Note 6 — Chapter VII

A specimen of the Mysteries of the age of Charles V. may be found in an extremely rare volume, entitled, in its three parts, “Triaca del Alma,” “Triaca de Amor,” and “Triaca de Tristes”;—or Medley for the Soul, for Love, and for Sadness. Its author was Marcelo de Lebrixa, son of the famous scholar Antonio; and the dedication and conclusion of the first part imply that it was composed when the author was forty years old,—after the death of his father, which happened in 1522, and during the reign of the Emperor, which ended in 1556. The first part, to which I particularly allude, consists of a Mystery on the Incarnation, in above eight thousand short verses. It has no other action than such as consists in the appearance of the angel Gabriel to the Madonna, bringing Reason with him in the shape of a woman, and followed by another angel, who leads in the Seven Virtues;—the whole piece being made up out of their successive discourses and exhortations, and ending with a sort of summary, by Reason and by the author, in favor of a pious life. Certainly, so slight a structure, with little merit in its verses, could do nothing to advance the drama of the sixteenth century. It was, however, intended for representation. “It was written,” says its author, “for the praise and solemnization of the Festival of Our Lady’s Incarnation; so that it may be acted as a play [la puedan por farça representar] by devout nuns in their convents, since no men appear in it, but only angels and young damsels.”

The second part of this singular volume, which is more poetical than the first, is against human, and in favor of Divine love; and the third, which is very long, consists of a series of consolations deemed suitable for the different forms of human sorrow and care;—these two parts being necessarily didactic in their character. Each of the three is addressed to a member of the great family of Alva, to which their author seems to have been attached; and the whole is called by him Triaca; a word which means Treacle, or Antidote, but which Lebrixa says he uses in the sense of Ensalada,—Salad or Medley. The volume, taken as a whole, is as strongly marked with the spirit of the age that produced it as the contemporary Cancioneros Generales, and its poetical merit is much like theirs.