Chapter XI (2)

[Footnote 24: "Se miro lo pasado pierdo el seso, y si lo por venir pierdo el sentido, porque veo sera qual lo pasado: si lo presente, hallome oprimido de tan pesada carga y grave peso, que resollar apenas no me es dado: apenas ha tirado un enemigo un tiro, la fresca llaga miro la sangre por las sienes ir corriendo: otro por otra parte me está hiriendo, mientras aquel en ver que me maltratan contentos está haciendo, pero tristes en ver que no me matan.

¿ Á quál hombre jamas le fue negada licencia de decir el mal que siente? Que parece que alivia su tormento-- á mí, porque mi mal mas me atormiente, la boca fuertemente me es cerrada, para que no publique el mal que siento; que es tal que si lo cuento, á un corazón mas duro que una roca, ó un muro, ó sierpe, ó basilisco, ó tigre hircana, sin duda hará llorar, y muy de gana en señal que mi mal les enternece; pero la furia insana de los que me persiguen siempre crece.

En ningun hombre hallo ya consuelo: la lumbre de mi ojos no es conmigo-- el mas estrecho; fiel, y caro amigo huirá la tierra, el mar, el alto cielo, á trueco de se ver de mi apartado. Si mirò al diestro lado, no hallo solo un hombre que sepa ya mi nombre; y asi yo mismo del tambiéen me olvido, y nose mas de mi de que hube sido; si mi troque, si soy quien antes era, aun nunca lo he sabido, que no me dá lugar mi suerte fiera. * * * * * * Metido estoy en este mar profundo, dó no hay quien me socorra, quien me ayude; dó no hay quien para mí tienda su mano. Llamo á los hombres, mas ninguno acude: no tengo hombre alguno en todo el mundo estoy ronco de dar voces en vano: tomé un consejo sano despues de tanto acuerdo, que el mal me hizo cuerdo: á tí sola pedir socorro quiero, que de los que te llaman no te escondes: pues me ves que me muero, ¿ como, piadosa Madre, no respondes? * * * Luego como nací murió mi Madre; á tí quedé yo niño encomendado: dejoteme mi madre por tutora; del vientre de mi madre en tí fue echado: murió mi madre, desechóme el padre, tú sola eres padre y madre ahora; ¿ y puede ser, Señora, que un hijo tuyo muera muerte tan lastimera, siendo por tí mil otros socorridos? ¿ Porque me cierras, Virgen, los oidos? ¿ Porque no escucharme? ¿ Dí, porque te abscondes? Y si oyes mi gemidos, ¿ como, piadosa Madre, no respondes?"]

[Footnote 25: "Dicebamus hesterno die: Pro suis insignibus habet salicem, ad cujus pedem secuta et hæc verba: Per damna--per cædes. Virtuosum enim nobule ac generosum germen oritur ex passionibus et summis cruciatibus. Salix enim quo magis ceditur, et magis germinans, ramos extollitur; et ideo dicitur: salix, à saliendo, et celeritate crescendi."]

[Footnote 26: "Folgaba el rey Rodrigo, con la hermosa Caba en la ribera de Tajo sin testigo: El pecho sacó fuera, El rio, y le habló de esta manera.

'En mal punto te goces, injusto forzador, que ya el sonido oyo ya y las voces, las armas y el bramido de Marte, de furor y ardor ceñido.

'¡Ay esa tu alegria qué llanto acarrea! y esa hermosa, que vio el sol en mal dia, á España ay quan llorosa, y al ceptro de los Godos quán costosa!

'Llamas, dolores, guerras, muertos asolamientos, fieros males, entre tus brazos cierras, trabajos immortales á tí y á tus vasallos naturales.

'Á los que en Constantina rompen el fértil suelo, á los que baña El Ebro, á la vecina Sansueña, ó Lusitaña, á toda la especiosa y triste España.

Ya desde Cadiz llama el injuriado Conde, á la venganza atento, y no á la fama, la barbara pujanza en quien, para tu daño, no hay tardanza.

'Oye que al cielo toca con temeroso son la trompa fiera, que en Africa convoca el Moro á la vandera que el ayre desplegada va ligera.

'La lanza ya blandea el Arabe cruel, y hiere al viento, llamando a la pelea; innumerable quento de esquadras juntas vide en un momento.

'Cubre la gente el suelo, debajo de las velas desparece la mar, la voz al cielo confusa y varia crece, el polvo roba el dia y le obscurece.

