CHAPTER XIII

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FOURTH CLASS.--DRAMA.--EXTINCTION OF THE GREEK AND ROMAN THEATRES.--RELIGIOUS ORIGIN OF THE MODERN DRAMA.--EARLIEST NOTICE OF IT IN SPAIN.--HINTS OF IT IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.--MARQUIS OF VILLENA.--CONSTABLE DE LUNA.--MINGO REVULGO.--RODRIGO COTA.--THE CELESTINA.--FIRST ACT.--THE REMAINDER.--ITS STORY, CHARACTER, AND EFFECTS ON SPANISH LITERATURE.

THE DRAMA.--The ancient theatre of the Greeks and Romans was continued under some of its grosser and more popular forms at Constantinople, in Italy, and in many other parts of the falling and fallen empire, far into the Middle Ages. But, under whatever disguise it appeared, it was essentially heathenish; for, from first to last, it was mythological, both in tone and in substance. As such, of course, it was rebuked and opposed by the Christian Church, which, favored by the confusion and ignorance of the times, succeeded in overthrowing it, though not without a long contest, and not until its degradation and impurity had rendered it worthy of its fate and of the anathemas pronounced against it by Tertullian and Saint Augustin.[405]

[405] A Spanish Bishop of Barcelona, in the seventh century, was deposed for merely permitting plays with allusions to heathen mythology to be acted in his diocese. Mariana, Hist., Lib. VI. c. 3.

A love for theatrical exhibitions, however, survived the extinction of these poor remains of the classical drama; and the priesthood, careful neither to make itself needlessly odious, nor to neglect any suitable method of increasing its own influence, seems early to have been willing to provide a substitute for the popular amusement it had destroyed. At any rate, a substitute soon appeared; and, coming as it did out of the ceremonies and commemorations of the religion of the times, its appearance was natural and easy. The greater festivals of the Church had for centuries been celebrated with whatever of pomp the rude luxury of ages so troubled could afford, and they now everywhere, from London to Rome, added a dramatic element to their former attractions. Thus, the manger at Bethlehem, with the worship of the shepherds and Magi, was, at a very early period, solemnly exhibited every year by a visible show before the altars of the churches at Christmas, as were the tragical events of the last days of the Saviour’s life during Lent and at the approach of Easter.

Gross abuses, dishonoring alike the priesthood and religion, were, no doubt, afterwards mingled with these representations, both while they were given in dumb show, and when, by the addition of dialogue, they became what were called Mysteries; but, in many parts of Europe, the representations themselves, down to a comparatively late period, were found so well suited to the spirit of the times, that different Popes granted especial indulgences to the persons who frequented them, and they were in fact used openly and successfully, not only as means of amusement, but for the religious edification of an ignorant multitude. In England such shows prevailed for above four hundred years,--a longer period than can be assigned to the English national drama, as we now recognize it; while in Italy and other countries still under the influence of the See of Rome, they have, in some of their forms, been continued, for the edification and amusement of the populace, quite down to our own times.[406]

[406] Onésime le Roy, Études sur les Mystères, Paris, 1837, 8vo, Chap. I. De la Rue, Essai sur les Bardes, les Jongleurs, etc., Caen, 1834, 8vo, Vol. I. p. 159. Spence’s Anecdotes, ed. Singer, London, 1820, 8vo, p. 397. The exhibition still annually made, in the church of Ara Cœli, on the Capitol at Rome, of the manger and the scene of the Nativity is, like many similar exhibitions elsewhere, of the same class.

That all traces of the ancient Roman theatre, except the architectural remains which still bear witness to its splendor,[407] disappeared from Spain in consequence of the occupation of the country by the Arabs, whose national spirit rejected the drama altogether, cannot be reasonably doubted. But the time when the more modern representations were begun on religious subjects, and under ecclesiastical patronage, can no longer be determined. It must, however, have been very early; for, in the middle of the thirteenth century, such performances were not only known, but had been so long practised, that they had already taken various forms, and become disgraced by various abuses. This is apparent from the code of Alfonso the Tenth, which was prepared about 1260; and in which, after forbidding the clergy certain gross indulgences, the law goes on to say: “Neither ought they to be makers of buffoon plays,[408] that people may come to see them; and if other men make them, clergymen should not come to see them, for such men do many things low and unsuitable. Nor, moreover, should such things be done in the churches; but rather we say that they should be cast out in dishonor, without punishment to those engaged in them. For the church of God was made for prayer, and not for buffoonery; as our Lord Jesus Christ declared in the Gospel, that his house was called the House of Prayer, and ought not to be made a den of thieves. But exhibitions there be, that clergymen may make, such as that of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, which shows how the angel came to the shepherds and how he told them Jesus Christ was born, and, moreover, of his appearance when the Three Kings came to worship him, and of his resurrection, which shows how he was crucified and rose the third day. Such things as these, which move men to do well, may the clergy make, as well as to the end that men may have in remembrance that such things did truly happen. But this must they do decently, and in devotion, and in the great cities where there is an archbishop or bishop, and under their authority, or that of others by them deputed, and not in villages, nor in small places, nor to gain money thereby.”[409]

