LYRIC POETRY, CONCLUDED.
The Argensolas 536
Lupercio 536
Bartolomé 537
Their Poetry 538
Juan de Jauregui 539
His Orfeo 540
His Aminta 540
His Lyrical Poetry 541
Estévan Manuel de Villegas 542
Imitates Anacreon 543
Bernardo de Balbuena 544
Barbadillo, Polo, Rojas 544
Francisco de Rioja 545
Borja y Esquilache 546
Antonio de Mendoza 547
Bernardino de Rebolledo 548
Ribero, Quiros 549
Barrios, Lucio y Espinossa 549
Evia, Inez de la Cruz 549
Solís, Candamo, Marcante 549
Montoro, Negrete 549
Success of Lyric Poetry 550
Religious 550
Secular and Popular 550
Secular and more formal 551
Its General Character 552
HISTORY
OF
SPANISH LITERATURE.
SECOND PERIOD.
THE LITERATURE THAT EXISTED IN SPAIN FROM THE ACCESSION OF THE
AUSTRIAN FAMILY TO ITS EXTINCTION, OR FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY TO THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH.
(CONTINUED.)
HISTORY
OF
SPANISH LITERATURE.
SECOND PERIOD.
(CONTINUED.)
CHAPTER VII.
THEATRE.--INFLUENCE OF THE CHURCH AND THE
INQUISITION.--MYSTERIES.--CASTILLEJO, OLIVA, JUAN DE PARIS, AND
OTHERS.--POPULAR DEMANDS FOR DRAMATIC LITERATURE.--LOPE DE RUEDA.--HIS
LIFE, COMEDIAS, COLOQUIOS, PASOS, AND DIALOGUES IN VERSE.--HIS
CHARACTER AS FOUNDER OF THE POPULAR DRAMA IN SPAIN.--JUAN DE TIMONEDA.
The theatre in Spain, as in most other countries of modern Europe,
was early called to contend with formidable difficulties. Dramatic
representations there, perhaps more than elsewhere, had been for
centuries in the hands of the Church; and the Church was not willing to
give them up, especially for such secular and irreligious purposes as
we have seen were apparent in the plays of Naharro. The Inquisition,
therefore, already arrogating to itself powers not granted by the
state, but yielded by a sort of general consent, interfered betimes.
After the publication of the Seville edition of the “Propaladia” in
1520,--but how soon afterward we do not know,--the representation of
its dramas was forbidden, and the interdict was continued till 1573.[1]
Of the few pieces written in the early part of the reign of Charles
the Fifth, nearly all, except those on strictly religious subjects,
were laid under the ban of the Church; several, like the “Orfea,” 1534,
and the “Custodia,” 1541, being now known to have existed only because
their names appear in the Index Expurgatorius;[2] and others, like the
“Amadis de Gaula” of Gil Vicente, though printed and published, being
subsequently forbidden to be represented.[3]
[1] In the edition of Madrid, 1573, 18mo, we are told, “La
Propaladia estava prohibida en estos reynos, años avia”; and
Martinez de la Rosa (Obras, Paris, 1827, 12mo, Tom. II. p.
382) says that this prohibition was laid soon after 1520, and
not removed till August, 1573. The period is important; but I
suspect the authority of Martinez de la Rosa for its termination
is merely the permission to print an edition, which is dated 21
Aug., 1573; an edition, too, which is, after all, expurgated
severely.
[2] These are in the “Catálogo” of L. F. Moratin, Nos. 57 and 63,
Obras, Madrid, 1830, 8vo, Tom. I. Parte I.
[3] The fate of this long heroic and romantic drama of Gil
Vicente, in Spanish, is somewhat singular. It was forbidden by
the Inquisition, we are told, as early as the Index Expurgatorius
of 1549 [1559?]; but it was not printed at all till 1562, and
not separately till 1586. By the Index of Lisbon, 1624, it is
permitted, if expurgated, and there is an edition of it of that
year at Lisbon. As it was never printed in Spain, the prohibition
there must have related chiefly to its representation. Barbosa,
Bib. Lusitana, Tom. II. p. 384.
The old religious drama, meantime, was still upheld by ecclesiastical
power. Of this we have sufficient proof in the titles of the Mysteries
that were from time to time performed, and in the well-known fact,
that, when, with all the magnificence of the court of Charles the
Fifth, the infant heir to the crown, afterwards Philip the Second, was
baptized at Valladolid, in 1527, five religious plays, one of which
was on the Baptism of Saint John, constituted a part of the gorgeous
ceremony.[4] Such compositions, however, did not advance the drama;
though perhaps some of them, like that of Pedro de Altamira, on the
Supper at Emmaus, are not without poetical merit.[5] On the contrary,
their tendency must have been to keep back theatrical representations
within their old religious purposes and limits.[6]
[4] The account of this ceremony, and the facts concerning the
dramas in question, are given by Sandoval, “Historia de Carlos
V.,” (Anvers, 1681, fol. Tom. I. p. 619, Lib. XVI., § 13), and
are of some consequence in the history of the Spanish drama.
[5] It was printed in 1523, and a sufficient extract from it is
to be found in Moratin, Catálogo, No. 36.
[6] A specimen of the Mysteries of the age of Charles V. may be
found in an extremely rare volume, entitled, in its three parts,
“Triaca del Alma,” “Triaca de Amor,” and “Triaca de Tristes”;--or
Medley for the Soul, for Love, and for Sadness. Its author was
Marcelo de Lebrixa, son of the famous scholar Antonio; and the
dedication and conclusion of the first part imply that it was
composed when the author was forty years old,--after the death
of his father, which happened in 1522, and during the reign of
the Emperor, which ended in 1556. The first part, to which I
particularly allude, consists of a Mystery on the Incarnation, in
above eight thousand short verses. It has no other action than
such as consists in the appearance of the angel Gabriel to the
Madonna, bringing Reason with him in the shape of a woman, and
followed by another angel, who leads in the Seven Virtues;--the
whole piece being made up out of their successive discourses and
exhortations, and ending with a sort of summary, by Reason and
by the author, in favor of a pious life. Certainly, so slight
a structure, with little merit in its verses, could do nothing
to advance the drama of the sixteenth century. It was, however,
intended for representation. “It was written,” says its author,
“for the praise and solemnization of the Festival of Our Lady’s
Incarnation; so that it may be acted as a play [la puedan por
farça representar] by devout nuns in their convents, since no
men appear in it, but only angels and young damsels.”
The second part of this singular volume, which is more poetical
than the first, is against human, and in favor of Divine love;
and the third, which is very long, consists of a series of
consolations deemed suitable for the different forms of human
sorrow and care;--these two parts being necessarily didactic in
their character. Each of the three is addressed to a member of
the great family of Alva, to which their author seems to have
been attached; and the whole is called by him _Triaca_; a word
which means _Treacle_, or _Antidote_, but which Lebrixa says
he uses in the sense of _Ensalada_,--_Salad_ or _Medley_. The
volume, taken as a whole, is as strongly marked with the spirit
of the age that produced it as the contemporary Cancioneros
Generales, and its poetical merit is much like theirs.
Nor were the efforts made to advance them in other directions marked
by good judgment or permanent success. We pass over the “Costanza” by
Castillejo, which seems to have been in the manner of Naharro, and
is assigned to the year 1522,[7] but which, from its indecency, was
never published, and is now probably lost; and we pass over the free
versions, made about 1530, by Perez de Oliva, Rector of the University
of Salamanca, from the “Amphitryon” of Plautus, the “Electra” of
Sophocles, and the “Hecuba” of Euripides, because they fell, for the
time, powerless on the early attempts of the national theatre, which
had nothing in common with the spirit of antiquity.[8] But a single
play, printed in 1536, should be noticed, as showing how slowly the
drama made progress in Spain.
[7] Moratin, Catálogo, No. 35, and _ante_, Vol. I. p. 503.
[8] Oliva died in 1533; but his translations were not printed
till 1585.
It is called “An Eclogue,” and is written by Juan de Paris, in _versos
de arte mayor_, or long verses divided into stanzas of eight lines
each, which show, in their careful construction, not a little labor
and art.[9] It has five interlocutors: an esquire, a hermit, a young
damsel, a demon, and two shepherds. The hermit enters first. He seems
to be in a meadow, musing on the vanity of human life; and, after
praying devoutly, determines to go and visit another hermit. But he
is prevented by the esquire, who comes in weeping and complaining of
ill treatment from Cupid, whose cruel character he illustrates by
his conduct in the cases of Medea, the fall of Troy, Priam, David,
and Hercules; ending with his own determination to abandon the world
and live in a “nook merely monastical.” He accosts the hermit, who
discourses to him on the follies of love, and advises him to take
religion and works of devotion for a remedy in his sorrows. The
young man determines to follow counsel so wise, and they enter the
hermitage together. But they are no sooner gone than the demon appears,
complaining bitterly that the esquire is likely to escape him, and
determining to do all in his power to prevent it. One of the shepherds,
whose name is Vicente, now comes in, and is much shocked by the
glimpse he has caught of the retiring spirit, who, indeed, from his
description, and from the wood-cut on the title-page, seems to have
been a truly fantastic and hideous personage. Vicente thereupon hides
himself; but the damsel, who is the lady-love of the esquire, enters,
and, after drawing him from his concealment, holds with him a somewhat
metaphysical dialogue about love. The other shepherd, Cremon, at this
difficult point interrupts the discussion, and has a rude quarrel with
Vicente, which the damsel composes; and then Cremon tells her where the
hermit and the lover she has come to seek are to be found. All now go
towards the hermitage. The esquire, overjoyed, receives the lady with
open arms, and cries out,--
But now I abjure this friardom poor,
And will neither be hermit nor friar any more.[10]
[9] This extremely curious drama, of which I know no copy, except
the one kindly lent to me by M. H. Ternaux-Compans of Paris, is
entitled “Egloga nuevamente composta por Juan de Paris, en la
qual se introducen cinco personas: un Escudero llamado Estacio,
y un Hermitaño, y una Moça, y un Diablo, y dos Pastores, uno
llamado Vicente y el otro Cremon” (1536). It is in black letter,
small quarto, 12 leaves, without name of place or printer; but, I
suppose, printed at Zaragoza, or Medina del Campo.
[10]
Agora reniego de mala fraylia,
Ni quiero hermitaño ni frayle mas ser.
The hermit marries them, and determines to go with them to their
house in the town; and then the whole ends somewhat strangely with a
_villancico_, which has for its burden,--
Let us fly, I say, from Love’s power away;
’T is a vassalage hard,
Which gives grief for reward.[11]
[11]
Huyamos de ser vasallos
Del Amor,
Pues por premio da dolor.
The piece is curious, because it is a wild mixture of the spirit of
the old Mysteries with that of Juan de la Enzina’s Eclogues and the
Comedies of Naharro, and shows by what awkward means it was attempted
to conciliate the Church, and yet amuse an audience which had little
sympathy with monks and hermits. But it has no poetry in it, and very
little dramatic movement. Of its manner and measure the opening stanza
is quite a fair specimen. The hermit enters, saying to himself,--
The suffering life we mortal men below,
Upon this terrene world, are bound to spend,
If we but carefully regard its end,
We find it very full of grief and woe:
Torments so multiplied, so great, and ever such,
That but to count an endless reckoning brings,
While, like the rose that from the rose-tree springs,
Our life itself fades quickly at their touch.[12]
[12] As another copy of this play can be found, I suppose, only
by some rare accident, I give the original of the passage in the
text, with its original pointing. It is the opening of the first
scene:--
_Hermitaño._
La vida peñosa; que nos los mortales
En aqueste mundo; terreno passamos
Si con buen sentido; la consideramos
Fallar la hemos; lleno de muy duros males
De tantos tormentos; tan grandes y tales
Que aver de contallos; es cuento infinita
Y allende de aquesto; tan presto es marchita
Como la rosa; qu’ esta en los rosales.
