De sangre de los Christianos,
Que no de la Moreria.
p. 60.
[387] How far these plays were felt to be religious by the crowds who witnessed them may be seen in a thousand ways; among the rest, by the fact mentioned by Madame d’Aulnoy, in 1679, that, when St. Antony, on the stage, repeated his Confiteor, the audience all fell on their knees, smote their breasts heavily, and cried out, Meâ culpâ. Voyage d’Espagne à la Haye, 1693, 18mo, Tom. I. p. 56.
[388] Auto was originally a forensic term, from the Latin actus, and meant a decree or a judgment of a court. Afterwards it was applied to these religious dramas, which were called Autos sacramentales or Autos del Corpus Christi, and to the autos de fé of the Inquisition; in both cases, because they were considered solemn religious acts. Covarrubias, Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana, ad verb. Auto.
[389] Great splendor was used, from the earliest times down to the present century, in the processions of the Corpus Christi throughout Spain; as may be judged from the accounts of them in Valencia, Seville, and Toledo, in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, p. 167; 1840, p. 187; and 1841, p. 177. In those of Toledo, there is an intimation that Lope de Rueda was employed in the dramatic entertainments connected with them in 1561; and that Alonso Cisneros, Cristóbal Navarro, and other known writers for the rude popular stage of that time, were his successors;—all serving to introduce Lope and Calderon.
[390] Pellicer, notes, D. Quixote, Tom. IV. pp. 105, 106, and Covarrubias, ut supra, ad verb. Tarasca. The populace at Toledo called the woman on the Tarasca, Anne Boleyn. Sem. Pint., 1841, p. 177.
[391] The most lively description I have seen of this procession is contained in the loa to Lope’s first fiesta and auto (Obras Sueltas, Tom. XVIII. pp. 1-7). Another description, to suit the festival as it was got up about 1655-65, will be found when we come to Calderon. It is given here as it occurred in the period of Lope’s success; and a fancy drawing of the procession, as it may have appeared in 1623, is to be found in the Semanario Pintoresco, 1846, p. 185. But Lope’s loa is the best authority.
[392] A good idea of the contents of the carro may be found in the description of the one met by Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. 11), as he was returning from Toboso.
[393] Montalvan, in his “Fama Póstuma.”