[407] Remains of Roman theatres are found at Seville (Triana), Tarragona, Murviedro (Saguntum), Merida, etc.

[408] _Juegos por Escarnio_ is the phrase in the original. It is obscure; but I have followed the intimation of Martinez de la Rosa, who is a good authority, and who considers it to mean short satirical compositions, from which arose, perhaps, afterwards, _Entremeses_ and _Saynetes_. (Isabel de Solís, Madrid, 1837, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 225, note 13.) _Escarnido_, in Don Quixote, (Parte II. c. xxi.,) is used in the sense of “trifled with.”

[409] Partida I. Tít. VI. Ley 34, ed. de la Academia.

But though these earliest religious representations in Spain, whether pantomimic or in dialogue, were thus given, not only by churchmen, but by others, certainly before the middle of the thirteenth century, and probably much sooner, and though they were continued for several centuries afterwards, still no fragment of them and no distinct account of them now remain to us. Nor is any thing properly dramatic found even amongst the secular poetry of Spain, till the latter part of the fifteenth century, though it may have existed somewhat earlier, as we may infer from a passage in the Marquis of Santillana’s letter to the Constable of Portugal;[410] from the notice of a moral play by the Marquis of Villena, now lost, which is said to have been represented in 1414, before Ferdinand of Aragon;[411] and from the hint left by the picturesque chronicler of the Constable de Luna concerning the _Entremeses_[412] or Interludes, which were sometimes arranged by that proud favorite a little later in the same century. These indications, however, are very slight and uncertain.[413]

[410] He says that his grandfather, Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, who lived in the time of Peter the Cruel, wrote scenic poems in the manner of Plautus and Terence, in couplets like _Serranas_. Sanchez, Poesías Anteriores, Tom. I. p. lix.

[411] Velazquez, Orígenes de la Poesía Castellana, Málaga, 1754, 4to, p. 95. I think it not unlikely that Zurita refers to this play of Villena, when he says, (Anales, Libro XII., Año 1414,) that, at the coronation of Ferdinand, there were “grandes juegos y _entremeses_.” Otherwise we must suppose there were several different dramatic entertainments, which is possible, but not probable.

[412] “He had a great deal of inventive faculty, and was much given to making inventions and _entremeses_ for festivals,” etc. (Crónica del Condestable Don Alvaro de Luna, ed. Flores, Madrid, 1784, 4to, Título 68.) It is not to be supposed that these were like the gay farces that have since passed under the same name, but there can be little doubt that they were poetical and were exhibited. The Constable was beheaded in 1453.

[413] I am not unaware that attempts have been made to give the Spanish theatre a different origin from the one I have assigned to it. 1. The marriage of Doña Endrina and Don Melon has been cited for this purpose in the French translation of “Celestina” by De Lavigne (Paris, 12mo, 1841, pp. v., vi.). But their adventures, taken from Pamphylus Maurianus, already noticed, (p. 81,) constitute, in fact, a mere story arranged about 1335, by the Archpriest of Hita, out of an old Latin dialogue, (Sanchez, Tom. IV. stanz. 550-865,) but differing in nothing important from the other tales of the Archpriest, and quite insusceptible of dramatic representation. (See Preface of Sanchez to the same volume, pp. xxiii., etc.) 2. The “Dança General de la Muerte,” already noticed as written about 1350, (Castro, Biblioteca Española, Tom. I. pp. 200, etc.,) has been cited by L. F. Moratin (Obras, ed. de la Academia, Madrid, 1830, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 112) as the earliest specimen of Spanish dramatic literature. But it is unquestionably not a drama, but a didactic poem, which it would have been quite absurd to attempt to exhibit. 3. The “Comedieta de Ponza,” on the great naval battle fought near the island of Ponza, in 1435, and written by the Marquis of Santillana, who died in 1454, has been referred to as a drama by Martinez de la Rosa, (Obras Literarias, Paris, 1827, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 518, etc.,) who assigns it to about 1436. But it is, in truth, merely an allegorical poem thrown into the form of a dialogue and written in _coplas de arte mayor_. I shall notice it hereafter. And finally, 4. Blas de Nasarre, in his Prólogo to the plays of Cervantes, (Madrid, 1749, 4to, Vol. I.,) says there was a _comedia_ acted before Ferdinand and Isabella in 1469, at the house of the Count de Ureña, in honor of their wedding. But we have only Blas de Nasarre’s _dictum_ for this, and he is not a good authority: besides which, he adds that the author of the _comedia_ in question was John de la Enzina, who, we know, was not born earlier than the year before the event referred to. The moment of the somewhat secret marriage of these illustrious persons was, moreover, so full of anxiety, that it is not at all likely _any_ show or mumming accompanied it. See Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella, Part I. c. 3.