“Una Farça a Manera de Tragedia,” in prose and partly pastoral,
was printed at Valencia, anonymously, in 1537, and seems to
have resembled this one in some particulars. It is mentioned in
Aribau, “Biblioteca de Autores Españoles,” 1846, Tom. II. p. 193,
note.
Other attempts followed this, or appeared at just about the same
time, which approach nearer to the example set by Naharro. One of
them is called “La Vidriana,” by Jaume de Huete, on the loves of a
gentleman and lady of Aragon, who desired the author to represent
them dramatically;[13] and another, by the same hand, is called “La
Tesorina,” and was afterwards forbidden by the Inquisition.[14] This
last is a direct imitation of Naharro; has an _intróito_; is divided
into five _jornadas_; and is written in short verses. Indeed, at the
end, Naharro is mentioned by name, with much implied admiration on
the part of the author, who in the title-page announces himself as an
Aragonese, but of whom we know nothing else. And, finally, we have a
play in five acts, and in the same style, with an _intróito_ at the
beginning and a _villancico_ at the end, by Agostin Ortiz,[15] leaving
no doubt that the manner and system of Naharro had at last found
imitators in Spain, and were fairly recognized there.
[13] “Comedia llamada Vidriana, compuesta por Jaume de Huete
agora nuevamente,” etc., sm. 4to, black letter, 18 leaves,
without year, place, or printer. It has ten interlocutors, and
ends with an apology in Latin, that the author cannot write like
Mena,--Juan de Mena I suppose,--though I know not why he should
have been selected, as the piece is evidently in the manner of
Naharro.
[14] Another drama, from the same volume with the last two.
Moratin (Catálogo, No. 47) had found it noticed in the Index
Expurgatorius of Valladolid, 1559, and assigns it, at a venture,
to the year 1531, but he never saw it. Its title is “Comedia
intitulada Tesorina, la materia de la qual es unos amores de
un penado por una Señora y otras personas adherentes. Hecha
nuevamente por Jaume de Huete. Pero si por ser su natural lengua
Aragonesa, no fuere por muy cendrados terminos, quanto a este
merece perdon.” Small 4to, black letter, 15 leaves, no year,
place, or printer. It has ten interlocutors, and is throughout an
imitation of Naharro, who is mentioned in some mean Latin lines
at the end, where the author expresses the hope that his Muse may
be tolerated, “quamvis non Torris digna Naharro venit.”
[15] “Comedia intitulada Radiana, compuesta por Agostin Ortiz,”
small 4to, black letter, 12 leaves, no year, place, or printer.
It is in five _jornadas_, and has ten personages,--a favorite
number apparently. It comes from the volume above alluded to,
which contains besides:--1. A poor prose story, interspersed with
dialogue, on the tale of Mirrha, taken chiefly from Ovid. It is
called “La _Tragedia_ de Mirrha,” and its author is the Bachiller
Villalon. It was printed at Medina del Campo, 1536, por Pedro
Toraus, small 4to, black letter. 2. An eclogue somewhat in the
manner of Juan de la Enzina, for a _Nacimiento_. It is called a
_Farza_,--“El Farza siguiente hizo Pero Lopez Ranjel,” etc. It
is short, filling only 4 ff., and contains three _villancicos_.
On the title-page is a coarse wood-cut of the manger, with
Bethlehem in the background. 3. A short, dull farce, entitled
“Jacinta”;--not the Jacinta of Naharro. These three, together
with the four previously noticed, are, I believe, known to
exist only in the copy I have used from the library of M. H.
Ternaux-Compans.
But the popular vein had not yet been struck. Except dramatic
exhibitions of a religious character, and under ecclesiastical
authority, nothing had been attempted in which the people, as such, had
any share. The attempt, however, was now made, and made successfully.
Its author was a mechanic of Seville, Lope de Rueda, a goldbeater by
trade, who, from motives now entirely unknown, became both a dramatic
writer and a public actor. The period in which he flourished has
been supposed to be between 1544 and 1567, in which year he is spoken
of as dead; and the scene of his adventures is believed to have
extended to Seville, Córdova, Valencia, Segovia, and probably other
places, where his plays and farces could be represented with profit.
At Segovia, we know he acted in the new cathedral, during the week of
its consecration, in 1558; and Cervantes and the unhappy Antonio Perez
both speak with admiration of his powers as an actor; the first having
been twenty years old in 1567, the period commonly assumed as that of
Rueda’s death,[16] and the last having been eighteen. Rueda’s success,
therefore, even during his lifetime, seems to have been remarkable;
and when he died, though he belonged to the despised and rejected
profession of the stage, he was interred with honor among the mazy
pillars in the nave of the great cathedral at Córdova.[17]
[16] It is known that he was certainly dead as early as that
year, because the edition of his “Comedias” then published at
Valencia, by his friend Timoneda, contains, at the end of the
“Engaños,” a sonnet on his death by Francisco Ledesma. The last,
and, indeed, almost the only, date we have about him, is that
of his acting in the cathedral at Segovia in 1558; of which we
have a distinct account in the learned and elaborate History of
Segovia, by Diego de Colmenares, (Segovia, 1627, fol., p. 516),
where he says, that, on a stage erected between the choirs, “Lope
de Rueda, a well-known actor [famoso comediante] of that age
represented an entertaining play [gustosa comedia].”
[17] The well-known passage about Lope de Rueda, in Cervantes’s
Prólogo to his own plays, is of more consequence than all the
rest that remains concerning him. Every thing, however, is
collected in Navarrete, “Vida de Cervantes,” pp. 255-260; and in
Casiano Pellicer, “Orígen de la Comedia y del Histrionismo en
España,” Madrid, 1804, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 72-84.
His works were collected after his death by his friend Juan de
Timoneda, and published in different editions, between 1567 and
1588.[18] They consist of four Comedias, two Pastoral Colloquies,
and ten Pasos, or dialogues, all in prose; besides two dialogues in
verse. They were all evidently written for representation, and were
unquestionably acted before popular audiences, by the strolling company
Lope de Rueda led about.
[18] “Las Quatro Comedias y Dos Coloquios Pastorales del
excelente poeta y gracioso representante, Lope de Rueda,” etc.,
impresas en Sevilla, 1576, 8vo,--contains his principal works,
with the “Diálogo sobre la Invencion de las Calzas que se usan
agora.” From the Epistola prefixed to it by Juan de Timoneda, I
infer that he made alterations in the manuscripts, as Lope de
Rueda left them; but not, probably, any of much consequence. Of
the “Deleytoso,” printed at Valencia, 1577, I have never been
able to see more than the very ample extracts given by Moratin,
amounting to six _Pasos_ and a _Coloquio_. The first edition of
the Quatro Comedias, etc., was 1567, at Valencia; the last at
Logroño, 1588.
The four Comedias are merely divided into scenes, and extend to the
length of a common farce, whose spirit they generally share. The first
of them, “Los Engaños,”--Frauds,--contains the story of a daughter
of Verginio, who has escaped from the convent where she was to be
educated, and is serving as a page to Marcelo, who had once been her
lover, and who had left her because he believed himself to have been
ill treated. Clavela, the lady to whom Marcelo now devotes himself,
falls in love with the fair page, somewhat as Olivia does in “Twelfth
Night,” and this brings in several effective scenes and situations.
But a twin brother of the lady-page returns home, after a considerable
absence, so like her, that he proves the other Sosia, who, first
producing great confusion and trouble, at last marries Clavela, and
leaves his sister to her original lover. This is at least a plot; and
some of its details and portions of the dialogue are ingenious, and
managed with dramatic skill.
The next, the “Medora,” is, also, not without a sense of what belongs
to theatrical composition and effect. The interest of the action
depends, in a considerable degree, on the confusion produced by the
resemblance between a young woman stolen when a child by Gypsies,
and the heroine, who is her twin sister. But there are well-drawn
characters in it, that stand out in excellent relief, especially
two: Gargullo,--the “miles gloriosus,” or Captain Bobadil, of the
story,--who, by an admirable touch of nature, is made to boast of his
courage when quite alone, as well as when he is in company; and a Gypsy
woman, who overreaches and robs him at the very moment he intends to
overreach and rob her.[19]
[19] This is the _Rufian_ of the old Spanish dramas and
stories,--parcel _rowdy_, parcel bully, and wholly knave;--a
different personage from the _Rufian_ of recent times, who is the
elder _Alcahuete_ or pander.
The story of the “Eufemia” is not unlike that of the slandered Imogen,
and the character of Melchior Ortiz is almost exactly that of the fool
in the old English drama,--a well-sustained and amusing mixture of
simplicity and shrewdness.
The “Armelina,” which is the fourth and last of the longer pieces of
Lope de Rueda, is more bold in its dramatic incidents than either of
the others.[20] The heroine, a foundling from Hungary, after a series
of strange incidents, is left in a Spanish village, where she is kindly
and even delicately brought up by the village blacksmith; while her
father, to supply her place, has no less kindly brought up in Hungary
a natural son of this same blacksmith, who had been carried there by
his unworthy mother. The father of the lady, having some intimation
of where his daughter is to be found, comes to the Spanish village,
bringing his adopted son with him. There he advises with a Moorish
necromancer how he is to proceed in order to regain his lost child. The
Moor, by a fearful incantation, invokes Medea, who actually appears on
the stage, fresh from the infernal regions, and informs him that his
daughter is living in the very village where they all are. Meanwhile
the daughter has seen the youth from Hungary, and they are at once
in love with each other;--the blacksmith, at the same time, having
decided, with the aid of his wife, to compel her to marry a shoemaker,
to whom he had before promised her. Here, of course, come troubles
and despair. The young lady undertakes to cut them short, at once, by
throwing herself into the sea, but is prevented by Neptune, who quietly
carries her down to his abodes under the roots of the ocean, and brings
her back at the right moment to solve all the difficulties, explain the
relationships, and end the whole with a wedding and a dance. This is,
no doubt, very wild and extravagant, especially in the part containing
the incantation and in the part played by Neptune; but, after all, the
dialogue is pleasant and easy, and the style natural and spirited.
[20] It may be worth noticing, that both the “Armelina” and the
“Eufemia” open with scenes of calling up a lazy young man from
bed, in the early morning, much like the first in the “Nubes” of
Aristophanes.
The two Pastoral Colloquies differ from the four Comedias, partly in
having even less carefully constructed plots, and partly in affecting,
through their more bucolic portions, a stately and pedantic air, which
is any thing but agreeable. They belong, however, substantially to
the same class of dramas, and received a different name, perhaps,
only from the circumstance, that a pastoral tone was always popular
in Spanish poetry, and that, from the time of Enzina, it had been
considered peculiarly fitted for public exhibition. The comic parts of
the colloquies are the only portions of them that have merit; and the
following passage from that of “Timbria” is as characteristic of Lope
de Rueda’s light and natural manner as any thing, perhaps, that can be
selected from what we have of his dramas. It is a discussion between
Leno, the shrewd fool of the piece, and Troico,[21] in which Leno
ingeniously contrives to get rid of all blame for having eaten up a
nice cake which Timbria, the lady in love with Troico, had sent to him
by the faithless glutton.
[21] Troico, it should be observed, is a woman in disguise.
_Leno._ Ah, Troico, are you there?
_Troico._ Yes, my good fellow, don’t you see I am?
_Leno._ It would be better if I did not see it.
_Troico._ Why so, Leno?
_Leno._ Why then you would not know a piece of ill-luck that has
just happened.
_Troico._ What ill-luck?
_Leno._ What day is it to-day?
_Troico._ Thursday.
_Leno._ Thursday? How soon will Tuesday come, then?
_Troico._ Tuesday is passed two days ago.
_Leno._ Well, that’s something;--but tell me, are there not other
days of ill-luck as well as Tuesdays?[22]
[22] This superstition about Tuesday as an unlucky day is not
unfrequent in the old Spanish drama:--
Está escrito,
El Martes es dia aciago.
