Vincentius Slavatus: Duo Epigrammata

These two epigrams are by Vincentius Slavatus of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), described in the heading as a philosopher and jurist. The first is addressed to Lope, that is the Spanish dramatist Lope de Vega: if any tigress saw his measures, the poet says, she would melt into song, and if rocks heard his songs they would become music; he calls Lope an Orpheus on earth and an Arion at sea, and suggests that if the stars heard him he would become a god. The second, addressed mockingly to a licentiate and ‘most famous pseudopoet’, defends Lope against envious critics, likening him to the phoenix that no death can destroy.

The poems show the reach of Lope de Vega’s fame across Europe in the early seventeenth century and the participation of Ragusan men of letters in the Hispanic literary world, with which Dubrovnik had close political and commercial ties. Their Orphic imagery is conventional, but they are an unusual record of a Croatian humanist taking sides in the literary quarrels around Lope. Nothing further is known here of the author beyond what the headings state.