Note 214 — Chapter XIII

Montalvan, it should be noted, seems willing to slide over these “frowns of fortune, brought on by his youth and aggravated by his enemies.” But Lope attributes to them his exile, which came, he says, from “love in early youth, whose trophies were exile and its results tragedies.” (Epístola Primera á D. Ant. de Mendoza.) But he also attributes it to false friends, in the fine ballad where he represents himself as looking down upon the ruins of Saguntum and moralizing on his own exile:—“Bad friends,” he says, “have brought me here.” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVII. p. 434, and Romancero General, 1602, f. 108.) But again, in the Second Part of his “Philomena,” 1621, (Obras Sueltas, Tom. II. p. 452), he traces his troubles to his earlier adventures; “love to hatred turned.” “Love-vengeance,” he declares, “disguised as justice, exiled me.”