'¡ Ay que ya presurosos Suben las largas naves, ay que tienden los brazos vigorosos á los remos, y encienden las mares espumosas por dó hienden!

'El Eolo derecho hinche la vela en popa, y larga entrada por el Herculeo estrecho con la punta acerada el gran padre Neptuno da á la Armada.

'! Ay triste y aun te tiene el mal dulce regazo, ni llamado al mal que sobreviene no acorres! ¿ Ocupado no ves ya al puerto á Hercules sagrado?

'Acude, acorre, buela, trapasa el alta sierra, occupa el llano, no perdones la espuela, no dez paz á la mano, menea fulminando el hierro insano.

'¡ Ay quánto de fatiga! ¡ Ay quanto de dolor está presente al que biste loriga, al Infante valiente, á hombres, y á caballos juntamente!

'Y, tu, Betis divino, de sangre agena y tuya amancillado, darás al mar vecino ¡ quanto yelmo quebrado! ¡ quanto cuerpo de nobles destrozado

'El furibondo Marte cinco luces las haces desordena, igual á cada parte: la sexta ¡ ay! te condena, ó cara patria, ó barbara cadena!'"]

HERRERA, SAA DE MIRANDA, JORGE DE MONTEMAYOR, CASTILLEJO, THE DRAMATISTS.

1500-1567.

HERRERA

There are several other poets whose names belong to this age, of whom very little is known except by their works. Yet to complete the history of Spanish literary men, it will be necessary to mention what has come down to us.

The first on the list is Herrera. Fernando Herrera was a native of Seville. We learn nothing of his family, and even the date of his birth is unknown. It is conjectured that he was born at the beginning of the sixteenth century. He was an ecclesiastic; but it is believed that he adopted this profession late in life, and we are ignorant of the position he held in the hierarchy, and of all the events of his life. It is believed that he died at a very advanced age; but when and where we are not told. In the midst of all these negatives as to events, we get at a few affirmatives with regard to his qualities. There is an inedited work, entitled "The illustrious Men, Natives of Seville," written by Rodrigo Caro, who thus mentions him:--"Herrera was so well known in his native town of Seville, and his memory is so regarded there, that I may be considered in fault if my account of his works is brief: however, I will repeat all I have heard without futile additions, for I knew, though I never spoke to him,--I being a boy when he was an old man; but I remember the reputation he enjoyed. He understood Latin perfectly, and wrote several epigrams in that language, which might rival the most famous ancient authors in thought and expression. He possessed only a moderate knowledge of Greek. He read the best authors in the modern languages, having studied them with care; and to this he added a profound knowledge of Castilian, carefully noting its powers of expressing with nobleness and grandeur. He evidently wrote prose with great care, since his prose is the best in our language. As to his Spanish poetry, to which his genius chiefly impelled him, the best critics pronounce his poems correct in their versification, full of poetic colouring, powerful and forcible as well as elegant and beautiful; although, indeed, as he did not write for every vulgar reader, so that the uneducated are unable to judge of the extent of his erudition. He excelled in the art of selecting epithets and expressions, without affectation. He was naturally grave and severe, and his disposition betrays itself in his verses. He associated with few, leading a retired life, either alone in his study, or in company, with some friend, who sympathised with him, and to whom he confided his cares. Whether from this cause, or from the merit of his poetry, he was called the 'divine Herrera:' as a satirist of those days mentions:--

'Thus a thousand rhymes and sonnets Divine Herrera wrote in vain.'

"His poems were not printed during his life; Francisco Pacheco, a celebrated painter of this city, whose studio was the resort of all clever men of Seville and the environs, performed this office. He was a great admirer of his works, and collected them with great care, and printed them under the patronage of the count de Olivarez. Herrera's prose works are the best in our language. They consist of the Life and Martyrdom of Thomas More, president of the English parliament in the time of the unhappy Henry VIII., leader and abettor of the schism of that kingdom (translated from the Latin of Thomas Stapleton); the Naval Battle against the Turks at Lepanto; a Commentary on Garcilaso; all of which display deep reading in Greek, Latin, and modern languages, and which he published while living. He employed himself on a general History of Spain, to the time of the emperor Charles V., which he brought up to the year 1590. He was well versed in philosophy: he studied mathematics, ancient and modern geography, and possessed a chosen library. The reward of all this was only a benefice in the parish church of St. Andres in this city. But he has many associates in the moderation of his fortune; for though every one praises merit, few seek and fewer reward it."[27]

