¹ See M. Romera-Navarro, Hist, de la lit. esp. (1928), p. 338; Hurtado y González Palencia, Hist, de la lit. esp. (1932), p. 637; Valbuena Prat, Hist. de la lit. esp. (1937), ii, 285. However, Cejador has written, Hist. de la leng. y lit. cast. (1916), iv, 257: “El príncipe don Carlos [de Diego Jiménez de Enciso] es, sin duda, el mejor drama histórico del siglo xvii.”

² Hist. de la lit. y del arte dramático en España (1887), iii, 434–435. Agustín Durán was the first of the 19th-century critics to point out its exceptional worth as a historical drama (BAE, v, 719). It has been a favorite not only with the critics but also with the general public. Miss Bushee starts her bibliography of La prudencia en la mujer with the following statement: “La prudencia en la mujer may be counted among the most fortunate of Tirso de Molina's plays, not only in the favor with which it has been received on the stage but also in the number of times it has been published in various forms.” See Hisp. Rev., i, (1933), 271–283; reprinted in her Three Centuries of Tirso de Molina (Philadelphia, 1939), pp. 29–14.

³ Geschichte des spanischen Nationaldramas (1890), i, 342.

⁴ “Las mujeres de Tirso”, Del Siglo de Oro (Madrid, 1910), pp. 259–261. Señora de los Ríos has pointed out the strong analogies that undoubtedly exist between La prudencia and La república al revés. Of these two plays of Tirso she has written, Obras dramáticas completas (Madrid, 1946), i, 237–238: “Visible es también la semejanza entre ambas augustas madres en los Consejos que una y otra dan al hijo a quien entregan el cetro; aunque los consejos difieran entre sí cuanto diferían la época y los personajes. La prudencia (a. iii, e.i.), La república (a. i, e. ii).” Señora de los Ríos dates La república al revés “@1611?” and La pudencia she would place in 1621, as we shall see. E. H. Templin had earlier pointed out this same interrelationship: “Another Instance of Tirso's Self-Plagiarism”, Hisp. Rev., v (1937), 176–180. Mr. Templin argues that La república is the later work. I shall on another occasion discuss both date and relationship in some detail.

⁵ “La prudence chez la femme, drame historique de Tirso de Molina”, Études sur l'Espagne. troisième série (Paris, 1904), pp. 28–29, 69.

⁶ The book evidently did not come off press until at least the middle of the following year, for its tasa is dated June 17, 1619. However, in citing as sources for the Benavides family Salazar de Mendoza's study and Argote de Molina's Nobleza del Andalucía (princeps: Sevilla, 1588), Morel-Fatio rules out as a possible source (because it was in MS) the genealogical work of one Martín López de Lezana. For reasons which will be evident later, I think it entirely possible that Tirso may have had access to the family records of the Benavides. Moreover, as Menéndez y Pelayo pointed out, Obras de Lope de Vega, ix, lxxix, the history of the Caravajales is found in the fifteenth-century Valerio de las historias escolásticas by the Arcipreste de Santibáñez, Diego Rodríguez de Almela.

⁷ Op. cit., p. 51.

⁸ El teatro español: historiay antología (Madrid, 1942–43), ii, 805–806.

⁹ In a letter written to Miss Bushee on August 25, 1939, Juan Millé y Giménez stated that he believed Tirso wrote La prudencia in 1621–22. He based his conclusions, however, primarily on the fact that it is one of the plays whose concluding lines carry Tirso's name, all of which he believed composed in these two years. The eleven which come within that category are: La gallega Mari-Hernández, La celosa de sí misma, Amor y celos hacen discretos, Por el sótano y el torno, La prudencia en la mujer, El amor y el amistad, La ventura con el nombre, El melancólico, La fingida Arcadia, Los lagos de San Vicente, El Aquiles. I shall discuss Millé y Giménez's thesis on another occasion.

¹⁰ La esfera, xvii (Oct. 4, 1930). I am indebted to Miss Bushee for her gracious loan of both this article and Millé y Giménez's letter, cited above.

