Origin of the title of "La Dragontea" by Lope de Vega?

Question

Why Lope de Vega titled his poem La Dragontea, what were the prerequisites? I tried to search the etymology of this word but was not successful.

Yes, I know that Chinese Dragon Tea exists, but I suppose it has nothing to do with Vega's poem, because Longjing tea was named Dragon Tea by English speakers, and Vega was a Spanish-speaking author, so this is irrelevant.

I also know an old music-hit Dragostea Din Tei but this is ridiculous as this name has Romanian language origin :)

I've found couple of researches about this book but they are all paid, so I cannot inspect them up.

Anybody knows the etymology or story of invention of this word? Some credible historical evidences?

Answer 1

The subject of Vega’s poem is the disastrous expedition of Francis Drake against the Spanish colony of Panamá in Central America, where he met his death of dysentery in 1596. ‘Drake’ of course means ‘dragon’, and Vega combined this with ‘tea’, meaning ‘fire-torch’ in Spanish, to produce an image of the English sailor as a fire-breathing dragon:

Como el Alva sus parpados abria
estornudando resplandor intenso,
lamparas de su boca despedia,
de sus narices humo negro y denso

His eyelids, raised, released the light of dawn;
His snorting breath lit up the heavens with fire;
His mouth sent tongues of flame into the sky;
His nostrils poured out black and smoking clouds.

_{Lope Félix de Vega Carpio. ‘La Dragontea’, Canto X. In Coleccion de las Obras Sueltas (1776), volume 3, p. 371. Madrid: Antonio de Sancha. The (somewhat fanciful) English translation is from Simon Schama (2015), The Face of Britain, Viking.}