Lope de Vega, El Cuerdo en su Casa, Acto II. Comedias, Madrid,
1615, 4to, Tom. VI. f. 112. a.
_Troico._ What do you ask that for?
_Leno._ I ask, because there may be unlucky pancakes, if there are
unlucky Thursdays.
_Troico._ I suppose so.
_Leno._ Now stop there;--suppose one of yours had been eaten of a
Thursday; on whom would the ill-luck have fallen? on the pancake or on
you?
_Troico._ No doubt, on me.
_Leno._ Then, my good Troico, comfort yourself, and begin to suffer and
be patient; for men, as the saying is, are born to misfortunes, and
there are matters, in fine, that come from God; and in the order of
time you must die yourself, and, as the saying is, your last hour will
then be come and arrived. Take it, then, patiently, and remember that
we are here to-morrow and gone to-day.
_Troico._ For heaven’s sake, Leno, is any body in the family dead? Or
else why do you console me so?
_Leno._ Would to heaven that were all, Troico!
_Troico._ Then what is it? Can’t you tell me, without so many
circumlocutions? What is all this preamble about?
_Leno._ When my poor mother died, he that brought me the news, before
he told me of it, dragged me round through more turn-abouts than there
are windings in the Pisuerga and Zapardiel.[23]
[23] Rivers in the North of Spain, often mentioned in Spanish
poetry, especially the first of them.
_Troico._ But I have got no mother, and never knew one. I don’t
comprehend what you mean.
_Leno._ Then smell of this napkin.
_Troico._ Very well, I have smelt of it.
_Leno._ What does it smell of?
_Troico._ Something like butter.
_Leno._ Then you may truly say, “Here Troy _was_.”
_Troico._ What do you mean, Leno?
_Leno._ For you it was given to me; for you Madam Timbria sent it, all
stuck over with nuts;--but as I have (and Heaven and every body else
knows it) a sort of natural relationship to whatever is good, my eyes
watched and followed it just as a hawk follows chickens.
_Troico._ Followed whom, villain? Timbria?
_Leno._ Heaven forbid! But how nicely she sent it, all made up with
butter and sugar!
_Troico._ And what was that?
_Leno._ The pancake, to be sure,--don’t you understand?
_Troico._ And who sent a pancake to me?
_Leno._ Why, Madam Timbria.
_Troico._ Then what became of it?
_Leno._ It was consumed.
_Troico._ How?
_Leno._ By looking at it.
_Troico._ Who looked at it?
_Leno._ I, by ill-luck.
_Troico._ In what fashion?
_Leno._ Why, I sat down by the way-side.
_Troico._ Well, what next?
_Leno._ I took it in my hand.
_Troico._ And then?
_Leno._ Then I tried how it tasted; and what between taking and leaving
all round the edges of it, when I tried to think what had become of it,
I found I had no sort of recollection.
_Troico._ The upshot is, that you ate it?
_Leno._ It is not impossible.
_Troico._ In faith, you are a trusty fellow!
_Leno._ Indeed! do you think so? Hereafter, if I bring two, I will eat
them both, and so be better yet.
_Troico._ The business goes on well.
_Leno._ And well advised, and at small cost; and to my content. But
now, go to; suppose we have a little jest with Timbria.
_Troico._ Of what sort?
_Leno._ Suppose you make her believe you ate the pancake yourself, and,
when she thinks it is true, you and I can laugh at the trick till you
split your sides. Can you ask for any thing better?
_Troico._ You counsel well.
_Leno._ Well, Heaven bless the men that listen to reason! But tell me,
Troico, do you think you can carry out the jest with a grave face?
_Troico._ I? What have I to laugh about?
_Leno._ Why, don’t you think it is a laughing matter to make her
believe you ate it, when all the time it was your own good Leno that
did it?
_Troico._ Wisely said. But now hold your tongue, and go about your
business.[24]
[24] _Len._ Ah, Troico! estás acá?
_Tro._ Sí, hermano: tu no lo ves?
_Len._ Mas valiera que no.
_Tro._ Porque, Leno?
_Len._ Porque no supieras una desgracia, que ha sucedido harto
poco ha.
_Tro._ Y que ha sido la desgracia?
_Len._ Que es hoy?
_Tro._ Jueves.
_Len._ Jueves? Quanto le falta para ser Martes?
_Tro._ Antes le sobran dos dias.
_Len._ Mucho es eso! Mas dime, suele haber dias aziagos así como
los Martes?
_Tro._ Porque lo dices?
_Len._ Pregunto, porque tambien habrá hojaldres desgraciadas,
pues hay Jueves desgraciados.
_Tro._ Creo que sí!
_Len._ Y ven acá: si te la hubiesen comido á ti una en Jueves, en
quien habria caido la desgracia, en la hojaldre ó en ti?
_Tro._ No hay duda sino que en mí.
_Len._ Pues, hermano Troico, aconortaos, y comenzad á sufrir, y
ser paciente, que por los hombres (como dicen) suelen venir las
desgracias, y estas son cosas de Dios en fin, y tambien segun
órden de los dias os podriades vos morir, y (como dicen) ya
seria recomplida y allegada la hora postrimera, rescebildo con
paciencia, y acórdaos que mañana somos y hoy no.
_Tro._ Válame Dios, Leno! Es muerto alguno en casa? O como me
consuelas ansí?
_Len._ Ojalá, Troico!
_Tro._ Pues que fué? No lo dirás sin tantos circunloquios? Para
que es tanto preámbulo?
_Len._ Quando mi madre murió, para decírmelo él que me llevó la
nueva me trajó mas rodeos que tiene bueltas Pisuerga ó Zapardiel.
_Tro._ Pues yo no tengo madre, ni la conoscí, ni te entiendo.
_Len._ Huele ese pañizuelo.
_Tro._ Y bien? Ya está olido.
_Len._ A que huele?
_Tro._ A cosa de manteca.
_Len._ Pues bien puedes decir, aquí hué Troya.
_Tro._ Como, Leno?
_Len._ Para ti me la habian dado, para ti la embiaba rebestida
de piñones la Señora Timbria; pero como yo soy (y lo sabe Dios
y todo el mundo) allegado á lo bueno, en viéndola así, se me
vinieron los ojos tras ella como milano tras de pollera.
_Tro._ Tras quien, traidor? tras Timbria?
_Len._ Que no, válame Dios! Que empapada la embiaba de manteca y
azúcar!
_Tro._ La que?
_Len._ La hojaldre: no lo entiendes?
_Tro._ Y quien me la embiaba?
_Len._ La Señora Timbria.
_Tro._ Pues que la heciste?
_Len._ Consumióse.
_Tro._ De que?
_Len._ De ojo.
_Tro._ Quien la ojeó?
_Len._ Yo, mal punto!
_Tro._ De que manera?
_Len._ Asentéme en el camino.
_Tro._ Y que mas?
_Len._ Toméla en la mano.
_Tro._ Y luego?
_Len._ Prové á que sabia, y como por una vanda y por otra estaba
de dar y tomar, quando por ella acordé, ya no habia memoria.
_Tro._ En fin, te la comiste?
_Len._ Podria ser.
_Tro._ Por cierto, que eres hombre de buen recado.
_Len._ A fe? que te parezco? De aquí adelante si trugere dos, me
las comeré juntas, para hacello mejor.
_Tro._ Bueno va el negocio.
_Len._ Y bien regido, y con poca costa, y á mi contento. Mas ven
acá, si quies que riamos un rato con Timbria?
_Tro._ De que suerte?
_Len._ Puedes le hacer en creyente, que la comiste tu, y como
ella piense que es verdad, podremos despues tu y yo reir acá de
la burla; que rebentarás riyendo! Que mas quies?
_Tro._ Bien me aconsejas.
_Len._ Agora bien; Dios bendiga los hombres acogidos á razon!
Pero dime, Troico, sabrás disimular con ella sin reirte?
_Tro._ Yo? de que me habia de reir?
_Len._ No te paresce, que es manera de reir, hacelle en creyente,
que tu te la comiste, habiéndosela comido tu amigo Leno?
_Tro._ Dices sabiamente; mas calla, vete en buen hora.
Las Quatro Comedias, etc., de Lope de Rueda, Sevilla, 1576, 8vo.
The ten Pasos are much like this dialogue,--short and lively, without
plot or results, and merely intended to amuse an idle audience for a
few moments. Two of them are on glutton tricks, like that practised by
Leno; others are between thieves and cowards; and all are drawn from
common life, and written with spirit. It is very possible that some of
them were taken out of larger and more formal dramatic compositions,
which it was not thought worth while to print entire.[25]
[25] This I infer from the fact, that, at the end of the edition
of the Comedias and Coloquios, 1576, there is a “Tabla de los
pasos graciosos que se pueden sacar de las presentes Comedias
y Coloquios y poner en otras obras.” Indeed, _paso_ meant _a
passage_. Pasos were, however, undoubtedly sometimes written as
separate works by Lope de Rueda, and were not called _entremeses_
till Timoneda gave them the name. Still, they may have been
earlier used as such, or as introductions to the longer dramas.
The two dialogues in verse are curious, as the only specimens of Lope
de Rueda’s poetry that are now extant, except some songs and a fragment
preserved by Cervantes.[26] One is called “Proofs of Love,” and is a
sort of pastoral discussion between two shepherds, on the question,
which was most favored, the one who had received a finger-ring as a
present, or the one who had received an ear-ring. It is written in easy
and flowing _quintillas_, and is not longer than one of the slight
dialogues in prose. The other is called “A Dialogue on the Breeches
now in Fashion,” and is in the same easy measure, but has more of its
author’s peculiar spirit and manner. It is between two lackeys, and
begins thus abruptly:--
[26] There is a _Glosa_ printed at the end of the Comedias; but
it is not of much value. The passage preserved by Cervantes is in
his “Baños de Argel,” near the end.
_Peralta._ Master Fuentes, what’s the change, I pray,
I notice in your hosiery and shape?
You seem so very swollen as you walk.
_Fuentes._ Sir, ’t is the breeches fashion now prescribes.
_Peralta._ I thought it was an under-petticoat!
_Fuentes._ I’m not ashamed of what I have put on.
Why must I wear my breeches made like yours?
Good friend, your own are wholly out of vogue.
_Peralta._ But what are yours so lined and stuffed withal,
That thus they seem so very smooth and tight?
_Fuentes._ Of that we’ll say but little. An old mantle,
And a cloak still older and more spoiled,
Do vainly struggle from my hose t’ escape.
_Peralta._ To my mind, they were used to better ends,
If sewed up for a horse’s blanket, Sir.
_Fuentes._ But others stuff in plenty of clean straw
And rushes to make out a shapely form----
_Peralta._ Proving that they are more or less akin
To beasts of burden.
_Fuentes._ But they wear, at least,
Such gallant hosiery, that things of taste
May well be added to fit out their dress.
_Peralta._ No doubt, the man that dresses thus in straw
May tastefully put on a saddle too.[27]
[27]
_Per._ Señor Fuentes, que mudanza
Habeis hecho en el calzado,
Con que andais tan abultado?
_Fuent._ Señor, calzas á la usanza.
_Per._ Pense qu’ era verdugado.
_Fuent._ Pues yo d’ ellas no me corro.
Que han de ser como las vuesas?
Hermano, ya no usan d’ esas.
_Per._ Mas que les hechais de aforro,
Que aun se paran tan tiesas?
_Fuent._ D’ eso poco: un sayo viejo
Y toda una ruin capa,
Que á esta calza no escapa.
_Per._ Pues, si van á mi consejo,
Hecharan una gualdrapa.
_Fuent._ Y aun otros mandan poner
Copia de paja y esparto,
Porque les abulten harto.
_Per._ Esos deben de tener
De bestias quizá algun quarto.
