dedication to Portocarrero, the collection includes three individual poems which are dedicated to that personage: (1) _Virtud, hija del Cielo_; (2) _No siempre es poderosa_; (3) _La cana y alta cumbre_. In _La cana y alta cumbre_ there is a reference to la cruda guerra que agora el Marte airado despierta en la alta sierra. These verses can scarcely allude to anything but the Alpujarras rising of 1568-1571, and the conjecture hardens into certainty in view of the mention of Alonso and Poqueira: this is clearly the Alonso Portocarrero who, as Hurtado de Mendoza records, perished at Poqueira, 'trabado del veneno usado dende los tiempos antiguos entre cazadores'. This poem must have been written when Luis de Leon was at least forty-one. _Virtud, hija del cielo_, in mentioning the _Miño_, refers to Portocarrero's appointment in Galicia; and as Portocarrero's term of office appears to have lasted from 1571 to 1580, the poem cannot be dated earlier than 1571 when Luis de Leon was over forty-three. If the mention of _la morisca armada_ in the lines _A Santiago_ glances at the battle of Lepanto which was fought on October 7, 1571, then the poem must have been written after that date, when the author was close on forty-four. The verses dedicated to Juan de Grial, with their closing reference to the writer's trials: Que yo, de un torbellino traidor acometido, y derrocado del medio del camino al hondo, el plectro amado y del vuelo las alas he quebrado; the fervent entreaty _A todos los santos_ and its unreserved lament: No niego, dulce amparo del alma, que mis males son mayores que aqueste desamparo; mas cuanto son peores, tanto resonaran mas tus loores; the very beautiful and justly renowned _Virgen que el sol mas pura_, with its heart-rending supplication: los ojos vuelve al suelo y mira un miserable en cárcel dura cercado de tinieblas y tristeza: possibly[268] the song _Del conocimiento de si mismo_, with its significant simile: el gusanillo de la gente hollado un rey era, conmigo comparado; and assuredly the famous _quintillas_ beginning _Aqui la envidia y mentira_: these compositions were probably composed during, or after, the writer's imprisonment at Valladolid, that is to say between the spring of 1572 and the winter of 1576, when Luis de Leon was from forty-four or forty-five to forty-eight or forty-nine. _Del mundo y su vanidad_ glances at la grave desventura del lusitano, por su mal valiente, la soberbia bravura de su animosa gente desbaratada miserablemente.