alan S. Trueblood and Edwin Honig (ed. and trans.) La Dorotea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1985) p. 23.
La Dorotea (1632)

“Lord, what am I, that, with unceasing care,
Thou didst seek after me, — that Thou didst wait,
Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate,
And pass the gloomy nights of winter there?”

Lope De Vega

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 89.

“Since after all, it is the crowd who pays,
Why not content them when you write your plays?”

Lope De Vega book Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo

Como las paga el vulgo, es justo
hablarle en necio para darle gusto.
Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo, line 47. (1609). Translation from Marvin A. Carlson Theories of the Theatre (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, [1984] 1993) p. 62.

“Lone I muse but feel not lonely,
Covert solitude’s my lore;
For my company I only
Want my thoughts and nothing more.”

Lope De Vega book La Dorotea

A mis soledades voy,
de mis soledades vengo,
porque para andar conmigo
me bastan mis pensamientos.
Act I, sc. iv. Translation from John Armstrong Crow An Anthology of Spanish Poetry (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1979) p. 107.
La Dorotea (1632)

“To turn your face from clear proofs of deceit,
To drink poison as if it were a soothing liquor,
To disregard gain and delight in being injured.
To believe that heaven can lie contained in hell;
To devote your life and soul to being disillusioned;
This is love; whoever has tasted it, knows.”

Lope De Vega Desmayarse

Huir el rostro al claro desengaño,
beber veneno por licor süave,
olvidar el provecho, amar el daño;
creer que un cielo en un infierno cabe,
dar la vida y el alma a un desengaño;
esto es amor. Quien lo probó lo sabe.
Sonnet, "Desmayarse, atreverse, estar furioso", line 9, from Rimas (1602); cited from José Manuel Blecua (ed.) Lírica (Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, [1981] 1999) p. 136. Translation from Eugenio Florit (ed.) Introduction to Spanish Poetry (New York: Dover, [1964] 1991) p. 65.

“But life is short: while one lives, everything is lacking; when one is dead, everything is superfluous.”

Lope De Vega book La Dorotea

Pero la vida es corta:
viviendo, todo falta;
muriendo, todo sobra.
Act III, sc. vii. Translation from Arthur Terry Seventeenth-Century Spanish Poetry (Cambridge: CUP, 1993) p. 118.
La Dorotea (1632)