_Fuent._ Pondrase qualquier alhaja
Por traer calza gallarda.
_Per._ Cierto yo no sé que aguarda
Quien va vestido de paja
De hacerse alguna albarda.
I do not know that this dialogue is printed anywhere but at the
end of the edition of the Comedias, 1576. It refers evidently to
the broad-bottomed stuffed hose, then coming into fashion; such
as the daughter of Sancho, in her vanity, when she heard her
father was governor of Barrataria, wanted to see him wear; and
such as Don Carlos, according to the account of Thuanus, wore,
when he used to hide in their strange recesses the pistols that
alarmed Philip II.;--“caligis, quæ amplissimæ de more gentis in
usu sunt.” They were forbidden by a royal ordinance in 1623. See
D. Quixote, (Parte II. c. 50), with two amusing stories told in
the notes of Pellicer, and Thuani Historiarum, Lib. XLI., at the
beginning.
In all the forms of the drama attempted by Lope de Rueda, the main
purpose is evidently to amuse a popular audience. But to do this, his
theatrical resources were very small and humble. “In the time of this
celebrated Spaniard,” says Cervantes, recalling the gay season of his
youth,[28] “the whole apparatus of a manager was contained in a large
sack, and consisted of four white shepherd’s jackets, turned up with
leather, gilt and stamped; four beards and false sets of hanging locks;
and four shepherd’s crooks, more or less. The plays were colloquies,
like eclogues, between two or three shepherds and a shepherdess,
fitted up and extended with two or three interludes, whose personages
were sometimes a negress, sometimes a bully, sometimes a fool, and
sometimes a Biscayan;--for all these four parts, and many others, Lope
himself performed with the greatest excellence and skill that can be
imagined.... The theatre was composed of four benches, arranged in a
square, with five or six boards laid across them, that were thus raised
about four palms from the ground.... The furniture of the theatre
was an old blanket drawn aside by two cords, making what they call a
tiring-room, behind which were the musicians, who sang old ballads
without a guitar.”
[28] Comedias, Prólogo.
The place where this rude theatre was set up was a public square, and
the performances occurred whenever an audience could be collected;
apparently both forenoon and afternoon, for, at the end of one of his
plays, Lope de Rueda invites his “hearers only to eat their dinner and
return to the square,”[29] and witness another.
[29] “Auditores, no hagais sino comer, y dad la vuelta á la
plaza.”
His four longer dramas have some resemblance to portions of the earlier
English comedy, which, at precisely the same period, was beginning to
show itself in pieces such as “Ralph Royster Doyster,” and “Gammer
Gurton’s Needle.” They are divided into what are called scenes,--the
shortest of them consisting of six, and the longest of ten; but in
these scenes the place sometimes changes, and the persons often,--a
circumstance of little consequence, where the whole arrangements
implied no real attempt at scenic illusion.[30] Much of the success
of all depended on the part played by the fools, or _simples_, who,
in most of his dramas, are important personages, almost constantly
on the stage;[31] while something is done by mistakes in language,
arising from vulgar ignorance or from foreign dialects, like those of
negroes and Moors. Each piece opens with a brief explanatory prologue,
and ends with a word of jest and apology to the audience. Naturalness
of thought, the most easy, idiomatic Castilian turns of expression,
a good-humored, free gayety, a strong sense of the ridiculous, and
a happy imitation of the manners and tone of common life, are the
prominent characteristics of these, as they are of all the rest of his
shorter efforts. He was, therefore, on the right road, and was, in
consequence, afterwards justly reckoned, both by Cervantes and Lope de
Vega, to be the true founder of the popular national theatre.[32]
[30] In the fifth _escena_ of the “Eufemia,” the place changes,
when Valiano comes in. Indeed, it is evident that Lope de Rueda
did not know the meaning of the word _scene_, or did not employ
it aright.
[31] The first traces of these _simples_, who were afterwards
expanded into the _graciosos_, is to be found in the _parvos_ of
Gil Vicente.
[32] Cervantes, in the Prólogo already cited, calls him “_el
gran_ Lope de Rueda,” and, when speaking of the Spanish Comedias,
treats him as “el primero que en España las sacó de mantillas y
las puso en toldo y vistió de gala y apariencia.” This was in
1615; and Cervantes spoke from his own knowledge and memory. In
1620, in the Prólogo to the thirteenth volume of his Comedias,
(Madrid, 4to), Lope de Vega says, “Las comedias no eran mas
antiguas que Rueda, á quien oyeron muchos, que hoy viven.”
The earliest follower of Lope de Rueda was his friend and editor, Juan
de Timoneda, a bookseller of Valencia, who certainly flourished during
the middle and latter part of the sixteenth century, and probably died
in extreme old age, soon after the year 1597.[33] His thirteen or
fourteen pieces that were printed pass under various names, and have
a considerable variety in their character; the most popular in their
tone being the best. Four are called “Pasos,” and four “Farsas,”--all
much alike. Two are called “Comedias,” one of which, the “Aurelia,”
written in short verses, is divided into five _jornadas_, and has
an _intróito_, after the manner of Naharro; while the other, the
“Cornelia,” is merely divided into seven scenes, and written in prose,
after the manner of Lope de Rueda. Besides these, we have what, in the
present sense of the word, is for the first time called an “Entremes”;
a Tragicomedia, which is a mixture of mythology and modern history; a
religious Auto, on the subject of the Lost Sheep; and a translation,
or rather an imitation, of the “Menæchmi” of Plautus. In all of them,
however, he seems to have relied for success on a spirited, farcical
dialogue, like that of Lope de Rueda; and all were, no doubt, written
to be acted in the public squares, to which, more than once, they make
allusion.[34]
[33] Ximeno, Escritores de Valencia, Tom. I. p. 72, and Fuster,
Biblioteca Valenciana, Tom. I. p. 161.
[34] In the Prologue to the Cornelia, one of the speakers says
that one of the principal personages of the piece lives in
Valencia, “in this house which you see,” he adds, pointing the
spectators picturesquely, and no doubt with comic effect, to some
house they could all see. A similar jest about another of the
personages is repeated a little farther on.
The “Cornelia,” first printed in 1559, is somewhat confused in its
story. We have in it a young lady, taken, when a child, by the Moors,
and returned, when grown up, to the neighbourhood of her friends,
without knowing who she is; a foolish fellow, deceived by his wife, and
yet not without shrewdness enough to make much merriment; and Pasquin,
partly a quack doctor, partly a magician, and wholly a rogue; who, with
five or six other characters, make rather a superabundance of materials
for so short a drama. Some of the dialogues are full of life; and the
development of two or three of the characters is good, especially that
of Cornalla, the clown; but the most prominent personage, perhaps,--the
magician,--is taken, in a considerable degree, from the “Negromante” of
Ariosto, which was represented at Ferrara about thirty years earlier,
and proves that Timoneda had some scholarship, if not always a ready
invention.[35]
[35] “Con privilegio. Comedia llamada Cornelia, nuevamente
compuesta, por Juan de Timoneda. Es muy sentida, graciosa, y
vozijada. Año 1559.” 8vo.
The “Menennos,” published in the same year with the Cornelia, is
further proof of his learning. It is in prose, and taken from Plautus;
but with large changes. The plot is laid in Seville; the play is
divided into fourteen scenes, after the example of Lope de Rueda; and
the manners are altogether Spanish. There is even a talk of Lazarillo
de Tórmes, when speaking of an unprincipled young servant.[36] But it
shows frequently the same free and natural dialogue, fresh from common
life, that is found in his master’s dramas; and it can be read with
pleasure throughout, as an amusing _rifacimento_.[37]
[36] It is in the twelfth scene. “Es el mas agudo rapaz del
mundo, y es hermano de Lazarillo de Tórmes, el que tuvo
trezientos y cincuenta amos.”
[37] “Con privilegio. La Comedia de los Menennos, traduzida
por Juan Timoneda, y puesta en gracioso estilo y elegantes
sentencias. Año 1559.” 8vo.
The Paso, however, of “The Blind Beggars and the Boy” is, like the
other short pieces, more characteristic of the author and of the little
school to which he belonged. It is written in short, familiar verses,
and opens with an address to the audience by Palillos, the boy, asking
for employment, and setting forth his own good qualities, which he
illustrates by showing how ingeniously he had robbed a blind beggar who
had been his master. At this instant, Martin Alvarez, the blind beggar
in question, approaches on one side of a square where the scene passes,
chanting his prayers, as is still the wont of such persons in the
streets of Spanish cities; while on the other side of the same square
approaches another of the same class, called Pero Gomez, similarly
employed. Both offer their prayers in exchange for alms, and are
particularly earnest to obtain custom, as it is Christmas eve. Martin
Alvarez begins:--
What pious Christian here
Will bid me pray
A blessed prayer,
Quite singular
And new, I say,
In honor of our Lady dear?
On hearing the well-known voice, Palillos, the boy, is alarmed, and,
at first, talks of escaping; but recollecting that there is no need
of this, as the beggar is blind, he merely stands still, and his old
master goes on:--
O, bid me pray! O, bid me pray!--
The very night is holy time,--
O, bid me pray the blessed prayer,
The birth of Christ in rhyme!
But as nobody offers an alms, he breaks out again:--
Good heavens! the like was never known!
The thing is truly fearful grown;
For I have cried,
Till my throat is dried,
At every corner on my way,
And not a soul heeds what I say!
The people, I begin to fear,
Are grown too careful of their gear,
For honest prayers to pay.
The other blind beggar, Pero Gomez, now comes up and strikes in:--
Who will ask for the blind man’s prayer?--
O gentle souls that hear my word!
Give but an humble alms,
And I will sing the holy psalms
For which Pope Clement’s bulls afford
Indulgence full, indulgence rare,
· · · · · · · · · · · ·
And add, besides, the blessed prayer
For the birth of our blessed Lord.[38]
[38]
Devotos cristianos, quien
Manda rezar
Una oracion singular
Nueva de nuestra Señora?
Mandadme rezar, pues que es
Noche santa,
La oracion segun se canta
Del nacimiento de Cristo.
Jesus! nunca tal he visto,
Cosa es esta que me espanta:
Seca tengo la garganta
De pregones
Que voy dando por cantones,
Y nada no me aprovecha:
Es la gente tan estrecha,
Que no cuida de oraciones.
Quien manda sus devociones,
Noble gente,
Que rece devotamente
Los salmos de penitencia,
Por los cuales indulgencia
Otorgó el Papa Clemente?
· · · · · · · ·
La oracion del nacimiento
De Cristo.
L. F. Moratin, Obras, Madrid, 1830, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 648.
The two blind men, hearing each other, enter into conversation, and,
believing themselves to be alone, Alvarez relates how he had been
robbed by his unprincipled attendant, and Gomez explains how he avoids
such misfortunes by always carrying the ducats he begs sewed into his
cap. Palillos, learning this, and not well pleased with the character
he has just received, comes very quietly up to Gomez, knocks off his
cap, and escapes with it. Gomez thinks it is his blind friend who has
played him the trick, and asks civilly to have his cap back again. The
friend denies, of course, all knowledge of it; Gomez insists; and the
dialogue ends, as many of its class do, with a quarrel and a fight, to
the great amusement, no doubt, of audiences such as were collected in
the public squares of Valencia or Seville.[39]
[39] This Paso--true to the manners of the times, as we can see
from a similar scene in the “Diablo Cojuelo,” Tranco VI.--is
reprinted by L. F. Moratin, (Obras, 8vo, Madrid, 1830, Tom. I.
Parte II. p. 644), who gives (Parte I. Catálogo, Nos. 95, 96,
106-118) the best account of all the works of Timoneda. The habit
of singing popular poetry of all kinds in the streets has been
common, from the days of the Archpriest Hita (Copla 1488) to our
own times. I have often listened to it, and possess many of the
ballads and other verses still paid for by an alms as they were
in this Paso of Timoneda.
