Quotes from book
La Dorotea


Lope De Vega photo

“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.”

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)

Lope De Vega photo

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

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)

Lope De Vega photo

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

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)

Similar authors

Lope De Vega photo
Lope De Vega 8
Spanish playwright and poet 1562–1635
Pedro Calderón de la Barca photo
Pedro Calderón de la Barca 8
Spanish dramatist
Miguel de Cervantes photo
Miguel de Cervantes 178
Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright
Joseph Addison photo
Joseph Addison 226
politician, writer and playwright
Friedrich Schiller photo
Friedrich Schiller 111
German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright
William Shakespeare photo
William Shakespeare 699
English playwright and poet
John of the Cross photo
John of the Cross 48
Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint
Richard Brinsley Sheridan photo
Richard Brinsley Sheridan 58
Irish-British politician, playwright and writer
Pierre Beaumarchais photo
Pierre Beaumarchais 11
French playwright diplomat and polymath
John Fletcher photo
John Fletcher 52
English Jacobean playwright