LOPE DE VEGA.
Lope Felix de Vega Carpio, the rival and conqueror of Cervantes in the conflict of dramatic art, was born at Madrid, in the year 1562. He was consequently fifteen years younger than Cervantes. Marvellous stories are related respecting the early developement of his poetic genius and his talent for composing verses. Though his parents were not rich, yet he received a literary education; and he is also said to have distinguished himself in corporeal exercises. He lost his parents before he was old enough to attend the university; but through the assistance of Don Geronymo Manrique, the grand inquisitor, and Bishop of Avila, who was much attached to him, he was enabled to complete a course of philosophy at Alcala. After obtaining his degree at that university, he returned to Madrid, where he became secretary to the Duke of Alba. He shortly afterwards married; and from this period, which seemed to promise a career of tranquil happiness, the stormy vicissitudes of his life commenced. He became engaged in a quarrel, fought a duel, wounded his antagonist dangerously, and was obliged to fly. For several years he lived an exile from Madrid; and on his return his wife unfortunately died. Harrassed by this series of calamities, and being as warm a patriot as he was a sincere catholic, he entered into one of the military corps which were embarked on board the invincible armada for the invasion of England. Though he himself returned in safety to Madrid, yet he was deeply grieved at the ill success of the armada. His vigorous constitution, however, enabled him to keep up his spirits; he again became a secretary, once more entered into the married state, and passed some time in uninterrupted domestic happiness. On the death of his second wife, who survived her marriage only a few years, he resolved to forego the pleasures of the world, and for that purpose took holy orders. He did not, however, retire to a convent; but he devoted himself wholly to the study of poetry,—to that study, which from childhood upwards, had principally engrossed his mind, and in the active prosecution of which he produced so extraordinary a result, that it is difficult to conceive how any man could even during the most protracted existence, write as much as Lope de Vega: and yet he spent a part of his life in civil business, and in the discharge of military duties. He composed in all the various kinds of verse which were in use in his time; and he succeeded in all. But his dramas in particular were received with an enthusiasm which the labours of no other Spanish poet had ever excited. He so precisely struck the chord which harmonized with the taste of the Spanish public, that he has been worshipped as the inventor of the national comedy, though he only pursued the tract which Torres Naharro originally opened.
Lope de Vega’s fertility of invention is as unparalleled in the history of poetry, as the talent which enabled him to compose regular and well constructed verses with as much facility as if he had been writing prose. Cervantes styles him el monstruo de naturaleza, (the prodigy of nature) and this name was not given him merely in levity. He was constrained by no rules of criticism; not that he was ignorant of the theory of the ancient poetry, but he took delight in letting his verses flow freely from his pen, confident in the success of whatever he might produce. The public, he observed, paid for the drama, and he thought it but fair that those who paid should be served with that which suited their taste. Lope de Vega required no more than four-and-twenty hours to write a versified drama of three acts in redondillas, interspersed with sonnets, tercets and octaves, and from beginning to end abounding in intrigues, prodigies, or interesting situations. This astonishing facility enabled him to supply the Spanish theatre with upwards of two thousand original dramas, of which not more than three hundred have been preserved by printing. In general the theatrical manager carried away what he wrote before he had even time to revise it; and immediately a fresh applicant would arrive to prevail on him to commence a new piece. He sometimes wrote a play in the short space of three or four hours. The profits which the theatrical managers derived from the writings of Lope de Vega, enabled them to bestow such liberal payment on the author, that at one time he is supposed to have been possessed of upwards of a hundred thousand ducats. But he did not long preserve his fortune, though from the commencement of his celebrity he always possessed enough to enable him to live with comfort. His purse was ever open to the poor of Madrid.
