Quando la loca arrogancia
Del Frances, sobre Valencia
Del Po, etc.
Jorn. I.
[672] He makes the victory more important than it really was, but his allusions to it show that it was not thought worth while to irritate the French interest; so cautious and courtly is Calderon’s whole tone. It is in Tom. X. of the Comedias.
[673] The account, in “Guárdate de la Agua Mansa,” of the triumphal arch, for which Calderon furnished the allegorical ideas and figures, as well as the inscriptions, (both Latin and Castilian, the play says), is very ample. Jornada III.
[674] Here, again, we have the courtly spirit in Calderon. He insists most carefully, that the Peace of the Pyrenees and the marriage of the Infanta are not connected with each other; and that the marriage is to be regarded “as a separate affair, treated at the same time, but quite independently.” But his audience knew better.
From the “Viage del Rey Nuestro Señor D. Felipe IV. el Grande á la Frontera de Francia,” por Leonardo del Castillo, Madrid, 1667, 4to,—a work of official pretensions, describing the ceremonies attending both the marriage of the Infanta and the conclusion of the peace,—it appears, that, wherever Calderon has alluded to either, he has been true to the facts of history. A similar remark may be made of the “Tetis y Peleo,” evidently written for the same occasion, and printed, Comedias Escogidas, Tom. XXIX., 1668;—a poor drama by an obscure author, Josef de Bolea, and probably one of several that we know, from Castillo, were represented to amuse the king and court on their journey.
[675] This flattery of Charles II. is the more disagreeable, because it was offered in the poet’s old age; for Charles did not come to the throne till Calderon was seventy-five years old. But it is, after all, not so shocking as the sort of blasphemous compliments to Philip IV. and his queen in the strange auto called “El Buen Retiro,” acted on the first Corpus Christi day after that luxurious palace was finished.
[676] I think Calderon never uses blank verse, though Lope does.