To 1604 belong the five prose books of the _Peregrino en su patria_, a prose romance of Pánfilo's adventures by sea and land, partly experienced and partly contrived; but it is most interesting for the four _autos_ which it includes, and for its bibliographical list of two hundred and thirty plays already written by the author. His quenchless ambition had led him to rival Ariosto in the _Angélica_: in the twenty cantos of his _Jerusalén Conquistada_ he dares no less greatly by challenging Tasso. Written in 1605, the _Jerusalén_ was withheld till 1609. Styled a "tragic epic" by its creator, it is no more than a fluent historico-narrative poem, overlaid with embellishments of somewhat cheap and obvious design. In 1612 appeared the _Four Soliloquies of Lope de Vega Carpio_: _his lament and tears while kneeling before a crucifix begging pardon for his sins._ These four sets of _redondillas_ with their prose commentaries were amplified to seven when republished (1626) under the pseudonym of Gabriel Padecopeo, an obvious anagram. The deaths of Lope's wife and of his son Carlos inspired the _Pastores de Belén_, a sacred pastoral of supreme simplicity, truth, and beauty—as Spanish as Spain herself—which contains one of the sweetest numbers in Castilian. The Virgin lulls the Divine Child with a song in Verstegan's manner, which Ticknor has rendered to this effect:— "_Holy angels and blest, Through those palms as ye sweep Hold their branches at rest, For my babe is asleep._ _And ye Bethlehem palm-trees, As stormy winds rush In tempest and fury, Your angry noise hush; More gently, more gently, Restrain your wild sweep; Hold your branches at rest, My babe is asleep._ _My babe all divine, With earth's sorrows oppressed, Seeks in slumber an instant His grievings to rest; He slumbers, he slumbers, Oh, hush, then, and keep Your branches all still, My babe is asleep!_ _Cold blasts wheel about him, A rigorous storm, And ye see how, in vain, I would shelter his form. Holy angels and blest, As above me ye sweep, Hold these branches at rest, My babe is asleep!_"