The praise of Caro is echoed by others of more note. Cervantes, when he resided at Seville, frequented the society of Herrera; in his "Voyage to Parnassus" he calls him the "Divine," and says that the "ivy of his fame clung to the walls of immortality." Lope de Vega in his "Laurel de Apollo," calls him the "learned," and speaks of him with respect and admiration. Sedano tells us that he was a handsome man; tall, of a manly and dignified aspect, lively eyes, and thick curled hair and beard. In addition, we learn that the lady of his love, whom he celebrates under the names of Light, Love, Sun, Star--Eliodora, was the Countess of Gelves. He loved her, it is said, all his life, to the very height of platonic passion, which burnt fiery and bright in his own heart, but revealed itself only by manifestations of reverence and self-struggle. This sort of attachment, when true, is certainly of an heroic and sublime nature, and demands our admiration and sympathy; but we must be convinced of the reality of the sufferings to which it gives rise, and of the unlimited nature of its devotion, or it becomes a mere picture wanting warmth and life. Petrarch's letters give a soul to his poetry: the various accounts they contain of his solitary struggles at Vaucluse, make us turn with deeper interest to his verses, which, otherwise, might almost be reasoned away into a mere ideal feeling. Knowing nothing of Herrera but that he loved "a bright particular star," shining far above, we are willing to find an accord between this love of the elevated and unattainable, and the grandeur of the subjects he celebrates in his poetry, and the dignity of his verse.

Herrera is a great favourite with those Spanish critics who prefer loftiness to simplicity of style, and the ideas of the head rather than the emotions of the heart: the sublime style at which he aimed gained for him the surname of Divine. Boscan, Garcilaso, and Luis de Leon, adopted the Italian metres, and with greater diffuseness, and therefore less classical elegance, but with equal truth and poetic verve, and informed the Spanish language with powers unknown to former poets. But this did not suffice for Herrera. He delighted in the grandiose and sonorous. He altered the language, introducing some obsolete and some new words, and, attending with a sensitive ear to the modulations of sound, endeavoured to make harmony between the thought and its oral expression. Lope de Vega held Herrera's versification in high esteem: quoting a passage from his odes, he exclaims, "Here, no language exceeds our own--no, not even the Greek nor the Latin. Fernando de Herrera is never out of my sight." Quintana, whose criticism is rather founded on artificial, rather than genuine and simple taste, as is apt to be the case with critics, is also his great admirer. He considers that he contributed more than any other to elevate, not only the poetic style of the Spanish language, but the essence of its poetry, in gifting it with more boldness of imagination and fire of expression than any preceding poet. Sedano is less partial: while he praises and admits his right to his name of "divine," he observes, that in endeavouring to purify and elevate his diction, he erred in rendering it harsh and barren, wanting in suavity and flow, and injured it by the affectation of antiquated phrases. His odes are certainly grand: we feel that the poet is full of his subject, and rises with it. It is rash of a foreigner, indeed, to give an opinion; still, we cannot help saying that while we admire the fervour of expression, the grandeur of the ideas, and the harmony of the versification, we miss the while a living grace more charming than all. It is the poetry of the head rather than the heart. And thus, among Herrera's poems, the one we admire most is his Ode to Sleep; for, joined to elegant chasteness and great purity of language, we find a pure genuine feeling, feelingly expressed.

Suave sueño, tu que en tarde buelo las alas perezosas blandamente bates, de adormideras coronado, por el puro, adormido, vago cielo, ven á la ultima parte de Ocidente, y de licor sagrado baña mi ojos tristes que cansado y rendido al furor de mi tormento, no admito algun sosiego, y el dolor desconorta al infrimiento. Ven a mi humilde ruego: ven a mi ruego humilde, amor de aquella que Juno te ofreciò, tu Ninfa bella.

Divino Sueño, gloria de mortales, regalo dulce al misero afligido: Sueño amoroso, ven a quien espera cesar del egercicio de sus males, y al descanso bolver todo el sentido. ¿ Como sufres que muera lejos de tu poder quien tuyo era? ¿ No es vileza olvidar un solo pecho en veladora pena, que sin gozar del bien che al mundo has hecho, de tu vigor se agena? Ven, Sueño alegre: Sueño, ven, dichoso: vuelve a mi alma ya, vuelve el reposo.

Sienta yo en tal estrecho tu grandeza: baja, y esparce liquido el rocio: huya la alba, que en torno resplandece, mira mi ardiente llanto y mi tristeza, y quanta fuerza tiene el pesar mio: y mi frente humidece, que ya de fuegos juntos el Sol crece. Torna, sabroso Sueño, y tus hermosas alas suenen aora, y huya con sus alas presurosas la desabrida Aurora; y lo che en mi falto la noche fria, termine la cercana luz del dia.

