This Comedy seems an Occasional Piece, to celebrate the marriage
of Philip IV. with Anna Maria of Austria, and the pageants that
Calderon himself was summoned to devise and manage. This
marriage was in 1649; when Calderon, as old as the century, was
in his prime; and I think the airy lightness of the dialogue, the play
of character, the easy intrigue, and the happily introduced wedding
rhapsodies, make it one of the most agreeable of his comedies.
As I purposely reduced the swell of Isabel's speech in the last play,
I must confess that the present version of these wedding pageants,
though not unauthorized by the original, had perhaps better have
been taken in a lighter tone to chime in with so much common dialogue.
But they were done first, to see what could be made of
them: and, as little dramatic interest is concerned, are left as they
were; at least not the less like so much in Calderon, where love
and loyalty are concerned; and to be excused by the reader as
speeches spouted by boys on holiday occasions.
THE END.
