[368] C. Pellicer, Orígen del Teatro, Madrid, 1804, 12mo, Tom. I. pp. 142-148. Plays were prohibited in Barcelona in 1591 by the bishop; but the prohibition was not long respected, and in 1597 was renewed with increased earnestness. Bisbe y Vidal, Tratado de las Comedias, Barcelona, 1618, 12mo, f. 94;—a curious book, attacking the Spanish theatre with more discretion than any other old treatise against it that I have read, but not with much effect. Its author would have all plays carefully examined and expurgated before they were licensed, and then would permit them to be performed, not by professional actors, but by persons belonging to the place where the representation was to occur, and known as respectable men and decent youths; for, he adds, “when this was done for hundreds of years, none of those strange vices were committed that are the consequence of our present modes.” (f. 106.) Bisbe y Vidal is a pseudonyme for Juan Ferrer, the head of a large congregation of devout men at Barcelona, and a person who was so much scandalized at the state of the theatre in his time, that he published this attack on it for the benefit of the brotherhood whose spiritual leader he was. (Torres y Amat, Biblioteca, Art. Ferrer.) It is encumbered with theological learning; but less so than other similar works of the time.

[369] Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, ff. 110, etc. Such plays were often acted at Christmas, and went under the name of Nacimientos;—a relique of the old dramas mentioned in the “Partidas,” and written in various forms after the time of Juan de la Enzina and Gil Vicente. They seem, from hints in the “Viage” of Roxas, 1602, and elsewhere, to have been acted in private houses, in the churches, on the public stage, and in the streets, as they happened to be asked for. They were not exactly autos, but very like them, as may be seen from the “Nacimiento de Christo” by Lope de Vega, (in a curious volume entitled “Navidad y Corpus Christi Festejados,” Madrid, 1664, 4to, f. 346),—a drama quite different from this one, though bearing the same name; and quite different from another Nacimiento de Christo, in the same volume, (f. 93), attributed to Lope, and called “Auto del Nacimiento de Christo Nuestro Señor.” There are besides, in this volume, Nacimientos attributed to Cubillo, (f. 375), and Valdivielso, f. 369.

[370]

Comedias de Lope de Vega. Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, f. 111.

[371]

[372]

Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, f. 116.

[373] It is in the twenty-fourth volume of the Comedias of Lope, Madrid, 1632, and is one of a very few of his religious plays that have been occasionally reprinted.

[374] “Historia de Tobias,” Comedias, Tom. XV., Madrid, 1621, ff. 231, etc.

[375] “La Hermosa Ester,” Ibid. ff. 151, etc.

[376] “El Robo de Dina,” Comedias, Tom. XXIII., Madrid, 1638, ff. 118, etc. To this may be added a better one, in Tom. XXII., Madrid, 1635, “Los Trabajos de Jacob,” on the beautiful story of Joseph and his brethren.

[377] The underplot is slightly connected with the main story of Esther, by a proclamation of King Ahasuerus, calling before him all the fair maidens of his empire, which, coming to the ears of Silena, the shepherdess, she insists upon leaving her lover, Selvagio, and trying the fortune of her beauty at court. She fails, and on her return is rejected by Selvagio, but still maintains her coquettish spirit to the last, and goes off saying or singing, as gayly as if it were part of an old ballad,—

The best parts of the play are the more religious; like Esther’s prayers in the first and last acts, and the ballad sung at the triumphant festival when Ahasuerus yields to her beauty; but the whole, like many other plays of the same sort, is intended, under the disguise of a sacred subject, to serve the purposes of the secular theatre.

Perhaps one of the most amusing instances of incongruity in Lope, and their number is not few, is to be found in the first jornada of the “Trabajos de Jacob,” where Joseph, at the moment he escapes from Potiphar’s wife, leaving his cloak in her possession, says in soliloquy,—

Yet, absurd as the passage is for its incongruity, it may have been loudly applauded by an audience that thought much more of bull-fights than of the just rules of the drama.

