In 1654, when they were at the height of their success, Aarsens de Somerdyck, an accomplished Dutch traveller, gives us an account of them as he witnessed their exhibition at Madrid.[597] In the forenoon of the festival, he says, a procession occurred such as we have seen was usual in the time of Lope de Vega, where the king and court appeared without distinction of rank, preceded by two fantastic figures of giants, and sometimes by the grotesque form of the Tarasca,—one of which, we are told, in a pleasant story of Santos, passing by night from a place where it had been exhibited the preceding day to one where it was to be exhibited the day following, so alarmed a body of muleteers who accidentally met it, that they roused up the country, as if a real monster were come among them to lay waste the land.[598] These misshapen figures and all this strange procession, with music of hautboys, tambourines, and castanets, with banners, and religious shows, followed the sacrament through the streets for some hours, and then returned to the principal church, and were dismissed.
In the afternoon they assembled again and performed the autos, on that and many successive days, before the houses of the great officers of state, where the audience stood either in the balconies that would command a view of the exhibition, or else in the streets. The giants and the Tarascas were there to make sport for the multitude; the music came, that all might dance who chose; torches were added to give effect to the scene, though the performance was only by daylight; and the king and the royal family enjoyed the exhibition, sitting in state under a magnificent canopy in front of the stage prepared for the occasion.
As soon as the principal personages were seated, the loa was spoken or sung; then came a farcical entremes; afterwards the auto itself; and finally, something by way of conclusion that would contribute to the general amusement, like music or dancing. And this was continued, in different parts of the city, daily for a month, during which the theatres were shut and the regular actors were employed in the streets, in the service of the Church.[599]
Of the entertainments of this sort which Calderon furnished for Madrid, Toledo, and Seville, he has left, as has been said, no less than seventy-three. They are all allegorical, and all, by the music and show with which they abounded, are nearer to operas than any other class of dramas then known in Spain; some of them reminding us, by their religious extravagance, of the treatment of the gods in the plays of Aristophanes, and others, by their spirit and richness, of the poetical masques of Ben Jonson. They are upon a great variety of subjects, and show, by their structure, that elaborate and costly machinery must have been used in their representation.
Including the loa that accompanied each, those of Calderon are nearly or quite as long as the full-length plays which he wrote for the secular theatre. Some of them indicate their subjects by their titles, like “The First and Second Isaac,” “God’s Vineyard,” and “Ruth’s Gleanings.” Others, like “The True God Pan” and “The First Flower of Carmel,” give no such intimations. All are crowded with shadowy personages, such as Sin, Death, Mohammedanism, Judaism, Justice, Mercy, and Charity; and the uniform purpose and end of all is to set forth and glorify the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The great Enemy of man, of course, fills a large space in them,—Quevedo says too large, adding, that, at last, he had grown to be quite a presuming and vainglorious personage, coming on the stage dressed finely, and talking as if the theatre were altogether his own.[600]
There is necessarily a good deal of sameness in the structure of dramas like these; but it is wonderful with what ingenuity Calderon has varied his allegories, sometimes mingling them with the national history, as in the case of the two autos on Saint Ferdinand; oftener with incidents and stories from Scripture, like “The Brazen Serpent” and “The Captivity of the Ark”; and always, where he could, seizing any popular occasion to produce an effect, as he did after the completion of the Escurial and of the Buen Retiro, and after the marriage of the Infanta María Teresa; each of which events contributed materials for a separate auto. Almost all of them have passages of striking lyrical poetry; and a few, of which “Devotion to the Mass” is the chief, make a free use of the old ballads.
One of the most characteristic of the collection, and one that has considerable poetical merit in separate passages, is “The Divine Orpheus.”[601] It opens with the entrance of a huge black car, in the shape of a boat, which is drawn along the street toward the stage where the auto is to be acted, and contains the Prince of Darkness, set forth as a pirate, and Envy, as his steersman; both supposed to be thus navigating through a portion of chaos. They hear, at a distance, sweet music which proceeds from another car, advancing from the opposite quarter in the form of a celestial globe, covered with the signs of the planets and constellations, and containing Orpheus, who represents allegorically the Creator of all things. This is followed by a third car, setting forth the terrestrial globe, within which are the Seven Days of the Week, and Human Nature, all asleep. These cars open, so that the personages they contain can come upon the stage and retire back again, as if behind the scenes, at their pleasure;—the machines themselves constituting, in this as in all such representations, an important part of the scenic arrangements of the exhibition, and, in the popular estimation, not unfrequently the most important part.
On their arrival at the stage, the Divine Orpheus, with lyric poetry and music, begins the work of creation, using always language borrowed from Scripture; and at the suitable moment, as he advances, each Day presents itself, roused from its ancient sleep and clothed with symbols indicating the nature of the work that has been accomplished; after which, Human Nature is, in the same way, summoned forth, and appears in the form of a beautiful woman, who is the Eurydice of the fable. Pleasure dwells with her in Paradise; and, in her exuberant happiness, she sings a hymn in honor of her Creator, founded on the hundred and thirty-sixth Psalm, the poetical effect of which is destroyed by an unbecoming scene of allegorical gallantry that immediately follows between the Divine Orpheus himself and Human Nature.
The temptation and fall succeed; and then the graceful Days, which had before always accompanied Human Nature and scattered gladness in her path, disappear one by one, and leave her to her trials and her sins. She is overwhelmed with remorse, and, endeavouring to escape from the consequences of her guilt, is conveyed by the bark of Lethe to the realms of the Prince of Darkness, who, from his first appearance on the scene, has been laboring, with his coadjutor, Envy, for this very triumph. But his triumph is short. The Divine Orpheus, who has, for some time, represented the character of our Saviour, comes upon the stage, weeping over the fall, and sings a song of love and grief to the accompaniment of a harp made partly in the form of a cross; after which, rousing himself in his omnipotence, he enters the realms of darkness, amidst thunders and earthquakes; overcomes all opposition; rescues Human Nature from perdition; places her, with the seven redeemed Days of the Week, on a fourth car, in the form of a ship, so ornamented as to represent the Christian Church and the mystery of the Eucharist; and then, as the gorgeous machine sweeps away, the exhibition ends with the shouts of the actors in the drama, accompanied by the answering shouts of the spectators on their knees wishing the good ship a good voyage and a happy arrival at her destined port.
That these Sacramental Acts produced a great effect, there can be no doubt. Allegory of all kinds, which, from the earliest periods, had been attractive to the Spanish people, still continued so to an extraordinary degree; and the imposing show of the autos, their music, and the fact that they were represented in seasons of solemn leisure, at the expense of the government, and with the sanction of the Church, gave them claims on the popular favor which were enjoyed by no other form of popular amusement. They were written and acted everywhere throughout the country, and by all classes of people, because they were everywhere demanded. How humble were some of their exhibitions in the villages and hamlets may be seen in Roxas, who gives an account of an auto of Cain and Abel, in which two actors performed all the parts;[602] and from Lope de Vega[603] and Cervantes,[604] who speak of their being written by barbers and acted by shepherds. On the other hand, we know that in Madrid no expense was spared to add to their solemnity and effect, and that everywhere they had the countenance and support of the public authorities. Nor has their influence even yet entirely ceased. In 1765, Charles the Third forbade their public representation; but the popular will and the habits of five centuries could not be immediately broken down by a royal decree. Autos, therefore, or dramatic religious farces resembling them, are still heard in some of the remote villages of the country; while, in the former dependencies of Spain, exhibitions of the same class and nature, if not precisely of the same form, have never been interfered with.[605]