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Lope De Vega's ‘Comedia,‘ Sin Secreto no ay Amor.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2021

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Lope de Vega's ‘Comedia,’ Sin secreto no ay amor, is contained in a volume of manuscript Spanish plays marked ‘Egerton. 548,’ in the British Museum.1 This volume, which is a quarto, bound in brown morocco, contains, besides the above ‘comedia,’ a number of others by Lope; they are as follows: Lo que ha de ser, Ay verdades que en amor, La competencia en lot nobles, Argel fingido, and two ‘autos sacramentales:’ El yugo de Christo, and El principe de la paz. Of these ‘comedias,’ Lo que ha de ser is an autograph, dated September 2, 1624, and is printed in Tom. XXII, de las comedias del Fenix de Espafta Lope de Vega y de lot mejores que hasta ahora han salido, Zaragoza, 1630;2 and also in Parle veinte cinco perfeta y verdadera, de las comedias del Fenix de España Frey Lope Felix de Vega Carpio, etc., Caragoça, 1647. Ay verdades que en amor is also an autograph, dated Madrid, November 12, 1625, with an approbation by Vargas Machuca, dated Madrid, February 4, 1626, and appeared in Veinte y una parte verdadera de las comedias del Fenix de España, Frei Lope Felix de Vega Carpio, etc., Madrid, 1635;3 also in Parte XXIX de las comedias de diferentes autores, Valencia, 1636.4 The rest of the plays are not in Lope's handwriting. La compelencia en los nobles, dated November 16th, 1625, with a license to play signed by don Juan de Velasco, Pamplona, November 6, 1628, has, so far as I am aware, never been printed.1 The copy is very carelessly written, in a round hand, and contains at the end the following letter, bound with the play: “Con las noticias que tengo de las comedias de vuesa merced, é venido a buscar esta: porque me an dicho que es muy buena: estamos en duda si es conforme vuesa merced la izo, y ansi le suplico vuesa merced la aga de pasar los hojos por ella esta noche que yo le servire; y mañana a las nueve sere aqui a besar a vuesa merced las manos que [here follow a number of words that are illegible] a vida . . . .(?) de vuesa merced;” signed—D. Juan Alonso de Morestin (?). From this letter it has been inferred that the many corrections and erasures which the copy contains, are by the hand of Lope, though it must be confessed that the handwriting in no respect resembles that of the author.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , 1894 , pp. 182 - 197
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1894

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References

Note 1 page 182 See Gayangos, Catalogue of Spanish Manuscripts in the British Museum, Vol. I, p. 41.

Note 2 page 182 Schick, Geschichte der dramatischen Literatur and Kunst in Spanien, Vol. II, p. 696, who says the volume is in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. See also La Barrers, Catálogo, p. 451, col. 1.

Note 3 page 182 Gayangos, 1. c. gives Part XVI, Madrid, 1635; evidently a misprint.

Note 4 page 182 According to Cborley's catalogue in Obras de Lope de Yoga, ed. Hartzenbosch, in Bib. de Aut. Españoles, Vol. IV, pp. 541 and 546.

Note 1 page 182 Cf. Schick, Nachträge, p. 44.

Note 1 page 185 On these forms see Cuervo, “Las segundss personal de plural en la conjugacion castellana,” Romania, XXII, p. 71 ff.

Note 1 page 187 Morel-Fatio, El Magito Prodigioso, comedia famosa de Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Heilbronn, 1877, p. liv. Rengifo, Arie Poetica Española, Barcelona, 1703, p. 58, defines the Silva, under the name Recitativo, as follows: “Recitativo se dize de recitar; porque en el se cants recitando, ò refiriendo algo en las coplas, con alguna suspension. Los versos, de que consta, son ordinariamente consonantes, con algunas dissonantes a vezes intermedios.” See also Schack, Vol. II, p. 86.

Note 2 page 187 See Rengifo, 1. c. p. 45.

Note 3 page 187 Ibid, p. 47.

Note 1 page 187 Morel-Fatio, El Magim Prodigioso, comedia famosa de Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca, Heilbronn, 1877, p. liv. Bengifo, Ant Poetica Española, Barcelona, 1703, p. 58, defines the Silva, under the name Recitativo, as follows: “Recitativo se dize de recitar; porque en el se canta recitando, ò refiriendo algo en las coplas, con alguna suspension. Los versos, de que consta, son ordinariamente consonantes, con algunas dissonantes a vezes intermedios.” See also Schack, Vol. II, p. 86.

Note 2 page 187 See Rengifo, l. c. p. 45.

Note 3 page 187 Ibid, p. 47.

Note 1 page 189 According to Barren, Catálogo, p. 435, col. 2, there was an autograph MS. in the library of the late Señor Duran—now in the National Library—of Lope's ‘tragicomedia,‘ El Favor Agradecido, dated at Alba, Oct. 29, 1593.

Note 2 page 189 In the British Museum, marked Additional MS 10329. It was first printed in La Vega del Purnaso, by Luis de Usátegui, Lope's son-in-law, at Madrid, 1637, and afterward in the Obras Sueltas, Vol. X.

Note 1 page 190 There is a curious note concerning the stealing of Lope's plays in Ticknor, Vol. II, 271. The story is told by Suarez de Figueroa in his Plata Universal, Madrid, 1615. In my copy which is dated Perpiñan, 1630, it occurs on fol. 254. The ‘censura’ and ‘Aprobacion’ are dated 1612, but the book did not appear till 1615. The incident concerning El Golan de la Membriila related by him, must have been a very recent one, as the play was only licensed to be performed on May 18th, 1615. Strangely enough, just this play of Lope's seems to have fared better than almost any other, for a comparison of the original MS. with the printed edition (Barcelona, 1618) shows only very insignificant differences. How much some of the printed texts, however, vary from Lope's autographs is shown by my collation of the text of Santiago el Verde, in the Modern Lang. Notes for June, 1893.

Note 1 page 191 The word ‘comedia’ is by no means the equivalent of our word ‘comedy.’ ‘Comedia,’ among the Spanish dramatic writers of the xvii century, was a word of much wider significance, and embraced nearly every kind of dramatic composition, from light comedy to the darkest tragedy. See Tickaor, Vol II, p. 242, and especially Morel-Fatio, La Comedia Espagnole du XVIIe siècle, Paris, Vieweg, 1885, pp. 9, 11 and 13, where the author says the word ‘comedia’ became absolutely identical with the English word ‘play’ or the German ‘Schauspiel.‘ Schack qualifies the definition thus: “Man nannte comedia seit Lope de Vega jedes Theaterstück in drei Aklen oder Jorwadas und in Versen. Diese beiden Erforderniase waren einer comedia durchaus wesentlich und es möchte in unserer Periode kein Stuck in mehr oder weniger als drei Akten, oder in Prosa zu finden sein, das den Namen comedia führte.” Gesch. d. dram. Lit. und Kunst in Spanien, Vol II, pp. 73 and 74.

Note 1 page 192 Chronik des edlen En Ramon Muntaner. Herausgegeben von Dr. Karl Lanz. Stuttgart, 1844, p. 327.

Note 1 page 193 Salazar de Mendoza, Origen de las Dignidades seglares it Castilla y Leon, Madrid, 1794, p. 180.

Note 2 page 193 Mariana, Historia, Book XV, Chap. I.