[778] “Danzas habladas” is the singular phrase applied to a pantomime with singing and dancing in Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 20. The bayles of Fonseca, referred to in a preceding note, are a fair specimen of the singing and dancing on the Spanish stage in the middle of the seventeenth century. One of them is an allegorical contest between Love and Fortune; another, a discussion on Jealousy; and the third, a wooing by Peter Crane, a peasant, carried on by shaking a purse before the damsel he would win;—all three in the ballad measure, and none of them extending beyond a hundred and twenty lines, or possessing any merit but a few jests.
[779] Some of them are very brutal, like one at the end of “Crates y Hipparchia,” Madrid, 1636, 12mo; one in the “Enano de las Musas”; and several in the “Ingeniosa Helena.” The best are in Quiñones de Benavente, “Joco-Seria,” 1653, and Solís, “Poesías,” 1716. There was originally a distinction between bayles and danzas, now no longer recognized;—the danzas being graver and more decent. See a note of Pellicer to Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 48; partly discredited by one of Clemencin on the same passage.
[780] Covarrubias, ad verbum Çarabanda. Pellicer, Don Quixote, 1797, Tom. I. pp. cliii.-clvi., and Tom. V. p. 102. There is a list of many ballads that were sung with the zarabandas in a curious satire entitled “The Life and Death of La Zarabanda, Wife of Anton Pintado,” 1603;—the ballads being given as a bequest of the deceased lady. (C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. pp. 129-131, 136-138.) Lopez Pinciano, in his “Filosofía Antigua Poética,” 1596, pp. 418-420, partly describes the zarabanda, and expresses his great disgust at its indecency.
[781] Dorotea, Acto I. sc. 5.
[782] Other names of dances are to be found in the “Diablo Cojuelo,” Tranco I., where all of them are represented as inventions of the Devil on Two Sticks; but these are the chief. See, also, Covarrubias, Art. Zapato.
[783] Cuevas de Salamanca. There is a curious bayle entremesado of Moreto, on the subject of Don Rodrigo and La Cava, in the Autos, etc., 1655, f. 92; and another, called “El Médico,” in the “Ocios de Ignacio Alvarez Pellicer,” s. l. 1685, 4to, p. 51.
[784] See the “Gran Sultana,” as already cited, note 57.
[785] C. Pellicer, Orígen, Tom. I. p. 102.
[786] Figueroa, Pasagero, 1617, f. 105. Villegas, Eróticas Najera, 1617, 4to, Tom. II. p. 29. Diablo Cojuelo, Tranco V. Figueroa, Plaza Universal, Madrid, 1733, folio, Discurso 91.
[787] Mad. d’Aulnoy, fresh from the stage of Racine and Molière, then the most refined and best appointed in Europe, speaks with great admiration of the theatres in the Spanish palaces, though she ridicules those granted to the public. (Voyage, etc., ed. 1693, Tom. III. p. 7, and elsewhere.) One way, however, in which the kings patronized the drama was, probably, not very agreeable to the authors, if it were often practised; I mean that of requiring a piece to be acted nowhere but in the royal presence. This was the case with Gerónimo de Villayzan’s “Sufrir mas por querer mas.” Comedias por Diferentes Autores, Tom. XXV., Zaragoza, 1633, f. 145. b.