But Lope de Vega’s poetic talent procured him even more glory than gain. No Spanish poet was ever so much honoured during his life. The nobility and the public vied in expressing their admiration of him. He was chosen president (capellan mayor) of the spiritual college of Madrid, of which he had previously been admitted as a member. Pope Urban VIII. sent him the cross of Malta, and the degree of doctor of theology, accompanied by a flattering letter. The pope also appointed him fiscal of the apostolic chamber. For these distinctions Lope de Vega was not indebted merely to his poetic talents. No Spanish poet of celebrity had hitherto manifested in his writings such enthusiastic interest for the triumph of the catholic religion. He was accordingly appointed familiar to the inquisition, a post which was at that period regarded as singularly honourable. But the Spanish public adopted another mode of expressing their admiration of their favourite dramatist. Whenever Lope de Vega appeared in the streets, he was surrounded by crowds of people, all eager to gain a sight of the prodigy of nature. The boys ran shouting after him, and those who could not keep pace with the rest, stood and gazed on him with wonder as he passed. He died in 1631, in the sixty-third year of his age. His funeral was conducted with princely magnificence. The ceremony was directed by his patron, the Duke of Susa, whom he appointed executor of his will. The music of the high mass which was celebrated at his funeral, was executed by the performers of the chapel royal. During the exequies, which lasted three days, three bishops officiated in their pontifical robes. The memory of the “Spanish Phenix,” as he was usually styled by the publishers of his plays, was celebrated with no less pomp in all the theatres of Spain. Arithmetical calculations have been employed, in order to arrive at a just estimate of Lope de Vega’s facility in poetic composition. According to his own testimony, he wrote on an average five sheets per day; it has therefore been computed that the number of sheets which he composed during his life, must have amounted to one hundred and thirty-three thousand, two hundred and twenty-five, and that allowing for the deduction of a small portion of prose, Lope de Vega must have written upwards of twenty-one millions, three hundred thousand verses.[359]
Nature would have overstepped her bounds and have produced the miraculous, had Lope de Vega, along with this rapidity of invention and composition, attained perfection in any department of literature. Nature, however, did her utmost for Lope de Vega; for even the rudest, most incorrect, and verbose of his works, are imbued with a poetic spirit which no methodical art can create. This poetic spirit is, at the same time so national and so completely Spanish, that without an intimate acquaintance with the works of other Spanish poets, and particularly those who flourished at an early period, it is impossible to perceive Lope de Vega’s merits and defects, or to understand their connection with each other. On this account, however, he was in a peculiar manner the poet of the Spanish public, the favourite of all ranks; and on this account have his writings always been partially or erroneously judged.
Lope de Vega was born for dramatic poetry. In every other class of composition, he was merely an accurate imitator, or if he struck out a new course, it was in so imperfect a way, that his example was injurious to the cause of literature. But as a dramatic poet, if he did not create the Spanish comedy, properly so called, his inexhaustible fancy and the fascinating ease of his animated composition confirmed to it that character which has since distinguished it. All subsequent Spanish dramatic poets trod in the footsteps of Lope de Vega, until genius was banished from the sphere it occupied by the introduction of the French taste in Spain. The successors of Lope de Vega merely improved on the models which he had created. He fixed for a century and a half the spirit and the style of nearly all the different kinds of dramatic entertainment in Spain. It may therefore be proper to unite with a notice of the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, a sketch of the characteristics of the various species of plays then performed in Spain; and this sketch will at the same time serve as a key to all the peculiarities of the Spanish drama.
