by Lope de Vega
BATÍN. Say yes. There is
Good cause for what has happened here
Today.
AURORA. Then let me think on it. 975
I promise my reply in one more day.
Enter the MARQUIS.
MARQUIS. The deed is done. His treachery
Is over.
DUKE. Great is my grief, and yet
I wish to see his body lie beside Casandra.
[The bodies are revealed
MARQUIS. Behold a punishment without revenge. 980
DUKE. No man who punishes a sin Can truly claim he is avenged.
I cannot look. For pity's sake!
My poor heart begins to break!
He thought he could inherit all 985
My property; his punishment
This lifeless body.
BATÍN. And with it ends
This tragedy, a timely lesson for
All Spain,* a wondrous sight for all
Of Italy. 990
Praise be to God and the Virgin Mother
In Madrid, First of August 1631.
Fray Lope Félix de Vega Carpio.
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EXPLANATORY NOTES
FUENTE OVEJUNA
2 [The Characters of the Play] An Alderman: there are, in fact, various aldermen, but in the published edition of 1619 there was a good deal of carelessness. Neither is there any mention of Leonelo, a Peasant, and a Soldier.
Act One
3 [Act One]: in early editions of Golden Age plays there is no scene division. This practice was introduced by nineteenth-century editors but is no longer regarded as correct.
The Master: the Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava, in this case Rodrigo Téllez Girón, who had succeeded to the position at the age of 8 and who, when the play begins, is 17. The Grand Master was the head of the order, which had been founded in the twelfth century, along with the Order of Alcántara and the Order of Santiago, in order to defend the Christian states of Spain against the Moslems. For the historical situation at the start of the play, see the Introduction, pp. xii-xiii. Grand | Commander: a position immediately below that of the Grand Master.
4 cross of Calatrava: the cloak of the Order of Calatrava was white, with a red cross. Fernando: the full form of Fernán.
5 Your brave and famous father: the father of Rodrigo Téllez Girón was Don Pedro Girón, twenty-eighth Master of Calatrava, who renounced his position in favour of his young son. Pius: Pope Pius II, who, in 1466, when Rodrigo was only 8, had agreed to the request of the Order that the boy be appointed Master. Paul: Pope Paul II subsequently appointed Don Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena and the boy's uncle, as Coadjutor. Juan Pacheco died when Rodrigo was 16, at which time he became Grand Master on his own. King Henry the Fourth: King of Castile in the second half of the fifteenth century and who died in 1479. Juana: in 1462 King Henry married the princess Juana of Portugal, who in the same year produced a child, also called Juana. Her legitimacy was, in fact, doubtful, for many suspected that her real father was Don Beltrán de la Cueva, her mother's favourite at Court, and the child came to be known as Juana la Beltraneja. She later married Alonso V of Portugal. Fernando: Fernando, heir to the throne of Aragon, became King of Aragon in 1479.
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5 Isabel: Isabel of Castile was half-sister to King Henry. In 1469 she married Fernando of Aragon and succeeded to the throne of Castile ten years later. Almagro . . . Ciudad Real: Almagro is a town in the province of Ciudad Real, about 10 miles from the latter. Ciudad Real, in New Castile, is the capital of the province, and at the time in question was an important strategic position.
6 Urueña: Don Pedro Girón, Rodrigo's father, had been invested with the title of Count of Urueña in 1464. Villena's Marquesses: one of these was Juan Pacheco, Rodrigo's uncle. See note on Paul, p. 5 above.
7 Fuente Ovejuna: the town is situated in the province of Córdoba, some 55 miles to the north-west of that city. At the time of the events dramatized in Lope's play, its population was less than one thousand inhabitants. Until 1468 it owed allegiance to the city of Córdoba, but in that year was seized by Fernàn Gómez.
S.D. They exit. . .: in a seventeenth-century production there would have been no shifting of scenery. The exit of the Commander and the Master and the entrance of Pascuala and Laurencia, given the differences in costume and speech, would have been sufficient to indicate the change in location from the house of a nobleman to the village.
