O, what delight to stoop the head,
And drink from out their merry gush![446]
Both pieces, like the preceding translation, are in double redondillas forming octave stanzas of eight-syllable verses; and as the two together contain about four hundred and fifty lines, their amount is sufficient to show the direction Enzina’s talent naturally took, as well as the height to which it rose.
Enzina, however, is to be regarded not only as the founder of the Spanish theatre, but as the founder of the Portuguese, whose first attempts were so completely imitated from his, and had in their turn so considerable an effect on the Spanish stage, that they necessarily become a part of its history. These attempts were made by Gil Vicente, a gentleman of good family, who was bred to the law, but left that profession early and devoted himself to dramatic compositions, chiefly for the entertainment of the families of Manuel the Great and John the Third. When he was born is not known, but he died in 1557. As a writer for the stage he flourished from 1502 to 1536,[447] and produced, in all, forty-two pieces, arranged as works of devotion, comedies, tragicomedies, and farces; but most of them, whatever be their names, are in fact short, lively dramas, or religious pastorals. Taken together, they are better than any thing else in Portuguese dramatic literature.
The first thing, however, that strikes us in relation to them is, that their air is so Spanish, and that so many of them are written in the Spanish language. Of the whole number, ten are in Castilian, fifteen partly or chiefly so, and seventeen entirely in Portuguese. Why this is the case, it is not easy to determine. The languages are, no doubt, very nearly akin to each other; and the writers of each nation, but especially those of Portugal, have not unfrequently distinguished themselves in the use of both. But the Portuguese have never, at any period, admitted their language to be less rich or less fitted for all kinds of composition than that of their prouder rivals. Perhaps, therefore, in the case of Vicente, it was, that the courts of the two countries had been lately much connected by intermarriages; that King Manuel had been accustomed to have Castilians about his person to amuse him;[448] that the queen was a Spaniard;[449] or that, in language as in other things, he found it convenient thus to follow the leading of his master, Juan de la Enzina;—but, whatever may have been the cause, it is certain that Vicente, though he was born and lived in Portugal, is to be numbered among Spanish authors as well as among Portuguese.
His earliest effort was made in 1502, on occasion of the birth of Prince John, afterwards John the Third.[450] It is a monologue in Spanish, a little more than a hundred lines long, spoken before the king, the king’s mother, and the Duchess of Braganza, probably by Vicente himself, in the person of a herdsman, who enters the royal chambers, and, after addressing the queen mother, is followed by a number of shepherds, bringing presents to the new-born prince. The poetry is simple, fresh, and spirited, and expresses the feelings of wonder and admiration that would naturally rise in the mind of such a rustic, on first entering a royal residence. Regarded as a courtly compliment, the attempt succeeded. In a modest notice, attached to it by the son of Vicente, we are told, that, being the first of his father’s compositions, and the first dramatic representation ever made in Portugal, it pleased the queen mother so much, as to lead her to ask its author to repeat it at Christmas, adapting it to the birth of the Saviour.
Vicente, however, understood that the queen desired to have such an entertainment as she had been accustomed to enjoy at the court of Castile, when John de la Enzina brought his contributions to the Christmas festivities. He therefore prepared for Christmas morning what he called an “Auto Pastoril,” or Pastoral Act;—a dialogue in which four shepherds with Luke and Matthew are the interlocutors, and in which not only the eclogue forms of Enzina are used, and the manger of Bethlehem is introduced, just as that poet had introduced it, but in which his verses are freely imitated. This effort, too, pleased the queen, and again, on the authority of his son, we are told she asked Vicente for another composition, to be represented on Twelfth Night, 1503. Her request was not one to be slighted; and in the same way four other pastorals followed for similar devout occasions, making, when taken together, six; all of which being in Spanish, and all religious pastorals, represented with singing and dancing before King Manuel, his queen, and other distinguished personages, they are to be regarded throughout as imitations of Juan de la Enzina’s eclogues.[451]
Of these six pieces, three of which, we know, were written in 1502 and 1503, and the rest, probably, soon afterwards, the most curious and characteristic is the one called “The Auto of the Sibyl Cassandra,” which was represented in the rich old monastery of Enxobregas, on a Christmas morning, before the queen mother. It is an eclogue in Spanish, above eight hundred lines long, and is written in the stanzas most used by Enzina. Cassandra, the heroine, devoted to a pastoral life, yet supposed to be a sort of lay prophetess who has had intimations of the approaching birth of the Saviour, enters at once on the scene, where she remains to the end, the central point, round which the other seven personages are not inartificially grouped. She has hardly avowed her resolution not to be married, when Solomon appears making love to her, and telling her, with great simplicity, that he has arranged every thing with her aunts, to marry her in three days. Cassandra, nothing daunted at the annunciation, persists in the purpose of celibacy; and he, in consequence, goes out to summon these aunts to his assistance. During his absence, she sings the following song:
They say, “’T is time, go, marry! go!”
But I’ll no husband! not I! no!