Since the age of Lope de Vega, the word comedy (comedia) has had in the dramatic language of Spain a totally different signification from that which was attached to it by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and which it retains in most countries of modern Europe. It is the generic name of several species of drama, some of which, according to our established notions, are neither comedies nor tragedies; but all of which approximate to one common spirit of invention and execution. The critic will inevitably form an erroneous judgment of these works, if he be guided by notions deduced from the Greek and Roman drama, and which, with certain limitations, are applicable to all dramatic compositions except the Spanish comedy. The spirit of the Spanish comedy must not be sought for in that popular satire, which constitutes the very essence of the ancient and modern comedy, properly so called. The compositions in which it is to be found are of a totally different nature. In them stories of country and city life are clothed in romantic poetic colours, and blended with the interesting inventions of a bold and irregular fancy, without any distinction between the gay and the serious, or the comic and the tragic. In a word, a Spanish comedy is in its principle a dramatic novel; and as there are tragic, comic, historical, and purely imaginative novels, so, in like manner, the Spanish comedy readily adopts those various modes of exciting interest on the stage. In Spanish comedies as in novels, princes and potentates are no more out of place than jockeys and fops; and these dissimilar characters may all be introduced on the stage at once, should the progress of the intrigue require so heterogeneous an approximation. Satire is therefore merely an agreeable accessary in the Spanish comedy, of which the poet may avail himself at his pleasure. In these comedies the powerful delineation of character is no more essential than in novels. Even a motley combination of burlesque and serious, vulgar and pathetic scenes, is not hostile to the spirit of a Spanish comedy, the object of which is not to maintain the interest in a particular direction. The subject of the piece may be a moving or a horrific story; still the picture presented is entertaining, but entertaining in a manner totally different from that kind of comedy which exhibits the follies of life in a satirical point of view. A continuance of the pathetic or the horrific would be as little congenial to the spirit of those dramatic novels which the Spaniards call comedies, as a continuance of the ludicrous. In this is manifested the first of the peculiar conditions required by the Spanish public, of which notice has already been taken in treating of the origin of the Spanish comedy. With any other people than the Spaniards these dramatic novels would have assumed a somewhat different character, without, however, departing from their original spirit. But this class of dramatic composition, which admits of the most singular mixture of the pompous and the ludicrous, was particularly suited to the Spaniards of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as by it they were relieved from any long duration of serious impressions. With this first requisite of a changeable dramatic form, which Lope de Vega completely satisfied, was associated a second. A complicated plot was indispensable in every drama, the subject of which was drawn from the sphere of common life. As a substitute for that sort of plot in historical comedies, extraordinary and striking adventures were introduced, and in spiritual comedies, miracles. According to the universally received notion of a Spanish comedy, in Lope de Vega’s time, no distinction was made between the sacred and the profane styles; for a legend was dramatized as a spiritual novel.
Whether a nation which was satisfied with such comedies did or did not beguile itself of the purest and most perfect developement of dramatic genius, is a question for separate discussion. But the Spanish comedy considered in all its modifications, as a particular species of drama, may stand the test of sound criticism; and Lope de Vega in a great measure contributed to fix the national taste in these modifications. In his time the classification was first made of sacred and profane dramas, or as the Spaniards called them, comedias Divinas y Humanas. The profane comedies were again divided into comedias Heroycas, (Heroic comedies); and comedias de Capa y Espada, (comedies of the Cloak and Sword.) The heroic comedies were originally the same as the historical, but the title was subsequently extended to mythological and allegorical dramas. The comedies of the Capa y Espada, were founded on subjects selected from the sphere of fashionable life, and exhibited the manners of the age; they were likewise performed in the costume of the times. At a later period a subdivision of these comedias de Capa y Espada was formed under the name of comedias de Figuròn, because the principal character was either a needy adventurer representing himself as a rich nobleman, or a lady of the same class. In Lope de Vega’s time also, the sacred comedies began to be divided into dramatized Vidas de Santos and Autos Sacramentales. Both classes were founded on the model of the dramas, which used to be represented in the cloisters. The Autos Sacramentales, which had all a reference to the administration of the sacrament, according to catholic notions, seem to have had their origin in the age of Lope de Vega; at least in the prelude to one of his Autos (the word literally signifies acts) a countrywoman questions her husband respecting the nature of these dramas.[360] Finally, to the different kinds of Spanish comedy existing in Lope de Vega’s age, must be added the little preludes or recommendatory pieces, called loas, and the interludes, or entremeses, introduced between the prelude and the principal comedy, and which when interspersed with music and dancing, are denominated saynetes.