Una corona, o Sueño, de tus flores ofrezco: tù produce el blando efecto en los desiertos cercos de mis ojos, que el ayre entrevgido con olores alhaga, y ledo mueve en dulce afecto: y de estos mis enojos destierra, manso Sueño, los despojos. Ven pues, amado Sueño, ven liviano, que del ruo Oriente Despunta el tierno Febo el rayo cano. Ven ya, Sueño clemente, y acabara el dolor; asi te vea en brazos de tu cara Pasitea."

[Footnote 27: Sedano.]

SAA DE MIRANDA

At this same period, so fertile in Spain with poetic genius, there flourished two Portuguese poets, whose names are introduced here from their connection with Spanish poetry. Saa de Miranda was horn in 1494, and died in 1558. His Spanish poems are bucolic, and more truly imbued with rural imagery than that of those warrior poets, whose love of the country was that of gentlemen who enjoy the beauties of scenery and the blandishments of the odorous breezes, rather than of persons accustomed to the detail of pastoral life. Saa de Miranda sometimes mingled a higher tone of description with his rural pictures; thus imitating nature, who associates the terrible with the lovely, the storm and the soft breath of evening. At the same time, none excels Saa de Miranda in the union of simplicity and grace: some of his verses remind the Italian reader of the odes of Chiabrera, such as these, describing the wanderings of a nymph, with which his fancy adorned a woodland scene:--

Gently straying, Gently staying, She breathed the fragrance of the breezy field; And, singing, fill'd her lap with flowers, The which the meadows yield, Painting their verdure with a thousand colours.[28]

Nor does his poetry want the charm of melancholy sentiment, nor the vehemence of passion; while all that he writes has the peculiar merit of a harmony and grace all his own.

[Footnote 28: "Graciosamente estando, graciosamente andando, blando ayre respirava al prado ameno ella cantava, y juntamente el seno inchiendose yva de diversas flores en que el prado era lleno sobre verde variado en mil colores."]

JORGE DE MONTEMAYOR

Jorge de Montemayor is another Portuguese poet, whose name belongs rather to Spain than Portugal. His real appellation is unknown. He adopted that of the place of his birth, Montemor, a town in the jurisdiction of Coimbra in Portugal, which he in a manner translated into Spanish, and called himself Jorge or George de Montemayor. He was born about the year 1520, of humble origin, and slight education. In his youth he entered the military profession. His talent for music first brought him into notice: he emigrated into Castile, and endeavoured to gain his livelihood by music: he succeeded in being incorporated in the band of the Royal Chapel; and when the Infante don Philip, afterwards Philip II., made his celebrated progress through Germany, Italy, and the Low Countries, having in his suite a band of choice musicians and singers, Montemayor made one among them.

These travels tended to enlarge his mind; and, although unacquainted with the learned languages, he became a proficient in various foreign ones, and joined to these accomplishments a taste for literature. His love for music was allied closely to a talent for poetry; and when on his return to Spain, he resided at the city of Leon, he established his fame as an author, by writing his "Diana." The fame of this book spread far and wide: it was imitated by almost every poet that wrote in those days, and the style in which it was composed became the fashion throughout Spain.

The "Diana" is a pastoral of such an ideal species, that it sets chronology and history at defiance. Of these, our Shakspeare made light, when he wrote "Cymbeline" and the "Winter's Tale;" but the "Diana" is even more confused in its costume. The scene of it is placed at the foot of the mountains of Leon; and the heroine is said to be the object of a real attachment of the author. This lady in other poems is called Marfisa: he is said to have loved her before he left Spain with the court: on his return he found her married; and his grief and her infidelity he personified in the Sireno and Diana of his pastoral. Thus many modern events are spoken of; and the adventures of Abindarres and Xarifa, contemporaries of king Ferdinand, are mentioned as of old date, at the same time that Apollo and Diana, nymphs and fauns, are the objects of adoration among the shepherds; for, indeed, in those days the gods of the Greeks made as it were an integral portion of poetry, and it would have been considered a solecism to have omitted the names and worship of these deities. The story is conceived in the same heterogeneous manner. There is infinite simplicity in all the part that strictly appertains to Diana and her lover; and much of what is romantic and even supernatural in the other portions.