¹¹ Cartas de Andrés de Almansay Mendoza (Madrid, 1886), pp. 47–48.

¹² Morel-Fatio has discussed at some length the episode wherein the Jew Ishmael attempts to poison the young prince, pointing out that Sancho iv had entrusted his health to a Hebrew, “don Habraam”, but adding: “… il est souvent question dans la chronique d'un autre circoncis du nom de Simuel, auquel le jeune roi avait accordé toute sa confiance at qui s'efforça en une occurrence de brouiller le fils avec la mère.” See Études sur l'Espagne troisième série, p. 61. The French critic has also agreed with Hartzenbusch (as do I) that the episode of the falling picture in Tirso's play (ii, ii), which forms an indispensable part of the poison scenes, had its origin in Damián Salustrio (sic) del Poyo's Prpspera y adversa fortuna de Ruy López Dávalos (Valencia, 1611?; Barcelona, 1612), wherein the attempt of the Hebraic physician, don Mair, to administer poison to Henry III is prevented by the fall of Catharine of Lancaster's picture.

Another version of the same episode may be found also in Quevedo's Grandes anales, according to don Florencio Janer, BAE, lxix, 571 a: “Entre los sucesos notables que Quevedo cita en su Historia de muchos siglos y anales de quince días …, cita la muerte de la duquesa de Nájera … muerta de la contusión que le hizo en la cabeza un cuadro que cayó sobre ella, en donde estaba la historia de los siete infantes de Lara.” I must confess that repeated search on my part has failed to enable me to find any reference in the Grandes anales to this episode. What is more, if she was so killed, it happened on June 25, 1627, some years after La prudencia was written. See Angel González Palencia's Noticias de Madrid (Madrid, 1942), p. 162, and Astrana Marín's Obras de Quevedo en verso (Madrid, 1932), p. 471. The latter dates Quevedo's sonnet on the duquesa de Nájera's death June 26, 1627. For the use of the episode in another play of Tirso's theatre, see below, n. 94.

Certain other things may be pointed out: 1) in Tirso's theatre one finds before 1620—by which year the dramatist had changed his residence to Madrid—very little evidence of any anti-Semitic feeling, such as is manifested not only in these scenes but also in the advice which the Queen later gives her son (iii. i. 300 b); 2) the revival of the theme of the privado's rise and fall was inevitable in Spanish drama at the time of Calderón's trial and death and it would therefore have been logical that Tirso should have recalled at this moment the scene from D. Salustio del Poyo's play, particularly since the poison-motif had been revived by the trial of don Rodrigo.

All references in this study to Tirso's editions are: for his plays, BAE, v, and NBAE, iv, ix; for his Cigarrales, ed. Said Armesto (“transcrita y revisada”, but without place or date); for his Deleytar aprovechando, Madrid, 1635.

¹³ Morel-Fatio has pointed out the possible significance of this allusion for the date of the play, Bull. Hisp., ii, 202. In this same connection he has also referred to Juan de Quiñones' Tratado, published in Madrid in 1620, though the aprobaciones are dated as early as Nov. 12, 1619. It had previously been presented in the palace as a memorial on Aug. 26, 1619. The author quotes a letter from one don Francisco de Salvatierra, “Alcalde del crimen en la chancillería de Granada”, who had been particularly successful in fighting the pest. While the latter had not ruled out natural methods as well, he ends his account with this warning, f. 79^v: “… los ejércitos destas aves volátiles son de manera que parece que no hay fuerzas humanas para poderlos contrastar; y así el verdadero camino es acudir a los exorcismos de la Iglesia, sufragios yrogativas, que en esto he hallado yo el remedio de tan grande ruina, como nos podiamos prometer; y así en orden al buen suceso, habré mandado decir más de cuatro mil misas, f uera de otras rogativas, procesiones generales, salves y ayunos que se han hecho, y muchos conjuradores, así clérigos como religiosos que se han traído, de cuya gracia, en virtud destas divinas palabras, se ha esperado y tenido buen suceso …” Don Francisco had even erected a chapel in the convent of San Francisco to St. Gregory, Bishop of Ostia, “para que los fieles en esta plaga le tomen por su patrón y alcancen por su medio el remedio, que fuerzas humanas no bastan para caso tan trabajoso y peligroso.” He claims, f. 75^r: “hasta ahora se han cogido y muerto quinientas mil f anegas de langosta y gastádose noventa mil ducados poco más o menos, de los cuales le dió prestados su Majestad del Rey, Nuestro Señor … los treinta mil.” That the author of the Tratado feared opposition from some members of the clergy Cat least in getting their financial cooperation) may be seen in the fourth chapter headed: “A cuya costa se han de remediar y si han de contribuir en ella los eclesiásticos, monasterios y nobles y las demás personas exentas y qué juez ha de compeler a los eclesiásticos.”

