“And the sacred poet points all round to the illimitable, beyond the boundaries of time out into eternity, shows the relation of all things, created and uncreated, to the symbol of grace, and how all nations look up to Him in worship.
“The universe in its thousand-fold phenomena, with the chorus of all its myriad voices, becomes one sublime psalm to the praise of the Most Holy; heaven and earth lay their gifts at his feet; the stars, ‘the never-fading flowers of heaven,’ and the flowers, ‘the transitory stars of earth,’ must pay him tribute; day and night, light and darkness, lie worshipping before him in the dust, and the mind of man opens before him its most hidden depths, in order that all its thoughts and feelings may become transfigured in the vision of the Eternal.
“This is the spirit that breathes from the autos of Calderon upon him who can comprehend them in the sense meant by the poet.”
With this preparation we can now examine in detail one or two of the most characteristic of Calderon’s autos, selecting from the class of Scriptural subjects Baltassar’s Feast, and from the large class of allegories invented by the poet the Painter of his own Dishonor, which is of especial interest, as being the counterpart of a secular play.
Note.—Those who desire a better acquaintance with Calderon’s autos than they can form from the above very imperfect sketch and analyses will find the following list of authorities of interest:
The autos were not collected and published until some time after the poet’s death, in 1717, six vols. 4to, and 1759-60, six vols., also in 4to, both editions somewhat difficult to find. In 1865 thirteen were published in Riradeneyra’s collection of Spanish authors in a work entitled Autos Sacramentales desde su origen hasta fines del siglo XVII., with an historical introduction by the collector, Don Eduardo G. Pedroso.
The autos have never been republished, in the original, out of Spain.
The enthusiasm in regard to the Spanish drama aroused by Schlegel’s Lectures, early in this century, bore fruit in a large number of excellent German translations of the most celebrated secular plays.
The autos were neglected until 1829, when Cardinal Diepenbrock published a translation of Life is a Dream (counterpart of comedy of same name); this was followed in 1846-53 by Geistliche Schauspiele, von Calderon (Stuttgart, two volumes), containing eleven autos translated by J. von Eichendorff, a writer well known in other walks of literature. In this translation the original metre is preserved, and they are in every way worthy of admiration.
In 1856 Ludwig Braunfels published two volumes of translations from Lope de Vega, Iviso de Molina, and Calderon; the second volume contains the auto of Baltassar’s Feast.