[233] Tres ángeles á Abraham Una vez aparecieron, Que á verle á Mambre vinieron: Bien que á este número dan El que en figura trujeron. Seis vienen á Isidro á ver: O gran Dios, que puede ser? Donde los ha de alvergar? Mas vienen á consolar, Que no vienen á comer. Si como Sara, María Cocer luego pan pudiera, Y él como Abraham truxera El cordero que pacia, Y la miel entre la cera, Yo sé que los convidara. Mas quando lo que no ara. Le dicen que ha de pagar; Como podrá convidar A seis de tan buena cara? Disculpado puede estar, Puesto que no los convide, Pues su pobreza lo impide, Isidro, aunque puede dar Muy bien lo que Dios le pide. Vaya Abraham al ganado, Y en el suelo humilde echado, Dadle el alma, Isidro, vos, Que nunca desprecia Dios El corazon humillado. No queria el sacrificio De Isaac, sino la obediencia De Abraham. Obras Sueltas, Tom. XI. p. 69. No doubt, some of the circumstances in the poem are invented for the occasion, though there is in the margin much parade of authorities for almost every thing;--a practice very common at that period, to which Lope afterwards conformed only once or twice. But however we may now regard the “San Isidro,” it was printed four times in less than nine years; and, by addressing itself more to the national and popular feeling than the “Arcadia” had done, it became the foundation for its author’s fame as the favorite poet of the whole nation. At this time, however, he was beginning to be so much occupied with the theatre, and so successful, that he had little leisure for any thing else. His next considerable publication,[234] therefore, was not till 1602, when the “Hermosura de Angélica,” or the Beauty of Angelica, appeared; a poem already mentioned as having been chiefly written while its author served at sea in the ill-fated Armada. It somewhat presumptuously claims to be a continuation of the “Orlando Furioso,” and is stretched out through twenty cantos, comprehending above eleven thousand lines in octave verse. In the Preface, he says he wrote it “under the rigging of the galleon Saint John and the banners of the Catholic king,” and that “he and the generalissimo of the expedition finished their labors together”;--a remark which must not be taken too strictly, since both the thirteenth and twentieth cantos contain passages relating to events in the reign of Philip the Third. Indeed, in the Dedication, he tells his patron that he had suffered the whole poem to lie by him long for want of leisure to correct it; and he elsewhere adds, that he leaves it still unfinished, to be completed by some happier genius.