[614] How completely a light, worldly tone was taken in these plays may be seen in the following words of the Madonna, when she personally gives St. Ildefonso a rich vestment,—the chasuble,—in which he is to say mass:—

Comedias, 1760, Tom. VI. p. 113.

The lightness of tone in this passage is the more remarkable, because the miracle alluded to in it is the crowning glory of the great cathedral of Toledo, on which volumes have been written, and on which Murillo has painted one of his greatest and most solemn pictures.

Figueroa (Pasagero, 1617, ff. 104-106) says, with much truth, in the midst of his severe remarks on the drama of his time, that the comedias de santos were so constructed, that the first act contained the youth of the saint, with his follies and love-adventures; the second, his conversion and subsequent life; and the third, his miracles and death; but that they often had loose and immoral stories to render them attractive. But they were of all varieties; and it is curious, in such a collection dramas as the one in forty-eight volumes, extending over the period from 1652 to 1704, to mark in how many ways the theatre endeavoured to conciliate the Church; some of the plays being filled entirely with saints, demons, angels, and allegorical personages, and deserving the character given to the “Fenix de España,” (Tom. XLIII., 1678), of being sermons in the shape of plays; while others are mere intriguing comedies, with an angel or a saint put in to consecrate their immoralities, like “La Defensora de la Reyna de Ungria,” by Fernando de Zarate, in Tom. XXIX., 1668.

In other countries of Christendom besides those in which the Church of Rome bears sway, this sort of irreverence in relation to things divine has more or less shown itself among persons accounting themselves religious. The Puritans of England in the days of Cromwell, from their belief in the constant interference of Providence about their affairs, sometimes addressed supplications to God in a spirit not more truly devout than that shown by the Spaniards in their autos and their comedias de santos. Both felt themselves to be peculiarly regarded of Heaven, and entitled to make the most peremptory claims on the Divine favor and the most free allusions to what they deemed holy. But no people ever felt themselves to be so absolutely soldiers of the cross as the Spaniards did, from the time of their Moorish wars; no people ever trusted so constantly to the recurrence of miracles in the affairs of their daily life; and therefore no people ever talked of divine things as of matters in their nature so familiar and commonplace. Traces of this state of feeling and character are to be found in Spanish literature on all sides.

[615] “La Púrpura de la Rosa” and “Las Fortunas de Andrómeda y Perseo” are both of them plays in the national taste, and yet were sung throughout. The last is taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Lib. IV. and V., and was produced before the court with a magnificent theatrical apparatus. The first, which was written in honor of the marriage of Louis XIV. with the Infanta Maria Teresa, 1660, was also taken from Ovid (Met., Lib. X.); and in the loa that precedes it we are told expressly, “The play is to be wholly in music, and is intended to introduce this style among us, that other nations may see they have competitors for those distinctions of which they boast.” Operas in Spain, however, never had any permanent success, though they had in Portugal.

[616] “Zelos aun del Ayre matan,” which Calderon parodied, is on the same subject with his “Cephalus and Procris,” to which he added, not very appropriately, the story of Erostratus and the burning of the temple of Diana.

[617] For instance, the “Armas de la Hermosura,” on the story of Coriolanus; and the “Mayor Encanto Amor,” on the story of Ulysses.

[618] Calderon was famous for what are called coups de théâtre; so famous, that lances de Calderon became a sort of proverb.

[619]

El Alcayde de sí mismo, Jorn. II.

[620] No hay Burlas con el Amor, Jorn. II.

[621] Armas de la Hermosura, Jorn. I., II.

[622] Afectos de Odio y Amor, Jorn. II.

[623] El Mayor Monstruo los Zelos, Jorn. III.

[624] La Vírgen del Sagrario, Jorn. I. The pious bishop who is here represented as talking of America, on the authority of Herodotus, is, at the same time, supposed to live seven or eight centuries before America was discovered.

[625]

Los Dos Amantes del Cielo, Jorn. III.

