And again, where he says of another,—
This is a play of Pedro Calderon,
Upon whose scene you never fail to find
A hidden lover or a lady fair
Most cunningly disguised.[620]
But to this principle of making a story which shall sustain an eager interest throughout Calderon has sacrificed almost as much as Lope de Vega did. The facts of history and geography are not felt for a moment as limits or obstacles. Coriolanus is a general who has served under Romulus; and Veturia, his wife, is one of the ravished Sabines.[621] The Danube, which must have been almost as well known to a Madrid audience from the time of Charles the Fifth as the Tagus, is placed between Russia and Sweden.[622] Jerusalem is on the sea-coast.[623] Herodotus is made to describe America.[624]
How absurd all this was Calderon knew as well as any body. Once, indeed, he makes a jest of it all; for one of his ancient Roman clowns, who is about to tell a story, begins,—
A friar,—but that ’s not right,—there are no friars
As yet in Rome.[625]
Nor is the preservation of national or individual character, except perhaps the Moorish, a matter of any more moment in his eyes. Ulysses and Circe sit down, as if in a saloon at Madrid, and, gathering an academy of cavaliers and ladies about them, discuss questions of metaphysical gallantry. Saint Eugenia does the same thing at Alexandria in the third century. And Judas Maccabæus, Herod the tetrarch of Judea, Jupangui the Inca of Peru, and Zenobia, are all, in their general air, as much Spaniards of the time of Philip the Fourth, as if they had never lived anywhere except at his court.[626] But we rarely miss the interest and charm of a dramatic story, sustained by a rich and flowing versification, and by long narrative passages, in which the most ingenious turns of phraseology are employed in order to provoke curiosity and enchain attention.