[346] “Arauco Domado,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629. The scene is laid about 1560; but the play is intended as a compliment to the living son of the conqueror. In the Dedication to him, Lope asserts it to be a true history; but there is, of course, much invention mingled with it, especially in the parts that do honor to the Spaniards. Among its personages is the author of the “Araucana,” Alonso de Ercilla, who comes upon the stage beating a drum. Another and earlier play of Lope may be compared with the “Arauco”; I mean “Los Guanches de Tenerife” (Comedias, Tom. X., Madrid, 1620, f. 128). It is on the similar subject of the conquest of the Canary Islands, in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, and, as in the “Arauco Domado,” the natives occupy much of the canvas.
[347] “La Santa Liga,” Comedias, Tom. XV., Madrid, 1621.
[348] “El Valiente Cespedes,” Comedias, Tom. XX., Madrid, 1629. This notice is specially given to the reader by Lope, out of tenderness to the reputation of Doña María de Cespedes, who does not appear in the play with all the dignity which those who, in Lope’s time, claimed to be descended from her might exact at his hands.
[349] In “Roma Abrasada,” Acto II. f. 89, already noticed, ante, p. 193.
[350] Jornada II. of “Exemplo Mayor de la Desdicha, y Capitan Belisario”; not in the collection of Lope’s plays, and though often printed separately as his, and inserted as such on Lord Holland’s list, it is published in the old and curious collection entitled “Comedias de Diferentes Autores,” (4to, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1633), as the work of Montalvan, both he and Lope being then alive.
[351] “Contra Valor no hay Desdicha.” Like the last, it has been often reprinted. It begins with the romantic account of Cyrus’s exposure to death, in consequence of his grandfather’s dream, and ends with a battle and his victory over Astyages and all his enemies.
[352] We occasionally meet with the phrase comedias de ruido; but it does not mean a class of plays separated from the others by different rules of composition. It refers to the machinery used in their exhibition; so that comedias de capa y espada, and especially comedias de santos, which often demanded a large apparatus, were not unfrequently comedias de ruido. In the same way, comedias de apariencias were plays demanding much scenery and scene-shifting.
[353] “La Moza de Cantaro” and “La Esclava de su Galan” have continued to be favorites down to our own times. The first was printed at London, not many years ago, and the last at Paris, in Ochoa’s collection, 1838, 8vo, and at Bielefeld, in that of Schütz, 1840, 8vo.
[354] Comedias, Tom. VI., Madrid, 1615, ff. 101, etc. It may be worth notice, that the character of Mendo is like that of Camacho in the Second Part of Don Quixote, which was first printed in the same year, 1615. The resemblance between the two, however, is not very strong, and I dare say is wholly accidental.