"Pues la santa Inquisicion
suele ser tan diligente,
en castigar con razon
qualquier secta y opinion
levantada nuevamente:
resucitese luzero
á castigar en España
una muy nueva y estraña,
como á quello de Lutero
en las partes de Alemaña.
Bien se pueden castigar
á cuenta de Anabaptistas
pues por ley particular
se tornan á baptizar
y se llaman Petrarquistas
Han renegado la fé
de la trobas Castellanas
y tras las Italianas
se pierden, diziendo, que
son mas ricas y galanas."
FERNANDO DE ROXAS
[THE DRAMATISTS]
As in no long process of time, dramatic poetry became the distinctive and national turn of Spanish poetic genius, it would be ungrateful towards the originators of a species of composition imitated all over the world, and extolled by every man of taste, not to make mention of them. The first dawn of the drama has been mentioned: the representation of mysteries and autos being permitted by the clergy, leave was taken to exchange the purely religious for the pastoral or the moral. Besides the pastoral dialogues of Juan de Encina, before mentioned, there existed a moral Spanish play, whose origin is lost in obscurity. It is named, "Celestina, Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea." The first act is supposed by some to have been the work of an unknown priest or poet of the reign of John II. It was finished in the fifteenth century, by Fernando de Roxas. The drama consists of twenty-one acts, and is rather a long-drawn tale in dialogue than a play. It is more didactic than dramatic; descriptive and moral. Its purpose was to warn youth by displaying the dangers of licentiousness; and many an odious personage and scene is introduced to conduce to this good end; with considerable disdain, meanwhile, of good taste. The first act, of ancient date, brings forward the story—the loves of Calisto and Melibea, two young persons nobly born, divided from each other by their respective families. Melibea is perfectly virtuous and prudent, and submits to the commands that prevent all communication between her and her lover. Calisto is less patient: he applies to Celestina, an old sort of go-between, such as is frequent in a land of intrigue like Spain. Her artifices, her flatteries, her philtres, are all described and put in action; and the act breaks off under the expectation of what may be the result of such an engine. Roxas added twenty acts to this one. He increases the romantic and tragic interest of the tale. Celestina introduces herself into Melibea's house. She corrupts the servants by presents; deludes the unfortunate girl by incantations, and induces her, at last, to yield to her lover. Her parents discover the intrigue; Celestina is poisoned; Calisto stabbed; and Melibea throws herself from the top of a tower. According to some writers, where crime is punished in the end, the tale is moral: thus, this drama was regarded as a moral composition; at all events, it was popular: doubtless, it pictured the manners of the times, and interested the readers as the novels of the present day do, by shadowing forth the passions and events they themselves experienced.
This was the first genuine Spanish play. In the beginning of the reign of Charles V., the theatre began to interest classic scholars; and the first step made towards improving the drama, was an attempt to introduce antique models. Villalobos, a physician of Charles V., translated the Amphitryon of Plautus, which was printed in 1515. Perez de Oliva made a literal translation of the Electra of Sophocles. Oliva was a man of infinite learning and zealous inquiry: passing through the universities of Salamanca and Alcala, he visited first Paris, and afterwards Rome, where he gave himself up to the study of letters. The road of advancement was open to him in the papal palace at Rome, but he renounced it to return to Spain. He became professor of philosophy and theology in the university of Salamanca. One of his chief studies was his own language, and he is much praised for the classical purity of his style. Sedano goes so far as to say that the diction of his translation, which he entitles "La Venganza de Agamemnon," or, Agamemnon Avenged, "is so perfect in all its parts—so full of harmony, elevation, purity, sweetness, and majesty, that it not only excuses the author for not having written in verse, but may rival the most renowned poetry." It seems strange to read this sentence, and to turn to the bald phraseology of the work itself: we cannot believe that this translation was ever acted. The first original tragedy published in Spain was the work of Geronimo Bermudez, a monk of the order of St. Dominic, a man of austere and pious life; but who joined a love of letters and poetry to his theological studies. He wrote "Nise Lastimosa," and "Nise Laureada." Ines de Castro, of whose name in the title he makes the anagram of Nise, but who is properly named in the play, is the heroine of these dramas. The first is by no means destitute of merit. The tale itself is of such tragic interest, that it naturally supports the dialogue, which is too long drawn, and interrupted by choruses. The fourth act, however, rises superior to the rest, and is extremely beautiful. Ines pleads before the king for her life. She uses every argument suggested by justice, mercy, and parental affection to move him. The language is free from extraneous ornament; tender elevated, and impassioned. It is impossible to read it without being moved by the depth and energy of its pathos. The second play, the subject of which is the vengeance the infante don Pedro took on her murderers when he ascended the throne, is a great falling off from the other. The plot is deficient—the dialogue tiresomely long—and the catastrophe, though historically true, at once horrible and unpoetic.
