This passage is near the end of the piece, and leads to the _dénouement_ by one of those flowing narratives, like an Italian _novella_, to which Lope frequently resorts, when the intriguing fable of the drama has been carried far enough to fill up the three customary acts. The _dénouement_ naturally consists in the marriage, which is thus made a record of the king’s perfect justice. Columbus, as we have seen, appears in this piece. He is introduced with little skill, but the dignity of his pretensions is not forgotten. In another drama, devoted to the discovery of America, and called “The New World of Columbus,” his character is further and more truly developed. The play itself embraces the events of the great Admiral’s life between his first vain effort to obtain countenance in Portugal and his triumphant presentation of the spoils of the New World to Ferdinand and Isabella at Barcelona,--a period amounting to about fourteen years.[331] It is one of Lope’s more wild and extravagant attempts, but not without marks of his peculiar talent, and fully embodies the national feeling in regard to America, as a world rescued from heathenism. Some of its scenes are in Portugal; others on the plain of Granada, at the moment of its fall; others in the caravel of Columbus during the mutiny; and yet others in the West Indies, and before his sovereigns on his return home. [331] Comedias, Tom. IV., Madrid, 1614; and also in the Appendix to Ochoa’s “Teatro Escogido de Lope de Vega” (Paris, 1838, 8vo). Fernando de Zarate took some of the materials for his “Conquista de Mexico,” (Comedias escogidas, Tom. XXX., Madrid, 1668), such as the opening of Jornada II., from this play of Lope de Vega. Among the personages, besides such as might be reasonably anticipated from the course of the story, are Gonzalvo de Córdova, sundry Moors, several American Indians, and several spiritual beings, such as Providence, Christianity, and Idolatry; the last of whom struggles with great vehemence against the introduction of the Spaniards and their religion into the New World, and in passages like the following seems in danger of having the best of the argument. O Providence Divine, permit them not To do me this most plain unrighteousness! ’T is but base avarice that spurs them on. Religion is the color and the cloak; But gold and silver, hid within the earth, Are all they truly seek and strive to win.[332] [332] No permitas, Providencia, Hacerme esta sinjusticia; Pues los lleua la codicia A hacer esta diligencia. So color de religion, Van á buscar plata y oro Del encubierto tesoro. El Nuevo Mundo, Jorn. I.