[378] “El Cardenal de Belen,” Comedias, Tom. XIII., Madrid, 1620.

[379] This play is not in the collection of Lope’s Comedias, but it is in Lord Holland’s list. My copy of it is an old one, without date, printed for popular use at Valladolid.

[380] Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, ff. 91, etc.

[381] “Bautismo del Príncipe de Marruecos,” in which there are nearly sixty personages. Comedias, Tom. XI., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 269, etc. C. Pellicer, Orígen del Teatro, Tom. I. p. 86.

[382] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 153.

[383] “San Nicolas de Tolentino,” Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, ff. 167, etc. Each act, as is not uncommon in the old Spanish theatre, is a sort of separate play, with its separate list of personages prefixed. The first has twenty-one; among which are God, the Madonna, History, Mercy, Justice, Satan, etc. It opens with a masquerading scene in a public square, of no little spirit; immediately after which we have a scene in heaven, containing the Divine judgment on the soul of one who had died in mortal sin; then another spirited scene, in a public square, among loungers, with a sermon from a fervent, fanatical monk; and afterwards, successive scenes between Nicholas, who has been moved by this sermon to enter a convent, and his family, who consent to his purpose with reluctance; the whole ending with a dialogue of the rudest humor between Nicholas’s servant, who is the buffoon of the piece, and a servant-maid, to whom he was engaged to be married, but whom he now abandons, determined to follow his master into a religious seclusion, which, at the same time, he is making ridiculous by his jests and parodies. This is the first act. The other two acts are such as might be anticipated from it.

[384] This is not either of the plays ordered by the city of Madrid, to be acted in the open air in 1622, in honor of the canonization of San Isidro, and found in the twelfth volume of Lope’s Obras Sueltas; though, on a comparison with these last, it will be seen that it was used in their composition. It, in fact, was printed five years earlier, in the seventh volume of Lope’s Comedias, Madrid, 1617, and continued long in favor, for it is reprinted in Parte XXVIII. of “Comedias Escogidas de los Mejores Ingenios,” Madrid, 1667, 4to.

[385] A spirited ballad or popular song is sung and danced at the young Saint’s wedding, beginning,—

Comedias, Tom. XXVIII. 1667, p. 54.

[386]

[387] How far these plays were felt to be religious by the crowds who witnessed them may be seen in a thousand ways; among the rest, by the fact mentioned by Madame d’Aulnoy, in 1679, that, when St. Antony, on the stage, repeated his Confiteor, the audience all fell on their knees, smote their breasts heavily, and cried out, Meâ culpâ. Voyage d’Espagne à la Haye, 1693, 18mo, Tom. I. p. 56.

[388] Auto was originally a forensic term, from the Latin actus, and meant a decree or a judgment of a court. Afterwards it was applied to these religious dramas, which were called Autos sacramentales or Autos del Corpus Christi, and to the autos de fé of the Inquisition; in both cases, because they were considered solemn religious acts. Covarrubias, Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana, ad verb. Auto.

[389] Great splendor was used, from the earliest times down to the present century, in the processions of the Corpus Christi throughout Spain; as may be judged from the accounts of them in Valencia, Seville, and Toledo, in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 167; 1840, p. 187; and 1841, p. 177. In those of Toledo, there is an intimation that Lope de Rueda was employed in the dramatic entertainments connected with them in 1561; and that Alonso Cisneros, Cristóbal Navarro, and other known writers for the rude popular stage of that time, were his successors;—all serving to introduce Lope and Calderon.

[390] Pellicer, notes, D. Quixote, Tom. IV. pp. 105, 106, and Covarrubias, ut supra, ad verb. Tarasca. The populace at Toledo called the woman on the Tarasca, Anne Boleyn. Sem. Pint., 1841, p. 177.

[391] The most lively description I have seen of this procession is contained in the loa to Lope’s first fiesta and auto (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. pp. 1-7). Another description, to suit the festival as it was got up about 1655-65, will be found when we come to Calderon. It is given here as it occurred in the period of Lope’s success; and a fancy drawing of the procession, as it may have appeared in 1623, is to be found in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1846, p. 185. But Lope’s loa is the best authority.

