mere
fragment, but of peculiar interest to the historian of the drama as one
of the two earliest religious plays in a modern European language. Though
plays are known to have been performed in Spain at Christmas and Easter
in the Middle Ages,{39} we have no further texts until the very short
"Representation of the Birth of Our Lord," by Gomez Manrique, Senor de
Villazopeque (1412-91), acted at the convent at Calabazanos, of which the
author's sister was Superior. The characters |149| introduced are the
Virgin, St. Joseph, St. Gabriel, St. Michael, St. Raphael, another angel,
and three shepherds.{40}

Touched by the spirit of the Renaissance, and particularly by the
influence of Virgil, is Juan del Encina of Salamanca (1469-1534), court
poet to the Duke of Alba, and author of two Christmas eclogues.{41} The
first introduces four shepherds who bear the names of the Evangelists,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and are curiously mixed personages, their
words being half what might be expected from the shepherds of Bethlehem
and half sayings proper only to the authors of the Gospels. It ends with
a _villancico_ or carol. The second eclogue is far more realistic, and
indeed resembles the English and French pastoral scenes. The shepherds
grumble about the weather--it has been raining for two months, the floods
are terrible, and no fords or bridges are left; they talk of the death of
a sacristan, a fine singer; and they play a game with chestnuts; then
comes the angel--whom one of them calls a "smartly dressed lad" (_garzon
repicado_)--to tell them of the Birth, and they go to adore the Child,
taking Him a kid, butter-cakes, eggs, and other presents.

Infinitely more ambitious is "The Birth of Christ"{42} by the great Lope
de Vega (1562-1635). It opens in Paradise, immediately after the
Creation, and ends with the adoration of the Three Kings. Full of
allegorical conceits and personified qualities, it will hardly please the
taste of modern minds. Another work of Lope's, "The Shepherds of
Bethlehem," a long pastoral in prose and verse, published in 1612,
contains, amid many incongruities, some of the best of his shorter poems;
one lullaby, sung by the Virgin in a palm-grove while her Child sleeps,
has been thus translated by Ticknor:--

"Holy angels and blest,
Through these palms as ye sweep,
Hold their branches at rest,
For my babe is asleep.

And ye Bethlehem palm-trees,
As stormy winds rush |1