And, as through a crystal skylight, How morning differeth from evening twilight; And further telleth us the reason why go Some stars with such a hazy light, and some with a vertigo. Oh, how widely wandereth he, Who in search of verity Keeps aloof from glorious wine! Lo, the knowledge it bringeth to me! For Barbarossa, this wine so bright, With its rich red look and its strawberry light, So inviteth me, So delighteth me, I should infallibly quench my inside with it, Had not Hippocrates And old Andromachus Strictly forbidden it And loudly chidden it, So many stomachs have sickened and died with it. Yet, discordant as it is, Two good biggins will not come amiss; Because I know, while I'm drinking them down, A cup of good Corsican Does it at once; Or a glass of old Spanish Quackish resources are things for a dunce. Talk of Chocolate! Talk of Tea! I would sooner take to poison Down in Tartarus, 1 'Twas the detestable Fifty invented it; The Furies then took it To grind and to cook it, And to Proserpina all three presented it. Doats on a beverage so unseemly, I differ with the man extremely. ... There's a squalid thing, called beer : The man whose lips that thing comes near Swiftly dies; or falling foolish, Grows, at forty, old and owlish. She that in the ground would hide her, Let her take to English Cider : He who'd have his death come quicker, Any other Northern liquor. Those Norwegians and those Lapps Have extraordinary taps: Those Lapps especially have strange fancies; To see them drink, I verily think, Would make me lose my senses. But a truce to such vile subjects, With their impious, shocking objects. Let me purify my mouth In a holy cup o' the South; In a golden pitcher let me Head and ears for comfort get me, And drink of the wine of the vine benign SPANISH LITERATURE. PERIOD III. 1500-1650. THE SPANISH DRAMA. 3 THER forms of literature of this period have already been considered. * But it is necessary to give special attention to the Drama, as in some respects the most important production of Spanish intellectual activity. Some relics of the Roman Drama survived in a decadent form in Southern Europe long after the dismemberment of the Roman Empire. The Christian Church opposed its influence, as debasing, but finally recognizing that the dramatic instinct is inherent in human nature, granted it indulgence and diverted its expression to religious purposes. The change of attitude was due to the rise of the religious orders. In the twelfth century we find bands of player monks roving through the dominions of the Pope for the purpose of giving rude representations of Bible stories to take the place of stories of chivalry. The plays were acted, sometimes in cathedrals and convents, at the high festivals of Christmas or Easter, and sometimes in the public squares of the cities. They were called Autos Sacramentales, and were the same as the Miracle-Plays in England. In Spain the only restrictions seem to have been: That they should be played in a town and under the authority of a bishop or archbishop, rather than in a village or smaller place; that no money should be taken for the performance; and that it should be given and received in a spirit of earnest devotion. * See Volume III., pp. 207-253. The secular drama arose in Spain in the memorable year 1492. All that can be said of it, prior to that time, is that public opinion was being gradually formed by such works as "The Dialogue between an Old Man and Love" and the dramatic novel "Celestina." The first dramatist was Juan del Encina, a graduate of Salamanca, and a famous poet and musician. The most noted of his successors was Lope de Rueda, a gold-beater by trade, but who became a dramatic autor, that is a writer of plays, who was at the same time an actor and manager. He travelled successfully with his company through the principal cities of Southern Spain, and has the unique distinction of having been admired and praised by Cervantes, who gives the following account of the state of the drama in his time: • • "In the time of this celebrated Spanish actor, the whole apparatus of an autor was contained in a sack, and consisted of four white sheep-skins trimmed with gilt leather, together with four false beards and wigs, and four shepherd's crooks, more or less. There were no figures to come popping up from the centre of the earth, or the space beneath the stage. The stage itself was composed of four benches, forming a square, with four or six planks placed upon them, so as to be raised about four hand's-breadths from the ground. Much less did clouds containing angels or spirits come down from the sky. The back scene of the theatre consisted of an old blanket which could be pulled by cords to one side or the other, and this formed the green-room, behind which stood the musicians singing some old ballad, without even a guitar to accompany them. After Lope de Rueda came Naharro, a native of Toledo, who was famous in the part of cowardly bully. He somewhat raised the standard of theatrical adorniment, exchanging the sack, which used to contain the dresses, for chests and trunks. He brought out the musicians, who, formerly sang behind the blanket, to the public gaze; he also abolished the beards of the comic actors, for, up to that time, nobody played without a false beard, and he made them all play without preliminary adjustment; except those who had to represent old men or other parts which required a change of features. He it was who introduced machinery, clouds, ... thunder and lightning, duels, and battles, but all this had not yet come to the pitch of perfection which it has reached nowadays." While there were, of course, from time to time actors of brilliant reputation in the enjoyment of high consideration and favor, just as it is to-day, the profession was brought into ill repute by the fact that so many of its members were men of low and evil lives. Dancing had been a favorite amusement in Spain from the earliest times and no play, not even a sacred auto was considered to be complete without its accompanying songs and dances. Secular dramas were played in the yards of inns or in open quadrangles of the city reserved for the purpose and generally owned by religious or charitable organizations. Two fees were collected, in the latter places, one at the door for the manager, the other inside for the sick and the indigent. The poorer part of the audience sat on rude benches or stood in the open spaces of the quadrangle, while the rich took possession of the houses on the four sides and lounged at the windows as in the boxes of a theatre. Later magnificent auditoriums were built in the palaces in and near Madrid and Calderon and others were made masters of the palace theatre and wrote dramas for the pleasure of the king. Philip V. married an Italian princess unaccustomed to the spectacle of open-air performances, whose crowds could be scattered at any moment by an afternoon shower, and through her influence a play-house was built. The two best theatres in Madrid were afterwards erected on the site of the most famous of the old quadrangles. Religious plays were produced in all large cities at the great festivals with a prodigality and success that roused the multitude to a frenzy of delight and enthusiasm. Actors left their quadrangles and palace theatres and played in the public squares in the service of the Church. Thus a species of sacred amusement, which had been almost forgotten in the rest of Europe, formed, with its variations, one of the most extraordinary expressions of Spanish life and character. Cervantes wrote thirty dramas which do not shine beside his immortal Don Quixote. Calderon wished to be remem |