The exile of Lope lasted several years, and was chiefly passed at Valencia, then in literary reputation next after Madrid among the cities of Spain. Nor does he seem to have missed the advantages it offered him; for it was, no doubt, during his residence there that he formed a friendship with Gaspar de Aguilar and Guillen de Castro, of which many traces are to be found in his works; while, on the other hand, it is perhaps not unreasonable to assume that the theatre, which was just then beginning to take its form in Valencia, was indebted to the fresh power of Lope for an impulse it never afterwards lost. At any rate, we know that he was much connected with the Valencian poets, and that, a little later, they were among his marked followers in the drama. But his exile was still an exile,--bitter and wearisome to him,--and he gladly returned to Madrid as soon as he could venture there safely. His home, however, soon ceased to be what it had been. His young wife died in less than a year after his return, and one of his friends, Pedro de Medinilla, joined him in an eclogue to her memory, which is dedicated to Lope’s patron, Antonio Duke of Alva,[216]--a poem of little value, and one that does much less justice to his feelings than some of his numerous verses to the same lady, under the name of Belisa, which are scattered through his own works and found in the old Romanceros.[217] [216] Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. pp. 430-443. _Belardo_, the name Lope bears in this eclogue, is the one he gave himself in the Arcadia, as may be seen from the sonnet prefixed to that pastoral by Amphryso, or Antonio Duke of Alva; and it is the poetical name Lope bore to the time of his death, as may be seen from the beginning of the third act of the drama in honor of his memory. (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 494.) Even his Peruvian Amaryllis knew it, and under this name addressed to him the poetical epistle already referred to. This fact--that Belardo was his recognized poetical appellation--should be borne in mind when reading the poetry of his time, where it frequently recurs. [217] _Belisa_ is an anagram of Isabela, the first name of his wife, as is plain from a sonnet on the death of her mother, Theodora Urbina, where he speaks of her as “the heavenly image of his Belisa, whose silent words and gentle smiles had been the consolation of his exile.” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 278.) There are several ballads connected with her in the Romancero General, and a beautiful one in the third of Lope’s Tales, written evidently while he was with the Duke of Alva. Obras, Tom. VIII. p. 148.