¹⁴ Obras en prosa (Madrid, 1941), p. 59. The reference “mandamos que no haya seda sobre seda ni marido sobre marido …”, makes virtually certain that these premáticas were refashioned in late 1622 or early 1623 when the decrees of this period against luxury were in process of formation and publication. For references to seda sobre seda, see my “Certain Phases of the Sumptuary Decrees of 1623 …”, Hisp. Rev., x (1942), 102.

¹⁶ Obras en prosa, pp. 217–218. The dedication to “doña Mirena Riqueza” (i.e., María Enríquez) is dated April 6, 1622, but one reads, p. 216: “Qué año es este?—De seiscientos y veinte y uno—respondí.” All references to Quevedo's work in this study are to the Astrana Marín editions cited above (i.e., Obras en verso, 1932; Obras en prosa, 1941) unless it be otherwise stated.

¹⁶ Obras en verso, p. 563. Astrana Marín does not date the entremés.

¹⁷ Ed. Cotarelo y Mori, El conde de Villamediana (Madrid, 1886), p. 285. The second verse I have quoted makes sense only if “no” is amended to “nos.”

¹⁸ Ed. Colección Selecta de Anliguas Novelas Españolas (Madrid, 1909), xii, 200–201. The princeps (Madrid, 1624) bears Lope de Vega's aprobación, dated Jan. 30, 1624, and a tasa of April 23 of this same year. This particular aviso (vii) carries in its concluding lines the words: “Parnaso y Julio, primero de 1623.”

¹⁹ Ed. cit., p. 591. Quevedo returns to the subject of the vassal and his taxes in Política, de Dios, gobierno de Crista Nuestro Señor, Obras en prosa, caps, viii–ix, 446–455. He here stresses the taxpayers' rights and the sense of responsibility that should characterize the ruler when levying new tribute.

²⁰ It was dissolved on April 14, 1629, having spent most of its time (as had the preceding one) in trying to solve this insoluble problem. The last session of Philip III's reign, sitting from Feb. 4, 1617 to March 28, 1620, had wrestled mightily in an attempt to bring about fiscal and economic reform. Their demand for change was gradually to spread in all directions and to culminate in the famous consulta of 1619, which was fathered by the Royal Council. Its recommendations, met, however, with little real support from Philip III and Uceda. With the accession of Philip IV, reform elements took on a new lease of life, one that lasted until at least 1625–26 but which reached its height of intensity in the fall of 1622 and early 1623. Hardly a book came cut between the years 1619–23 which does not show some impress of the reform spirit.

On this movement and its reflection in the literature of the day, I gave in early 1946 a series of lectures in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. This analysis of La prudencia en la mujer (without documentation) formed part of that series. The more general study will ultimately appear in print, and with it further documentation that might well have appeared in this monograph, had space permitted.

²¹ The name Biedma, is interestingly enough, linked with that of the Caravajales and Benavides. Argote de Molina, in his Nobleza del Andalucía, tells us: “ … Alfonso García de Carvajal … casó con Teresa Rodríguez de Biedma, hija de Alonso Sánchez de Biedma, hermano de Men Rodríguez de Benavides, primer señor de Santistevan y hijo de Día Sánchez de Biedma …” (quoted from Morel-Fatio, p. 55). In the account which García Carraffa (Enciclopedia heráldica y genealógica hispano-americana) gives of the Benavides, there are, in the main line (Condes de Santisteban del Puerto), repeated marriages between the Benavides and the Biedmas.