The first book commences with the return of Sireno to the valleys of the mountains of Leon. He has already heard of the falsehood of his mistress, who is married to another. The romance opens with the songs of his complaints. In one of these he addresses a lock of hair belonging to Diana; and nothing can be more simple, yet touching and true, and elegant, than the opening of this poem. He is joined by Silvano, another lover of Diana, who has always been disdained; and his resignation is truly exemplary: these two hapless lovers are joined by a shepherdess, who is also suffering the woes of unfortunate passion; and her history concludes the book. In the second, events of more action are introduced: the scene even changes to a sort of fairy tale; but though the machinery of the story alters, the sentiments remain the same, conceived in the language of passion and reality. It is not until the sixth book that Diana herself is introduced, and the canzoni placed in her mouth are among the best in the book: she lays the blame of her infidelity on her parents, who forced her to marry a rich shepherd. The romance concludes without any change in the situation of the hero and heroine.

It is singular, that a work founded on such strange and unnatural machinery should have seized on the imagination, we may almost say, of the world; since this sort of pastoral became universally imitated; but there is something in the rural pictures and out-of-door life which composes the scenery of such works., grateful, we know not why, to our hearts. The style of the "Diana" is, indeed, peculiarly beautiful. Nothing can be more correct, yet less laboured; nothing more elegant, yet less exaggerated. To express vividly and truly, yet gracefully and in harmonious measure, the emotions of the various personages, appears to be the author's chief aim. Thus we read on, attracted by the melody of the style, the heartfelt truth of the sentiments, and the beauty of the descriptions, even while we are quite careless of the developement of the plot, and tolerably uninterested in any of the personages. To translate the poetry of this book would be difficult, as the style forms its charm; but it is impossible to read it in the original without being carried away by the flow of the versification, and the unaffected expression of real feeling.

The "Diana" superseded for a time the books of chivalry, of which the Spaniards were so fond. Since Amadis first appeared, no work had been so popular. Cervantes, who imitated it in his "Galatea," thus mentions it in the scrutiny the curate and barber make of Don Quixote's library. Speaking of pastorals in general, the curate says: "These books do not deserve to be burned with the rest, because they have never done nor will do the harm of which tales of chivalry are guilty; they are mere books of amusement, and hurt no one." Of the pastoral in question itself, he says: "Let us begin by the "Diana" of Montemayor: I am of opinion that we tear out all that relates to the wise Felicia and the enchanted water, and almost all the poems in long measure, and let the prose remain, and the merit of its being the first of this species of books."

Such was the reputation that Montemayor acquired by this romance, that the queen of Portugal was desirous that he should return to his native country. He was, accordingly, recalled, and nothing more is known of him than that it is supposed that he died a violent death[29],--where, even, is not known; for some say in Portugal, some in Italy: the dates tolerably agree, those named being 1561 and 1562, so that he was scarcely more than forty at the time of his death.

[Footnote 29: Sedano tells us that the queen Catalina of Portugal, on recalling him, conferred on him an honourable situation in the royal household. The date of his death is ascertained through an elegy which is printed in all the editions of the "Diana;" and which mentions that he died in 1562.]

CASTILLEJO

To give a catalogue _raisonnée_ of all the poets that flourished in Spain in this age would be of little avail, as little is known of them and their poetry: though much of it is beautiful, and much more of it agreeable, it does not bear the stamp of the originality and genius necessary to form an era in literature. Sedano gives brief notices of some of them. From him we learn that Fernando de Acuna, a nobleman of Portuguese extraction, a distinguished courtier in the court, a gallant soldier in the camp of Charles V., was also an intimate friend of Garcilaso de la Vega, and imitated him and Boscan in the style of his poetry. He died in Granada about the year 1580. There is elegance, and a certain degree of originality in his poems. Sedano almost places him above his friend Garcilaso. He mingled the Italian and old Spanish styles together, introducing metres more adapted to the Castilian language than the terzets of his predecessors, being shorter, more airy, and more graceful.

Gil Polo, a native of Valentia, flourished about the year 1550. He continued the Diana of Montemayor, and called his work "La Diana Enamorada." He is chiefly famous for the praise that Cervantes bestows on him, when in "Don Quixote" the curate says to the barber "Take as much care of Gil Polo's work, as if it were written by Apollo himself." Posterity has not confirmed this preference, and it is chiefly praised for elegance and purity of style.

