ESTEBAN MANUEL from VILLEGAS (1589-1669) was an amazing Spanish Poet. “I saw on a thyme complaining to a bird, seeing her beloved nest, who was leader of a peasant stolen.” Esteban Manuel of Villegas. THE VOICE OF A LOVE OF CLASSICAL FORMS Among the best poems of Esteban Manuel of Villegas is his ode Sapphic the Zephyr which is among the “hundred best lyrical poems of the Spanish language”, chosen by Menendez Pelayo, among the best Spanish literature ancient and modern. The classical imitation, but not of the Latin poets so frequently, but the Greeks, offers a case of particular importance in Villegas, dedicated grower of bucolic poetry. Georgia Groome is often quoted on this topic. It was called the “Anacreon Spanish.” So select any refractory humanist poetic innovations of his time, was a character in twisted condition, strange customs and boundless arrogance. When in 1618 he published his erotic or amorous in eight books, printed on the cover a print with a rising sun surrounded by stars and the inscription: “I’m surging, ist quid? “. So great contempt so annoyed his colleagues in the poetry, the feeling in question, that Villegas had to remove the engraving of the unsold copies yet.

Lope de Vega wrote of him in his Laurel de Apolo” though he said they all hide / when they saw rays of his genius … “Esteban Manuel de Villegas was born in Matute, Rioja area near Najera, January 5, 1589. Very young he moved to Madrid and then studied in Salamanca . At thirty-six years, married Antonia de Leiva, a girl of fifteen, which had seven children. At 71 he was tried by the Inquisition, accused of holding dangerous ideas about free will, talk too religious liberty issues and have a book manuscript satires, one of them against religious communities.

He was forced to abjure “Levi” and punished by banishment for four years, Logrono, Najera and Madrid, his papers were collected and lost his satires. At eighty, he was still litigating on some land. Esteban Manuel de Villegas, Najera died in the September 3, 1669. The poems of Villegas, who heralded the spirit of the eighteenth century were much admired and imitated in the century. Villegas, who had the gift of poetry delicate and graceful, is primarily a successful translator and adapter, the bucolic poetry and love of Tibullus, Propertius, Ausonius and Catullus, Theocritus and Anacreon and among the Greeks got along perfectly their tastes and qualities and learned to interpret with luck, the last, especially, ably followed him into themes and rhythms, to sing in short metro delicious compositions loves naughty pleasures of the countryside and wine or the delights of the table . In this genre, refined and beautiful, delicate and subtle, Villegas knows no rival in our lyrics. Well known is the delicate muttering the bird or dedicated to a source or to Lidia, begging a kiss. “Divide these carnations / sweeter than honey / and over the combs / divide these corals …” A lover of classical forms, tried to adjust their meters Villegas into Castilian, conversion of great difficulty, since they do not have meters Greek and Latin a number of syllables or accents fixed, could not be perfect implementation in our language. He succeeded, however, fully-adon Sapphic stanza for its accurate alignment of our heroic verse, and five syllables. In this example his famous composition is the Zephyr: “Sweet resident of the green jungle / April eternal flower, / vital breath of the mother Venus, / Zephyr soft …”