[392] A good idea of the contents of the carro may be found in the description of the one met by Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. 11), as he was returning from Toboso.

[393] Montalvan, in his “Fama Póstuma.”

[394] Preface of Joseph Ortis de Villena, prefixed to the Autos in Tom. XVIII. of the Obras Sueltas. They were not printed till 1644, nine years after Lope’s death, and then they appeared at Zaragoza. One other auto, attributed to Lope, “El Tirano Castigado,” occurs in a curious volume, entitled “Navidad y Corpus Christi Festejados,” collected by Isidro de Robles, and already referred to.

[395] The manuscript collection referred to in the text was acquired by the National Library at Madrid in 1844. It fills 468 leaves in folio, and contains ninety-five dramatic pieces. All of them are anonymous, except one, which is said to be by Maestro Ferruz, and is on the subject of Cain and Abel; and all but one seem to be on religious subjects. This last is called “Entremes de las Esteras,” and is the only one bearing that title, The rest are called Coloquios, Farsas, and Autos; nearly all being called Autos, but some of them Farsas del Sacramento, which seems to have been regarded as synonymous. One only is dated. It is called “Auto de la Resurreccion de Christo,” and is licensed to be acted March 28, 1568. Two have been published in the Museo Literario, 1844, by Don Eugenio de Tapia, of the Royal Library, Madrid, one of the most eminent Spanish scholars and writers of this century. The first, entitled “Auto de los Desposorios de Moisen,” is a very slight performance, and, except the Prologue or Argument, is in prose. The other, called “Auto de la Residencia del Hombre,” is no better, but is all in verse. In a subsequent number, Don Eugenio publishes a complete list of the titles, with the figuras or personages that appear in each. It is much to be desired that all the contents of this MS. should be properly edited. Meanwhile, we know that saynetes were sometimes interposed between different parts of the performances; that allegorical personages were abundant; and that the Bobo or Fool constantly recurs. Some of them were probably earlier than the time of Lope de Vega; perhaps as early as the time of Lope de Rueda, who, as I have already said in note 38 to this chapter, prepared autos of some kind for the city of Toledo, in 1561. But the language and versification of the two pieces that have been printed, and the general air of the fictions and allegories of the rest, so far as we can gather them from what has been published, indicate a period nearly or quite as late as that of Lope de Vega.

[396] This is the first of the loas in the volume, and, on the whole, the best.

[397] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. p. 367.

[398] Ibid., p. 107.

[399] Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. p. 8. “Entremes del Letrado.”

[400] Ibid., p. 114. “Entremes del Poeta.”

[401] Ibid., p. 168. “El Robo de Helena.”

[402] Ibid., p. 373. “Muestra de los Carros.”

[403] It is the last in the collection, and, as to its poetry, one of the best of the twelve, if not the very best.

[404] The direction to the actors is,—“Salen Adan y Eva vestidos de Franceses muy galanes.”

[405] See Historia del Emperador Cárlos Magno, Cap. 26, 30, etc.

[406] The giant says to Adam, referring to the temptation:—

which is out of the beautiful and well-known old ballad of the “Conde Claros,” beginning “Pésame de vos, el Conde,” which has been already noticed, ante, Vol. I. p. 121. It must have been perfectly familiar to many persons in Lope’s audience, and how the allusion to it could have produced any other than an irreverent effect I know not.

[407] The address of the music, “Si dormis, Príncipe mio,” refers to the ballads about those whose lady-loves had been carried captive among the Moors.

[408] “La Siega,” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. p. 328), of which there is an excellent translation in Dohrn’s Spanische Dramen, Berlin, 1841, 8vo, Tom. I.

[409] “La Vuelta de Egypto,” Obras, Tom. XVIII. p. 435.

[410] “El Pastor Lobo y Cabaña Celestial,” Ibid., p. 381.