8 the stream: the place where Spanish village-women traditionally washed their clothes. Cf. Federico García Lorca Yerma, Act II, Scene i. merry, bubbling tune: the musical allusion suggests the harmony which exists in Laurencia's life, soon to be disrupted by the discord which the Commander represents. The description of the meal as a whole evokes the simplicity and wholesomeness of country life, so different from the refinement and artificiality of the nobility and the Court. See the Introduction, pp. xiv-xv.
9 Twerp, twerp: in Lope's play the sparrows initially call out tío, tío ('mister, mister'), and later on judío, judío ('Jew, Jew'). This would have been an insult at the time in question, particularly to Old Christians (see note on less pure,p. 31 below), who prided themselves on having pure blood. To translate the joke into English is almost impossible. sparrows: the sparrow is traditionally associated with lechery.
10 fiddle: rabel, a small instrument with three strings and a bow. It was a favourite with shepherds.
11 city talk: Frondoso's speech (212-39) follows a pattern used earlier by Antonio de Guevara in Menosprecio de corte y alabanza de aldea (Contempt for the Court and Praise of the Village), written in 1539, in which the euphemisms employed by city flatterers are described.
12 saltier than water: the Spanish word sal means both 'salt' and 'wit'. Mengo is suggesting that the priest, in christening Laurencia, must have used not only water but wit. In the Roman Catholic baptism the priest
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rubs a few grains of salt on the child's lips, but Mengo implies that, in Laurencia's case, he used much more.
12 blood Phlegm, melancholy, choler: blood, phlegm, melancholy (black bile), and choler (bile) constituted the four bodily humours. Good health ensued if they existed in a state of balance, bad health if one were predominant. The doctrine of the humours had initially been set out by the Pythagorean school of Greek physicians and applied by Hippocrates in the fourth century BC. The elements alluded to in I.282 are the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water, of which the material world was thought to be composed.
13 perfect harmony: a Platonic concept according to which the world of man is but an imperfect copy of a higher, perfect world. Thus, the beauty of woman is but the earthly form of a higher, perfect beauty; earthly music and harmony the same; the harmonious love of man and woman the worldly manifestation of an underlying, supreme harmony.
14 Plato: the theories on love of the Greek philosopher Plato had been set out in his Symposium, and during the Renaissance were taken up again, in particular during the fifteenth-century revival of Neoplatonism in Italy. Marsilio Ficino's commentary on the Symposium was the first in a succession of reinterpretations of Plato's ideas on love which extended through the sixteenth century. Since Plato and the Neoplatonists emphasized the spiritual nature of love, it was logical that that aspect of it should be seized upon and emphasized in their sermons by priests, as Barrildo recalls here. Leone Ebreo Dialoghi d'amore, which also expounded Neoplatonic ideas on love, was published in 1535 and twice translated into Spanish in the sixteenth century. The debate conducted by the village characters here is much livelier and down-to-earth than the high-flown discussions on love which formed part of the pastoral novels of the sixteenth century.
15 falcon: Flores, the Commander's servant, is a bird of prey in the sense that the village girls are the victims of the predatory instincts of the Commander and his henchmen. But the falcon was also associated with the love chase. So, at the beginning of Fernando de Rojas La Celestina (see Introduction, p. xxiv), Calisto pursues his falcon
into Melibea's garden and meets for the first time the young woman whom he will now begin to pursue.
friars: in the Order of Calatrava there were friars who were devoted to the active life, which meant principally the employment of arms against the Moors and other enemies of Catholicism.
Guadalquivir: one of the largest and most important Spanish rivers, though some 60 miles south of Ciudad Real.
16 Granada: the action of the play takes place in 1476. By this time Moorish domination of Spain had been virtually ended and only the kingdom of Granada remained in their hands. The city itself surrendered to the Catholic Kings in 1492.
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17 carts: Esteban clearly indicates the carts. They were either off-stage or in the discovery space.
