The subject of the play of Lope is happily taken from the frolics of the very night on which it was represented;—a night frequently alluded to in the old Spanish stories and ballads, as one devoted, both by Moors and Christians, to gayer superstitions, and adventures more various, than belonged to any other of the old national holidays.[317] What was represented, therefore, had a peculiar interest, from its appropriateness both as to time and place.
Leonora, the heroine, first comes on the stage, and confesses her attachment to Don Juan de Hurtado, a gentleman who has recently returned rich from the Indies. She gives a lively sketch of the way in which he had made love to her in all the forms of national admiration, at church by day, and before her grated balcony in the evenings. Don Luis, her brother, ignorant of all this, gladly becomes acquainted with the lover, whom he interests in a match of his own with Doña Blanca, sister of Bernardo, who is the cherished friend of Don Juan. Eager to oblige the brother of the lady he loves, Don Juan seeks Bernardo, and, in the course of their conversation, ingeniously describes to him a visit he has just made to see all the arrangements for the evening’s entertainment now in progress before the court, including this identical play of Lope; thus whimsically claiming from the audience a belief that the action they are witnessing on the stage in the garden is, at the very same moment, going on in real life in the streets of Madrid, just behind their backs;—a passage which, involving, as it does, compliments to the king and the Count Duke, to Quevedo and Mendoça, must have been one of the most brilliant in its effect that can be imagined. But when Don Juan comes to explain his mission about the lady Blanca, although he finds a most willing consent on the part of her brother, Bernardo, he is thunderstruck at the suggestion, that this brother, his most intimate friend, wishes to make the alliance double and marry Leonora himself.
Now, of course, begin the involutions and difficulties. Don Juan’s sense of what he owes to his friend forbids him from setting up his own claim to Leonora, and he at once decides that nothing remains for him but flight. At the same time, it is discovered that the Lady Blanca is already attached to another person, a noble cavalier, named Don Pedro, and will, therefore, never marry Don Luis, if she can avoid it. The course of true love, therefore, runs smooth in neither case. But both the ladies avow their determination to remain steadfastly faithful to their lovers, though Leonora, from some fancied symptoms of coldness in Don Juan, arising out of his over-nice sense of honor, is in despair at the thought that he may, after all, prove false to her.
So ends the first act. The second opens with the lady Blanca’s account of her own lover, his condition, and the way in which he had made his love known to her in a public garden;—all most faithful to the national costume. But just as she is ready to escape and be privately married to him, her brother, Don Bernardo, comes in and proposes to her to make her first visit to Leonora, in order to promote his own suit. Meantime, the poor Leonora, quite desperate, rushes into the street with her attendant, and meets her lover’s servant, the clown and harlequin of the piece, who tells her that his master, unable any longer to endure his sufferings, is just about escaping from Madrid. The master, Don Juan, follows in hot haste, booted for his journey. The lady faints. When she revives, they come to an understanding, and determine to be married on the instant; so that we have now two private marriages, beset with difficulties, on the carpet at once. But the streets are full of frolicsome crowds, who are indulged in a sort of carnival freedom during this popular festival. Don Juan’s rattling servant gets into a quarrel with some gay young men, who are impertinent to his master, and to the terrified Leonora. Swords are drawn, and Don Juan is arrested by the officers of justice and carried off,—the lady, in her fright, taking refuge in a house, which accidentally turns out to be that of Don Pedro. But Don Pedro is abroad, seeking for his own lady, Doña Blanca. When he returns, however, making his way with difficulty through the rioting populace, he promises, as in Castilian honor bound, to protect the helpless and unknown Leonora, whom he finds in his balcony timidly watching the movements of the crowd in the street, among whom she is hoping to catch a glimpse of her own lover.
In the last act we learn that Don Juan has at once, by bribes, easily rid himself of the officers of justice, and is again in the noisy and gay streets seeking for Leonora. He falls in with Don Pedro, whom he has never seen before; but Don Pedro, taking him, from his inquiries, to be the brother from whom Leonora is anxious to be concealed, carefully avoids betraying her to him. Unhappily, the Lady Blanca now arrives, having been prevented from coming earlier by the confusion in the streets; and he hurries her into his house for concealment till the marriage ceremony can be performed. But she hurries out again no less quickly, having found another lady already concealed there;—a circumstance which she takes to be direct proof of her lover’s falsehood. Leonora follows her, and begins an explanation; but in the midst of it, the two brothers, who had been seeking these same missing sisters, come suddenly in; a scene of great confusion and mutual reproaches ensues; and then the curtain falls with a recognition of all the mistakes and attachments, and the full happiness of the two ladies and their two lovers. At the end, the poet, in his own person, declares, that, if his art permits him to extend his action over twenty-four hours, he has, in the present case, kept within its rules, since he has occupied less than ten.
As a specimen of plays founded on Spanish manners, few are happier than the “Saint John’s Eve.” The love-scenes, all honor and passion; the scenes between the cavaliers and the populace, at once rude and gay; and the scenes with the free-spoken servant who plays the wit are almost all excellent, and instinct with the national character. It was received with the greatest applause, and constituted the finale of the Count Duke’s magnificent entertainment, which, with its music and dances, interludes and refreshments, occupied the whole night, from nine o’clock in the evening till daylight the next morning.
Another of the plays of Lope, and one that belongs to the division of the Capa y Espada, but approaches that of the heroic drama, is his “Fool for Others and Wise for Herself.”[318] It is of a lighter and livelier temper throughout than most of its class. Diana, educated in the simple estate of a shepherdess, and wholly ignorant that she is the daughter and heir of the Duke of Urbino, is suddenly called, by the death of her father, to fill his place. She is surrounded by intriguing enemies, but triumphs over them by affecting a rustic simplicity in whatever she says and does, while, at the same time, she is managing all around her, and carrying on a love intrigue with the Duke Alexander Farnese, which ends in her marriage with him.
The jest of the piece lies in the wit she is able to conceal under her seeming rusticity. For instance, at the very opening, after she has been secretly informed of the true state of things, and has determined what course to pursue, the ambassadors from Urbino come in and tell her, with a solemnity suited to the occasion,—
Lady, our sovereign lord, the Duke, is dead!
To which she replies,—