[411] Primera Parte de Entremeses, “Entremes Primero de Melisendra,” Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, 4to, ff. 333, etc. It is founded on the fine old ballads of the Romancero of 1550-1555, “Asentado está Gayferos,” etc.; the same out of which the puppet-show man made his exhibition at the inn before Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 26.

[412] Comedias, Valladolid, 1604, Tom. I. p. 337.

[413] All three of these pieces are in the same volume.

[414] “Lope de Rueda,” says Lope de Vega, “was an example of these precepts in Spain; for from him has come down the custom of calling the old plays Entremeses.” (Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 407.) A single scene taken out and used in this way as an entremes was called a Paso or “passage.” We have noted such by Lope de Rueda, etc. See ante, pp. 16, 22.

[415] Among the imitators of Juan de la Enzina should be noted Lucas Fernandez, a native of Salamanca, who published in that city a thin folio volume, in 1514, entitled “Farsas y Eglogas al Modo y Estilo Pastoril y Castellano.” Judged by their titles, they are quite in the manner and style of the eclogues and farces of his predecessor; but one of them is called a Comedia, two others are called Farsa ó quasi Comedia, and another Auto ó Farsa. There are but six in all. I have never seen the book; but the notices I have found of its contents show that it is undoubtedly an imitation of the dramatic attempts of its author’s countryman, and that it is probably one of little poetical merit.

[416] Obras, Tom. I. p. 225.

[417] Obras, Tom. XVI., passim, and XIX. p. 278.

[418] For these, see Obras, Tom. III. p. 463; Tom. X. p. 193; Tom. IV. p. 430; and Tom. X. p. 362. The last passage contains nearly all we know about his son, Lope Felix.

[419] See the scene in the Second Part of Don Quixote, where some gentlemen and ladies, for their own entertainment in the country, were about to represent the eclogues of Garcilasso and Camoens. In the same way, I think, the well-known eclogue which Lope dedicated to Antonio Duke of Alva, (Obras, IV. p. 295), that to Amaryllis, which was the longest he ever wrote, (Tom. X. p. 147), that for the Prince of Esquilache, (Tom. I. p. 352), and most of those in the “Arcadia,” (Tom. VI.), were acted, and written in order to be acted. Why the poem to his friend Claudio, (Tom. IX. p. 355), which is in fact an account of some passages in his own life, with nothing pastoral in its tone or form, is called “an eclogue,” I do not know; nor will I undertake to assign to any particular class the “Military Dialogue in Honor of the Marquis of Espinola,” (Tom. X. p. 337), though I think it is dramatic in its structure, and was probably represented, on some show occasion, before the Marquis himself.

[420] This division can be traced back to a play of Francisco de Avendaño, 1553. L. F. Moratin, Obras, 1830, Tom. I. Parte I. p. 182.

[421] “Except six,” says Lope, at the end of his “Arte Nuevo,” “all my four hundred and eighty-three plays have offended gravely against the rules [el arte].” See Montiano y Luyando, “Discurso sobre las Tragedias Españolas,” (Madrid, 1750, 12mo, p. 47), and Huerta, in the Preface to his “Teatro Hespañol,” for the difficulty of finding even these six.

[422] Arte Nuevo de Hacer Comedias, Obras, Tom. IV. p. 406.

[423] “El Primer Rey de Castilla,” Comedias, Tom. XVII., Madrid, 1621, ff. 114, etc.

[424] “El Bastardo Mudarra,” Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641.

[425] “La Limpieza no Manchada,” Comedias, Tom. XIX., Madrid, 1623.

[426] “El Nacimiento de Christo,” Comedias, Tom. XXIV., ut supra.

[427] It is the learned Theodora, a person represented as capable of confounding the knowing professors brought to try her, who declares Constantinople to be four thousand leagues from Madrid. La Donzella Teodor, end of Act II.

