Three Major Plays (3 page)

simplification of country life, and so it is, to some extent, in many
of Lope de Vega's plays. On the other hand, there are in
Fuente Ovejuna
village girls who are far less virtuous than Laurencia, the principal
female character, and who are persuaded by the Commander's promises.
⁸
Again, even if the traditional immorality of the city and the Court
is embodied in Fernán Gómez, Lope's presentation of the Catholic Kings
suggests that the Court is also a place where virtue and justice may
be found. Lope's treatment of the court-country theme is, therefore,
rather more complex than was the case with many other writers of his
time.

Another theme, central to
Fuente Ovejuna
and extremely popular in the drama of the Golden Age, is that of honour.
⁹
In the strictest sense, honour meant the respect and esteem accorded
to a man who was virtuous, worthy, or of noble standing, and had been
an important concept in Spain from Visigothic times. An individual
could lose the respect and esteem of others, and thus be dishonoured,
in a variety of ways: by being called a liar; by having his face
slapped; by having his beard pulled; or by the sexual misdemeanours or
the violation of his wife or daughter. The dishonoured man, according
to medieval law, was socially dead until his honour was restored, and
this could be achieved either by legal means, thus avoiding
bloodshed, or by killing the offender of one's honour. Indeed, the
obligation to avenge a dishonour done to another member of one's family
was fully recognized by the law. Similarly, the law allowed for the
killing of one's unfaithful wife and her lover, even in cases where
adultery was suspected rather than proven. If the dishonour was a
public one it required a public vengeance, if private, the vengeance
should be concealed. Furthermore, there existed from medieval times the
belief that honour was the prerogative of the nobility, and that
commoners therefore were without honour, a prejudice which survived
into the Golden Age but which by the late sixteenth century began to
change somewhat as the more sensitive Spanish intellectuals began to
recognize that all men merit respect. Honour, therefore, began to be
associated more with nobility of spirit than with noble birth.

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In
Fuente Ovejuna
the concept of honour as something which stems from noble birth, and
which has little to do with virtue, is exemplified above all in Fernán
Gómez, for he believes that his social position allows him to indulge
his every whim at the expense of others, and fails to acknowledge
that it carries with it certain obligations to those in his charge. He
does not, of course, consider that the peasants possess honour and
that his violation of the village women and his abduction of Laurencia
therefore dishonours them. The play suggests, too, that those who
have prospered in life and put behind them their lowly origins are
also entitled to respect and esteem, as in the case of Laurencia's
father, Esteban, who has risen to a position of authority and power in
the village. But above all, Lope advances in many of the characters
the concept of honour as moral virtue. It is embodied in the Catholic
Kings, as well as in many of the villagers. Frondoso shows great
respect for Laurencia and her father, his honest love a complete
contrast to Fernán Gómez's lust. And Laurencia herself, abducted by
the latter's men, reveals herself to be a woman of principle and
integrity, not least in her efforts to inspire the villagers to take
revenge upon their unscrupulous overlord.

A fourth theme, closely linked to some of the play's other concerns, is that of love, which in turn leads to harmony.
¹⁰
The relationship between Laurencia and Frondoso is one form of it, but
love exists too in the respect and loyalty of the villagers towards
each other, as well as in their feelings towards their country and its
rulers, the Catholic Kings. The love of the people is in turn
reciprocated by Fernando and Isabel ( Ferdinand and Isabella), for they
feel a strong obligation to the subjects they rule and to the general
well-being of the country. The harmony which exists between
Laurencia and Frondoso is thus seen to exist on a broader front in
consequence of people's love and mutual respect, and this in turn
reflects a divinely created universe distinguished by the love of God.

Fernán Gómez is the very opposite of selflessness, for he is always
motivated by self-love and, far from creating harmony, his influence
is constantly disruptive of the lives of Laurencia and Frondoso, as
well as of the villagers' lives in general. His treachery towards the
Catholic Kings, embodied in the Ciudad Real episode

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and stemming from his own self-interest, also threatens national and
political harmony, for it disrupts the attempts of Fernando and Isabel
to bring peace, justice, and order to Castile. In the sense that man
and his world is a microcosm of a divinely ordered universe, Fernán
Gómez is also an embodiment of the evil which constantly threatens to
disrupt that order. Only with the death of the Commander and the final
judgement of the Catholic Kings are order and harmony restored on
every level.

