Note 12 — PREFACE

One can scarcely say that the character is purely Spanish in origin, for servants had long been given a prominent part in dramas. Without seeking further we may well recall the place they have in the works of both Plautus and Terence. The early Italian comedies inherit this character from the Latins, and it appears in most of the plays of Ariosto, Machiavelli, and Aretino. It is found in the early Spanish dramas, and the debt to Italy is unmistakable; for example, in La Celestina the name of one of the leading servant characters—Parmeno—is the same as appears in the three plays of Terence: Eunuchus, Adelphi, and Hecyra. And in the hands of Rojas and Naharro the type is not markedly different from the Latin and Italian originals. It remained for Lope to perfect it and make it truly national.