[114] Cervantes, no doubt, valued himself upon these immaterial agencies; and after his time, they became common on the Spanish stage. Calderon, in his “Gran Príncipe de Fez,” (Comedias, Madrid, 1760, 4to, Tom. III. p. 389), thus explains two, whom he introduces, in words that may be applied to those of Cervantes:-- Representando los dos De su buen Genio y mal Genio Exteriormente la lid, Que arde interior en su pecho. His good and evil genius bodied forth, To show, as if it were in open fight, The hot encounter hidden in his heart. Aurelio, whither goest thou? Where, O where, Now tend thine erring steps? Who guides thee on? Is, then, thy fear of God so small, that thus, To satisfy mad fantasy’s desires, Thou rushest headlong? Can light and easy Opportunity, with loose solicitation, Thus persuade and overcome thy soul, And yield thee up to love a prisoner? Is this the lofty thought and firm resolve In which thou once wast rooted, to resist Offence and sin, although in torments sharp Thy days should end and earthly martyrdom? So soon hast thou offended, to the winds Thy true and loving hopes cast forth, And yielded up thy soul to low desire? Away with such wild thoughts, of basest birth And basest lineage sprung! Such witchery Of foul, unworthy love shall by a love All pure be broke! A Christian soul is mine, And as a Christian’s shall my life be marked;-- Nor gifts, nor promises, nor cunning art, Shall from the God I serve my spirit turn, Although the path I trace lead on to death![115] [115] Aurelio donde vas? para dó mueves El vagaroso paso? Quien te guia? Con tan poco temor de Dios te atreves A contentar tu loca fantasía? etc. Jornada V. The conception of this passage and of the scene preceding it is certainly not dramatic, though it is one of those on which, from the introduction of spiritual agencies, Cervantes valued himself. But neither is it without poetry. Like the rest of the piece, it is a mixture of personal feelings and fancies, struggling with an ignorance of the proper principles of the drama, and with the rude elements of the theatre in its author’s time. He calls the whole a _Comedia_; but it does not deserve the name. Like the old Mysteries, it is rather an attempt to exhibit, in living show, a series of unconnected incidents; but it has no properly constructed plot, and, as he honestly confesses afterwards, it comes to no proper conclusion.[116] [116] Y aquí da este trato fin, Que _no lo tiene_ el de Argel, is the jest with which he ends his other play on the same subject, printed thirty years after the representation of this one.