[432] Custine, L’Espagne sous Ferdinand VII., troisième édit., Paris, 1838, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 279. The edition of Celestina with the various readings is that of Madrid, 1822, 18mo, by Leon Amarita. The French translation is the one already mentioned, by Germond de Lavigne (Paris, 1841, 12mo); and the German translation, which is very accurate and spirited, is by Edw. Bülow (Leipzig, 1843, 12mo). Traces of it on the English stage are found as early as about 1530 (Collier’s History of Dram. Poetry, etc., London, 1831, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 408), and I have a translation of it by James Mabbe (London, 1631, folio), which, for its idiomatic English style, deserves to be called beautiful. Three translations of it, in the sixteenth century, into French, and three into Italian, which were frequently reprinted, besides one into Latin, already alluded to, and one into German, may be found noted in Brunet, Ebert, etc.
[433] He spells his name differently in different editions of his works; Encina in 1496, Enzina in 1509 and elsewhere.
[434] There is an edition of it (Madrid, 1786, 12mo) filling a hundred pages, to which is added a summary of the whole in a ballad of eighteen pages, which may have been intended for popular recitation. The last is not, perhaps, the work of Enzina. A similar pilgrimage, partly devout, partly poetical, was made a century later by Pedro de Escobar Cabeza de la Vaca, who published an account of it in 1587, (12mo,) at Valladolid, in twenty-five cantos of blank verse, entitled “Lucero de la Tierra Santa,”—A Lighthouse for the Holy Land. He went and returned by the way of Egypt, and at Jerusalem became a knight-templar; but his account of what he saw and did, though I doubt not it is curious for the history of geography, is as free from the spirit of poetry as can well be imagined. Nearly the whole of it, if not broken into verses, might be read as pure and dignified Castilian prose, and parts of it would have considerable merit as such.
[435] The best life of Enzina is one in the “Allgemeine Encyclopedie der Wissenschaften und Künste” (Erste Section, Leipzig, 4to, Tom. XXXIV. pp. 187-189). It is by Ferdinand Wolf, of Vienna. An early and satisfactory notice of Enzina is to be found in Gonzalez de Avila, “Historia de Salamanca,” (Salamanca, 1606, 4to, Lib. III. c. xxii.,) where Enzina is called “hijo desta patria,” i. e. Salamanca.
[436] “Auto del Repelon,” or Auto of the Brawl, being a quarrel in the market-place of Salamanca, between some students of the University and sundry shepherds. The word auto comes from the Latin actus, and was applied to any particularly solemn acts, however different in their nature and character, like the autos sacramentales of the Corpus Christi days, and the autos da fé of the Inquisition. (See Covarrubias, Tesoro, ad verb.; and the account of Lope de Vega’s drama, in the next period.) In 1514, Enzina published, at Rome, a drama entitled “Placida y Victoriano,” which he called una egloga, and which is much praised by the author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas”; but it was put into the Index Expurgatorius, 1559, and occurs again in that of 1667, p. 733. I believe no copy of it is known to be extant.
[437] They may have been represented, but I know of no proof that they were, except this accommodation of them to personages some of whom are known to have been of his audience on similar occasions.
[438] Agustin de Rojas, Viage Entretenido, Madrid, 1614, 12mo, ff. 46, 47. Speaking of the bucolic dramas of Enzina, represented before the Dukes of Alva, Infantado, etc., he says expressly, “These were the first.” Rojas was not born till 1577, but he was devoted to the theatre his whole life, and seems to have been more familiar with its history than anybody else of his time.
[439] Rodrigo Mendez de Silva, Catálogo Real Genealógico de España, at the end of his “Poblacion de España” (Madrid, 1675, folio, f. 250. b). Mendez de Silva was a learned and voluminous author. See his Life, Barbosa, Bib. Lusitana, Tom. III. p. 649, where is a sonnet of Lope de Vega in praise of the learning of this very Catálogo Real. The word “publicly,” however, seems only to refer to the representations in the houses of Enzina’s patrons, etc., as we shall see hereafter.
[440] The villancicos long retained a pastoral tone and something of a dramatic character. At the marriage of Philip II., in Segovia, 1570, “The youth of the choir, gayly dressed as shepherds, danced and sang a villancico,” says Colmenares, (Hist. de Segovia, Segovia, 1627, fol., p. 558,) and in 1600, villancicos were again performed by the choir, when Philip III. visited the city. Ibid., p. 594.
[441] This is the eclogue beginning “Dios salva acá buena gente,” etc., and is on fol. 103 of the “Cancionero de Todas las Obras de Juan de la Encina; impreso en Salamanca, a veinte dias del Mes de Junio de M.CCCC. E XCVI. años” (116 leaves, folio). It was represented before the Duke and Duchess of Alva, while they were in the chapel for matins on Christmas morning; and the next eclogue, beginning “Dios mantenga, Dios mantenga,” was represented in the same place, at vespers, the same day.