[626] El Mayor Encanto Amor, Jorn. II.; El Joseph de las Mugeres, Jorn. III., etc.

[627] Huerta, Teatro Hespañol, Parte II., Tom I., Prólogo, p. vii. La Niña de Gomez Arias, Jorn. III.

[628] Compare the eloquent speeches of El Zaguer, in Mendoza, ed. 1776, Lib. I. p. 29, and Malec, in Calderon, Jorn. I.; or the description of the Alpujarras, in the same jornada, with that of Mendoza, p. 43, etc.

[629] The story of Tuzani is found in Chapters XXII., XXIII., and XXIV. of the second volume of Hita’s “Guerras de Granada,” and is the best part of it. Hita says he had the account from Tuzani himself, long afterwards, at Madrid, and it is not unlikely that a great part of it is true. Calderon, though sometimes using its very words, makes considerable alterations in it, to bring it within the forms of the drama; but the leading facts are the same in both cases, and the story belongs to Hita.

[630] While they are fighting in a room, with locked doors, suddenly there is a great bustle and calling without. Mendoza, the Spaniard, asks his adversary,—

[631] This character of Lope de Figueroa may serve as a specimen of the way in which Calderon gave life and interest to many of his dramas. Lope is an historical personage, and figures largely in the second volume of Hita’s “Guerras,” as well as elsewhere. He was the commander under whom Cervantes served in Italy, and probably in Portugal, when he was in the Tercio de Flándes,—the Flanders regiment,—one of the best bodies of troops in the armies of Philip II. Lope de Figueroa appears again, and still more prominently, in another good play of Calderon, “El Alcalde de Zalamea,” the last in the common collection. Its hero is a peasant, finely sketched, partly from Lope de Vega’s Mendo, in the “Cuerdo en su Casa”; and it is said at the end that it is a true story, whose scene is laid in 1581, at the very time Philip II. was advancing toward Lisbon, and when Cervantes was probably with this regiment at Zalamea.

[632] About this time, there was a strong disposition shown by the overweening sensibility of Spanish loyalty to relieve the memory of Peter the Cruel from the heavy imputations left resting on it by Pedro de Ayala, of which I have taken notice, (Period I., chap. 9, note 17), and of which traces may be found in Moreto, and the other dramatists of the reign of Philip IV. Pedro appears also in the “Niña de Plata” of Lope de Vega, but with less strongly marked attributes.

[633]

Jorn. III.

[634]

Ibid.

[635]

Jorn. III.

[636] “El Médico de su Honra,” Comedias, Tom. VI.

[637] “El Pintor de su Deshonra,” Comedias, Tom. XI.

[638] “A Secreto Agravio, Secreta Venganza,” Comedias, Tom. VI. Calderon, at the end, vouches for the truth of the shocking story, which he represents as founded on facts that occurred at Lisbon just before the embarkation of Don Sebastian for Africa, in 1578.

[639] “El Mayor Monstruo los Zelos,” Comedias, Tom. V.

[640] Josephus de Bello Judaico, Lib. I. c. 17-22, and Antiq. Judaicæ, Lib. XV. c. 2, etc. Voltaire has taken the same story for the subject of his “Mariamne,” first acted in 1724. There is a pleasant criticism on the play of Calderon in a pamphlet published at Madrid, by Don A. Duran, without his name, in 1828, 18mo, entitled, “Sobre el Influjo que ha tenido la Crítica Moderna en la Decadencia del Teatro Antiguo Español,” pp. 106-112.

[641]

[642]

See, also, Calderon’s “Manos Blancas no ofenden,” Jorn. II., where he has it again; and Cancionero General, 1573, f. 185. Lope de Vega made a gloss on it, (Obras, Tom. XIII. p. 256), and Cervantes repeats it (Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 38);—so much was it admired.

[643]

[644] “El Príncipe Constante,” Comedias, Tom. III. It is translated into German by A. W. Schlegel, and has been much admired as an acting play in the theatres of Berlin, Vienna, Weimar, etc.