19 Whoa now: because Flores treats the two women as animals, Pascuala responds in kind. The attitude of Flores and the Commander towards the women is in marked contrast to the respect shown by the villagers towards the Commander a few minutes earlier.
22 Extremadura: the region between Portugal and Castile and therefore the 'door' whereby Alfonso of Portugal could advance against the Catholic Kings.
Córdoba: Diego de Córdoba, Count of Cabra.
people love to talk: although Laurencia is teasing Frondoso to some extent, her remark has to do with the concept of honour and with the belief that public gossip may damage one's reputation. Although she is only a village girl, Laurencia is a proud and dignified young woman, conscious of her good name. On the honour theme in the play, see the Introduction, pp. xv-xvi.
23 A single person in the place: the fact that everyone in the village believes that Laurencia and Frondoso are suited to each other, suggests that between them there is that natural correspondence of which Alonso also speaks in the opening scene of The Knight from Olmedo. This natural correspondence and harmony between Laurencia and Frondoso exists too between Fernando and Isabel (3.338), and is something which, in both cases, the Commander threatens to undermine.
This coldness: to some extent Laurencia's coldness brings to mind the traditional disdainful shepherdess of sixteenth-century pastoral novels, while Frondoso is, by the same token, the unhappy, rejected lover. But Lope's characters are, of course, much more human and credible.
an angel's face: a similar example of a young woman who is physically beautiful but emotionally cold occurs in Tirso de Molina's famous play, The Trickster of Seville (El burlador de Sevilla) in which the fishergirl Tisbea attracts men by means of her good looks but delights in rejecting them. In modern terms Laurencia and Tisbea are interesting psychological studies.
turtle-doves: traditionally associated with Venus and thus with love, doves had the reputation of being always faithful.
24 frightened deer: the theme of the love chase hinted at earlier (see note on falcon, p. 15 above) is now developed at greater length. This was a common enough literary theme in many countries. A traditional Spanish ballad contains the lines: 'The King went out to hunt . . . and met instead a pretty girl . . .'.
25 bow: the Commander's bow also brings to mind Cupid's bow and further underlines the contrast between the genuine love of Frondoso for Laurencia, and the Commander's lust. When Frondoso aims the bow at
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the Commander, making his breast 'the arrow's target' (1.641), the contrast is even clearer.
26 tying together: the word spoliar meant 'to fasten feet', as of falcons or dead game. Since the Commander is hunting Laurencia, Frondoso's comment has a certain irony.
The rules of chivalry: the Commander means that, according to the code of honour, it would demean him to turn his back on or run away from a peasant. There is, of course, a deep irony in the sense that, morally, his treatment of Laurencia has been the opposite of chivalrous.
Act Two
27 S.D. First Alderman: the alderman mentioned here, though not by name, is Cuadrado. A second alderman, Juan Rojo, enters later, see 2.77.
these forecasters: prophecy was a frequent topic in Golden Age drama and was often part of the contemporary debate on the extent to which events and human lives are predestined. Lope made many attacks on astrologers. See F. G. Halstead, "The Attitude of Lope de Vega toward Astrology and Astronomy", Hispanic Review, 7 ( 1939), 205-19. Lope clearly favoured the down-to-earth practicality exemplified in Esteban. Transylvania: in Lope's time this part of present-day Romania was regarded as both distant and dangerous.
28 Hircania: part of ancient Persia and south-east of the Caspian Sea, famous for its tigers since Antiquity.
Salamanca: the University of Salamanca was established in the thirteenth century and subsequently became one of the most famous in Europe, attracting many students from outside Spain. By 1552 it had 6,328 students -- a number which hardly any other university in Europe could match.
Bartolo: Bartolus of Sassoferrato, an Italian jurist of the fourteenth century.
Gutenberg from Mainz: Johann Gutenberg of Mainz is usually regarded as the European inventor of printing from movable types.
29 publish in the name: Lope frequently complained about inferior playwrights who, in the highly competitive theatre of his day, passed off their works as his.