Heroic and historical comedies form a considerable portion of the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, in so far as they have been preserved. The tragic scenes in many of these comedies, so well harmonized with the national taste of the Spaniards, that they readily dispensed with genuine tragedy; and as vivid a recollection of the old national history was maintained by these theatrical representations as by the old romances. But few of Lope’s historical comedies relate, like his Gran Duque de Moscovia, to foreign subjects. In point of composition, his dramas do not materially differ one from the other. Even in his historical pieces, he uses such freedoms with respect to the unity of action, that only a slight similitude connects the acts and scenes together; and he totally disregards the unities of time and place. The execution of these dramas is no less irregular than their composition. According to the humour in which the author happened to be when engaged in his literary labour, his descriptions and language are vigorous or feeble, noble or mean, unpolished or highly refined. A description of Las Almenas de Toro (the Battlements of Toro), one of the best productions in the class to which it belongs, will afford a tolerably correct idea of Lope de Vega’s historical comedies. The subject of this piece is the murder of King Don Sancho, by Bellido Dolfos, a knight whom the king had offended by a violation of his promise, a story which has likewise furnished materials for several old romances. The Cid Ruy Diaz is a principal character in this comedy, which, like all others of the same kind, is divided into three acts.[361] The scene opens with a view of the country before the strongly fortified town of Toro in Leon. The King Don Sancho, the Cid, and a Count Anzures enter. The king explains to the two knights, that state reasons prevent him from fulfilling his father’s will, and that he cannot leave his two sisters, the infantas Elvira and Urraca, in possession of the strong fortresses of Toro and Zamora.[362] The Cid with noble sincerity avows his opinion of the king’s injustice towards his sisters, and offers himself as a mediator in the dispute. The king and Count Anzures retire. The Cid advances to the walls, and meets a knight named Ordonez, who has just come out of the fortress to execute some enterprize in favour of the infanta Elvira. Both knights are about to draw; but they recognize each other, and embrace. The Cid is pourtrayed in all the greatness of his character.[363] The infanta appears on the walls, and states to the Cid her reasons for not opening the gates to her brother. The king re-appears, and orders preparations for storming the garrison. The scene changes—Don Vela, an old knight who has withdrawn from the tumult of public life, appears in front of his country residence. He communes with himself in a speech full of dignity and beauty, but in some passages too poetical for the drama.[364] His daughter enters singing, and surrounded by a rustic group. This scene introduces a romantic episode which is interwoven with the main action, and the hero of which is a prince of Burgundy, disguised as a peasant, who is enamoured of the daughter of Don Vela. The scene again changes to the neighbourhood of Toro. The infanta Elvira appears on the battlements, and negotiations are once more set on foot. The king himself holds a conversation with his sister, which, however, produces no conciliatory result. This brief, pointed, and not very courteous dialogue, is interspersed with plays of wit on the word Toro, the name of the fortress, which in Spanish signifies a bull.[365] The king instantly commands scaling ladders to be brought, and the storming of the fortress commences, but the besiegers are repulsed. Thus the first act concludes. With the commencement of the second act the rural episode becomes more nearly allied to the main action. A sonnet in which the disguised prince of Burgundy, and his mistress Sancha, express their sentiments of mutual attachment, affords an instance of that protracted kind of metaphor, which Lope de Vega employed on such occasions, and which, a hundred years afterwards, Metastasio likewise adopted in his opera songs, as the poetic language of passion.[366] Don Bellido Dolfos prevails on the king to promise him the hand of the infanta Elvira, on condition of his taking the fortress. By dint of the vilest perfidy Bellido Dolfos succeeds; but the king, who is of opinion that a traitor should be rewarded with treachery, refuses to abide by his promise. Bellido Dolfos meditates revenge. Meanwhile Elvira escapes in the disguise of a peasant, and takes refuge in the house of Don Vela. With this combination of heroic and tender, domestic and rural situations, the action proceeds, until Bellido Dolfos murders the king; an incident, however, which does not take place oh the stage. The infanta Elvira returns to Toro, where she receives the homage of her people, and the prince of Burgundy avowing his real character, is united to his beloved Sancha.