[645] Colecçaõ de Livros Ineditos de Hist. Port., Lisboa, folio, Tom. I., 1790, pp. 290-294; an excellent work, published by the Portuguese Academy, and edited by the learned Correa de Serra, formerly Minister of Portugal to the United States. The story of Don Ferdinand is also told in Mariana, Historia (Tom. II. p. 345). But the principal resource of Calderon was, no doubt, a life of the Infante, by his faithful friend and follower, Joam Alvares, first printed in 1527, of which an abstract, with long passages from the original, may be found in the “Leben des standhaften Prinzen,” Berlin, 1827, 8vo. To these may be added, for the illustration of the Príncipe Constante, a tract by J. Schulze, entitled “Ueber den standhaften Prinzen,” printed at Weimar, 1811, 12mo, at a time when Schlegel’s translation of that drama, brought out under the auspices of Goethe, was in the midst of its success on the Weimar stage; the part of Don Ferdinand being acted with great power by Wolf. Schulze is quite extravagant in his estimate of the poetical worth of the Príncipe Constante, placing it by the side of the “Divina Commedia”; but he discusses skilfully its merits as an acting drama, and explains, in part, its historical elements.

[646]

When we read the Príncipe Constante, we seldom remember that this Don Henry, who is one of its important personages, is the highly cultivated prince who did so much to promote discoveries in India.

[647] “’T is Better than it was” and “Worse and Worse.” “These two comedies,” says Downes, (Roscius Anglicanus, London, 1789, 8vo, p. 36), “were made out of Spanish by the Earl of Bristol.” There can be little doubt that Calderon was the source here referred to. Tuke’s “Adventures of Five Hours,” in Dodsley’s Collection, Vol. XII., is from Calderon’s “Empeños de Seis Horas.” But such instances are rare in the old English drama, compared with the French.

[648] Dryden took, as he admits, “An Evening’s Love, or the Mock Astrologer,” from the “Feint Astrologue” of Thomas Corneille. (Scott’s Dryden, London, 1808, 8vo, Vol. III. p. 229.) Corneille had it from Calderon’s “Astrólogo Fingido.”

[649]

And again, in “Amar despues de la Muerte,”—

Comedias, 1760. Tom. II. p. 352.

[650] “Antes que todo es mi Dama.”

[651] “La Dama Duende,” Comedias, Tom. III.

[652]

[653] I should think he refers to it eight times, perhaps more, in the course of his plays: e. g. in “Mañanas de Avril y Mayo”; “Agradecer y no Amar”; “El Joseph de las Mugeres,” etc. I notice it, because he rarely alludes to his own works, and never, I think, in the way he does to this one. The Dama Duende is well known in the French “Répertoire” as the “Esprit Follet” of Hauteroche.

[654]

[655] “La Vanda y la Flor,” Comedias, Tom. V. It is admirably translated into German, by A. W. Schlegel.

[656] In Jornada I. there is a full-length description of the Jura de Baltasar,—the act of swearing homage to Prince Balthasar, as Prince of Asturias, which took place in 1632, and which Calderon would hardly have introduced on the stage much later, because the interest in such a ceremony is so short-lived.

[657]

Jorn. II.

[658] I think there are six, at least, of Calderon’s plays taken from the Metamorphoses; a circumstance worth noting, because it shows the direction of his taste. He seems to have used no ancient author, and perhaps no author at all, in his plays, so much as Ovid, who was a favorite classic in Spain, six translations of the Metamorphoses having been made there before the time of Calderon. Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. IV., 1835, p. 407.

[659] It is possible Calderon may not have gone to the originals, but found his materials nearer at hand; and yet, on a comparison of the triumphal entry of Aurelian into Rome, in the third jornada, with the corresponding passages in Trebellius, “De Triginta Tyrannis,” (c. xxix.), and Vopiscus, “Aurelianus,” (c. xxxiii., xxxiv., etc.), it seems most likely that he had read them.