30 do not rise!: there are clearly benches on an otherwise bare stage. See 'On the Staging of Golden Age Plays', p. xxxii.
the greyhound: this is probably one of the gifts given by the villagers to the Commander, but it also allows Lope to reintroduce and develop the theme of the hunt in which a woman replaces an animal as the object of the chase.
A hare: the hare, apart from being renowned for its speed in escaping from its pursuers, was also a medieval symbol for the vagina.
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31 Aristotle's Politics: the Commander is probably name-dropping in order to impress both the villagers and his servants, but the importance of Aristotle's writings during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries cannot be over-emphasized. His Politics was a treatise on civil government in the Greek city-state.
honour?: on the theme of honour, see the Introduction, p. xv. The Commander's statement that peasants cannot have honour is based entirely on his belief that it is solely derived from noble birth and social position.
less pure: the presence of many Muslims and Jews in Spain over a long period of time meant inevitably that mixed marriages were common and that even those who claimed to be Christian, such as the knights of Calatrava, could not be sure that they did not have Muslim or Jewish blood in their veins. Pure blood belonged to those who were Old Christians, who were often the peasant class.
33 Granada and Córdoba: on Granada see note to p. 16. Córdoba was also a city which for a very long time was dominated by the Moors. Its most famous monument to this day is the great mosque which was completed in the last quarter of the tenth century. The city was finally conquered by the Christians in 1236.
Pascuala: this does not seem to be the Pascuala who is Laurencia's friend, unless, of course, she has fobbed off Flores with a lie.
34 Aristotle: on this occasion the reference is to Aristotle's Physics, i. 9. Flores's statement is, of course, a distortion of Aristotle's meaning.
35 The Master of Santiago: just as Rodrigo Téllez Girón, Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava, supports Alonso of Portugal, so the Grand Master of the Order of Santiago supports the cause of Isabel of Castile. The Order of Santiago, the most powerful of the three orders, was founded in the twelfth century.
the lions | And castles of Castile, the bars | Of Aragon: the coat of arms of León consisted of a red lion rampant on a silver ground, that of Castile of a gold castle on a silver ground. The coat of arms of Aragon, consisting of four vertical bars on a gold ground, was originally that of the Counts of Barcelona and became that of Aragon in 1162 when the region was annexed by the then Count of Barcelona, Ramón Berenguer.
36 The devil's: the comparison of the Commander to the devil is strikingly at odds with the Christian obligations required of him as a knight of Calatrava. As the action unfolds, he is also described more and mo
re in terms of predatory beasts and birds.
37 my sling: although the image of Mengo as the biblical David is a comic one, the suggestion that the Commander is another Goliath reinforces his evil nature, as well as pointing to his ultimate downfall.
Heliogabalus: Emperor of Rome from AD 218 to 222 (properly 'Elagabalus', a name derived from the Syrian sun-god Elah-Gabal).
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40 baggage: the Spanish word bagaje refers specifically to the equipment, food, and clothing which the army carries with it. The English word, on the other hand, has the added meaning of loose woman, which fits in perfectly here.
S.D. All exit: the location changes with the entry of Laurencia and Frondoso to the village of Fuente Ovejuna itself.
41 I kiss your feet: the phrase is a formal one most often associated with the nobility and the Court. Used here by a peasant, it points perhaps to the nobility of Frondoso's love for Laurencia, as well as to his adoration of her.
S.D. Alderman: the Alderman here is Juan Rojo.
42 The Catholic Kings: the title of los Reyes Católicos was granted to Fernando and Isabel by Pope Alexander VI in 1494.
rod of office: Esteban carries his staff of office, the symbol of his authority, throughout the play.
44 always obeys me?: the relationship between father and daughter and father and prospective son-in-law is shown to be based on the kind of respect and loyalty which is totally absent from the Commander's relationship with his subjects, towards whom he too should show respect. On the theme of love in the play, see the Introduction, p. xvi.
at your age: Esteban's age is not given but he is probably in his forties, and therefore considered quite old at the time of the play's action.