²² See the first of his memoriales, f. l^r. There were three separate ones. The first, a study presented in schematic form wherein the Granadan analyzes the realm's problems and suggests suitable remedies, was first presented to the procuradores on July 28, 1621, and then, on the following June 27, 1622, handed to the King as a memorial. The latter had, however, evidently been made acquainted with its contents before the dissolution of the Cortes on Nov. 19, 1621. See p. 1155 below. The Segunda parte destos discursos y apuntamientos takes up the three remedies which the junta, appointed by the King after the dissolution of the Cortes, had suggested: 1) a yearly tax of more than two million escudos with which to maintain a standing army of 20,000 soldiers, this to take the place of the former so-called millones granted on a several-year basis; 2) a forthright gift to the Royal Treasury of 5% of every citizen's entire worldly possessions; 3) establishment of public granaries for the poor from the substance and fortunes of his vassals, together with the suppression of some offices and the sale of new ones. On Nov. 24, 1622, Lisón y Biedma gave the King his second memorial, an impassioned plea against the junta's recommendations. Still not content, this representative wrote an espejo de príncipes, dated June 13, 1623, which he entitled Desengaño de rey y apuntamientos para su gobierno: diálogos entre rey poderoso, reino afligido, consejero apasionado, ofrecidos a la Real Persona. The consejero apasionado is Lisón y Biedma himself, and surely no king ever received more passionately frank advice from a subject.

²³ Lisón y Biedma was probably the borrower, for his Desengaño de rey y apuntamientos para su gobierno (38^v) would seem also to reflect another work of Tirso's. Having pointed first to the “pérdidas, clamores, y desventuras de vasallos”, Lisón y Biedma then points his accusing finger straight at those who, “haciendo mudanzas de floreo, de gustos y entretenimientos …, se cargan los pechos que apuran los vasallos para hacer las fiestasque ordenan los ministros y privados. !Buena mudanza!” The whole passage is, in spirit, very reminiscent of Tirso's No le arriendo la ganancia, where the flighty La Mudanza and the envious El Poder, in unholy alliance, nearly bring Honor to destruction. Tirso tells us this auto, first printed in his Deleytar aprovechando (1635), was “no poco aplaudido años ha en esta corte, representándolo Pinedo en presencia del pacífico Felipe tercero.” Sra. Blanca de los Ríos dates it “1612 o 1613”, Obras dramáticas completas, i, 491. It was, I suspect, retouched around 1621–23. There are other metaphors in Lisón y Biedma's Desengaño de rey … that suggest he had been reading Tirso's works recently. I shall return to the whole problem on another occasion.

²⁴ This Biblical metaphor is, of course, a commonplace, to be found not only in many of the de regimine principum of all ages and climes, but also in other Spanish authors of the day. Baltasar Mateo Velásquez, in the beginning of the “Conversatión tercera” of his El filosófo del aldea (princeps: Madrid, 1624), uses among other comparisons both of Lisón y Biedma's: “El rey es el médico de las enfermedades de sus vasallos; juzga a los ambiciosos y trata a los necesitados como a convalecientes. El rey es come el pastor con sus ovejas; procúrelas apacentar en los floridos prados y fértiles tierras; dé su buen ejemplo, guárdelas del lobo de mala vecindad y mala doctrina. A la ovejuela flaca, llévela en los hombros; a la oveja golosa y a la cabra espántele los oídos con la honda; y si no bastare, quiébrele con el cayado la pierna, que para esto le lleva en las manos.” See ed. Cotarelo y Mori (Madrid, 1906), p. 226.

²⁵ Ed. cit., p. 573. Further documentation could be given if space permitted.

²⁶ I shall deal with fiscal and economic conditions in my general study. See note 20 above.

²⁷ iii, i. 300b. Similarly, Philip III had (when dying) made this one of his recommendations to his heir. See Martin Hume, The Court of Philip IV (1907), p. 37. It was the usual formula, I suspect, of all preceptistas who supposed Machiavellianism.

