But you must all keep wide awake, Or else in vain you’ll undertake To comprehend the differing speech, Which here is quite distinct for each;-- Four languages, as you will hear, Castilian with Valencian clear, And Latin and Italian too;-- So take care lest they trouble you. No doubt his _comedias_ were exhibited before only a few persons, who were able to understand the various languages they contained, and found them only the more amusing for this variety. [482] It is singular, however, that a very severe passage on the Pope and the clergy at Rome, in the “Jacinta,” was not struck out, ed. 1573, f. 256. b;--a proof, among many others, how capriciously and carelessly the Inquisition acted in such matters. In the Index of 1667, (p. 114,) only the “Aquilana” is prohibited. That they were represented in Italy before they were printed,[483] and that they were so far circulated before their author gave them to the press,[484] as to be already in some degree beyond his own control, we know on his own authority. He intimates, too, that a good many of the clergy were present at the representation of at least one of them.[485] But it is not likely that any of his plays were acted, except in the same way with Vicente’s and Enzina’s; that is, before a moderate number of persons in some great man’s house,[486] at Naples, and perhaps at Rome. They, therefore, did not probably produce much effect at first on the condition of the drama, so far as it was then developed in Spain. Their influence came in later, and through the press, when three editions, beginning with that of 1520, appeared in Seville alone in twenty-five years, curtailed indeed, and expurgated in the last, but still giving specimens of dramatic composition much in advance of any thing then produced in the country. [483] As the question, whether Naharro’s plays were acted in Italy or not, has been angrily discussed between Lampillas (Ensayo, Madrid, 1789, 4to, Tom. VI. pp. 160-167) and Signorelli (Storia dei Teatri, Napoli, 1813, 8vo, Tom. VI. pp. 171, etc.), in consequence of a rash passage in Nasarre’s Prólogo to the Plays of Cervantes, (Madrid, 1749, 4to,) I will copy the original phrase of Naharro himself, which had escaped all the combatants, and in which he says he used Italian words in his plays, “aviendo respeto _al lugar_, y á las personas, á quien _se recitaron_.” Neither of these learned persons knew even that the first edition of the “Propaladia” was probably printed in Italy, and that one early edition was certainly printed there. [484] “Las mas destas obrillas andavan ya fuera de mi obediencia y voluntad.” [485] In the opening of the _Introyto_ to the “Trofea.”