In one of the plays of Cervantes,--that of “Pedro de
Urdemalas,”--the hero is introduced enacting the part of a blind
beggar, and advertising himself by his chant, just as the beggar
in Timoneda does:--
The prayer of the secret soul I know,
That of Pancras the blessed of old;
The prayer of Acacius and Quirce;
One for chilblains, that come from the cold,
One for jaundice that yellows the skin,
And for scrofula working within.
The lines in the original are not consecutive, but those I have
selected are as follows:--
Se la del anima sola,
Y se la de San Pancracio,
La de San Quirce y Acacio,
Se la de los sabañones,
La de curar tericia
Y resolver lamparones.
Comedias, Madrid, 1615, 4to, f. 207.
CHAPTER VIII.
THEATRE.--FOLLOWERS OF LOPE DE RUEDA.--ALONSO DE LA VEGA.--
CISNEROS.--SEVILLE.--MALARA.--CUEVA.--ZEPEDA.--VALENCIA.--VIRUES.--
TRANSLATIONS AND IMITATIONS OF THE ANCIENT CLASSICAL DRAMA.--
VILLALOBOS.--OLIVA.--BOSCAN.--ABRIL.--BERMUDEZ.--ARGENSOLA.--
STATE OF THE THEATRE.
Two of the persons attached to Lope de Rueda’s company were, like
himself, authors as well as actors. One of them, Alonso de la Vega,
died at Valencia as early as 1566, in which year three of his dramas,
all in prose, and one of them directly imitated from his master, were
published by Timoneda.[40] The other, Antonio Cisneros, lived as late
as 1579, but it does not seem certain that any dramatic work of his
now exists.[41] Neither of them was equal to Lope de Rueda or Juan de
Timoneda; but the four taken together produced an impression on the
theatrical taste of their times, which was never afterwards wholly
forgotten or lost,--a fact of which the shorter dramatic compositions
that have been favorites on the Spanish stage ever since give decisive
proof.
[40] C. Pellicer, Orígen de la Comedia, Tom. I. p. 111; Tom. II.
p. 18; with L. F. Moratin, Obras, Tom. I. Parte II. p. 638, and
his Catálogo, Nos. 100, 104, and 105.
[41] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 116; Tom. II. p. 30.
But dramatic representations in Spain between 1560 and 1590 were by
no means confined to what was done by Lope de Rueda, his friends, and
his strolling company of actors. Other efforts were made in various
places, and upon other principles; sometimes with more success than
theirs, sometimes with less. In Seville, a good deal seems to have been
done. It is probable the plays of Malara, a native of that city, were
represented there during this period; but they are now all lost.[42]
Those of Juan de la Cueva, on the contrary, have been partly preserved,
and merit notice for many reasons, but especially because most of them
are historical. They were represented--at least, the few that still
remain--in 1579, and the years immediately subsequent; but were not
printed till 1588, and then only a single volume appeared.[43] Each of
them is divided into four _jornadas_, or acts, and they are written in
various measures, including _terza rima_, blank verse, and sonnets, but
chiefly in _redondillas_ and octave stanzas. Several are on national
subjects, like “The Children of Lara,” “Bernardo del Carpio,” and “The
Siege of Zamora”; others are on subjects from ancient history, such as
Ajax, Virginia, and Mutius Scævola; some are on fictitious stories,
like “The Old Man in Love,” and “The Decapitated,” which last is
founded on a Moorish adventure; and one, at least, is on a great event
of times then recent, “The Sack of Rome” by the Constable Bourbon. All,
however, are crude in their structure, and unequal in their execution.
The Sack of Rome, for instance, is merely a succession of dialogues
thrown together in the loosest manner, to set forth the progress of the
Imperial arms, from the siege of Rome in May, 1527, to the coronation
of Charles the Fifth, at Bologna, in February, 1530; and though the
picture of the outrages at Rome is not without an air of truth, there
is little truth in other respects; the Spaniards being made to carry
off all the glory.[44]
[42] Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, p. 410.
[43] L. F. Moratin, Obras, Tom. I. Parte I., Catálogo, Nos.
132-139, 142-145, 147, and 150. Martinez de la Rosa, Obras,
Paris, 1827, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 167, etc.
[44] “El Saco de Roma” is reprinted in Ochoa, Teatro Español,
Paris, 1838, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 251.
“El Infamador,” or The Calumniator, sets forth, in a different tone,
the story of a young lady who refuses the love of a dissolute young
man, and is, in consequence, accused by him of murder and other crimes,
and condemned to death, but is rescued by preternatural power, while
her accuser suffers in her stead. It is almost throughout a revolting
picture; the fathers of the hero and heroine being each made to desire
the death of his own child, while the whole is rendered absurd by
the not unusual mixture of heathen mythology and modern manners. Of
poetry, which is occasionally found in Cueva’s other dramas, there is
in this play no trace; and so carelessly is it written, that there is
no division of the acts into scenes.[45] Indeed, it seems difficult
to understand how several of his twelve or fourteen dramas should
have been brought into practical shape and represented at all. It is
probable they were merely spoken as consecutive dialogues, to bring out
their respective stories, without any attempt at theatrical illusion; a
conjecture which receives confirmation from the fact, that nearly all
of them are announced, on their titles, as having been represented in
the garden of a certain Doña Elvira at Seville.[46]
[45] “El Infamador” is reprinted in Ochoa, Tom. I. p. 264.
[46] One of the plays, not represented in the Huerta de Doña
Elvira, is represented “en el Corral de Don Juan,” and another in
the Atarazanas,--Arsenal, or Ropewalks. None of them, I suppose,
appeared on a public theatre.
The two plays of Joaquin Romero de Zepeda, of Badajoz, which were
printed at Seville in 1582, are somewhat different from those of
Cueva. One, “The Metamorfosea,” is in the nature of the old dramatic
pastorals, but is divided into three short _jornadas_, or acts.
It is a trial of wits and love, between three shepherds and three
shepherdesses, who are constantly at cross purposes with each other,
but are at last reconciled and united;--all except one shepherd,
who had originally refused to love any body, and one shepherdess,
Belisena, who, after being cruel to one of her lovers, and slighted by
another, is finally rejected by the rejected of all. The other play,
called “La Comedia Salvage,” is taken, in its first two acts, from the
well-known dramatic novel of “Celestina”; the last act being filled
with atrocities of Zepeda’s own invention. It obtains its name from the
Salvages or wild men, who figure in it, as such personages did in the
old romances of chivalry and the old English drama, and is as strange
and rude as its title implies. Neither of these pieces, however, can
have done any thing of consequence for the advancement of the drama at
Seville, though each contains passages of flowing and apt verse, and
occasional turns of thought that deserve to be called graceful.[47]
[47] These two pieces are in “Obras de Joachim Romero de Zepeda,
Vezino de Badajoz,” (Sevilla, 1582, 4to, ff. 130 and 118), and
are reprinted by Ochoa. The opening of the second _jornada_ of
the Metamorfosea may be cited for its pleasant and graceful tone
of poetry,--lyrical, however, rather than dramatic,--and its air
of the olden time. Other authors living in Seville at about the
same period are mentioned by La Cueva in his “Exemplar Poético”
(Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom. VIII. p. 60):--
Los Sevillanos comicos, Guevara,
Gutierre de Cetina, Cozar, Fuentes,
El ingenioso Ortiz;--
who adds that there were _otros muchos_, many more;--but they are
all lost. Some of them, from his account, wrote in the manner of
the ancients; and perhaps Malara and Megia are the persons he
refers to.
During the same period, there was at Valencia, as well as at Seville,
a poetical movement in which the drama shared, and in which, perhaps,
Lope de Vega, an exile in Valencia for several years, about 1585, took
part. At any rate, his friend Cristóval de Virues, of whom he often
speaks, and who was born there in 1550, was among those who then gave
an impulse to the theatrical taste of his native city. He claims to
have first divided Spanish dramas into three _jornadas_ or acts, and
Lope de Vega assents to the claim; but they were both mistaken, for we
now know that such a division was made by Francisco de Avendaño, not
later than 1553, when Virues was but three years old.[48]
[48] See L. F. Moratin, Catálogo, No. 84.
Only five of the plays of Virues, all in verse, are extant; and these,
though supposed to have been written as early as 1579-1581, were
not printed till 1609, when Lope de Vega had already given its full
development and character to the popular theatre; so that it is not
improbable some of the dramas of Virues, as printed, may have been
more or less altered and accommodated to the standard then considered
as settled by the genius of his friend. Two of them, the “Cassandra”
and the “Marcela,” are on subjects apparently of the Valencian poet’s
own invention, and are extremely wild and extravagant; in “El Átila
Furioso” above fifty persons come to an untimely end, without reckoning
the crew of a galley who perish in the flames for the diversion of the
tyrant and his followers; and in the “Semíramis,” the action extends to
twenty or thirty years. All four of them are absurd.
The “Elisa Dido” is better, and may be regarded as an effort to
elevate the drama. It is divided into five acts, and observes the
unities, though Virues can hardly have comprehended what was afterwards
considered as their technical meaning. Its plot, invented by himself,
and little connected with the stories found in Virgil or the old
Spanish chronicles, supposes the Queen of Carthage to have died by her
own hand for a faithful attachment to the memory of Sichæus, and to
avoid a marriage with Iarbas. It has no division into scenes, and each
act is burdened with a chorus. In short, it is an imitation of the
ancient Greek masters; and as some of the lyrical portions, as well as
parts of the dialogue, are not unworthy the talent of the author of the
“Monserrate,” it is, for the age in which it appeared, a remarkable
composition. But it lacks a good development of the characters, as
well as life and poetical warmth in the action; and being, in fact, an
attempt to carry the Spanish drama in a direction exactly opposite to
that of its destiny, it did not succeed.[49]
[49] L. F. Moratin, Catálogo, Nos. 140, 141, 146, 148, 149; with
Martinez de la Rosa, Obras, Tom. II. pp. 153-167. The play of
Andres Rey de Artieda, on the “Lovers of Teruel,” 1581, belongs to
this period and place. Ximeno, Tom. I. p. 263; Fuster, Tom. I. p.
212.
Such an attempt, however, was not unlikely to be made more than once;
and this was certainly an age favorable for it. The theatre of the
ancients was now known in Spain. The translations already noticed, of
Villalobos in 1515, and of Oliva before 1536, had been followed, as
early as 1543, by one from Euripides by Boscan;[50] in 1555, by two
from Plautus, the work of an unknown author;[51] and in 1570-1577,
by the “Plutus” of Aristophanes, the “Medea” of Euripides, and the
six comedies of Terence, by Pedro Simon de Abril.[52] The efforts of
Timoneda in his “Menennos” and of Virues in his “Elisa Dido” were among
the consequences of this state of things, and were succeeded by others,
two of which should be noticed.
[50] The translation of Boscan from Euripides was never
published, though it is included in the permission to print that
poet’s works, given by Charles V. to Boscan’s widow, 18 Feb.,
1543, prefixed to the first edition of his Works, which appeared
that year at Barcelona.
[51] L. F. Moratin, Catálogo, Nos. 86 and 87.
[52] Pellicer, Biblioteca de Traductores Españoles, Tom. II. pp.
145, etc.
