Three Major Plays

by Lope de Vega

186 A timely error: Lope seems to be using the word errar ('to err') here not in a moral sense but in the Aristotelian sense of error or accident, whereby the paths of individuals may accidentally cross, and that coincidence leads subsequently to tragedy.

  St Elmo's fire: after violent storms an unusual light, of an electrical nature, which appears in the masts and rigging of ships.

  188 turn the happy stream to snow: the effect upon the water of the whiteness of her feet and the perfection of her skin. This is a variant of the notion of a beautiful woman's feet making the grass grow more abundantly as she walks on it. See note to p. 105 above.

  189 Jupiter: in Greek mythology Zeus -- the Roman Jupiter -- transformed himself into an eagle and carried the handsome boy, Ganymede, up to Olympus so that he could succeed Hebe as cupbearer to the Gods.

  Phaethon's pride: in Greek mythology Phaethon, son of Helios and Clymene, was allowed to guide the chariot of the sun for one day. Unable to control the horses, he would have set the heavens and the earth on fire had not Zeus destroyed him with a thunderbolt.

  a golden fleece: in Greek mythology the fleece of gold owned by Aetes, King of Colchis, guarded by a dragon and taken by Jason.

  190 A topic for the idle tongues: and thus a source of dishonour. See note to p. 108.

  191 she is a lily: Batín, as is the custom of the comic character, the gracioso, in Golden Age plays, is here mocking the flowery language of lovers of noble origin.

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  191 This Helen?: Helen of Troy, according to legend the most beautiful woman in the world.

  193 labyrinth: in Greek mythology the maze built by Daedalus for King Minos of Crete. It contained the Minotaur to which human sacrifice was made. Theseus, having killed the Minotaur, found his way out of the labyrinth by means of a thread of gold.

  194 Aurora: her name is, of course, suggestive of the dawn and, inasmuch as the dawn brings light, Aurora is also the light of reason. In Calderón famous play, La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream), the name Rosaura has a similar symbolic function.

  195 stepmothers and step- ¶ Sons: echoing the earlier comment on this notoriously difficult relationship in ll. 577-80, but with a possible reference to Phaedra who, in Greek mythology, fell in love with her stepson Hippolytus, bringing about his death and her own suicide.

  199 These arms become a chain: a moment of supreme irony in the sense that Casandra's growing attraction to Federico will indeed prove to be inescapable. Her embracing of him is also a pointer to her youthful, unthinking indiscretion.

  200 For you to rest: the Duke's remark is to Casandra. The 'mistake' which other husbands make, to which he refers in the following lines, is the mistake of prolonging the welcome to the newly arrived wife-to-be instead of letting her rest after a long journey.

  life's a dream: see note to p. 194 above. Calderón Life is a Dream was probably written a few years after Punishment Without Revenge, but the theme of life as a dream was, of course, a commonplace. At the same time, there are in Lope's play a number of allusions -- to the labyrinth, for example -- which are typically Calderonian and which may point to the influence of the younger dramatist on Lope's later theatre.

  to seeing things: the speech which follows describes those things which Batín imagines doing but never has the courage to do. In one way the comic character in Golden Age plays is often his master in a lower key. The difference between Federico and Batín is, of course, that Federico realizes his imaginings.

  201 I know exactly: see note to p. 180. Since the comic characters in Golden Age literature in general are constantly concerned with material things -food, money, sex -- they are generally more down-to-earth than their masters and quick to see to the heart of things, as is the case with Batín here.

  202 ablaze with flowers: Federico points to the unlikelihood of Batín's being able to guess the nature of his secret thoughts, but the concepts alluded to here -- the sky ablaze with flowers, the grass covered with stars -- were also characteristic of poets such as Luis de Góngora, to whom Lope was initially opposed. See note to p. 171.

  more suitable: there is between Casandra and Federico the natural corre-

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  spondence of youth which we have seen in The Knight from Olmedo in the mutual attraction of Inés and Alonso.

  Act Two

  203 honest countryman: Casandra praises the simplicity and honesty of country life much as does Laurencia in Fuente Ovejuna: see the Introduction, pp. xiv-xv.

  doubly blind: if love is traditionally blind, it is logically doubly blind in the dark.