Lope de Vega’s Comedias de Capa y Espada, or those which may properly be denominated his dramas of intrigue, though wanting in the delineation of character, are romantic pictures of manners, drawn from real life. They present, in their peculiar style, no less interest with respect to situations than his heroic comedies; and the same irregularity in the composition of the scenes. The language, too, is alternately elegant and vulgar, sometimes highly poetic, and sometimes, though versified, reduced to the level of the dullest prose. Lope de Vega seems scarcely to have bestowed a thought on maintaining probability in the succession of the different scenes; ingenious complication is with him the essential point in the interest of his situations. Intrigues are twisted and entwined together, until the poet, in order to bring his piece to a conclusion, without ceremony cuts the knots he cannot untie; and then he usually brings as many couples together as he can by any possible contrivance match. He has scattered through his pieces occasional reflections and maxims of prudence, but any genuine morality which might be conveyed through the stage, is wanting, for its introduction would have been inconsistent with that poetic freedom on which the dramatic interest of the Spanish comedy is founded. His aim was to paint what he observed, not what he would have approved, in the manners of the fashionable world of his age; but he leaves it to the spectator to draw his own inferences. In this indirect way only, could the Spanish public tolerate useful applications in the drama; for the Spaniard always considered the morality with which he was occupied in church sufficient. An exuberant gallantry, which may or may not be veiled by decorum, and which is at all times only slightly restrained by notions of honour, but never by a sense of moral duty, constitutes the very essence of these dramas, de Capa y Espada. Where the passion is vehement, it advances with true Spanish ardour to the attainment of its object; where it is tender and sentimental, the romantic tirades and far-fetched plays of wit are inexhaustible. That love excuses every thing, was at this time the darling maxim of the gay world in Madrid; and in conformity with its spirit, Lope de Vega’s young heroes and heroines plunge headlong into intrigue. Free scope is given to the basest artifice and perfidy; the man of fashion draws his sword on the slightest provocation; and whether he desperately wounds, or even kills his adversary, is a matter of indifference. Disguises, too, abound in these dramas. One of the most interesting of Lope’s comedies in this class, is La Villana de Xetafe, (the Peasant Girl of Xetafe, a village in the vicinity of Madrid). It exhibits a series of the boldest and most dexterous impostures, by means of which the interesting heroine succeeds in entrapping her lover, who is a man of condition, into the bonds of matrimony. The confessors must have found some difficulty in counteracting the ill effects which could not fail to be occasionally produced by such examples, though they were by no means set up as models. The fascinating natural painting of these intrigues, which at the same time always possess a certain poetic elevation, constitutes the chief charm of Lope de Vega’s comedies. The deviation from nature in expression, which has frequently been a subject of reproach to this prolific writer, is in most instances merely attributable to negligence or rapidity of composition. He faithfully embodies the general forms of character, which, to be sure, are all alike in the class of Spanish comedies now under consideration. The vejete (old man), the galan (lover), the dama (young lady), together with a suitable number of servants and waiting women, are the standing characters which are constantly introduced with no variety, except in the situations; but at the same time, they are drawn in such animated colours, that the perusal of one or two of these dramas of intrigue is sufficient to render the reader familiar with the whole world which the poet describes. In Lope’s comedies, as in real life, the (gracioso) buffoon and the fool are occasionally the same character. They have also superfluous parts; personages totally unconnected with the business of the drama are sometimes introduced.