A nearer approach to the spirit of the drama, and particularly to the form which the secular drama first took in Spain, is to be found in the curious dialogue called “The Couplets of Mingo Revulgo”; a satire thrown into the shape of an eclogue, and given in the free and spirited language of the lower classes of the people, on the deplorable state of public affairs, as they existed in the latter part of the weak reign of Henry the Fourth. It seems to have been written about the year 1472.[414] The interlocutors are two shepherds; one of whom, called Mingo Revulgo,--a name corrupted from Domingo Vulgus,--represents the common people; and the other, called Gil Arribato, or Gil the Elevated, represents the higher classes, and speaks with the authority of a prophet, who, while complaining of the ruinous condition of the state, yet lays no small portion of the blame on the common people, for having, as he says, by their weakness and guilt, brought upon themselves so dissolute and careless a shepherd. It opens with the shouts of Arribato, who sees Revulgo at a distance, on a Sunday morning, ill dressed and with a dispirited air:--

[414] “Coplas de Mingo Revulgo,” often printed, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with the beautiful Coplas of Manrique. The editions I use are those of 1588, 1632, and the one at the end of the “Crónica de Enrique IV.,” (Madrid, 1787, 4to, ed. de la Academia,) with the commentary of Pulgar.

Hollo, Revulgo! Mingo, ho! Mingo Revulgo! Ho, hollo! Why, where’s your cloak of blue so bright? Is it not Sunday’s proper wear? And where ’s your jacket red and tight? And such a brow why do you bear, And come abroad, this dawning mild, With all your hair in elf-locks wild? Pray, are you broken down with care?[415]

[415] A Mingo Revulgo, Mingo! A Mingo Revulgo, hao! Que es de tu sayo de blao? No le vistes en Domingo? Que es de tu jubon bermejo? Por que traes tal sobrecejo? Andas esta madrugada La cabeza desgreñada: No te llotras de buen rejo?

Copla I.

Revulgo replies, that the state of the flock, governed by so unfit a shepherd, is the cause of his squalid condition; and then, under this allegory, they urge a coarse, but efficient, satire against the measures of the government, against the base, cowardly character of the king and his scandalous, passion for his Portuguese mistress, and against the ruinous carelessness and indifference of the people, ending with praises of the contentment found in a middle condition of life. The whole dialogue consists of only thirty-two stanzas of nine lines each; but it produced a great effect at the time, was often printed in the next century, and was twice elucidated by a grave commentary.[416]

[416] Velazquez (Orígenes, p. 52) treats Mingo Revulgo as a satire against King John and his court. But it applies much more naturally and truly to the time of Henry IV., and has, indeed, generally been considered as directed against that unhappy monarch. Copla the sixth seems plainly to allude to his passion for Doña Guiomar de Castro.