  204 however much | They try to change: the notion of the extent to which a man's life is predestined or not was much discussed in the Golden Age. In relation to the Duke, the question arises of whether his conversion in Act Three to a new, Christian way of life is genuine or whether, beneath that appearance, he is still the old Duke.

  freedom to indulge | Himself: in this context it is worth bearing in mind Lope's many affairs, including his extra-marital relationship with the actress Micaela de Luján. See the Introduction, pp. ix-x.

  206 playthings of our destiny: although Casandra's conclusion here is coloured by her unhappiness, there are throughout the text references to the role of fate in the lives of these characters which contradicts A. A. Parker's argument that in Golden Age plays the characters are in control of their decisions and thus their lives. See A. A. Parker, The Approach to the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age ( London, 1957).

  208 to keep them safe: in the theatre of the Golden Age, and to a degree in real life, husbands and fathers lived in constant fear of their wives or daughters attracting the attention of some unscrupulous male who would seek to seduce them and thus bring about the dishonour of the family. Consequently, women were closely guarded. The most extreme example of this occurs in Cervantes's short story, The Jealous Extremaduran (El celoso extremeño), in which the old husband, Carrizales, seeks to hide his wife from the world at large by blocking up the windows of his house.

  209 burns my honour: Federico's argument is that, if his father obliges him to marry Aurora, this will merely inflame her passion for the Marquis, just as water, instead of putting out a fire, makes it blaze even more fiercely. The consequences of her attraction to the Marquis might then be the cause of Federico's dishonour.

  The depth of my despair: as the action of Act Two unfolds, Federico is overtaken more and more by unnatural melancholy. See note to p. 138.

  210 hermaphrodite: originally the name of the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, who, according to myth, grew together with the nymph Salmacis. By extension, the word came to mean a human being or animal in which parts characteristic of both sexes are combined.

  211 that still brighter dawn: Aurora herself.

  212 duke to my duchess: the meaning here is that if Federico were granted such a title, he would not then be able to kneel before her.

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  213 one night with me: the point here is that the marriage has been consummated, which in turn means that any sexual relationship between Casandra and Federico would be adulterous.

  214 the honour: in spite of Casandra's opinion, it is doubtful that in the society of the time the Duke would be regarded as staining the honour of his family as a result of his activities. While such behaviour in men was accepted, a man could be considered as dishonoured if his wife or daughter was seduced or raped. Thus, the Duke's honour is endangered much more by Casandra's attraction to Federico than by his own affairs.

  216 Phaethon: see note to p. 189.

  Icarus: in Greek mythology the son of Daedalus, who made him wings fastened on with wax. Icarus flew too near the sun, which melted the wax and caused him to fall to his death in the sea.

  Bellerophon: in Greek mythology he slew the Chimera with the aid of the winged horse Pegasus, but subsequently died in his attempt to scale the heavens.

  217 Sinon: the Greek who induced the Trojans to drag the wooden horse into Troy. See Virgil, Aeneid, ii. 57 ff.

  Ja
son: in Greek mythology leader of the Argonauts, sent by his uncle Pelias to fetch the Golden Fleece from Colchis.

  Endymion's love: in Greek legend a handsome hunter whom the moon goddess Selene -- Roman Diana -- visited every night in a mountain grotto. He was the subject of John Keats poem, Endymion.

  218 safeguard them: the origin of this story may lie in the fact that the pelican, according to legend, sacrificed itself for its young, allowing them to feed on blood from her breast.

  220 honour clearly does not: a man's honour could only be tarnished if the offence done to him became public knowledge. Private thoughts could therefore dishonour no one.

  221 lovely as the dawn: see note to p. 194. The Marquis may, in Casandra's opinion, be 'more | The soldier than the dashing courtier' (2.337-8), but his words here certainly contradict this, rivalling Federico's earlier in the act (2.435-40).

  222 Jacob: see Genesis, 29: 18. The 'precious jewel' alluded to here was Rachel. Jacob was obliged to wait for seven years before her father, Laban, gave him permission to marry her.