Sometimes Calderon is indebted to his dramatic predecessors. Thus, his fine play of the “Alcalde de Zalamea” is compounded of the stories in Lope’s “Fuente Ovejuna” and his “Mejor Alcalde el Rey.” But I think his obligations of this sort are infrequent.

[660] For instance, the exact enumeration of the troops at the opening of the play. Comedias, Tom. III. pp. 142, 149.

[661] It ends with a voluntary anachronism,—the resolution of the Emperor to apply to Pope Paul III. and to have such duels abolished by the Council of Trent. By its very last words, it shows that it was acted before the king, a fact that does not appear on its title-page. The duel is the one Sandoval describes with so much minuteness. Hist. de Carlos V., Anvers, 1681, folio, Lib. XI. §§ 8, 9.

[662] “Las Armas de la Hermosura,” Tom. I., and “El Mayor Encanto Amor,” Tom. V., are the plays on Coriolanus and Ulysses. They have been mentioned before.

[663] Good, but somewhat over-refined, remarks on the use Calderon made of Portuguese history in his “Weal and Woe” are to be found in the Preface to the second volume of Malsburg’s German translation of Calderon, Leipzig, 1819, 12mo.

[664] Comedias, 1760, Tom. IV. See, also, Ueber die Kirchentrennung von England, von F. W. V. Schmidt, Berlin, 1819, 12mo;—a pamphlet full of curious matter, but quite too laudatory, so far as Calderon’s merit is concerned. Nothing will show the wide difference between Shakspeare and Calderon more strikingly than a comparison of this play with the grand historical drama of “Henry the Eighth.”

[665] Of these duels, and his notions about female honor, half the plays of Calderon may be taken as specimens; but it is only necessary to refer to “Casa con Dos Puertas” and “El Escondido y la Tapada.”

[666] Fuero Juzgo, ed. de la Academia, Madrid, 1815, folio, Lib. III. Tít. IV. Leyes 3-5 and 9. It should be remembered, that these laws were the old Gothic laws of Spain before A. D. 700; that they were the laws of the Christians who did not fall under the Arabic authority; and that they are published in the edition of the Academy as they were consolidated and reënacted by St. Ferdinand after the conquest of Córdova in 1241.

[667] Howell, in 1623, when he had been a year in Madrid, under circumstances to give him familiar knowledge of its gay society, and at a time when the drama of Lope was at the height of its favor, says, “One shall not hear of a duel here in an age.” Letters, eleventh edition, London, 1754, 8vo, Book I. Sect. 3, Letter 32.

[668] In “El Canto Junto al Encanto,” and in “Pedir Favor.”

[669] Things had not been in an easy state, at any time, since the troubles already noticed in the reigns of Philip II. and Philip III., as we may see from the Approbation of Thomas de Avellaneda to Tom. XXII., 1665, of the Comedias Escogidas, where that personage, a grave and distinguished ecclesiastic, thought it needful to step aside from his proper object, and defend the theatre against attacks, which were evidently then common, though they have not reached us. But the quarrel of 1682-85, which was a violent and open rupture, can be best found in the “Apelacion al Tribunal de los Doctos,” Madrid, 1752, 4to, (which is, in fact, Guerra’s defence of himself written in 1683, but not before published), and in “Discursos contra los que defienden el Uso de las Comedias,” por Gonzalo Navarro, Madrid, 1684, 4to, which is a reply to the last and to other works of the same kind.

[670] The description of Philip IV. on horseback, as he passed through the streets of Madrid, suggests a comparison with Shakspeare’s Bolingbroke in the streets of London, but it is wholly against the Spanish poet. (Jorn. I.) That Calderon meant to be accurate in the descriptions contained in this play can be seen by reading the official account of the “Juramento del Príncipe Baltasar,” 1632, prepared by Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza, of which the second edition was printed by order of the government, in its printing-office, 1605, 4to.