A particularly striking feature of the play is the diversity and liveliness of its characters.
¹¹
From the outset Fernán Gómez is portrayed as a man who, in order to
satisfy his desires, rides roughshod over everyone. The ruthlessness
of his political ambitions is seen to be paralleled by his lust for
the young women of Fuente Ovejuna which, when frustrated, turns to
violence. He does not hesitate to take revenge on those who thwart his
attempts to take advantage of their women or to have them abducted,
as in Laurencia's case. In his relationships with noblemen, servants,
and villagers alike, Fernán Gómez is seen to be the very embodiment of
arrogance, impatience, and cruelty: in short, a monster who has no
redeeming virtues but who, in his excesses, is the very stuff of
drama.

Of the villagers, Laurencia is
particularly striking. Spirited in her relationship with Frondoso,
her true integrity and independence of spirit emerge after her escape
from the Commander, when she confronts the men of the village and urges
them to take action against him. Her great speech is one in which,
however outraged she may feel, her arguments are carefully marshalled
for maximum effect, revealing her to be a woman of intelligence as
well as courage. She is indeed a true match for the villainous
Commander, and in every respect one of the most memorable and heroic
female characters in Golden Age theatre.

Frondoso is in some ways a kindred spirit: like her an opponent of
Fernán Gómez and, in his selfless love for Laurencia, his complete
opposite. Indeed, it is this selfless love which underpins his
defiance of the Commander, for, despite the risks involved, he is less
concerned with his own safety than with Laurencia's. Nevertheless,
unlike Fernán Gómez he is always in control of his passions, and his
behaviour, whether in relation to Laurencia's father, the

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Commander, or the Catholic Kings, is invariably governed by a sense of what is correct.

The other villagers are also vividly drawn. Mengo is the
gracioso,
the typical comic character in Golden Age plays who has his origins
in the quick-witted servants of Roman and, later, Italian comedy, but
his moments of bravery make him more than just the village funny-man.
Pascuala, resisting Fernán Gómez, defending Frondoso, and joining in
the rebellion, is Laurencia in a minor key. Barrildo, arguing that
ideal love is entirely spiritual, is an unusually intelligent peasant.
Esteban, Laurencia's father, is a man to be admired: a loving father
and, as a magistrate, a defender of his fellow citizens against Fernán
Gómez's abuses. In short, although Lope places great emphasis on
Fuente Ovejuna as a community -- 'Fuente Ovejuna did it' -- the
peasant characters are sharply differentiated from one another and
presented as individuals in their own right.

Apart from Fernán Gómez, the nobility is represented by Rodrigo
Téllez Girón. Because he is young and inexperienced, he is easily
manipulated by the much more worldly Commander, notably in relation to
the attack on Ciudad Real. His impulsive youthfulness is revealed too
when, on learning of Fernán Gómez's murder, he vows to raze Fuente
Ovejuna to the ground. But he also has good qualities: brave in battle
and ultimately loyal to the Catholic Kings, towards whom he has acted
treacherously and misguidedly. The latter are, of course, idealized
figures, but they too have their touches of individuality, especially
in their love and respect for each other.

The Knight from Olmedo
was written sometime between 1620 and 1625, probably around 1620, but
the first edition did not appear until some twenty years later, when
it was included in Volume 24 of Lope's plays, published in 1641 in
Zaragoza.
¹²
At the time of composition
Lope was almost 60, and the play was therefore the work of a man who
had enjoyed considerable experience of life, as well as of writing for
the theatre.