Its author wisely concealed his name, and has never been absolutely ascertained.[417] The earlier editions generally suppose him to have been Rodrigo Cota, the elder, of Toledo, to whom also is attributed “A Dialogue between Love and an Old Man,” which dates from the same period, and is no less spirited and even more dramatic. It opens with a representation of an old man retired into a poor hut, which stands in the midst of a neglected and decayed garden. Suddenly Love appears before him, and he exclaims, “My door is shut; what do you want? Where did you enter? Tell me how, robber-like, you leaped the walls of my garden. Age and reason had freed me from you; leave, therefore, my heart, retired into its poor corner, to think only of the past.” He goes on giving a sad account of his own condition, and a still more sad description of Love; to which Love replies, with great coolness, “Your discourse shows that you have not been well acquainted with me.” A discussion follows, in which Love, of course, gains the advantage. The old man is promised that his garden shall be restored and his youth renewed; but when he has surrendered at discretion, he is only treated with the gayest ridicule by his conqueror, for thinking that at his age he can again make himself attractive in the ways of love. The whole is in a light tone and managed with a good deal of ingenuity; but though susceptible, like other poetical eclogues, of being represented, it is not certain that it ever was. It is, however, as well as the Couplets of Revulgo, so much like the pastorals which we know were publicly exhibited as dramas a few years later, that we may reasonably suppose it had some influence in preparing the way for them.[418]

[417] The Coplas of Mingo Revulgo were very early attributed to John de Mena, the most famous poet of the time (N. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. I. p. 387); but, unhappily for this conjecture, Mena was of the opposite party in politics. Mariana, who found Revulgo of consequence enough to be mentioned when discussing the troubles of Henry IV., declares (Historia, Lib. XXIII. c. 17, Tom. II. p. 475) the Coplas to have been written by Hernando del Pulgar, the chronicler; but no reason is given for this opinion except the fact that Pulgar wrote a commentary on them, making their allegory more intelligible than it would have been likely to be made by any body not quite familiar with the thoughts and purposes of the author. See the dedication of this commentary to Count Haro, with the Prólogo, and Sarmiento, Poesía Española, Madrid, 1775, 4to, § 872. But whoever wrote Mingo Revulgo, there is no doubt it was an important and a popular poem in its day.

[418] The “Diálogo entre el Amor y un Viejo” was first printed, I believe, in the “Cancionero General” of 1511, but it is found with the Coplas de Manrique, 1588 and 1632. See, also, N. Antonio, Bib. Nov., Tom. II. pp. 263, 264, for notices of Cota. The fact of this old Dialogue having an effect on the coming drama may be inferred, not only from the obvious resemblance between the two, but from a passage in Juan de la Enzina’s Eclogue beginning “Vamonos, Gil, al aldea,” which plainly alludes to the opening of Cota’s Dialogue, and, indeed, to the whole of it. The passage in Enzina is the concluding _Villancico_, which begins,--

Ninguno cierre las puertas; Si Amor viniese a llamar, Que no le ha aprovechar.

Let no man shut his doors; If Love should come to call, ’T will do no good at all.

The next contribution to the foundations of the Spanish theatre is the “Celestina,” a dramatic story, contemporary with the poems just noticed, and probably, in part, the work of the same hands. It is a prose composition, in twenty-one acts, or parts, originally called, “The Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibœa”; and though, from its length, and, indeed, from its very structure, it can never have been represented, its dramatic spirit and movement have left traces, that are not to to be mistaken,[419] of their influence on the national drama ever since.

[419] They are called _actos_ in the original; but neither _act_ nor _scene_ is a proper name for the parts of which the Celestina is composed; since it occasionally mingles up, in the most confused manner, and in the _same_ act, conversations that necessarily happened at the _same_ moment in _different_ places. Thus, in the fourteenth act, we have conversations held partly between Calisto and Melibœa inside her father’s garden, and

## partly between Calisto’s servants, who are outside of it; all

given as a consecutive dialogue, without any notice of the change of place.

The first act, which is much the longest, was probably written by Rodrigo Cota, of Toledo, and in that case we may safely assume that it was produced about 1480.[420] It opens in the environs of a city, which is not named,[421] with a scene between Calisto, a young man of rank, and Melibœa, a maiden of birth and qualities still more noble than his own. He finds her in her father’s garden, where he had accidentally followed his bird in hawking, and she receives him as a Spanish lady of condition in that age would be likely to receive a stranger who begins his acquaintance by making love to her. The result is, that the presumptuous young man goes home full of mortification and despair, and shuts himself up in his darkened chamber. Sempronio, a confidential servant, understanding the cause of his master’s trouble, advises him to apply to an old woman, with whom the unprincipled valet is secretly in league, and who is half a pretender to witchcraft and half a dealer in love philters. This personage is Celestina. Her character, the first hint of which may have been taken from the Archpriest of Hita’s sketch of one with not dissimilar pretensions, is at once revealed in all its power. She boldly promises Calisto that he shall obtain possession of Melibœa, and from that moment secures to herself a complete control over him, and over all who are about him.[422]