[428] This extraordinary disembarkation takes place in the “Animal de Ungria” (Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 137, 138). One is naturally reminded of Shakspeare’s “Winter’s Tale”; but it is curious that the Duke de Luynes, a favorite minister of state to Louis XIII., made precisely the same mistake, at about the same time, to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, then (1619-21) ambassador in France. But Lope certainly knew better, and I doubt not Shakspeare did, however ignorant the French statesman may have been. Herbert’s Life, by himself, London, 1809, 8vo, p. 217.

[429] See “San Isidro Labrador,” in Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXVIII., Madrid, 1667, f. 66.

[430] “San Nicolas de Tolentino,” Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, f. 171.

[431] “Arauco Domado,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629. After reading such absurdities, we wonder less that Cervantes, even though he committed not a few like them himself, should make the puppet-show man exclaim, “Are not a thousand plays represented now-a-days, full of a thousand improprieties and absurdities, which yet run their course successfully, and are heard, not only with applause, but with admiration?” D. Quixote, Parte II. c. 26.

[432] “Tienen las novelas los mismos preceptos que las comedias, cuyo fin es haber dado su autor contento y gusto al pueblo, aunque se ahorque el arte.” Obras Sueltas, Tom. VIII. p. 70.

[433] Arte Nuevo, Obras, Tom. IV. p. 412. From an autograph MS. of Lope, still extant, it appears that he sometimes wrote out his plays first in the form of pequeñas novelas. Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 19.

[434] See the Dedication of the “Francesilla” to Juan Perez de Montalvan, in Comedias, Tom. XIII., Madrid, 1620, where we have the following words: “And note in passing that this is the first play in which was introduced the character of the jester, which has been so often repeated since. Rios, unique in all parts, played it, and is worthy of this record. I pray you to read it as a new thing; for when I wrote it, you were not born.” The gracioso was generally distinguished by his name on the Spanish stage, as he was afterwards on the French stage. Thus, Calderon often calls his gracioso Clarin, or Trumpet; as Molière called his Sganarelle. The simplé, who, as I have said, can be traced back to Enzina, and who was, no doubt, the same with the bobo, is mentioned as very successful, in 1596, by Lopez Pinciano, who, in his “Philosofía Antigua Poética,” (1596, p. 402), says, “They are characters that commonly amuse more than any other that appear in the plays.” The gracioso of Lope was, like the rest of his theatre, founded on what existed before his time; only the character itself was further developed, and received a new name. D. Quixote, Clemencin, Parte II. cap. 3, note.

[435] The specimens of his bad taste in this particular occur but too frequently; e. g. in “El Cuerdo en su Casa” (Comedias, Tom. VI., Madrid, 1615, ff. 105, etc.); in the “Niña de Plata” (Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, ff. 125, etc.); in the “Cautivos de Argel” (Comedias, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1647, p. 241); and in other places. But in opposition to all this, see his deliberate condemnation of such euphuistical follies in his Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. pp. 459-482; and the jests at their expense in his “Amistad y Obligacion,” and his “Melindres de Belisa” (Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618).

[436] Sonnets seem to have been a sort of choice morsels thrown in to please the over-refined portion of the audience. In general, only one or two occur in a play; but in the “Discreta Venganza” (Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629) there are five. In the “Palacios de Galiana” (Comedias, Tom. XXIII., Madrid, 1638, f. 256) there is a foolish sonnet with echoes, and another in the “Historia de Tobias” (Comedias, Tom. XV., Madrid, 1621, f. 244). The sonnet in ridicule of sonnets, in the “Niña de Plata,” (Comedias, Tom. IX., Barcelona, 1618, f. 124), is witty, and has been imitated in French and in English.

[437] “El Sol Parado,” Comedias, Tom. XVII., Madrid, 1621, pp. 218, 219. It reminds one of the much more beautiful serrana of the Marquis of Santillana, beginning “Moza tan formosa,” ante, Vol. I. p. 372.

[438] “Pobreza no es Vileza,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629, f. 61.

[439] He has even ventured to take the beautiful and familiar ballad, “Sale la Estrella de Venus,”—which is in the Romancero General, the “Guerras de Granada,” and many other places,—and work it up into a dialogue. “El Sol Parado,” Comedias, Tom. XVII., Madrid, 1621, ff. 223-224.