Cetina, an anacreontic poet of merit, also finds a place in the "Parnaso Español." The same honour is not bestowed on Castillejo, who, however, deserves peculiar mention as the great partisan of the old Castilian style, and the antagonist of Boscan. Cristoval Castillejo flourished also in the time of Charles V., in whose service he went to Vienna, remaining there as secretary to Ferdinand I.; as, notwithstanding, the imperial crown of Germany was separated from the regal one of Spain, on the death of Charles V., there continued to subsist for some years intimate relations between the courts of Vienna and Madrid. The greater part of Castillejo's poems were written at Vienna, and are full of allusions to the gaieties of the court. He admired and celebrates a young German lady, named Schomburg, whose barbaric appellation he translates into Xomburg. Late in life he returned to Spain, became a Cistercian monk, and died in a convent in 1596.

Some Spanish critics raise Castillejo to a high rank among the poets of that nation, while others give him a juster place, and perceive that it was the want of strength to soar beyond, that led him, in his own compositions, to confine himself to the old coplas, and want of penetration that made him so violent an enemy of those whom he named the Petrarquistas. His satires against them are witty, and not without some justice; and certainly prolixity is a fault to be attributed to these poets he attacks. He begins with the true Spanish taste for persecution, exclaiming,--

As the holy Inquisition Is apt, with saintly diligence, To make eager perquisition, And punish too with violence, Each novel heresy and sect, I would that it were found correct To castigate in native Spain A heresy as bad as any That Luther, to our grief and pain, Has introduced in Germany. The Anabaptists' crime they share, And well deserve their punishment: Petrarchists--the new name they bear, Which they assume with bad intent; And they are renegades most fierce To the old Castilian measure; Believing in Italian verse. Finding there more grace and pleasure.[30]

Upon this, he institutes a ghostly tribunal, presided over by Juan de Mena, Jorge Manrique, and other ancient poets, before whom Bosean and Garcilaso are forced to appear--of course, to their utter discomfiture and disgrace. While it is impossible to accede to this sentence, and while we must look on Castillejo as an inferior poet, he merits great praise within the boundaries which he prescribes himself. His lyrics are light, airy, graceful; and though they possess a fault little known in Spain--that of levity,--this defect is with him akin to that animation and wit which is the proper charm of poetry of this class.

[Footnote 30: "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.

After Rueda, Cervantes tells us, came another Naharro, a native of Toledo; he was also an actor and manager. "He augmented the decorations of the comedies; he substituted trunks and boxes for the old bag. He drew the musicians out from behind the curtain, where they were previously placed. He deprived the actors of their beards; for before him no actor had ever appeared without a false beard. He desired that all should show an unmasked battery, except those who represented old men, or were disguised. He invented side scenes, clouds, thunder, lightning, challenges, and battles.

Such were the commencements of the Spanish theatre, destined to take so high a place hereafter in the history of the drama.

We now come to a new era, and names more known. We have arrived at the age of Cervantes: these were the men who preceded him.

There is something very peculiar in the state of literature at this time. The infancy of Spanish poetry was such as might have been expected from a chivalrous nation; its themes were love and war, its heroes national, and its style such as to render it popular. The continued struggle with a foreign conqueror gave an ardent and gallant turn to the national character: and while the superior excellence of the enemy in arts and literature imparted some portion of refinement, national enthusiasm inspired independence. But now the enemy was quelled, the country overflowed with money, the harvest of the most nefarious cruelties, and the inquisition was established. Even these circumstances were not enough to subdue the heroism of the Spanish character: they made a stand for freedom against the encroachments of the monarchs; their disjointed councils caused them to fail, and from that moment they sank. The wars of Charles V. drained the country of men and money; the Lutheran heresy put fresh powers into the hands of the inquisition; a career of arms in a foreign country was all that was left; the gates of inquiry and free thought were closed and barred.

Intercourse with Italy opened fresh fields of poetry, which all other countries have found unlimited in the variety of subjects, and manner of treating them. Not so the Spaniards; they stopt short at once with elegies, and pastorals, and songs. Boscan, a man of gentle disposition and retired habits, naturally dwelt with complacency on descriptions of rural pleasures, or the sentiments of his own heart. Garcilaso de la Vega, a gallant soldier, found in poetry a recreation, a mode to gratify his taste; and retired from the world of arms to brood over the graceful and passionate reveries of a young lover. Mendoza, a man of harder temperament, was the servant of a king: a sort of worldly philosophy, Horatian in its expression, or the passion of love, inspired his writings at first; and when, later in life, he might be supposed to entertain the design of making his talents subservient to the good of mankind, he found, when he wrote the wars of Granada, the political and inquisitorial yoke so heavy that he could only hint at injuries, and allude to wrongs. The poets who came after were men of an inferior grade; they wrote in a great measure to please their contemporaries; they adopted, therefore, pastoral themes, they wrote elegies, sonnets; and love and scenic descriptions were the subjects of their compositions.

