Some remarks on the Eden serpent in Spanish Golden Age Plays

Abstract

This article aims to examine a number of representations of the temptation of Adam and Eve taken from Spanish dramatic texts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Two texts are discussed from the Codice de Autos Viejos collection of plays, El aucto del pecado de Adan and the Aucto de la prevaricacion de Adan. Subsequently, three seventeenth-century comedias are studied, two of them written by Lope de Vega: La madre de la mejor, and El nacimiento de Cristo; the third attributed to Lope, although evidence of authorship is inconclusive. The first part of this study is mainly concerned with the origins of hybrid depictions of the Eden serpent that conferred upon a reptilian body some variable anthropomorphic features such as a human head or torso, or long flowing hair. The second and final part of the study concentrates on the theatrical texts themselves, offering some hypotheses as regards costume and performance details.