This, indeed, is not a plot, but it is an approach to one. The “Rubena,” acted in 1521, comes still nearer,[457] and so do “Don Duardos,” founded on the romance of “Palmerin,” and “Amadis of Gaul,”[458] founded on the romance of the same name, both of which bring a large number of personages on the stage, and, if they have not a proper dramatic action, yet give, in much of their structure, intimations of the Spanish heroic drama, as it was arranged half a century later. On the other hand, the “Templo d’ Apollo,”[459] acted in 1526, in honor of the marriage of the Portuguese princess to the Emperor Charles the Fifth, belongs to the same class with the allegorical plays subsequently produced in Spain; the three _Autos_ on the three ships that carried souls to Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, evidently gave Lope de Vega the idea and some of the materials for one of his early moral plays;[460] and the _Auto_ in which Faith explains to the shepherds the origin and mysteries of Christianity[461] might, with slight alterations, have served for one of the processions of the Corpus Christi at Madrid, in the time of Calderon. All of them, it is true, are extremely rude; but nearly all contain elements of the coming drama, and some of them, like “Don Duardos,” which is longer than a full-length play ordinarily is, are quite long enough to show what was their dramatic tendency. But the real power of Gil Vicente does not lie in the structure or the interest of his stories. It lies in his poetry, of which, especially in the lyrical portions of his dramas, there is much.[462] [457] The “Rubena” is the first of the plays called,--it is difficult to tell why,--by Vicente or his editor, _Comedias_; and is partly in Spanish, partly in Portuguese. It is among those prohibited in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, (p. 464,)--a prohibition renewed down to 1790. [458] These two long plays, wholly in Spanish, are the first two of those announced as “Tragicomedias” in Book III. of the Works of Vicente. No reason that I know of can be given for this precise arrangement and name. [459] This, too, is one of the “Tragicomedias,” and is chiefly, but not wholly, in Spanish.