Besides these more classical productions, there were written various imitations of Celestina. They were all moral, for they all displayed in an elaborate manner the course of vice, and its punishment. Long drawn out—too real in their representation of vulgar crime, they neither interested on the stage, nor pleased in the closet.
The greatest obscurity has enveloped the earliest regular dramas written in Spanish. They were the work of Bartolomé Torres Naharro, a native of Estremadura, and a priest. Torres Naharro was born in the little town of Tore, near Badajos, on the frontiers of Portugal. Little is known of him, except his reputation as a man of learning. After a shipwreck, which involved him in various adventures, he arrived at Rome, during the pontificate of Leo X., and was patronised by that accomplished pope. Naples was then in the hands of the Spaniards, and Naharro's comedies were doubtless represented in that city, whither Naharro himself removed, driven from Rome by the difficulties in which his satirical works involved him.[31]
Cervantes does not mention Naharro in his preface to his comedies, which contains the best account we have of the origin of the Spanish drama. But other writers, and among them the editor of Cervantes's comedies, mention him as the real inventor of the Spanish drama. His plays were written in verse; there is propriety in his characters and some elegance in his style. He brought in the intrigue of an involved story to support the interest of his plays. They did not, however, obtain possession of the stage in Spain.
Lope de Rueda followed him. The "great Lope de Rueda" Cervantes calls him, adding that he was an excellent actor and a clever man. "He was born," he continues, "at Seville, and was a goldbeater by trade. He was admirable in pastoral poetry, and no one either before or after excelled him in this species of composition. Although when I saw him I was a child, and could not judge of the excellence of his verses, several have remained in my memory, and, recalling them now at a ripe age, I find them worthy their reputation. In the time of this celebrated Spaniard, all the paraphernalia of a dramatic author and manager was contained in a bag: it consisted of four white dresses for shepherds, trimmed with copper gilt, four sets of false beards and wigs, and four crooks, more or less. The comedies were mere conversations, like eclogues, between two or three shepherds and a shepherdess, adorned and prolonged by two or three interludes of negresses, clowns or Biscayans. Lope performed the various parts with all the truth and excellence in the world. At that time there were no side scenes, no combats between Moors and Christians on horseback or on foot. There was no figure which arose, or appeared to rise, from the centre of the earth, through a trapdoor in the theatre. His stage was formed of a few planks laid across benches, and so raised about four palms above the ground. Neither angels nor souls descended from the sky: the only theatrical decoration was an old curtain, held up by ropes on each side: it formed the back of the stage, and separated the behind scenes from the front. Behind were placed the musicians, who sang some old romance to the music of a guitar."
As an actor himself Rueda doubtless could judge best of the public taste. His own parts were those of fools, roguish servants, and Biscayan boors. His plays were collected by Timoneda, a bookseller of Valencia, but, like the witticisms of the masks of the old Italian stage, they lose much in print. His plots consist of chapters of mistakes: there are a multitude of characters in his dramas, and jests and witticisms abound. These generally consist of ridiculous quarrels, in which a clown plays the principal part.[32] Spanish critics call him the restorer, it would be better to say—the founder of the Spanish theatre.