[420] Rojas, the author of all but the first act of the Celestina, says, in a prefatory letter to a friend, that the first act was supposed by some to have been the work of Juan de Mena, and by others to have been the work of Rodrigo Cota. The absurdity of the first conjecture was noticed long ago by Nicolas Antonio, and has been admitted ever since, while, on the other hand, what we have of Cota falls in quite well with the conjecture that _he_ wrote it; besides which, Alonso de Villegas, in the verses prefixed to his “Selvagia,” 1554, to be noticed hereafter, says expressly, “Though he was poor and of low estate, (_pobre y de baxo lugar_,) we know that Cota’s skill (_ciencia_) enabled him to begin the great Celestina, and that Rojas finished it with an ambrosial air that can never be enough valued”;--a testimony heretofore overlooked, but one which, under the circumstances of the case, seems sufficient to decide the question.

As to the time when the Celestina was written, we must bring it into the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, before which we cannot find sufficient ground for believing such Spanish prose to have been possible. It is curious, however, that, from one and the same passage in the third act of the Celestina, Blanco White (Variedades, London, 1824, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 226) supposes Rojas to have written his part of it before the fall of Granada, and Germond de Lavigne (Celestine, p. 63) supposes him to have written it either afterwards, or at the very time when the last siege was going on. But Blanco White’s inference seems to be the true one, and would place both parts of it before 1490. If to this we add the allusions (Acts 4 and 7) to the _autos da fé_ and their arrangements, we must place it after 1480, when the Inquisition was first established. But this is doubtful.

[421] Blanco White gives ingenious reasons for supposing that Seville is the city referred to. He himself was born there, and could judge well.

[422] The Trota-conventos of Juan Ruiz, the Archpriest of Hita, has already been noticed; and certainly is not without a resemblance to the Celestina. Besides, in the Second Act of “Calisto y Melibœa,” Celestina herself is once expressly called Trota-conventos.

Thus far Cota had proceeded in his outline, when, from some unknown reason, he stopped short. The fragment he had written was, however, circulated and admired, and Fernando de Rojas of Montalvan, a bachelor of laws living at Salamanca, took it up, at the request of some of his friends, and, as he himself tells us, wrote the remainder in a fortnight of his vacations; the twenty acts or scenes which he added for this purpose constituting about seven eighths of the whole composition.[423] That the conclusion he thus arranged was such as the original inventor of the story intended is not to be imagined. Rojas was even uncertain who this first author was, and evidently knew nothing about his plans or purposes; besides which, he says, the portion that came into his hands was a comedy, while the remainder is so violent and bloody in its course, that he calls his completed work a tragicomedy; a name which it has generally borne since, and which he perhaps invented to suit this particular case. One circumstance, however, connected with it should not be overlooked. It is, that the different portions attributed to the two authors are so similar in style and finish, as to have led to the conjecture, that, after all, the whole might have been the work of Rojas, who, for reasons, perhaps, arising out of his ecclesiastical position in society, was unwilling to take the responsibility of being the sole author of it.[424]

[423] Rojas states these facts in his prefatory anonymous letter, already mentioned, and entitled “El Autor á un su Amigo”; and he declares his own name and authorship in an acrostic, called “El Autor excusando su Obra,” which immediately follows the epistle, and the initial letters of which bring out the following words: “El Bachiller Fernando de Rojas acabó la comedia de Calysto y Meliboea, y fue nascido en la puebla de Montalvan.” Of course, if we believe Rojas himself, there can be no doubt on this point.

[424] Blanco White, in a criticism on the Celestina, (Variedades, Tom. I. pp. 224, 296,) expresses this opinion, which is also found in the Preface to M. Germond de Lavigne’s French translation of the Celestina. L. F. Moratin, too, (Obras, Tom. I. Parte I. p. 88,) thinks there is no difference in style between the two parts, though he treats them as the work of different writers. But the acute author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas” (Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Madrid, 1737, 12mo, Tom. II. p. 165) is of a different opinion, and so is Lampillas, Ensayo, Madrid, 1789, 4to, Tom. VI. p. 54.