The first is by Gerónimo Bermudez, a native of Galicia, who is
supposed to have been born about 1530, and to have lived as late
as 1589. He was a learned Professor of Theology at Salamanca, and
published, at Madrid, in 1577, two dramas which he somewhat boldly
called “the first Spanish tragedies.”[53] They are both on the subject
of Inez de Castro; both are in five acts, and in various verse; and
both have choruses in the manner of the ancients. But there is a great
difference in their respective merits. The first, “Nise Lastimosa,”
or Inez to be Compassionated,--Nise being a poor anagram of Inez,--is
hardly more than a skilful translation of the Portuguese tragedy of
“Inez de Castro,” by Ferreira, which, with considerable defects in its
structure, is yet full of tenderness and poetical beauty. The last,
“Nise Laureada,” or Inez Triumphant, takes up the tradition where the
first left it, after the violent and cruel death of the princess,
and gives an account of the coronation of her ghastly remains above
twenty years after their interment, and of the renewed marriage of the
prince to them;--the closing scene exhibiting the execution of her
murderers with a coarseness, both in the incidents and in the language,
as revolting as can well be conceived. Neither probably produced any
perceptible effect on the Spanish drama; and yet the “Nise Lastimosa”
contains passages of no little poetical merit; such as the beautiful
chorus on Love at the end of the first act, the dream of Inez in the
third, and the truly Greek dialogue between the princess and the women
of Coimbra; for the last two of which, however, Bermudez was directly
indebted to Ferreira.[54]
[53] Sedano’s “Parnaso Español” (Tom. VI., 1772) contains both
the dramas of Bermudez, with notices of his life.
[54] The “Castro” of Ferreira, one of the most pure and beautiful
compositions in the Portuguese language, is found in his “Poemas”
(Lisboa, 1771, 12mo, Tom. I. pp. 123, etc.). Its author died of
the plague at Lisbon, in 1569, only forty-one years old.
Three tragedies by Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola, the accomplished
lyric poet, who will hereafter be amply noticed, produced a much more
considerable sensation, when they first appeared, though they were soon
afterwards as much neglected as their predecessors. He wrote them when
he was hardly more than twenty years old, and they were acted about
the year 1585. “Do you not remember,” says the canon in Don Quixote,
“that, a few years ago, there were represented in Spain three tragedies
composed by a famous poet of these kingdoms, which were such that they
delighted and astonished all who heard them; the ignorant as well as
the judicious, the multitude as well as the few; and that these three
alone brought more profit to the actors than the thirty best plays
that have been written since?” “No doubt,” replied the manager of the
theatre, with whom the canon was conversing, “no doubt you mean the
‘Isabela,’ the ‘Philis,’ and the ‘Alexandra.’“[55]
[55] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 48.
This statement of Cervantes is certainly extraordinary, and the more
so from being put into the mouth of the wise canon of Toledo. But
notwithstanding the flush of immediate success which it implies, all
trace of these plays was soon so completely lost, that, for a long
period, the name of the famous poet Cervantes had referred to was not
known, and it was even suspected that he had intended to compliment
himself. At last, between 1760 and 1770, two of them--the “Alexandra”
and “Isabela”--were accidentally discovered, and all doubt ceased. They
were found to be the work of Lupercio Leonardo de Argensola.[56]
[56] They first appeared in Sedano’s “Parnaso Español,” Tom. VI.,
1772. All the needful explanations about them are in Sedano,
Moratin, and Martinez de la Rosa. The “Philis” has not been found.
But, unhappily, they quite failed to satisfy the expectations that
had been excited by the good-natured praise of Cervantes. They are in
various verse, fluent and pure, and were intended to be imitations
of the Greek style of tragedy, called forth, perhaps, by the recent
attempts of Bermudez. Each, however, is divided into three acts; and
the choruses, originally prepared for them, are omitted. The Alexandra
is the worse of the two. Its scene is laid in Egypt; and the story,
which is fictitious, is full of loathsome horrors. Every one of its
personages, except perhaps a messenger, perishes in the course of the
action; children’s heads are cut off and thrown at their parents on
the stage; and the false queen, after being invited to wash her hands
in the blood of the person to whom she was unworthily attached, bites
off her own tongue and spits it at her monstrous husband. Treason
and rebellion form the lights in a picture composed mainly of such
atrocities.
The Isabela is better; but still is not to be praised. The story
relates to one of the early Moorish kings of Saragossa, who exiles the
Christians from his kingdom in a vain attempt to obtain possession of
Isabela, a Christian maiden with whom he is desperately in love, but
who is herself already attached to a noble Moor whom she has converted,
and with whom, at last, she suffers a triumphant martyrdom. The
incidents are numerous, and sometimes well imagined; but no dramatic
skill is shown in their management and combination, and there is little
easy or living dialogue to give them effect. Like the Alexandra, it
is full of horrors. The nine most prominent personages it represents
come to an untimely end, and the bodies, or at least the heads, of most
of them are exhibited on the stage, though some reluctance is shown
at the conclusion about committing a supernumerary suicide before the
audience. Fame opens the piece with a prologue, in which complaints
are made of the low state of the theatre; and the ghost of Isabela, who
is hardly dead, comes back at the end, with an epilogue very flat and
quite needless.
With all this, however, a few passages of poetical eloquence, rather
than of absolute poetry, are scattered through the long and tedious
speeches of which the piece is principally composed; and once or
twice there is a touch of passion truly tragic, as in the discussion
between Isabela and her family on the threatened exile and ruin of
their whole race, and in that between Adulce, her lover, and Aja, the
king’s sister, who disinterestedly loves Adulce, notwithstanding she
knows his passion for her fair Christian rival. But still it seems
incomprehensible how such a piece should have produced the popular
dramatic effect attributed to it, unless we suppose that the Spaniards
had from the first a passion for theatrical exhibitions, which, down
to this period, had been so imperfectly gratified, that any thing
dramatic, produced under favorable circumstances, was run after and
admired.
The dramas of Argensola, by their date, though not by their character
and spirit, bring us at once within the period which opens with
the great and prevalent names of Cervantes and Lope de Vega. They,
therefore, mark the extreme limits of the history of the early Spanish
theatre; and if we now look back and consider its condition and
character during the long period we have just gone over, we shall
easily come to three conclusions of some consequence.[57]
[57] It seems probable that a considerable number of dramas
belonging to the period between Lope de Rueda and Lope de Vega,
or between 1560 and 1590, could even now be collected, whose
names have not yet been given to the public; but it is not likely
that they would add any thing important to our knowledge of the
real character or progress of the drama at that time. Aribau,
Biblioteca, Tom. II. pp. 163, 225, notes.
The first is, that the attempts to form and develop a national drama in
Spain have been few and rare. During the two centuries following the
first notice of it, about 1250, we cannot learn distinctly that any
thing was undertaken but rude exhibitions in pantomime; though it is
not unlikely dialogues may sometimes have been added, such as we find
in the more imperfect religious pageants produced at the same period in
England and France. During the next century, which brings us down to
the time of Lope de Rueda, we have nothing better than “Mingo Revulgo,”
which is rather a spirited political satire than a drama, Enzina’s and
Vicente’s dramatic eclogues, and Naharro’s more dramatic “Propaladia,”
with a few translations from the ancients which were little noticed or
known. And during the half-century which Lope de Rueda opened with an
attempt to create a popular drama, we have obtained only a few farces
from himself and his followers, the little that was done at Seville and
Valencia, and the countervailing tragedies of Bermudez and Argensola,
who intended, no doubt, to follow what they considered the safer and
more respectable traces of the ancient Greek masters. Three centuries
and a half, therefore, or four centuries, furnished less dramatic
literature to Spain, than the last half-century of the same portion of
time had furnished to France and Italy; and near the end of the whole
period, or about 1585, it is apparent that the national genius was
not more turned towards the drama than it was at the same period in
England, where Greene and Peele were just preparing the way for Marlowe
and Shakspeare.
In the next place, the apparatus of the stage, including scenery and
dresses, was very imperfect. During the greater part of the period we
have gone over, dramatic exhibitions in Spain were either religious
pantomimes shown off in the churches to the people, or private
entertainments given at court and in the houses of the nobility. Lope
de Rueda brought them out into the public squares, and adapted them
to the comprehension, the taste, and the humors of the multitude. But
he had no theatre anywhere, and his genial farces were represented
on temporary scaffolds, by his own company of strolling players, who
stayed but a few days at a time in even the largest cities, and were
sought, when there, chiefly by the lower classes of the people.
The first notice, therefore, we have of any thing approaching to a
regular establishment--and this is far removed from what that phrase
generally implies--is in 1568, when an arrangement or compromise
between the Church and the theatre was begun, traces of which have
subsisted at Madrid and elsewhere down to our own times. Recollecting,
no doubt, the origin of dramatic representations in Spain for religious
edification, the government ordered, in form, that no actors should
make an exhibition in Madrid, except in some place to be appointed by
two religious brotherhoods designated in the decree, and for a rent to
be paid to them;--an order in which, after 1583, the general hospital
of the city was included.[58] Under this order, as it was originally
made, we find plays acted from 1568; but only in the open area of a
court-yard, without roof, seats, or other apparatus, except such as is
humorously described by Cervantes to have been packed, with all the
dresses of the company, in a few large sacks.
[58] The two brotherhoods were the Cofradía de la Sagrada Pasion,
established 1565, and the Cofradía de la Soledad, established
1567. The accounts of the early beginnings of the theatre at
Madrid are awkwardly enough given by C. Pellicer in his “Orígen
de la Comedia en España.” But they can be found so well nowhere
else. See Tom. I. pp. 43-77.
In this state things continued several years. None but strolling
companies of actors were known, and they remained but a few days
at a time even in Madrid. No fixed place was prepared for their
reception; but sometimes they were sent by the pious brotherhoods to
one court-yard, and sometimes to another. They acted in the day-time,
on Sundays and other holidays, and then only if the weather permitted
a performance in the open air;--the women separated from the men,[59]
and the entire audience so small, that the profit yielded by the
exhibitions to the religious societies and the hospital rose only to
eight or ten dollars each time.[60] At last, in 1579 and 1583, two
court-yards were permanently fitted up for them, belonging to houses in
the streets of the “Príncipe” and “Cruz.” But though a rude stage and
benches were provided in each, a roof was still wanting; the spectators
all sat in the open air, or at the windows of the house whose
court-yard was used for the representation; and the actors performed
under a slight and poor awning, without any thing that deserved to be
called scenery. The theatres, therefore, at Madrid, as late as 1586,
could not be said to be in a condition materially to further any
efforts that might be made to produce a respectable national drama.
[59] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 83.
[60] Ibid., p. 56.
In the last place, the pieces that had been written had not the
decided, common character on which a national drama could be fairly
founded, even if their number had been greater. Juan de la Enzina’s
eclogues, which were the first dramatic compositions represented in
Spain by actors who were neither priests nor cavaliers, were really
what they were called, though somewhat modified in their bucolic
character by religious and political feelings and events;--two or
three of Naharro’s plays, and several of those of Cueva, give more
absolute intimations of the intriguing and historical character of
the stage, though the effect of the first at home was delayed, from
their being for a long time published only in Italy;--the translations
from the ancients by Villalobos, Oliva, Abril, and others, seem hardly
to have been intended for representation, and certainly not for
popular effect;--and Bermudez, with one of his pieces stolen from the
Portuguese and the other full of horrors of his own, was, it is plain,
little thought of at his first appearance, and soon quite neglected.
There were, therefore, before 1586, only two persons to whom it was
possible to look for the establishment of a popular and permanent
drama. The first of them was Argensola, whose three tragedies enjoyed
a degree of success before unknown; but they were so little in the
national spirit, that they were early overlooked, and soon completely
forgotten. The other was Lope de Rueda, who, himself an actor, wrote
such farces as he found would amuse the common audiences he served, and
thus created a school in which other actors, like Alonso de la Vega and
Cisneros, wrote the same kind of farces, chiefly in prose, and intended
so completely for temporary effect, that hardly one of them has come
down to our own times. Of course, the few and rare efforts made before
1586 to produce a drama in Spain had been made upon such various or
contradictory principles, that they could not be combined so as to
constitute the safe foundation for a national theatre.