In order to afford an idea of the composition of this portion of the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, we may select, as a specimen, the comedy entitled, La Viuda de Valencia (the Widow of Valencia). It is one of the pieces of this master in the art of intrigue in which the complication is best contrived, and it is besides remarkable in the class to which it belongs for the unity which is preserved in the action. The scene is laid in Valencia in the time of the carnival. Leonarda, a young rich and handsome widow, living according to her own fancy, has resolved never to re-marry. She enters with a book in her hand; for she reads works of all sorts, sacred and profane, not from piety or love of literature, but merely to amuse herself, while she never deigns to bestow a thought on the suitors by whom she is surrounded. On the subject of her reading she discourses very reasonably with her waiting woman.[367] Her arch attendant turns the conversation in such a way, that the young widow, with all her pretended wisdom, is induced to view herself in a looking glass, and in the very act of doing so, she is surprised by a visit from her uncle. The old gentleman assures his fair niece, who is highly vexed at the surprise, that she does well to convince herself of the power of her charms by such indisputable testimony.[368] When, however, he begins to talk of marriage, the lady contemptuously sketches a burlesque portrait of a Madrid beau,[369] and describes, though in a less happy style the unfortunate consequences of an imprudent match. The old uncle takes his leave, and the scene changes, or rather it is transferred to the other division of the stage. The three admirers of the beautiful Leonarda meet each other in front of her house. They express their wishes and hopes in sonnets, the subjects of which are long-winded metaphors. As none of the party can boast of his mistress’s favour, they mutually acknowledge their ill success, and each describes a burlesque adventure, which has occurred to him during the night, in front of Leonarda’s house. One relates, that under the supposition that he was stabbing a rival, he thrust his poignard into a skin of stolen wine.[370] Meanwhile Leonarda hastily returns from church, where she has seen a young gentleman with whom she has fallen deeply in love. She immediately forms a plan to induce this gentleman, whose name is Camillo, to visit her, without either knowing who she is or whither he is conducted. The whole intrigue is managed by Leonarda’s coachman Urbano, who is at the same time the gracioso, or buffoon of the piece.[371] While Urbano is gone out in quest of Camillo, the three suitors, without any previous arrangement with each other, arrive disguised as dealers in books and copper-plate prints. They obtain an interview with Leonarda, and make avowals of their passion; but she receives them very unfavourably, and they are all obliged to make a rapid retreat to avoid being roughly handled by the servants. This scene is highly amusing. In the second act Camillo appears, and after long hesitation, he consents to engage in the romantic adventure. Urbano dresses him in a doctor’s cloak, and drawing the hood (capirote) over his eyes, he conducts him blindfold, with comic effect, through a variety of windings, to the house of Leonarda. The lady receives him in the dark. Lights are afterwards brought in, but Leonarda remains masked. A sumptuous collation is prepared, of which the young gentleman’s doubt and embarrassment will not permit him to taste a morsel. He compares himself to Alexander, when he took the suspected goblet from the hand of his physician.[372] A tender dialogue ensues, after which the hood is again drawn over the eyes of Camillo, and he is conducted from Leonarda’s house. In this manner the intrigue proceeds; but between many of the scenes, whole days, and even weeks are supposed to intervene. Leonarda and her lover become more and more intimate, though he neither knows who she is, nor where she resides. All his endeavours to discover these secrets are unavailing; and at length he begins to suspect that his unknown mistress is an old cousin of Leonarda. In the mean time the three rejected suitors, who still mix in the plot, become jealous of the coachman Urbano; and one spirited scene succeeds another until an affray occurs in which an honourable suitor of Leonarda is wounded. This accident produces the denouement. Camillo recognizes in his unknown mistress the beautiful widow with whom he was previously acquainted, and whose hand he joyfully accepts. Thus the piece is a comedy from beginning to end.
