Note 574 — Chapter XXII

The different pieces offered by Calderon for the festival of May 17, 1622, are in Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XII. pp. 181, 239, 303, 363, 384. Speaking of them, Lope (p. 413) says, a prize was given to “Don Pedro Calderon, who, in his tender years, earns the laurels which time is wont to produce only with hoary hairs.” The six or eight poems offered by Calderon at these two poetical joustings are valuable, not only as being the oldest of his works that remain to us, but as being almost the only specimens of his verse that we have, except his dramas. Cervantes, in his Don Quixote, intimates, that, at these poetical contests, the first prize was given from personal favor, or from regard to the rank of the aspirant, and the second with reference only to the merit of the poem presented. (Parte II. c. 18.) Calderon took, on this occasion, only the third prize for a cancion; the first being given to Lope, and the second to Zarate.