But though the proper foundation was not yet laid, all was tending
to it and preparing for it. The stage, rude as it was, had still the
great advantage of being confined to two spots, which, it is worth
notice, have continued to be the sites of the two principal theatres
of Madrid ever since. The number of authors, though small, was yet
sufficient to create so general a taste for theatrical representations,
that Lopez Pinciano, a learned man, and one of a temper little likely
to be pleased with a rude drama, said, “When I see that Cisneros or
Galvez is going to act, I run all risks to hear him; and when I am in
the theatre, winter does not freeze me, nor summer make me hot.”[61]
And finally, the public, who resorted to the imperfect entertainments
offered them, if they had not determined what kind of drama should
become national, had yet decided that a national drama should be
formed, and that it should be founded on the national character and
manners.
[61] Philosophia Antigua Poetica de A. L. Pinciano, Madrid, 1596,
4to, p. 128. Cisneros was a famous actor of the time of Philip
II., about whom Don Carlos had a quarrel with Cardinal Espinosa.
Cabrera, Felipe II., Madrid, 1619, folio, p. 470. He flourished
1579-86. C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. pp. 60, 61.
CHAPTER IX.
LUIS DE LEON.--EARLY LIFE.--PERSECUTIONS.--TRANSLATION OF THE
CANTICLES.--NAMES OF CHRIST.--PERFECT WIFE AND OTHER PROSE WORKS.--HIS
DEATH.--HIS POEMS.--HIS CHARACTER.
It should not be forgotten, that, while we have gone over the
beginnings of the Italian school and of the existing theatre, we have
had little occasion to notice one distinctive element of the Spanish
character, which is yet almost constantly present in the great mass of
the national literature: I mean, the religious element. A reverence
for the Church, or, more properly, for the religion of the Church, and
a deep sentiment of devotion, however mistaken in the forms it wore
or in the direction it took, had been developed in the old Castilian
character by the wars against Islamism, as much as the spirit of
loyalty and knighthood, and had, from the first, found no less fitting
poetical forms of expression. That no change took place in this respect
in the sixteenth century, we find striking proof in the character of
a noble Spaniard born in the city of Granada about twenty years later
than Diego de Mendoza; but one whose gentler and graver genius easily
took the direction which that of the elder cavalier so decidedly
refused.
Luis Ponce de Leon, called, from his early and unbroken connection
with the Church, “Brother Luis de Leon,” was born in 1528, and enjoyed
advantages for education which, in his time, were almost exclusively
confined to the children of noble and distinguished families. He was
early sent to Salamanca, and there, when only sixteen years old,
voluntarily entered the order of Saint Augustin. From this moment,
the final direction was given to his life. He never ceased to be a
monk; and he never ceased to be attached to the University where he
was bred. In 1560, he became a Licentiate in Theology, and immediately
afterwards was made a Doctor of Divinity. The next year, at the age of
thirty-four, he obtained the chair of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which he
won after a public competition against several opponents, four of whom
were already professors; and to these honors he added, ten years later,
that of the chair of Sacred Literature.
By this time, however, his influence and success had gathered round
him a body of enemies, who soon found means to disturb his peace.[62]
A friend, who did not understand the ancient languages, had desired
him to translate “The Song of Solomon” into Castilian, and explain its
character and purposes. This he had done; and the version which he thus
made is commonly regarded as the earliest, or one of the earliest,
among his known works. But in making it, he had treated the whole poem
as a pastoral eclogue, in which the different personages converse
together like shepherds.[63] This opinion, of course, was not agreeable
to the doctrines of his Church and its principles of interpretation;
but what he had done had been done only as an act of private
friendship, and he had taken some pains to have his version known only
to the individual at whose request it had been made. His manuscript,
however, was copied and circulated by the treachery of a servant. One
of the copies thus obtained fell into the hands of an enemy, and its
author, in 1572, was brought before the Inquisition of Valladolid,
charged with Lutheranism and with making a vernacular translation from
the Scriptures, contrary to the decree of the Council of Trent. It was
easy to answer the first part of the complaint, for Luis de Leon was
no Protestant; but it was not possible to give a sufficient answer to
the last. He had, however, powerful friends, and by their influence
escaped the final terrors of the Inquisition, though not until he had
been almost five years imprisoned in a way that seriously impaired his
health and broke down his spirits.[64]
[62] Obras del M. Fr. Luis de Leon, (Madrid, 1804-16, 6 tom. 8vo,
Tom. V. p. 292), where, writing from his prison, he speaks of
“those who in the ministry of a tribunal so holy have wreaked the
vengeance of their own passions upon me.” Elsewhere he repeats
the same accusation against his enemies.
[63] Obras, Tom. V. p. i. and p. 5.
[64] A poetical version of Solomon’s Song was made, not long
afterwards, by the famous Arias Montano, on the same principle.
When it was first published I do not know; but it may be found
in Faber’s “Floresta,” No. 717, and parts of it are beautiful.
Montano died in 1598.
But the University remained faithful to him. He was reinstated in
all his offices, with marks of the sincerest respect, on the 30th
of December, 1576; and it is a beautiful circumstance attending
his restoration, that, when, for the first time, he rose before a
crowded audience, eager to hear what allusion he would make to his
persecutions, he began by simply saying, “As we remarked when we last
met,” and then went on, as if the five bitter years of his imprisonment
had been a blank in his memory, bearing no record of the cruel
treatment he had suffered.[65]
[65] Villanueva (Vida, Lóndres, 1825, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 340) says
that all the papers relating to the inquisitorial process against
Luis de Leon, including admirable answers of the accused, were
found, in 1813, in the archives of the tribunal of Valladolid,
but were not printed for want of means. They must be very curious
documents.
It seems, however, to have been thought advisable that he should
vindicate his reputation from the suspicions that had been cast
upon it; and therefore, in 1580, at the request of his friends,
he published, in Latin, an extended commentary on the Canticles,
interpreting each part in three different ways,--directly,
symbolically, and mystically,--and giving the whole as theological and
obscure a character as the most orthodox could desire, though still
without concealing his opinion that it was originally intended to be a
pastoral eclogue.
Another work on the same subject, but in Spanish, and in some respects
like the one that had caused his imprisonment, was also prepared by
him and found among his manuscripts after his death. But it was not
thought advisable to print it till 1798. Even then a version of the
Canticles, in Spanish octaves, as an eclogue, intended originally to
accompany it, was not added, and did not appear till 1806;--a beautiful
translation, which discovers, not only its author’s power as a poet,
but the remarkable freedom of his theological inquiries, in a country
where such freedom was, in that age, not tolerated for an instant.[66]
The fragment of a defence of this version, or of some parts of it, is
dated from his prison, in 1573, and was found long afterwards among the
state papers of the kingdom in the archives of Simancas.[67]
[66] Luis de Leon, Obras, Tom. V. pp. 258-280.
[67] Ibid., Tom. V. p. 281.
While in prison he prepared a long prose work, which he entitled
“The Names of Christ.” It is a singular specimen at once of Spanish
theological learning, eloquence, and devotion. Of this, between 1583
and 1585, he published three books, but he never completed it.[68] It
is thrown into the form of a dialogue, like the “Tusculan Questions,”
which it was probably intended to imitate; and its purpose is, by means
of successive discussions of the character of the Saviour, as set
forth under the names of Son, Prince, Shepherd, King, etc., to excite
devout feelings in those who read it. The form, however, is not adhered
to with great strictness. The dialogue, instead of being a discussion,
is, in fact, a series of speeches; and once, at least, we have a
regular sermon, of as much merit, perhaps, as any in the language;[69]
so that, taken together, the entire work may be regarded as a series of
declamations on the character of Christ, as that character was regarded
by the more devout portions of the Spanish Church in its author’s time.
Many parts of it are eloquent, and its eloquence has not unfrequently
the gorgeous coloring of the elder Spanish literature; such, for
instance, as is found in the following passage, illustrating the title
of Christ as the Prince of Peace, and proving the beauty of all harmony
in the moral world from its analogies with the physical:--
[68] Ibid., Tom. III. and IV.
[69] This sermon is in Book First of the treatise. Obras, Tom.
III. pp. 160-214.
“Even if reason should not prove it, and even if we could in no other
way understand how gracious a thing is peace, yet would this fair show
of the heavens over our heads and this harmony in all their manifold
fires sufficiently bear witness to it. For what is it but peace, or,
indeed, a perfect image of peace, that we now behold, and that fills
us with such deep joy? Since if peace is, as Saint Augustin, with the
brevity of truth, declares it to be, a quiet order, or the maintenance
of a well-regulated tranquillity in whatever order demands,--then what
we now witness is surely its true and faithful image. For while these
hosts of stars, arranged and divided into their several bands, shine
with such surpassing splendor, and while each one of their multitude
inviolably maintains its separate station, neither pressing into the
place of that next to it, nor disturbing the movements of any other,
nor forgetting its own; none breaking the eternal and holy law God has
imposed on it; but all rather bound in one brotherhood, ministering
one to another, and reflecting their light one to another,--they do
surely show forth a mutual love, and, as it were, a mutual reverence,
tempering each other’s brightness and strength into a peaceful unity
and power, whereby all their different influences are combined into
one holy and mighty harmony, universal and everlasting. And therefore
may it be most truly said, not only that they do all form a fair and
perfect model of peace, but that they all set forth and announce, in
clear and gracious words, what excellent things peace contains within
herself and carries abroad whithersoever her power extends.”[70]
[70] Obras, Tom. III. pp. 342, 343. This beautiful passage may
well be compared to his more beautiful ode, entitled “Noche
Serena,” to which it has an obvious resemblance.
The eloquent treatise on the Names of Christ was not, however, the most
popular of the prose works of Luis de Leon. This distinction belongs to
his “Perfecta Casada,” or Perfect Wife; a treatise which he composed,
in the form of a commentary on some portions of Solomon’s Proverbs,
for the use of a lady newly married, and which was first published
in 1583.[71] But it is not necessary specially to notice either this
work, or his Exposition of Job, in two volumes, accompanied with a
poetical version, which he began in prison for his own consolation,
and finished the year of his death, but which none ventured to publish
till 1779.[72] Both are marked with the same humble faith, the same
strong enthusiasm, and the same rich eloquence, that appear, from time
to time, in the work on the Names of Christ; though perhaps the last,
which received the careful corrections of its author’s matured genius,
has a serious and settled power greater than he has shown anywhere
else. But the characteristics of his prose compositions--even those
which from their nature are the most strictly didactic--are the same
everywhere; and the rich language and imagery of the passage already
cited afford a fair specimen of the style towards which he constantly
directed his efforts.
[71] Ibid., Tom. IV.
[72] Ibid., Tom. I. and II.
Luis de Leon’s health never recovered from the shock it suffered in
the cells of the Inquisition. He lived, indeed, nearly fourteen years
after his release; but most of his works, whether in Castilian or in
Latin, were written before his imprisonment or during its continuance,
while those he undertook afterwards, as his account of Santa Teresa and
some others, were never finished. His life was always, from choice,
very retired, and his austere manners were announced by his habitual
reserve and silence. In a letter that he sent with his poems to his
friend Puertocarrero, a statesman at the court of Philip the Second and
a member of the principal council of the Inquisition, he says, that, in
the kingdom of Old Castile, where he had lived from his youth, he could
hardly claim to be familiarly acquainted with ten persons.[73] Still
he was extensively known, and was held in great honor. In the latter
part of his life especially, his talents and sufferings, his religious
patience and his sincere faith, had consecrated him in the eyes alike
of his friends and his enemies. Nothing relating to the monastic
brotherhood of which he was a member, or to the University where he
taught, was undertaken without his concurrence and support; and when
he died, in 1591, he was in the exercise of a constantly increasing
influence, having just been chosen the head of his Order, and being
engaged in the preparation of new regulations for its reform.[74]
[73] Obras, Tom. VI. p. 2.
[74] The materials for the life of Luis de Leon are to be
gathered from the notices of him in the curious MS. of Pacheco,
published, Semanario Pintoresco, 1844, p. 374;--those in N.
Antonio, Bib. Nova, _ad verb._;--in Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom.