Lope de Vega’s spiritual comedies, afford a picture of the religious notions of the Spaniards in the age in which he lived, not less faithfully pourtrayed than that by which his dramas of intrigue represent the manners of Spanish society. Pure piety, according to catholic ideas, wildly blended with the most contradictory chimeras, and these chimeras again ennobled by the boldest flights of imagination, form altogether a monstrous and extravagant patch-work; but this heterogeneous variety is, nevertheless, united by the ramifications of a poetic spirit, into a whole, to which no European imagination could now be expected to produce a resemblance. But Lope de Vega seems not to have come to a positive determination respecting what ought to have been the true spirit of these dramatic pictures of religious faith. The mixture of poetic and unpoetic elements is very unequal in his different spiritual comedies. His Lives of the Saints possess far more dramatic spirit than his Autos Sacramentales; while on the other hand, allegory imparts a higher dignity to the religious mysticism of the latter. Both, however, have in common a kind of operatic style, combined with the display of theatrical machinery and decoration, calculated to captivate the senses. Of all the dramatic works of Lope de Vega, the Lives of the Saints are in every respect the most irregular. Allegorical characters, buffoons, saints, peasants, students, kings, God, the infant Jesus, the devil, and all the most heterogeneous beings that the wildest imagination could bring together, are introduced. Music seems always to have been an indispensable accessary. Lope de Vega’s spiritual comedy, entitled the Life of Saint Nicolas de Tolentino,[373] commences with a conversation maintained by a party of students, who make a display of their wit and scholastic learning. Among them is the future saint, whose piety shines with the brighter lustre when contrasted with the disorderly gaiety of those by whom he is surrounded. The devil disguised by a mask joins the party. A skeleton appears in the air; the sky opens, and the Almighty is discovered sitting in judgment attended by Justice and Mercy, who alternately influence his decisions. Next succeeds a love intrigue between a lady named Rosalia, and a gentleman named Feniso. The future saint then re-enters attired in canonicals, and delivers a sermon in redondillas. The parents of the saint congratulate themselves on possessing such a son; and this scene forms the conclusion of the first act. At the opening of the second a party of soldiers are discovered; the saint enters accompanied by several monks, and offers up a prayer in the form of a sonnet. Brother Peregrino relates the romantic history of his conversion. Subtle theological fooleries ensue, and numerous anecdotes of the lives of the saints are related. St. Nicolas prays again through the medium of a sonnet. He then rises in the air, either by the power of faith, or the help of the theatrical machinery; and the Holy Virgin and St. Augustin descend from heaven to meet him.[374] In the third act the scene is transferred to Rome, where two cardinals exhibit the holy sere cloth to the people by torch light. Music performed on clarionets adds to the solemnity of this ceremony, during which pious discourses are delivered. St. Nicolas is next discovered embroidering the habit of his order; and the pious observations which he makes, while engaged in this occupation, are accompanied by the chaunting of invisible angels. The music attracts the devil, who endeavours to tempt St. Nicolas. The next scene exhibits souls in the torments of purgatory. The devil again appears attended by a retinue of lions, serpents, and other hideous animals; but in a scene, which is intended for burlesque, (graciosamente) a monk armed with a great broom drives off the devil and his suite.[375] At the conclusion of the piece the saint whose beatification is now complete, descends from heaven in a garment bespangled with stars. As soon as he touches the earth, the souls of his father and mother are released from purgatory and rise through a rock; the saint then returns hand-in-hand with his parents to heaven, music playing as they ascend.
The Autos Sacramentales of Lope de Vega must have been far less attractive than his Lives of the Saints. Compared with the latter, their construction appears very simple, and they are executed in a style of theological refinement which could not have been perfectly intelligible to the multitude. But the allegorical characters, which are the most prominent in these pieces, produce an imposing effect. The dramas themselves are in general short. In one which represents the fall, Man disputes with Sin and the Devil, and Earth and Time take part in the dialogue. Next are discovered Justice and Mercy seated beneath a canopy, and at a table furnished with writing materials. Man is interrogated before this tribunal. The Prince of heaven, or Saviour, enters. Reflection, or Care, (Cuidado) kneels and delivers a letter to him. The Saviour, who takes his station behind a grating, makes Man undergo another judicial examination, and pardons him.[376] But the devil re-appears and protests against the pardon.[377] Man has next to contend with Vanity and Folly, who are introduced as allegorical characters. Christ again appears with the crown of thorns. In conclusion, the heavens open and Christ ascends to his celestial throne, with the usual accompaniment of music. Direct allusions to the sacrament of the altar were seldom necessary in the Autos, as the whole tendency of the allegorical action was directed to that object.