But this is not the account given by Rojas himself. He says that he found the first act already written; and he begins the second with the impatience of Calisto, in urging Celestina to obtain access to the high-born and high-bred Melibœa. The low and vulgar woman succeeds, by presenting herself at the house of Melibœa’s father with lady-like trifles to sell, and, having once obtained an entrance, easily finds the means of establishing her right to return. Intrigues of the grossest kind amongst the servants and subordinates follow; and the machinations and contrivances of the mover of the whole mischief advance through the midst of them with great rapidity,--all managed by herself, and all contributing to her power and purposes. Nothing, indeed, seems to be beyond the reach of her unprincipled activity and talent. She talks like a saint or a philosopher, as it suits her purpose. She flatters; she threatens; she overawes; her unscrupulous ingenuity is never at fault; her main object is never forgotten or overlooked.

Meantime, the unhappy Melibœa, urged by whatever insinuation and seduction can suggest, is made to confess her love for Calisto. From this moment, her fate is sealed. Calisto visits her secretly in the night, after the fashion of the old Spanish gallants; and then the conspiracy hurries onward to its consummation. At the same time, however, the retribution begins. The persons who had assisted Calisto to bring about his first interview with her quarrel for the reward he had given them; and Celestina, at the moment of her triumph, is murdered by her own base agents and associates, two of whom, attempting to escape, are in their turn summarily put to death by the officers of justice. Great confusion ensues. Calisto is regarded as the indirect cause of Celestina’s death, since she perished in his service; and some of those who had been dependent upon her are roused to such indignation, that they track him to the place of his assignation, seeking for revenge. There they fall into a quarrel with the servants he had posted in the streets for his protection. He hastens to the rescue, is precipitated from a ladder, and is killed on the spot. Melibœa confesses her guilt and shame, and throws herself headlong from a high tower; immediately upon which the whole melancholy and atrocious story ends with the lament of the broken-hearted father over her dead body.

As has been intimated, the Celestina is rather a dramatized romance than a proper drama, or even a well-considered attempt to produce a strictly dramatic effect. Such as it is, however, Europe can show nothing on its theatres, at the same period, of equal literary merit. It is full of life and movement throughout. Its characters, from Celestina down to her insolent and lying valets, and her brutal female associates, are developed with a skill and truth rarely found in the best periods of the Spanish drama. Its style is easy and pure, sometimes brilliant, and always full of the idiomatic resources of the old and true Castilian; such a style, unquestionably, as had not yet been approached in Spanish prose, and was not often reached afterwards. Occasionally, indeed, we are offended by an idle and cold display of learning; but, like the gross manners of the piece, this poor vanity is a fault that belonged to the age.

The great offence of the Celestina, however, is, that large portions of it are foul with a shameless libertinism of thought and language. Why the authority of church and state did not at once interfere to prevent its circulation seems now hardly intelligible. Probably it was, in part, because the Celestina claimed to be written for the purpose of warning the young against the seductions and crimes it so loosely unveils; or, in other words, because it claimed to be a book whose tendency was good. Certainly, strange as the fact may now seem to us, many so received it. It was dedicated to reverend ecclesiastics, and to ladies of rank and modesty in Spain and out of it, and seems to have been read generally, and perhaps by the wise, the gentle, and the good, without a blush. When, therefore, those who had the power were called to exercise it, they shrank from the task; only slight changes were required; and the Celestina was then left to run its course of popular favor unchecked.[425] In the century that followed its first appearance from the press in 1499, a century in which the number of readers was comparatively very small, it is easy to enumerate above thirty editions of the original. Probably there were more. At that time, too, or soon afterwards, it was made known in English, in German, and in Dutch; and, that none of the learned at least might be beyond its reach, it appeared in the universal Latin. Thrice it was translated into Italian, and thrice into French. The cautious and severe author of the “Dialogue on Languages,” the Protestant Valdés, gave it the highest praise.[426] So did Cervantes.[427] The very name of Celestina became a proverb, like the thousand bywords and adages she herself pours out, with such wit and fluency;[428] and it is not too much to add, that, down to the days of the Don Quixote, no Spanish book was so much known and read at home and abroad.

