Vicente, Obras, Tom. I. p 62.
A similar tone is more fully heard in the spirited little drama entitled “The Exhortation to War,” performed 1513.
[456] Obras, Hamburgo, 1834, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 68, etc.
[457] The “Rubena” is the first of the plays called,—it is difficult to tell why,—by Vicente or his editor, Comedias; and is partly in Spanish, partly in Portuguese. It is among those prohibited in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, (p. 464,)—a prohibition renewed down to 1790.
[458] These two long plays, wholly in Spanish, are the first two of those announced as “Tragicomedias” in Book III. of the Works of Vicente. No reason that I know of can be given for this precise arrangement and name.
[459] This, too, is one of the “Tragicomedias,” and is chiefly, but not wholly, in Spanish.
[460] The first of these three Autos, the “Barca do Inferno,” was represented, in 1517, before the queen, Maria of Castile, in her sick-chamber, when she was suffering under the dreadful disease of which she soon afterwards died. Like the “Barca do Purgatorio,” (1518,) it is in Portuguese, but the remaining Auto, the “Barca da Gloria,” (1519,) is in Spanish. The last two were represented in the royal chapel. The moral play of Lope de Vega which was suggested by them is the one called “The Voyage of the Soul,” and is found in the First Book of his “Peregrino en su Patria.” The opening of Vicente’s play resembles remarkably the setting forth of the Demonio on his voyage in Lope, besides that the general idea of the two fictions is almost the same. On the other side of the account, Vicente shows himself frequently familiar with the old Spanish literature. For instance, in one of his Portuguese Farças, called “Dos Físicos,” (Tom. III. p. 323,) we have—
En el mes era de Mayo,
Vespora de Navidad,
Cuando canta la cigarra, etc.;