V.;--and in the Preface to a collection of his poetry, published
at Valencia by Mayans y Siscar, 1761; the last being also found
in Mayans y Siscar, “Cartas de Varios Autores” (Valencia, 1773,
12mo, Tom. IV. pp. 398, etc.). His birthplace has been by some
supposed to have been Belmonte in La Mancha, or else Madrid.
But Pacheco, who is a sufficient authority, gives that honor to
Granada, and settles the date of Luis de Leon’s birth at 1528,
though it is more commonly given as of 1526 or 1527; adding a
description of his person, and the singular fact, not elsewhere
noticed, that he amused himself with the art of painting, and
succeeded in his own portrait.
But besides the character in which we have thus far considered him,
Luis de Leon was a poet, and a poet of no common genius. He seems, it
is true, to have been little conscious, or, at least, little careful,
of his poetical talent; for he made hardly an effort to cultivate
it, and never took pains to print any thing, in order to prove its
existence to the world. Perhaps, too, he showed more deference than
was due to the opinion of many persons of his time, who thought poetry
an occupation not becoming one in his position; for, in the prefatory
notice to his sacred odes, he says, in a deprecating tone: “Let none
regard verse as any thing new and unworthy to be applied to Scriptural
subjects, for it is rather appropriate to them; and so old is it in
this application, that, from the earliest ages of the Church to the
present day, men of great learning and holiness have thus employed it.
And would to God that no other poetry were ever sounded in our ears;
that only these sacred tones were sweet to us; that none else were
heard at night in the streets and public squares; that the child might
still lisp it, the retired damsel find in it her best solace, and the
industrious tradesman make it the relief of his toil! But the Christian
name is now sunk to such immodest and reckless degradation, that we
set our sins to music, and, not content with indulging them in secret,
shout them joyfully forth to all who will listen.”
But whatever may have been his own feelings on the suitableness of such
an occupation to his profession, it is certain, that, while most of the
poems he has left us were written in his youth, they were not collected
by him till the latter part of his life, and then only to please a
personal friend, who never thought of publishing them; so that they
were not printed at all till forty years after his death, when Quevedo
gave them to the public, in the hope that they might help to reform the
corrupted taste of the age. But from this time they have gone through
many editions, though still they never appeared properly collated and
arranged till 1816.[75]
[75] The poems of Luis de Leon fill the last volume of his Works;
but there are several among them that are probably spurious.
They are, however, of great value. They consist of versions of all
the Eclogues and two of the Georgics of Virgil, about thirty Odes of
Horace, about forty Psalms, and a few passages from the Greek and
Italian poets; all executed with freedom and spirit, and all in a
genuinely Castilian style. His translations, however, seem to have been
only in the nature of exercises and amusements. But though he thus
acquired great facility and exactness in his versification, he wrote
little. His original poems fill no more than about a hundred pages; but
there is hardly a line of them which has not its value; and the whole,
when taken together, are to be placed at the head of Spanish lyric
poetry. They are chiefly religious, and the source of their inspiration
is not to be mistaken. Luis de Leon had a Hebrew soul, and kindles his
enthusiasm almost always from the Jewish Scriptures. Still he preserved
his nationality unimpaired. Nearly all the best of his poetical
compositions are odes written in the old Castilian measures, with a
classical purity and rigorous finish before unknown in Spanish poetry,
and hardly attained since.[76]
[76] In noticing the Hebrew temperament of Luis de Leon, I am
reminded of one of his contemporaries, who possessed in some
respects a kindred spirit, and whose fate was even more strange
and unhappy. I refer to Juan Pinto Delgado, a Portuguese Jew,
who lived long in Spain, embraced the Christian religion, was
reconverted to the faith of his fathers, fled from the terrors of
the Inquisition to France, and died there about the year 1590.
In 1627, a volume of his works, containing narrative poems on
Queen Esther and on Ruth, free versions from the Lamentations of
Jeremiah in the old national _quintillas_, and sonnets and other
short pieces, generally in the Italian manner, was published
at Rouen in France, and dedicated to Cardinal Richelieu, then
the all-powerful minister of Louis XIII. They are full of the
bitter and sorrowful feelings of his exile, and parts of them
are written, not only with tenderness, but in a sweet and pure
versification. The Hebrew spirit of the author, whose proper
name is Moseh Delgado, breaks through constantly, as might be
expected. Barbosa, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p. 722. Amador de los
Rios, Judios de España, Madrid, 1848, 8vo, p. 500.
This is eminently the case, for instance, with what the Spaniards have
esteemed the best of his poetical works: his ode, called “The Prophecy
of the Tagus,” in which the river-god predicts to Roderic the Moorish
conquest of his country, as the result of that monarch’s violence to
Cava, the daughter of one of his principal nobles. It is an imitation
of the Ode of Horace in which Nereus rises from the waves and predicts
the overthrow of Troy to Paris, who, under circumstances not entirely
dissimilar, is transporting the stolen wife of Menelaus to the scene of
the fated conflict between the two nations. But the Ode of Luis de Leon
is written in the old Spanish _quintillas_, his favorite measure, and
is as natural, fresh, and flowing as one of the national ballads.[77]
Foreigners, however, less interested in what is so peculiarly Spanish,
and so full of allusions to Spanish history, may sometimes prefer
the serener ode “On a Life of Retirement,” that “On Immortality,” or
perhaps the still more beautiful one “On the Starry Heavens”; all
written with the same purity and elevation of spirit, and all in the
same national measure and manner.
[77] It is the eleventh of Luis de Leon’s Odes, and may well
bear a comparison with that of Horace (Lib. I. Carm. 15) which
suggested it.
A truer specimen of his prevalent lyrical tone, and, indeed, of his
tone in much else of what he wrote, is perhaps to be found in his “Hymn
on the Ascension.” It is both very original and very natural in its
principal idea, being supposed to express the disappointed feelings of
the disciples as they see their Master passing out of their sight into
the opening heavens above them.
And dost them, holy Shepherd, leave
Thine unprotected flock alone,
Here, in this darksome vale, to grieve,
While thou ascend’st thy glorious throne?
O, where can they their hopes now turn,
Who never lived but on thy love?
Where rest the hearts for thee that burn,
When thou art lost in light above?
How shall those eyes now find repose
That turn, in vain, thy smile to see?
What can they hear save mortal woes,
Who lose thy voice’s melody?
And who shall lay his tranquil hand
Upon the troubled ocean’s might?
Who hush the winds by his command?
Who guide us through this starless night?
For THOU art gone!--that cloud so bright,
That bears thee from our love away,
Springs upward through the dazzling light,
And leaves us here to weep and pray![78]
[78] It is in _quintillas_ in the original; but that stanza, I
think, can never, in English, be made flowing and easy as it is
in Spanish. I have, therefore, used in this translation a freedom
greater than I have generally permitted to myself, in order to
approach, if possible, the bold outline of the original thought.
It begins thus:--
Y dexas, pastor santo,
Tu grey en este valle hondo escuro
Con soledad y llanto,
Y tu rompiendo el puro
Ayre, te vas al immortal seguro!
Los antes bien hadados,
Y los agora tristes y afligidos,
A tus pechos criados,
De tí desposeidos,
A dó convertirán ya sus sentidos?
Obras de Luis de Leon, Madrid, 1816, Tom. VI. p. 42.
In order, however, to comprehend aright the genius and spirit of Luis
de Leon, we must study, not only his lyrical poetry, but much of his
prose; for, while his religious odes and hymns, beautiful in their
severe exactness of style, rank him before Klopstock and Filicaja, his
prose, more rich and no less idiomatic, places him at once among the
greatest masters of eloquence in his native Castilian.[79]
[79] In 1837, D. José de Castro y Orozco produced on the stage at
Madrid a drama, entitled “Fray Luis de Leon,” in which the hero,
whose name it bears, is represented as renouncing the world and
entering a cloister, in consequence of a disappointment in love.
Diego de Mendoza is also one of the principal personages in the
same drama, which is written in a pleasing style, and has some
poetical merit, notwithstanding its unhappy subject and plot.
CHAPTER X.
CERVANTES.--HIS FAMILY.--EDUCATION.--FIRST VERSES.--LIFE IN ITALY.--A
SOLDIER IN THE BATTLE OF LEPANTO.--A CAPTIVE IN ALGIERS.--RETURNS
HOME.--SERVICE IN PORTUGAL.--LIFE IN MADRID.--HIS GALATEA, AND
ITS CHARACTER.--HIS MARRIAGE.--WRITES FOR THE STAGE.--HIS LIFE IN
ALGIERS.--HIS NUMANCIA.--POETICAL TENDENCIES OF HIS DRAMA.
The family of Cervantes was originally Galician, and, at the time of
his birth, not only numbered five hundred years of nobility and public
service, but was spread throughout Spain, and had been extended to
Mexico and other parts of America.[80] The Castilian branch, which, in
the fifteenth century, became connected by marriage with the Saavedras,
seems, early in the sixteenth, to have fallen off in its fortunes;
and we know that the parents of Miguel, who has given to the race a
splendor which has saved its old nobility from oblivion, were poor
inhabitants of Alcalá de Henares, a small, but nourishing city, about
twenty miles from Madrid. There he was born, the youngest of four
children, on one of the early days of October, 1547.[81]
[80] Many lives of Cervantes have been written, of which four
need to be mentioned. 1. That of Gregorio Mayans y Siscar, first
prefixed to the edition of Don Quixote in the original published
in London in 1738, (4 tom., 4to), under the auspices of Lord
Carteret, and afterwards to several other editions; a work of
learning, and the first proper attempt to collect materials for
a life of Cervantes, but ill arranged and ill written, and of
little value now, except for some of its incidental discussions.
2. The Life of Cervantes, with the Analysis of his Don Quixote,
by Vicente de los Rios, prefixed to the sumptuous edition of Don
Quixote by the Spanish Academy, (Madrid, 1780, 4 tom., fol.),
and often printed since;--better written than the preceding,
and containing some new facts, but with criticisms full of
pedantry and of extravagant eulogy. 3. Noticias para la Vida de
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, by J. Ant. Pellicer, first printed
in his “Ensayo de una Biblioteca de Traductores,” 1778, but
much enlarged afterwards, and prefixed to his edition of Don
Quixote (Madrid, 1797-1798, 5 tom., 8vo);--poorly digested, and
containing a great deal of extraneous, though sometimes curious,
matter; but more complete than any life that had preceded it.
4. Vida de Miguel de Cervantes, etc., por D. Martin Fernandez
de Navarrete, published by the Spanish Academy (Madrid, 1819,
8vo);--the best of all, and indeed one of the most judicious and
best-arranged biographical works that have been published in any
country. Navarrete has used in it, with great effect, many new
documents; and especially the large collection of papers found in
the archives of the Indies at Seville, in 1808, which comprehend
the voluminous _Informacion_ sent by Cervantes himself, in
1590, to Philip II., when asking for an office in one of the
American colonies;--a mass of well-authenticated certificates
and depositions, setting forth the trials and sufferings of the
author of Don Quixote, from the time he entered the service of
his country, in 1571; through his captivity in Algiers; and,
in fact, till he reached the Azores in 1582. This thorough and
careful life is skilfully abridged by L. Viardot, in his French
translation of Don Quixote, (Paris, 1836, 2 tom., 8vo), and forms
the substance of the “Life and Writings of Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra,” by Thomas Roscoe, London, 1839, 18mo.
In the notice which follows in the text, I have relied for my
facts on the work of Navarrete, whenever no other authority is
referred to; but in the literary criticisms Navarrete can hardly
afford aid, for he hardly indulges himself in them at all.
[81] The date of the baptism of Cervantes is Oct. 9, 1547; and as
it is the practice in the Catholic Church to perform this rite
soon after birth, we may assume, with sufficient probability,
that Cervantes was born on that very day, or the day preceding.