CHAPTER IV.
FORMS OF THE SPANISH DRAMA.
THE PREVAILING QUALITY OF THE SPANISH DRAMA—TYPICAL EXAMPLES—‘LA DAMA MELINDROSA’—‘EL TEJEDOR DE SEGOVIA’—‘EL CONDENADO POR DESCONFIADO’—THE PLAYS ON “HONOUR”—‘A SECRETO AGRAVIO SECRETA VENGANZA’—THE “AUTO SACRAMENTAL”—THE “LOA”—THE ‘VERDADERO DIOS PAN’—‘LOS DOS HABLADORES.’
The prevailing quality of the Spanish drama.
There may well seem to be something over-bold, even impudent, in the attempt to give an account of the different kinds of Spanish drama in one brief chapter. Its abundance alone would appear to render the effort vain, and the common elaborate classification of the plays into heroic, romantic, religious, of “cloak and sword,” and so forth, seems to imply the existence of a number of types distinct from one another, and calling for separate treatment. Yet though I cannot hope to be exhaustive, it is, in my opinion, possible to be at least not wholly inadequate. The task is materially facilitated by the great uniformity of the Spanish drama. No matter what the name may be, the action is much the same, and the characters do not greatly vary. It has been said that Calderon’s personages are all like bullets cast in a mould; and though this, as is the case with most sweeping assertions, fails to take notice of the exceptions, it has much truth, and may be applied to others. The Spanish drama is above all a drama of action, conducted by fixed types. Juan de la Cueva had said in a spirit of prophecy that the artful fable was the glory of the Spanish stage, and Lope appeared in good time to prove him right. The types who move in the action are the Dama, the Galan, the Barba, and the Gracioso—the Lady, the Lover, the Old Man, and the Clown. They have the stage to themselves in the comedia de capa y espada. This phrase, when translated into French or English, has an air of romance about it which is somewhat misleading. The cloak and sword were the distinctive parts of the dress of the private gentleman. Caballero de capa y espada was the man about town of our own Restoration plays, who is neither great noble, churchman, nor lawyer. The comedia de capa y espada was then the genteel comedy of Spain. But the Dama, the Galan, the Barba, and the Gracioso figure in every kind of play, even in those of religion. By these is meant the stage drama turning on some religious motive, and not the auto sacramental, which was a mystery differing from those of the Middle Ages only in this, that it was written by men of letters on whom, and on whose art, the Renaissance had had its influence. In the Romantic plays there is more passion, and the sword is more often out of its scabbard, but we find the same types, the same general action. Spain produced a certain number of plays approaching our own comedy of humours. These are the comedias de figuron. La Verdad Sospechosa and the Lindo Don Diego are the best known examples. But here again the “humour”—the figuron—is placed in the midst of the stock types and the customary action.
Typical examples.
To show what these types and this action were in general terms would be easy enough, but perhaps a better, and certainly a more entertaining, method is to take half-a-dozen typical plays, and to give such an analysis of them as may enable the reader to appreciate for himself that skilful construction of plot at which the Spaniards aimed, and to judge how far it is true that however much the subject differed, the dramatis personæ did not greatly vary. For this purpose it is not necessary to take what is best but what is most characteristic. I have selected as an example of the comedy of lively complicated action the Dama Melindrosa, which may be translated ‘My Lady’s Vapours,’ by Lope de Vega; as a romantic play, the Tejedor de Segovia—‘The Weaver of Segovia’—by Juan Ruiz de Alarcon; as a religious play, the Condenado por Desconfiado—‘Damned for want of Faith’—of Tirso de Molina; for the play which has “honour” for its motive, the A Secreto Agravio Secreta Venganza—‘A Secret Vengeance for a Hidden Wrong’—of Calderon. The Dama Melindrosa draws a little towards the comedia de figuron, but it is none the less a perfect specimen of the cloak-and-sword comedy, and a good example of Lope. It is chosen also because it possesses a plot sufficiently entangled to show the Spanish enredo (i.e., tangle), and yet not so complicated as to be obscure in the telling. Specimens of the romantic, and religious, play might have been easily found in Calderon, but to show the general quality of a literature, we must not confine ourselves to the greater men. There remain the auto sacramental, and the short interludes, which under various names surrounded, and enlivened, the comedia. For the first we must go to Calderon, and none seems more fit to show what the Renaissance had done with these survivals of the Middle Ages than the Verdadero Dios Pan—‘The True God Pan.’ For an example of the smaller pieces we can take the Dos Habladores—‘The Two Chatterers’—of Cervantes, who excelled in this, and only in this, dramatic form.[35]
La Dama Melindrosa.
Belisa, the Dama Melindrosa, the lady with the vapours, of Lope’s comedy, is the daughter of a rich widow, Lisarda, and she has a brother, Don Juan. The brother spends his nights serenading ladies, in company with his friend Eliso, and lies in bed till midday. Belisa has hitherto refused all the husbands proposed by her mother, giving more or less fantastical reasons in each case, and is a very airy whimsical young person. In the first scene of the play Lisarda confides her troubles with her children to her brother Tiberio, the barba—beard, or old man—of the piece. Lisarda professes her desire to get her children married and settled in life, in order that she may retire to the country with one gentlewoman and a slave, there to bewail her lost lord (who, we learn, has been dead for about a year), like the tender turtle on a thorn. Tiberio pooh-poohs his sister’s sentiments, and makes the unsympathetic remark that widows generally seem to find solitude a thorn, to judge by their perpetual fidgeting, but offers to use his influence to persuade Belisa to marry. Then follows a scene with the young lady. She knows she is going to be sermonised, and puts on all her airs and graces. A chair is brought for Tiberio and cushions for the ladies, who squat on them in the old Spanish fashion. Mme. d’Aulnoy, the author of the fairy tales, who came to Spain as wife of the French Ambassador, has explained how intolerable she found this attitude. Belisa provokes her uncle, who has the usual peppery temper of the barba, into expressing a desire to box her ears, but will accept no husband. To this party enter an alguacil, or officer of police, with an escribano, a species of attorney and process-server. We learn that Lisarda has a claim on her son’s friend Eliso, who owed her husband money, and will not pay it. She has therefore sued out a writ, and is sending the officers to seize a prenda, or pledge, which she can keep or sell for the discharge of the debt, if Eliso will not pay what he owes.