[425] For a notice of the first known edition,--that of 1499,--which is entitled “Comedia,” and is divided into sixteen acts, see an article on the Celestina by F. Wolf, in Blätter für Literarische Unterhaltung, 1845, Nos. 213 to 217, which leaves little to desire on the subject it so thoroughly discusses. The expurgations in the editions of Alcalá, 1586, and Madrid, 1595, are slight, and in the Plantiniana edition, 1595, I think there are none. It is curious to observe how few are ordered in the Index of 1667, (p. 948,) and that the _whole_ book was not forbidden till 1793, having been expressly permitted, with expurgations, in the Index of 1790, and appearing first, as prohibited, in the Index of 1805. No other book, that I know of, shows so distinctly how supple and compliant the Inquisition was, where, as in this case, it was deemed impossible to control the public taste. An Italian translation printed at Venice, in 1525, which is well made, and is dedicated to a lady, is not expurgated at all. There are lists of the editions of the original in L. F. Moratin, (Obras, Tom. I. Parte I. p. 89,) and B. C. Aribau’s “Biblioteca de Autores Españoles,” (Madrid, 1846, 8vo, Tom. III. p. xii.,) to which, however, additions can be made by turning to Brunet, Ebert, and the other bibliographers. The best editions are those of Amarita (1822) and Aribau (1846).

[426] Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Tom. II. p. 167. “No book in Castilian has been written in a language more natural, appropriate, and elegant.”

[427] Verses by “El Donoso,” prefixed to the first part of Don Quixote.

[428] Sebastian de Covarrubias, Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana, Madrid, 1674, fol., ad verb.

Such success insured for it a long series of imitations; most of them yet more offensive to morals and public decency than the Celestina itself, and all of them, as might be anticipated, of inferior literary merit to their model. One, called “The Second Comedia of Celestina,” in which she is raised from the dead, was published in 1530, by Feliciano de Silva, the author of the old romance of “Florisel de Niquea,” and went through four editions. Another, by Domingo de Castega, was sometimes added to the successive reprints of the original work after 1534. A third, by Gaspar Gomez de Toledo, appeared in 1537; a fourth, ten years later, by an unknown author, called “The Tragedy of Policiana,” in twenty-nine acts; a fifth, in 1554, by Joan Rodrigues Florian, in forty-three scenes, called “The Comedia of Florinea”; and a sixth, “The Selvagia,” in five acts, also in 1554, by Alonso de Villegas. In 1513, Pedro de Urrea, of the same family with the translator of Ariosto, rendered the first act of the original Celestina into good Castilian verse, dedicating it to his mother; and in 1540, Juan Sedeño, the translator of Tasso, performed a similar service for the whole of it. Tales and romances followed, somewhat later, in large numbers; some, like “The Ingenious Helen,” and “The Cunning Flora,” not without merit; while others, like “The Eufrosina,” praised more than it deserves by Quevedo, were little regarded from the first.[429]

[429] Puibusque, Hist. Comparée des Littératures Espagnole et Française, Paris, 1843, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 478;--the Essay prefixed to the French translation of Lavigne, Paris, 1841, 12mo;--Montiano y Luyando, Discurso sobre las Tragedias Españolas, Madrid, 1750, 12mo, p. 9, and _post_, c. 21. The “Ingeniosa Helena” (1613) and the “Flora Malsabidilla” (1623) are by Salas Barbadillo, and will be noticed hereafter, among the prose fictions of the seventeenth century. The “Eufrosina” is by Ferreira de Vasconcellos, a Portuguese, and why, in 1631, it was translated into Spanish by Ballesteros Saavedra as if it had been anonymous, I know not. It is often mentioned as the work of Lobo, another Portuguese, (Barbosa, Bib. Lusit., Tom. II. p. 242, and Tom. IV. p. 143,) and Quevedo, in his Preface to the Spanish version, seems to have been of that opinion; but this, too, is not true. Lobo only prepared, in 1613, an edition of the Portuguese original.

Of the imitations of the Celestina mentioned in the text, two, perhaps, deserve further notice.

The first is the one entitled “Florinea,” which was printed at Medina del Campo, in 1554, and which, though certainly without the power and life of the work it imitates, is yet written in a pure and good style. The principal personage is Marcelia,--parcel witch, wholly shameless,--going regularly to matins and vespers, and talking religion and philosophy, while her house and life are full of whatever is most infamous. Some of the scenes are as indecent as any in the Celestina; but the story is less disagreeable, as it ends with an honorable love-match between Floriano and Belisea, the hero and heroine of the drama, and promises to give their wedding in a continuation, which, however, never appeared. It is longer than its prototype, filling 312 pages of black letter, closely printed, in small quarto; abounds in proverbs; and contains occasional snatches of poetry, which are not in so good taste as the prose. Florian, the author, says, that, though his work is called _comedia_, he is to be regarded as “historiador cómico,” a dramatic narrator.