[440] In the same way, he seizes upon the old ballad, “Reduan bien se te acuerda,” and uses it in the “Embidia de la Nobleza,” Comedias, Tom. XXIII., Madrid, 1638, f. 192.

[441] For example, the ballad in the Romancero of 1555, beginning “Despues que el Rey Rodrigo,” at the end of Jornada II., in “El Ultimo Godo,” Comedias, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1647.

[442] Compare “El Bastardo Mudarra” (Comedias, Tom. XXIV., Zaragoza, 1641, ff. 75, 76) with the ballads, “Ruy Velasquez de Lara,” and “Llegados son los Infantes”; and, in the same play, the dialogue between Mudarra and his mother, (f. 83), with the ballad, “Sentados á un ajedrez.”

[443] “El Casamiento en la Muerte,” (Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, ff. 198, etc.), in which the following well-known old ballads are freely used, viz.:—“O Belerma! O Belerma!” “No tiene heredero alguno”; “Al pie de un túmulo negro”; “Bañando está las prisiones”; and others.

[444] It is in the last chapter of the “Guerras Civiles de Granada”; but Lope has given it, with a slight change in the phraseology, as follows:—

It occurs in many collections of ballads, and is founded on the fact, that a sort of village of rich tents was established near Granada, which, after an accidental conflagration, was turned into a town, that still exists, within whose walls were signed both the commission of Columbus to seek the New World, and the capitulation of Granada. The imitation of this ballad by Lope is in his “Cerco de Santa Fé,” Comedias, Tom. I., Valladolid, 1604, f. 69.

[445] He says this apparently as a kind of apology to foreigners, in the Preface to the “Peregrino en su Patria,” 1603, where he gives a list of his plays to that date.

[446] See the curious facts collected on this subject in Pellicer’s note to Don Quixote, ed. 1798, Parte II., Tom. I. pp. 109-111.

[447] This is stated by the well-known Italian poet, Marini, in his Eulogy on Lope, Obras Sueltas, Tom. XXI. p. 19.

[448] Obras Sueltas, Tom. VIII. pp. 94-96, and Pellicer’s note to Don Quixote, Parte I., Tom. III. p. 93.

[449] This is said in a discourse preached over his mortal remains in St. Sebastian’s, at his funeral. Obras Sueltas, Tom. XIX. p. 329.

[450] “Frey Lope Felix de Vega, whose name has become universally a proverb for whatever is good,” says Quevedo, in his Aprobacion to “Tomé de Burguillos.” (Obras Sueltas de Lope, Tom. XIX. p. xix.) “It became a common proverb to praise a good thing by calling it a Lope; so that jewels, diamonds, pictures, etc., were raised into esteem by calling them his,” says Montalvan. (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XX. p. 53.) Cervantes intimates the same thing in his entremes, “La Guarda Cuidadosa.”

[451] His complaints on the subject begin as early as 1603, before he had published any of his plays himself, (Obras Sueltas, Tom. V. p. xvii.), and are renewed in the “Egloga á Claudio,” (Ib., Tom. IX. p. 369), printed after his death; besides which, they occur in the Prefaces to his Comedias, (Tom. IX., XI., XV., XXI., and elsewhere), as a matter that seems to have been always troubling him.

[452] Montalvan sets the price of each play at five hundred reals, and says that in this way Lope received, during his life, eighty thousand ducats. Obras, Tom. XX. p. 47.

[453] The Duke of Sessa alone, besides many other benefactions, gave Lope, at different times, twenty-four thousand ducats, and a sinecure of three hundred more per annum. Ut supra.

[454] Libro XX., last three stanzas.

[455] “I have a daughter, and am old,” he says. “The Muses give me honor, but not income,” etc. (Obras, Tom. XVII. p. 401.) From his will, an abstract of which may be found in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 19, it appears that Philip IV. promised an office to the person who should marry this daughter, and failed to keep his word.