Another of these strange dramas is founded on the story of the Prodigal Son, and is said to have been represented at Perpignan, then a Spanish fortress, by a party of soldiers; one of the actors being mentioned by name in its long and absurdly learned Prologue.[291] Among the interlocutors are Envy, Youth, Repentance, and Good Advice; and among other extraordinary passages, it contains a flowing paraphrase of Horace’s “Beatus ille,” pronounced by the respectable proprietor of the swine intrusted to the unhappy Prodigal. [291] Book Fourth. The compliment to the actor shows, of course, that the piece was acted. Indeed, this is the proper inference from the whole Prologue. Obras, Tom. V. p. 347. The fourth Morality, found in the romance of the Pilgrim, is entitled “The Marriage of the Soul and Divine Love”; and is set forth as having been acted in a public square at Valencia, on occasion of the marriage of Philip the Third with Margaret of Austria, which took place in that city,--an occasion, we are told, when Lope himself appeared in the character of a buffoon,[292] and one to which this drama, though it seems to have been written earlier, was carefully adjusted.[293] The World, Sin, the City of Jerusalem, and Faith, who is dressed in the costume of a captain-general of Spain, all play parts in it. Envy enters, in the first scene, as from the infernal regions, through a mouth casting forth flames; and the last scene represents Love, stretched on the cross, and wedded to a fair damsel who figures as the Soul of Man. Some parts of this drama are very offensive; especially the passage in which Margaret of Austria, with celestial attributes, is represented as arriving in the galley of Faith, and the passage in which Philip’s entrance into Valencia is described literally as it occurred, but substituting the Saviour for the king, and the prophets, the martyrs, and the hierarchy of heaven for the Spanish nobles and clergy who really appeared on the occasion.[294] [292] Miñana, in his continuation of Mariana, (Lib. X. c. 15, Madrid, 1804, folio, p. 589), says, when speaking of the marriage of Philip III. at Valencia, “In the midst of such rejoicings, tasteful and frequent festivities and masquerades were not wanting, in which Lope de Vega played the part of the buffoon.” [293] In Book Second. [294] Lope boasts that he has made this sort of commutation and accommodation, as if it were a merit. “This was literally the way,” he says, “in which his Majesty, King Philip, entered Valencia.” Obras, Tom. V. p. 187.