Por mí ha de ser; no teniendo
Conveniencias en quererme
Mas que quererme.
Jorn. II.
[658] I think there are six, at least, of Calderon’s plays taken from the Metamorphoses; a circumstance worth noting, because it shows the direction of his taste. He seems to have used no ancient author, and perhaps no author at all, in his plays, so much as Ovid, who was a favorite classic in Spain, six translations of the Metamorphoses having been made there before the time of Calderon. Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. IV., 1835, p. 407.
[659] It is possible Calderon may not have gone to the originals, but found his materials nearer at hand; and yet, on a comparison of the triumphal entry of Aurelian into Rome, in the third jornada, with the corresponding passages in Trebellius, “De Triginta Tyrannis,” (c. xxix.), and Vopiscus, “Aurelianus,” (c. xxxiii., xxxiv., etc.), it seems most likely that he had read them.
Sometimes Calderon is indebted to his dramatic predecessors. Thus, his fine play of the “Alcalde de Zalamea” is compounded of the stories in Lope’s “Fuente Ovejuna” and his “Mejor Alcalde el Rey.” But I think his obligations of this sort are infrequent.
[660] For instance, the exact enumeration of the troops at the opening of the play. Comedias, Tom. III. pp. 142, 149.
[661] It ends with a voluntary anachronism,—the resolution of the Emperor to apply to Pope Paul III. and to have such duels abolished by the Council of Trent. By its very last words, it shows that it was acted before the king, a fact that does not appear on its title-page. The duel is the one Sandoval describes with so much minuteness. Hist. de Carlos V., Anvers, 1681, folio, Lib. XI. §§ 8, 9.
[662] “Las Armas de la Hermosura,” Tom. I., and “El Mayor Encanto Amor,” Tom. V., are the plays on Coriolanus and Ulysses. They have been mentioned before.