In all this, it is not to be supposed that they were servile imitators of the Italians; they were at first their pupils, but nothing more. Originality is the great distinctive of the Spanish character. Every line each author wrote was in its turn of thought and expression national. The conceits resulting from a meeting of ardent imaginations with ardent passions, which brought the whole phenomena of nature in the poet's service,--the burning emotions, the very constant brooding on one engrossing subject,--all belonged to a people whose souls were fiery, proud, and concentrated.

Still the Spaniards had found no peculiar form in which to embody the characteristics of the nation. Perhaps the gay sally of a youthful student. Lazarillo de Tormes, of Mendoza, was the most national work yet produced. In Italy the sort of free epic, introduced by Bojardo, became the expression of national tastes and character. This sort of composition never took deep root in Spain. The authors were too circumvented by the inquisition to dare say much; thus we shall find in the end, that the theatre became the body informed by Spanish poets with a soul all their own, where passions and imaginations, the most ardent and the most wild, the most true and the most beautiful, found expression.

All the authors hitherto mentioned were horn at the very commencement of the sixteenth century. By the time they had arrived at the age of manhood, the policy and success of Charles V. had established him firmly on the Spanish throne, and was extending far and wide the glory of his name. To fight for and to serve him was the Spaniards' duty: they had not yet suffered by the yoke, but they had yielded to it. At first the nobles of the land were the sole authors, while writing was merely a taste, a study, or an amusement; soon it was followed, for purposes of gain and reputation by men of inferior rank, who were endowed with genius; authorship became general; and poetry grew into one of the chief pleasures of the court.

[Footnote 31: Bouterwek. Pellicer.]

[Footnote 32: Bouterwek.]

ERCILLA

1533-1600.

The Spanish muse has produced numerous epic poems, most of which are unknown beyond the limits of Spain, and many even there have been consigned to merited oblivion. The Araucana alone has been admitted to a station in general literature. This is owing partly to its own intrinsic merits, but in a greater degree to the novelty of its argument, and to the circumstances under which it was written. Unlike other poets, _Ercilla_ was himself an actor in the scenes which he describes. The chronicler of his own story, he avowedly rejects the aid of fiction. Veracity and accuracy are the qualities in winch, as a poetical writer, he is peculiar. His descriptions and characters are portraits taken from nature; invention is therefore a talent which he never exerts. If his imagination has any play, it is only in the grouping and distribution of his pictures. His scenery, his manners, his personages, are all copied from originals which he had actually before his eyes. The objects of his observation, the subject-matter of his poetry, were, moreover, of a class strikingly novel,--a new world, savage nations, for the first time brought into contact and collision with civilised man: on one side the love of independence; on the other, the thirst of plunder, the fury of religious zeal, and a misguided spirit of chivalrous enterprise. No ordinary talents were required to do justice to so rich a theme, whilst even ordinary abilities were sufficient to give interest to a poem founded on such a basis. To great genius the Spanish poet cannot lay a claim; he is indeed inferior to his labour: yet he had that cleverness requisite to produce a work not totally devoid of interest, occasionally abounding in beauties; such, in short, as entitles him to a respectable though not a very high station in the literary world.

Don Alonso de Ercilla was born in Madrid on the 7th of March, 1533. [Note 1.] His family was noble; by which word a meaning is conveyed different from that attached in this country to the notion of nobility, it being tantamount to saying that his ancestors were and had been for a long time gentlemen. Fortun Garcia de Ercilla, the father of Ercilla, a native of Biscay, was an industrious writer, whose labours as a jurist were highly prized, and obtained for him the cognomen of the "subtle Spaniard." He wrote generally in Latin, though a Spanish manuscript work of his upon the challenge sent by the emperor Charles V. to Francis I. king of France is recorded by the author of the Bibliotheca Hispana. [Note 2.] Fortun's wife. Doña Leonor de Zuñiga (ladies in Spain do not take their husband's names), was a woman of illustrious descent, the feudal lady of the town of Bobadilla, the domain of which, after her husband's death, was transferred to the crown, she having been admitted into the household of the empress. Three sons were the offspring of their union, of whom Alonso the poet was the youngest. He received his education at the royal palace, and since his tender years became a _menino_ [Note 3.], or page of the heir to the crown, prince Philip, afterwards so famous as Philip II. of Spain. What sort of education he received under such circumstances we are not enabled to say. It is not probable that it was one suited to a man intended for literary pursuits. His works, however, prove him not to have been unacquainted with the Latin and Italian poets; and though his knowledge of the latter was probably acquired in the course of his travels, he must have been indebted to his early studies for his introduction to the former. The words "gentleman" and "soldier" were at that time nearly synonymous; and Don Alonso, though bred a courtier, and following his royal master in that capacity, was probably considered to be intended for the military profession. In his earlier years Philip was directed by his father to travel over his future extensive dominions, which formed a very considerable, and, with the exception of France, at that time the best, part of Europe. In this tour Ercilla was a constant attendant of the young prince, profiting, as he himself boasts[33], by his travels, indulging his own inquisitive propensities, and, in imitation of Ulysses, acquiring an ample store of information and wisdom, derived from his observations of nations and manners. [Note 4.]