The other is the “Selvagia,” by Alonso de Villegas, published at Toledo, in 1554, 4to, the same year with the Florinea, to which it alludes with great admiration. Its story is ingenious. Flesinardo, a rich gentleman from Mexico, falls in love with Rosiana, whom he has only seen at a window of her father’s house. His friend Selvago, who is advised of this circumstance, watches the same window, and falls in love with a lady whom he supposes to be the same that had been seen by Flesinardo. Much trouble naturally follows. But it is happily discovered that the lady is _not_ the same; after which--except in the episodes of the servants, the bully, and the inferior lovers--every thing goes on successfully, under the management of an unprincipled counterpart of the profligate Celestina, and ends with the marriage of the four lovers. It is not so long as the Celestina or the Florinea, filling only seventy-three leaves in quarto, but it is an avowed imitation of both. Of the genius that gives such life and movement to its principal prototype there is little trace, nor has it an equal purity of style. But some of its declamations, perhaps,--though as misplaced as its pedantry,--are not without power, and some of its dialogue is free and natural. It claims everywhere to be very religious and moral, but it is any thing rather than either. Of its author there can be no doubt. As in every thing else he imitates the Celestina, so he imitates it in prefatory acrostic verses, from which I have spelt out the following sentence: “Alonso de Villegas Selvago compuso la Comedia Selvagia en servicio de su Sennora Isabel de Barrionuevo, siendo de edad de veynte annos, en Toledo, su patria”;--a singular offering, certainly, to a lady-love. It is divided into scenes, as well as acts.

At last, it came upon the stage, for which its original character had so nearly fitted it. Cepeda, in 1582, formed out of it one half of his “Comedia Selvage,” which is only the four first acts of the Celestina, thrown into easy verse;[430] and Alfonso Vaz de Velasco, as early as 1602, published a drama in prose, called “The Jealous Man,” founded entirely on the Celestina, whose character, under the name of Lena, is given with nearly all its original spirit and effect.[431] How far either the play of Velasco or that of Cepeda succeeded, we are not told; but the coarseness and indecency of both are so great, that they can hardly have been long tolerated by the public, if they were by the Church. The essential type of Celestina, however, the character as originally conceived by Cota and Rojas, was continued on the stage in such plays as the “Celestina” of Mendoza, “The Second Celestina” of Agustin de Salazar, and “The School of Celestina” by Salas Barbadillo, all produced soon after the year 1600, as well as in others that have been produced since. Even in our own days, a drama containing so much of her story as a modern audience will listen to has been received with favor; while, at the same time, the original tragicomedy itself has been thought worthy of being reprinted at Madrid, with various readings to settle its text, and of being rendered anew by fresh and vigorous translations into the French and the German.[432]

[430] L. F. Moratin, Obras, Tom. I. Parte I. p. 280, and _post_, Period II. c. 28.

[431] The name of this author seems to be somewhat uncertain, and has been given in two or three different ways,--Alfonso Vaz, Vazquez, Velasquez, and Uz de Velasco. I take it as it stands in Antonio, Bib. Nov. (Tom. I. p. 52). The shameless play itself is to be found in Ochoa’s edition of the “Orígenes del Teatro Español” (Paris, 1838, 8vo). Some of the characters are well drawn; for instance, that of Inocencio, which reminds me occasionally of the inimitable Dominie Sampson. An edition of it appeared at Milan in 1602, probably preceded--as in almost all cases seems of Spanish books printed abroad--by an edition at home, and certainly followed by one at Barcelona in 1613.

[432] Custine, L’Espagne sous Ferdinand VII., troisième édit., Paris, 1838, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 279. The edition of Celestina with the various readings is that of Madrid, 1822, 18mo, by Leon Amarita. The French translation is the one already mentioned, by Germond de Lavigne (Paris, 1841, 12mo); and the German translation, which is very accurate and spirited, is by Edw. Bülow (Leipzig, 1843, 12mo). Traces of it on the English stage are found as early as about 1530 (Collier’s History of Dram. Poetry, etc., London, 1831, 8vo, Tom. II. p. 408), and I have a translation of it by James Mabbe (London, 1631, folio), which, for its idiomatic English style, deserves to be called beautiful. Three translations of it, in the sixteenth century, into French, and three into Italian, which were frequently reprinted, besides one into Latin, already alluded to, and one into German, may be found noted in Brunet, Ebert, etc.

The influence, therefore, of the Celestina seems not yet at an end, little as it deserves regard, except for its lifelike exhibition of the most unworthy forms of human character, and its singularly pure, rich, and idiomatic Castilian style.

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