[671] It is genuine Spanish. The hero says,—

[672] He makes the victory more important than it really was, but his allusions to it show that it was not thought worth while to irritate the French interest; so cautious and courtly is Calderon’s whole tone. It is in Tom. X. of the Comedias.

[673] The account, in “Guárdate de la Agua Mansa,” of the triumphal arch, for which Calderon furnished the allegorical ideas and figures, as well as the inscriptions, (both Latin and Castilian, the play says), is very ample. Jornada III.

[674] Here, again, we have the courtly spirit in Calderon. He insists most carefully, that the Peace of the Pyrenees and the marriage of the Infanta are not connected with each other; and that the marriage is to be regarded “as a separate affair, treated at the same time, but quite independently.” But his audience knew better.

From the “Viage del Rey Nuestro Señor D. Felipe IV. el Grande á la Frontera de Francia,” por Leonardo del Castillo, Madrid, 1667, 4to,—a work of official pretensions, describing the ceremonies attending both the marriage of the Infanta and the conclusion of the peace,—it appears, that, wherever Calderon has alluded to either, he has been true to the facts of history. A similar remark may be made of the “Tetis y Peleo,” evidently written for the same occasion, and printed, Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXIX., 1668;—a poor drama by an obscure author, Josef de Bolea, and probably one of several that we know, from Castillo, were represented to amuse the king and court on their journey.

[675] This flattery of Charles II. is the more disagreeable, because it was offered in the poet’s old age; for Charles did not come to the throne till Calderon was seventy-five years old. But it is, after all, not so shocking as the sort of blasphemous compliments to Philip IV. and his queen in the strange auto called “El Buen Retiro,” acted on the first Corpus Christi day after that luxurious palace was finished.

[676] I think Calderon never uses blank verse, though Lope does.

[677] “El Carro del Cielo,” which Vera Tassis says he wrote at fourteen, and which we should be not a little pleased to see.

[678] The audience remained in the same seats, but there were three stages before them. It must have been a very brilliant exhibition, and is quaintly explained in the loa prefixed to it.

[679] This is stated in the title, and gracefully alluded to at the end of the piece:—

[680] Vera Tassis makes this statement. See also F. W. V. Schmidt, Ueber die italienischen Heldengedichte, Berlin, 1820, 12mo, pp. 269-280.

[681] The two decided attempts of Calderon in the opera style have already been noticed. The “Laurel de Apolo” (Comedias, Tom. VI.) is called a Fiesta de Zarzuela, in which it is said (Jorn. I.): “Se canta y se representa”;—so that it was probably partly sung and partly acted. Of the Zarzuelas we must speak when we come to Candamo.

[682] Goethe had this quality of Calderon’s drama in his mind when he said to Eckermann, (Gespräche mit Goethe, Leipzig, 1837, Band I. p. 251), “Seine Stücke sind durchaus bretterrecht, es ist in ihnen kein Zug, der nicht für die beabsichtigte Wirkung calculirt wäre, Calderon ist dasjenige Genie, was zugleich den grössten Verstand hatte.”

[683] A good many of Calderon’s graciosos, or buffoons, are excellent, as, for instance, those in “La Vida es Sueño,” “El Alcayde de sí mismo,” “Casa con Dos Puertas,” “La Gran Zenobia,” “La Dama Duende,” etc.

[684] Calderon, like many other authors of the Spanish theatre, has, as we have seen, been a magazine of plots for the dramatists of other nations. Among those who have borrowed the most from him are the younger Corneille and Gozzi. Thus, Corneille’s “Engagements du Hasard” is from “Los Empeños de un Acaso”; “Le Feint Astrologue,” from “El Astrólogo Fingido”; “Le Géolier de soi même,” from “El Alcayde de sí mismo”; besides which, his “Circe” and “L’Inconnu” prove that he had well studied Calderon’s show pieces. Gozzi took his “Pubblico Secreto” from the “Secreto á Voces”; his “Eco e Narciso” from the play of the same name; and his “Due Notti Affanose” from “Gustos y Disgustos.” And so of others.