The ambition of Charles V. was not satisfied with the possession of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, great part of Italy, and the countries recently discovered in America. The rich inheritance which he intended to transmit to his son was to be increased, and as a compensation for the loss of the empire of Germany, to which his brother Ferdinand had been elected successor, he aspired to the crown of England for the future king of Spain. A marriage between Philip and the English queen Mary was brought about; the young prince repaired to London, attended by Ercilla. During their residence in this metropolis, news reached them that the Araucanos, an Indian tribe in South America, had risen against the power of Spain. The insurrection appeared of a more serious nature than those which had hitherto occurred in the annals of Indian warfare. The charge of subduing the refractory patriots, or, as they were called by their invaders, the rebels, was committed to Geronimo de Alderete, who had come over from Peru to England, and soon set out again on his return, having been appointed, by the king, adelantado of Chili,--a title since become obsolete, which was equivalent to hat of military commander of a district. To a man of Ercilla's adventurous disposition, this opportunity of military honour was too tempting to be resisted. He left the personal service of the prince, to follow the adelantado in his distant expedition, and girded on his sword[34], as he himself says, for the first time, being then in the twenty-first year of his age. Geronimo de Alderete, however, did not reach the scene of warfare, having died while on his way, in Taboga near Panama. His young companion proceeded alone to Lima, the metropolis of Peru, to join the expedition.

Those distant possessions, which, for the most part, had been annexed to the Spanish crown by the prowess of obscure and enterprising adventurers, had already begun to rank high in the public estimation, and individuals of noble birth and courtly favour sought to reap the fruits of the labours of the neglected discoverers and conquerors.

Don Andres Hurtado de Mendoza, marquis of Cañete, was at that time viceroy of Peru; a man belonging to one of the oldest and most illustrious families in Spain.

This nobleman entrusted his son, Don Garcia, with the command of the forces destined to subdue the Araucanos. The expedition consisted of a corps of two hundred and fifty men, who went by sea--a brilliant and well armed and equipped band, as we are told by the Spanish historians [Note 5.]; and a nearly equal number which had been sent by land across those extensive regions. With such inconsiderable forces did the Spaniards attempt to conquer and hold in subjection those immense regions of South America!

The expedition having reached the point of its destination, the war proved of a far more important nature than those hitherto waged with the natives of the American continent. Unlike the Indians of the torrid zone, the Araucanos were a hardy and valiant race, whose courage was not less impetuous than persevering. They are described by a Spanish historian as "a people exceedingly brave, robust, and swift, who outstrip the deer in the race; and of so strong a breath, that they persist in the course for a whole day; superior to other Indian tribes, as well in the strength of their frames as in the vigour of their intellects; strong, ferocious, arrogant; filled with a generous spirit, and thus averse to subjection, to avoid which they readily peril their lives.[35] "Though masters," says Ercilla[36], "only of a district of twenty leagues' extent, without a single town, or a wall, or a stronghold in it, destitute even of arms, inhabiting an almost flat country, surrounded by three Spanish towns and two fortresses, they, by dint merely of their valour and tenacity of purpose, not only recovered, but supported and maintained, their freedom." Their gallant stand against the invaders of America was at last crowned with success. Instead of the subjects, they became the honourable foes, and in process of time the allies and friends, of the Spanish monarchy. The poverty of their native land proved their best auxiliary; it deterred the Spaniards from persisting in a contest in which nothing was to be gained which could repay their exertions; and so completely was the animosity of those nations changed into feelings of mutual esteem, that in the late events, which have severed the colonies from their mother-country, the Araucanos have constantly shown, and still preserve, the most decided partiality to the cause and fortunes of the old Spaniards.