Se hacian tres pequeños entremeses.
Obras Sueltas, Tom. IV. p. 412.
[281] Dramatic entertainments of some kind are spoken of at Valencia in the fourteenth century. In 1394, we are told, there was represented at the palace a tragedy, entitled “L’ hom enamorat e la fembra satisfeta,” by Mossen Domingo Maspons, a counsellor of John I. This was undoubtedly a Troubadour performance. Perhaps the Entramesos mentioned as having occurred in the same city in 1412, 1413, and 1415, were of the same sort. At any rate, they seem to have belonged, like those we have noticed (ante, Vol. I. p. 259) by the Constable Alvaro de Luna, to courtly festivities. Aribau, Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, Madrid, 1846, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 178, note; and an excellent article on the early Spanish theatre, by F. Wolf, in Blätter für literarische Unterhaltung, 1848, p. 1287, note.
[282] Jovellanos, Diversiones Públicas, Madrid, 1812, 8vo, p. 57.
[283] In one of his earlier efforts he says, (Obras, Tom. V. p. 346), “The laws help them little.” But of this we shall see more hereafter.
[284] It is probable, from internal evidence, that this eclogue, and some others in the same romance, were acted before the Duke Antonio de Alva. At any rate, we know similar representations were common in the age of Cervantes and Lope, as well as before and after it.
[285] Such dramas are found in the “Pastores de Belen,” Book III., and elsewhere.
[286] “El Verdadero Amante” is in the Fourteenth Part of the Comedias, printed at Madrid, 1620, and is dedicated to his son Lope, who died the next year, only fifteen years old;—the father saying in the Dedication, “This play was written when I was of about your age.”
[287] Montalvan says, “Lope greatly pleased Manrique, the Bishop of Avila, by certain eclogues which he wrote for him, and by the drama of ‘The Pastoral of Jacinto,’ the earliest he wrote in three acts.” (Obras, Tom. XX. p. 30.) It was first printed at Madrid, in 1617, 4to, by Sanchez, in a volume entitled “Quatro Comedias Famosas de Don Luis de Góngora y Lope de Vega Carpio,” etc.; and afterwards in the eighteenth volume of the Comedias of Lope, Madrid, 1623. It was also printed separately, under the double title of “La Selva de Albania, y el Çeloso de sí mismo.”
[288] It fills nearly fifty pages in the third book of the romance.