The first instance of its annexation occurs in the _Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea_, better known as the _Celestina_. This remarkable book, first published (as it seems) at Burgos, in 1499, has been classed as a play, or as a novel in dialogue. Its length would make it impossible on the boards, and its influence is most marked on the novel. As first published, it had sixteen acts, extended later to twenty-one, and in some editions to twenty-two. On the authority of Rojas, anxious as to the Inquisition, the first and longest act has been attributed to Mena and to Cota; but the prose is vastly superior to Mena's, while the verse is no less inferior to the lyrism of Cota's _Diálogo_. There is small doubt but that the whole is the work of the lawyer FERNANDO DE ROJAS, a native of Montalbán, who became Alcaide of Salamanca, and died, at a date unknown, at Talavera de la Reina. The tale is briefly told. Calisto, rebuffed by Melibea, employs the procuress Celestina, who arranges a meeting between the lovers. But destiny works a speedy expiation: Celestina is murdered by Calisto's servants, Calisto is accidentally killed, and Melibea destroys herself before her father, whom she addresses in a set speech suggested by the _Cárcel de Amor_. Celestina is developed from Ruiz' Trota-conventos; Rojas' lovers, Calisto and Melibea, from Ruiz' Melón and Endrina; and some hints are drawn from Alfonso Martínez de Toledo. But, despite these borrowings, we have to deal with a completely original masterpiece, unique in its kind. We are no longer in an atmosphere thick with impossible monsters in incredible circumstances: we are in the very grip of life, in commerce with elemental, strait passions.