Lope de Vega’s Loas, and more particularly his Entremeses and Saynetes, seem to have been intended to indemnify the audience for the theological allegory of the sacramental dramas; for it is only in connection with the Autos that these preludes and interludes are to be found. The Loas are not always comic, and are sometimes only spirited monologues. The interludes, or Entremeses and Saynetes, may also be called preludes, for though they were performed after the Loa, which was properly the prologue, yet they preceded the Auto: these interludes are burlesque from beginning to end, and form a preparation for the devotion of the Auto, quite in the Spanish taste. Farces of this kind, pourtraying the incidents of common life, never destitute of genuine comic spirit, and written for the most part in verse, soon became indispensable to the Spaniards, and even to this day are never omitted in their dramatic performances. The interludes of Lope de Vega and Cervantes seem to have been the models of all that succeeded them.
The dramatic genius of Lope de Vega has rendered him immortal. In the seventeenth century his plays were universally read and performed throughout Spain. In general they were first published singly, and for the most part with the bookseller’s epithet—Comedia Famosa, (the Celebrated Comedy), which subsequently became a universal device, affixed to all comedies printed in Spain. In this manner Lope de Vega’s most popular comedies were, partly during the life of the author, and partly after his death, collected in five-and-twenty volumes;[378] exclusively of the Autos, preludes, and interludes, which afterwards formed a separate publication.[379] Among Lope’s scattered dramas which have been printed at a later period, are some which are expressly denominated tragedies.[380]
The other poetic works of this prolific writer, must be very briefly noticed; for to give any thing like a particular account of them would require the space of a considerable volume.[381] In epic poetry he maintained an unsuccessful contest with Tasso. His Jerusalem Conquistada,[382] consists indeed of twenty cantos in octaves, and contains some beautiful passages, but it will in no respect bear a comparison with the Italian poem. Lope de Vega also augmented the number of the continuers of Ariosto’s Orlando, by the publication of La Hermosura de Angelica,[383] (the Beauty of Angelica), which is also a narrative poem in twenty cantos, though shorter than those of the Jerusalem. His other attempts at epic composition are—La Corona Tragica,[384] (the Tragic Crown), or the history of the unfortunate Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland; and the Circe and Dragontea.[385] The Corona Tragica is full of furious invective against the protestants and against Queen Elizabeth in particular.[386] The hero of the Dragontea is Admiral Drake, who is introduced in this poem as the tool of Satan, in order that he may finally serve as an example of poetic justice. To compete with Sanazzar, Lope wrote a second Arcadia,[387] in the style of the Italian. He likewise wrote several poems, which may be called eclogues in the proper sense of the term. His Arte Nueva de Hazer Comedias, (New Art of Writing Comedies), is a humorous satire on his opponents under the appearance of ridiculing himself.[388] He anonymously supplied the Romancero General with thirty-six romances.[389] His spiritual poems are to be found in great profusion; and the number of his sonnets, some of which possess first-rate merit, is considerable. His Laurel de Apolo, a Eulogy on various Spanish Poets, which has been frequently quoted, is but an indifferent production.[390] His epistles are sufficiently numerous. Among his miscellaneous poems, those of the comic kind have most originality, as for example: La Gatomachia, (the Battle of Cats),[391] and the whole collection of miscellaneous poems which he published under the assumed name of the Licentiate Tomè de Burguillos.[392] Among his most celebrated prose works, are El Peregrino en su Patria, (the Stranger in his own Country), a tolerably long novel.[393] Dorothea, a dramatic story, or as it is called, Accion en Prosa;[394] and a Collection of Novels.[395]