One possible source was
a real event which occurred in 1521, involving the murder of a
certain Don Juan de Vivero on the road

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between the towns of Medina and Olmedo by Don Miguel Ruiz, also from
Olmedo, and three of his men. This event may have given rise to a
popular ballad which described the murder of 'the knight from Olmedo',
and this in turn became the inspiration for the various forms of the
story which followed.
¹³
Against this, it
has been suggested that the song which in Act Three of Lope's play is
sung by a peasant ('For at night they killed | That noble soul, | The
jewel of Medina, | The flower of Olmedo'), appeared for the first
time in print in an anonymous play called
The Knight from Olmedo
, published in 1606.
¹⁴
An even more likely source for Lope's play was, however, another anonymous play, the
Dance of the Knight from Olmedo (Baile del Caballero de Olmedo)
,
which appeared in print in 1617 in Volume 7 of Lope's plays and was
attributed to him, though there is no clear evidence that he wrote it.
The 'dance'
(baile)
was in fact a kind of interlude,
consisting of a mixture of dance, song, and spoken word which, in the
early seventeenth century, was introduced between the acts of
full-length plays in order to provide the audience with additional
entertainment. The play in question contains many details which find an
echo in Lope's third Act.
¹⁵
And finally, he was undoubtedly influenced, in particular in Acts One and Two, by Fernando de Rojas
La Celestina
,
first published in 1499 and one of the truly great and influential
works in the whole of Spanish literature. The story of the young
couple, Calisto and Melibea, whose love-affair is placed in the hands
of the cunning go-between Celestina, and which ends tragically, has
many clear points of contact with Lope's play.

Lope called
The Knight from Olmedo a tragicomedia
,
yet from beginning to end, and despite its many comic moments, the
play is characterized by an underlying darkness, as well as by a deep
tragic irony.
¹⁶
In the popular ballad
which the peasant sings in Act Three, there is, for example, an
ambiguity -- the brightest jewel of Olmedo meets his end in darkest
night -- which exists throughout the play in the form of the
love-death contrast. This was, of course, a common-

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place in the poetry of the Golden Age, as it was indeed in European poetry in general, but in
The Knight from Olmedo
Lope develops the theme in a way which makes it central to the play's
meaning. When, for example, Alonso first describes the beauty of Inés
(1.63-150), he observes, in relation to some of her admirers, that
her eyes 'spared many lives' but, in the case of others, inflicted
'the mortal wound'. As far as he is concerned, her love for him gives
him life, notably when he is with her, while his absences from her
deprive him of true life and constitute a living death. What is more,
there is a very strong suggestion from the very beginning that the
love of Alonso and Inés is inevitable, predestined, determined by the
stars. In his opening speech Alonso wonders if between him and Inés
there is a 'correspondence which is mutual' (1.16), while at the end
of Act Two Tello has no doubts on the matter: 'We all | Know love is
written in one's star!' (2.699-700). In short, the themes of love and
death are also linked to the theme of fate, and what on one level may
seem to be a commonplace in the literature of the period, begins to
take on a deeper meaning as the action of the play unfolds.

The fateful outcome is, of course, already announced in the play's title,
The Knight from Olmedo
,
which, for Lope and his contemporaries -- as well as for anyone
familiar with Spanish literature -- is inevitably associated with the
murder of the hero by his enemies on the road to his home town.
References in the text to
La Celestina
would also have
indicated to an audience of the time that Alonso's fate would be that
of the tragic Calisto. And if this were not enough, Alonso compares
himself at the beginning of Act Two to Leander, who each day swam the
Hellespont to see his beloved Hero (2.2530), and who, as any educated
audience would know, drowned while doing so. Similarly, Alonso is
described by Fabia in terms of Hector, Achilles, and Adonis, classical
heroes who all suffered a premature death. And so, in this context, the
love-death-fate triangle, prominent already in the early part of the
play, gradually assumes a deeper and darker significance, as well as a
grim irony, as the action unfolds. In Act Three, prior to his murder,
Alonso comes to Inés's window as if he 'had no life' (3.263). In the
poem which he recites to Inés before his departure, he observes: 'I am
convinced I am to die' (3.305); 'I go, then, to my death . . .'
(3.331); 'How can I not be dead when I arrive?' (3.335). Furthermore,
the irony in Alonso's words is to be found too in the comments of his
deadly rival, Rodrigo.

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