  Tantalus: in Greek legend he was the son of Zeus. As a punishment for revealing his father's secrets, he was placed in water up to his chin and immediately beneath delicious fruits, unable to taste either.

  223 The wars in Italy: it is difficult to know which wars are being alluded to here. One possibility is that the Pope in question is Pope Martin V ( 1417-31), who was much concerned with making the Papacy a power-

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  ful force, but there were other Popes too who were involved in military struggles in Italy, such as Pope Clement VII, at different times an ally and an enemy of the Spanish King, Charles V ( 1516-56).

  224 this ribbon: the ribbon as a token of love also plays an important part in The Knight from Olmedo (1.472 ff.), when, intended by Inés for Alonso, it is taken and worn the following day by Rodrigo and Fernando.

  225 Paris: in Greek legend, the son of King Priam of Troy and Hecuba. Called upon by the three goddesses, Hera, Aphrodite, and Athena, to decide who was the most beautiful, he chose Aphrodite, awarding her the golden apple because she had promised him the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. With Aphrodite's help, he abducted Helen, wife of Menelaus, thereby causing the Trojan War.

  Barbarossa: the name given by Christians to a family of sixteenthcentury Turkish admirals and pirates, possibly on account of the fact that they had red beards -- in Spanish 'red beard' is barba roja. The reference here is, of course, to the cockerel's red comb.

  227 The sweet revenge: Casandra sees an affair with Federico as an appropriate revenge against her husband for the affairs in which he has been involved since their marriage.

  228 In history: Lope possibly has in mind Genesis 19, relating the story of Lot, who fled with his daughters during the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and who subsequently lay with them and made them pregnant, and 2 Samuel 13, which recounts the incestuous relationship between Amnon, son of David, and his half-sister, Tamar.

  229 Antiochus: the story is told in Valerius Maximus.

  230 Erasistratus: Lope made an error in the spelling of the name, writing it as 'Eróstrato'. He was a Greek physician, grandson of Aristotle, and believed to be the doctor to have introduced dissection.

  Galen and even great Hippocrates: Galen ( AD 131-210) was a Greek physician whose importance remained undiminished until the seventeenth century. His fame equalled that of his predecessor, Hippocrates ( 460357 BC), usually regarded as the father of medicine.

  231 of self, | Of God, of you . . . someone else: these lines represent a traditional theme in Spanish poetry from the fifteenth century which had been elaborated upon before Lope's time by poets such as Garcilaso de la Vega ( 1501-36). Lope proceeds to develop the short poem through the whole of Federico's speech much as he had done in The Knight from Olmedo in the case of Alonso's farewell to Inés (see note to p. 150). The speech is notable for the way in which Lope plays with ideas, a characteristic of the seventeenth-century Spanish literary movement known as conceptismo, whose exponents aimed to appeal to the intellect, in contrast to culteranismo, whose practitioners emphasized style and imagery. See note to p. 171.

  233 the siren: in Greek legend the Sirens were nymphs who lived on an island and lured sailors to their death with the beauty of their singing.

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  Act Three

  235 no one overhears: the point here is that, if Casandra's illicit relationship with Federico becomes the subject of common gossip and therefore public knowledge, the honour and reputation of the Duke will be destroyed. In Calderón The Surgeon of Honour the characters are constantly afraid of speaking their thoughts for fear of being overheard.

  236 Recesses: the reference is to two small rooms off the dressing-room in which Casandra would keep her jewels, jars of cream, and suchlike.

  237 The tiger: see note on Not tigresses!, p. 56.

  238 Medusa's glass . . . Circe: in Greek mythology Medusa was the Gorgon whose head had the power of turning to stone those who looked at her directly. When Perseus killed her, he used his shield as a mirror in order to avoid her fatal gaze. Circe was the enchantress who could turn men into beasts. The meaning here is that Aurora, having seen such a terrible thing in the mirror, has avoided the even worse fate of being married to Federico, who has fallen under the spell of another Circe, i.e. Casandra.

