[412] “He had a great deal of inventive faculty, and was much given to making inventions and entremeses for festivals,” etc. (Crónica del Condestable Don Alvaro de Luna, ed. Flores, Madrid, 1784, 4to, Título 68.) It is not to be supposed that these were like the gay farces that have since passed under the same name, but there can be little doubt that they were poetical and were exhibited. The Constable was beheaded in 1453.
[413] I am not unaware that attempts have been made to give the Spanish theatre a different origin from the one I have assigned to it. 1. The marriage of Doña Endrina and Don Melon has been cited for this purpose in the French translation of “Celestina” by De Lavigne (Paris, 12mo, 1841, pp. v., vi.). But their adventures, taken from Pamphylus Maurianus, already noticed, (p. 81,) constitute, in fact, a mere story arranged about 1335, by the Archpriest of Hita, out of an old Latin dialogue, (Sanchez, Tom. IV. stanz. 550-865,) but differing in nothing important from the other tales of the Archpriest, and quite insusceptible of dramatic representation. (See Preface of Sanchez to the same volume, pp. xxiii., etc.) 2. The “Dança General de la Muerte,” already noticed as written about 1350, (Castro, Biblioteca Española, Tom. I. pp. 200, etc.,) has been cited by L. F. Moratin (Obras, ed. de la Academia, Madrid, 1830, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 112) as the earliest specimen of Spanish dramatic literature. But it is unquestionably not a drama, but a didactic poem, which it would have been quite absurd to attempt to exhibit. 3. The “Comedieta de Ponza,” on the great naval battle fought near the island of Ponza, in 1435, and written by the Marquis of Santillana, who died in 1454, has been referred to as a drama by Martinez de la Rosa, (Obras Literarias, Paris, 1827, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 518, etc.,) who assigns it to about 1436. But it is, in truth, merely an allegorical poem thrown into the form of a dialogue and written in coplas de arte mayor. I shall notice it hereafter. And finally, 4. Blas de Nasarre, in his Prólogo to the plays of Cervantes, (Madrid, 1749, 4to, Vol. I.,) says there was a comedia acted before Ferdinand and Isabella in 1469, at the house of the Count de Ureña, in honor of their wedding. But we have only Blas de Nasarre’s dictum for this, and he is not a good authority: besides which, he adds that the author of the comedia in question was John de la Enzina, who, we know, was not born earlier than the year before the event referred to. The moment of the somewhat secret marriage of these illustrious persons was, moreover, so full of anxiety, that it is not at all likely any show or mumming accompanied it. See Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella, Part I. c. 3.
[414] “Coplas de Mingo Revulgo,” often printed, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with the beautiful Coplas of Manrique. The editions I use are those of 1588, 1632, and the one at the end of the “Crónica de Enrique IV.,” (Madrid, 1787, 4to, ed. de la Academia,) with the commentary of Pulgar.
A Mingo Revulgo, Mingo!
A Mingo Revulgo, hao!
Que es de tu sayo de blao?
No le vistes en Domingo?
Que es de tu jubon bermejo?
Por que traes tal sobrecejo?