  239 melancholy: see note to p. 209. Aurora has just stated that Federico has paid no attention to her for four months. His melancholic state is therefore one which is deeply ingrained.

  240 Tiberius: the Roman emperor in question was in fact Claudius, who had his wife Messalina put to death for adultery. The incident is related by Suetonius in his Lives of the Caesars (v. 39).

  Messala: Messala Corvinus, described in Pliny Natural History ( vii. 90), is said to have forgotten his own name in consequence of a fall.

  Biscay: one of the four areas of the Basque country, of which the capital is Bilbao and to the north of which is the Bay of Biscay itself. The Basques, having a language of their own which was quite different from any other, frequently had problems with the grammar and pronunciation of Spanish and were mocked on that account. In Lope's original the Biscayan is such a person, using the second person of the verb for the first.

  241 [aside]: this is not an indication that Federico is speaking to himself or to the audience, unheard by Casandra, but that Federico and Casandra are speaking to each other well away -- apart -- from the servants.

  244 The Church's enemies: see note to p. 223.

  Trajan: Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, Roman Emperor from AD 98 to 117, was born in Spain. He was responsible for many notable foreign conquests.

  245 The mighty lion: some critics seem to think that the reference is to the Pope, but it is surely to the Duke, in whose service Ricardo has fought.

  King Saul and David: the events concerning Saul and David are recounted in 1 Samuel, 18. Saul had made David captain of his troops,

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  and after his victories the women of Israel sang his praises, claiming that Saul had killed thousands, but David tens of thousands.

  246 well-known story: the story told by Batin is one of Aesop's fables. It was familiar in Spain in both Latin and Spanish from the end of the fifteenth century.

  247 Hector: see note to p. 109.

  248 religious brotherhood: the original refers to Camándula, which was a religious order founded by Saint Romualdo at the beginning of the eleventh century in Camaldoli, near Florence.

  250 King David: the events referred to here are described in the second book of Samuel. In order to possess Bathsheba, David arranged the death of her husband, Uriah. Thereupon the prophet Nathan predicted that punishment for David's sins would be brought upon him through the members of his own family. The prophecy was subsequently realized when David's daughter, Tamar, was raped by her half-brother Amnon and he in turn was murdered by her brother Absalom, who then rebelled against David.

  251 draw | Attention: if the
Duke calls witnesses, he will virtually ensure that the offence committed against him will become public knowledge, thereby guaranteeing his public disgrace.

  254 easily | Convinced: the answer to his question is, of course, that he himself has had long experience of treachery and deception in matters of love.

  258 the crime is quickly buried: the predicament of the Duke is similar to that of Don Gutierre Solós in Calderón The Surgeon of Honour. Gutierre believes -- mistakenly -- that his wife Mencía is having an affair with Prince Enrique. Determined that the matter should not become public knowledge, which would inevitably mean dishonour, Gutierre arranges that she be bled to death by a doctor and that the death be reported as an accident. In this way Gutierre buries the offence against his honour along with Mencía's body.

  260 harsh and cruel rule: the complaints against the harsh and ruthless demands of honour are frequent in Golden Age plays. In Calderón The Painter of Dishonour the dishonoured husband, Don Juan Roca, similarly curses the inventor of such a merciless and tyrannical code. A similar attack on honour occurs in Lope The Dog in the Manger.

  robbed of his good name: dishonour very often stemmed not from the actions of an individual but from an offence done to that individual. See note to p. 214.

  261 A punishment without revenge: if the Duke is simply the instrument through which God punishes the wrongdoers, there can be no element of personal revenge in his actions. The fact that his honour will be avenged in the process is less important, he suggests, than God's vengeance.

  262 Artaxerxes: the reference is probably to Artaxerxes III, King of Persia

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  from 359 to 338 BC, who, in order to obtain the throne for himself, murdered his brothers and most of his relatives.

  262 Torquatus, Brutus, Darius: Manlius Torquatus had his son executed when he took part in single combat, strictly forbidden by his father. Lucius Junius Brutus, founder of the Roman Republic, had his sons put to death when they conspired against him. Darius II, King of Persia, killed his own brother when the latter attempted to seize the throne.