²⁸ I shall have to leave the proof of my statement as to the date for a detailed analysis of this play and others of Tirso dealing with the same theme.

²⁹ Ed. cit., pp. 240–243. The first date is that of Philip IV's accession to the throne, the latter that of the first aproboción of the Cigarrales. The existence of a 1621 edition has been called into question. For proof that it did exist, see my study “On the Date of Five Plays by Tirso de Molina”, Hisp. Rev., x (1942), 205–207.

One of the laudatory poems preceding the main text of the Cigarrales is that of “dona Maria de San Ambrosio y Piña, monja en la Magdalena de Madrid.” One may strongly suspect that this is Tirso's sister, the same one to whom he refers in the Cigarrales (p. 103) and the same one to whom he sent the prize he won: “y el ultimo [i.e., Tirso] se le envió a una hermana suya que tenía en su patria [i.e., Madrid], parecida a él en ingenio y desdichas.” The sisterly tone of pride in “Gabriel's” accomplished dream seems evident: “La fama, eterna alabanza/ya no espera, no porfía,/si el libro en quien la tenía/ya es gloria, no es ya esperanza./Solo vuestro ingenio alcanza/ con el arte y la experiencia/esencia y ser de la ciencia,/ délfico aliento de infusa,/lauro eterno vuestra musa,/luz, Gabriel, de inteligenica.”

I should like to take this occasion to acknowledge a deep debt of gratitude to Father Manuel Penedo, a Mercedarian in the chapter at Madrid (Duque de Sexto, 32), who spent many hours of his valuable time in an effort to help me identify “doña María de San Ambrosio y Piña.” His search in the convent of the Magdalenas of Madrid revealed that many of the records of this order were lost in the recent civil war. Nor was he able to clear up the matter from such others as are found in the Archivo Histórico Nacional.

Attention of Tirsoan scholars (in America and elsewhere) should be called to the fact that Father Penedo has now finished the transcription of Tirso's Historia de la Merced and that he has recently published certain important documents in the new review, Estudios, which the Mercedarians are editing: “Muerte documentada del Padre Maestro Fray Gabriel Téllez en Almazán, y otras referencias biográficas”—among them, one which shows Tirso to have been in the convent of his order at Valladolid on June 14, 1619—i (1945), 192–204; “Noviciado y profesión de Tirso de Molina”, i (1945), 87–103. In the second number (193–194), one finds also a review of the study by the Marqués de Saltillo, “Tirso de Molina en Soria”; and in one of 1946 (pp. 60–115), a further study, by Father Gumersindo Placer López, entitled “Los lacayos de las comedias de Tirso de Molina.” Another recent discovery of great interest to students of Tirso is the document, discovered by Srta. Elena Lázaro, archivist in the Ayuntamiento of Cuenca, and brought out by Señora Blanca de los Ríos in ABC (August 22, 1946) under the title, “Aparece un importante documento de

Tirso de Molina.“ It shows that in 1640 Tirso was in the monastery at Cuenca, banished unjustly from his convent in Madrid—or so Tirso felt—by ”el primer maestro frai Marcos de Salmerón, visitador general del convento de nuestra señora de las mercedes de Madrid. …“

Since the above was written, word has come to me of three other studies that will have a genuine interest for every student of Tirso. See: Ricardo del Arco y Garay, “La sociedad española en Tirso de Molina”, Revista International de Sociología, viii (1944), 175–190, and x, xi–xii, (1945), 459–477, 335–359; Sra. Blanca de los Ríos, “Exaltatión de la hispanidad en Tirso de Molina”, Mediterráneo (1944), nos. 7 and 8; Santiago Montoto, “Una comedia de Tirso, que no es de Tirso”, Archivo Hispalense, vii (Sevilla, 1946), 99–107. The last-mentioned article proves conclusively that La Reina de los Reyes (Princeps: Parte II, 1635) is not Tirso's play but Hipólito de Vergara's, written in 1623.

³⁰ But the Conde-Duque de Olivares was no mean opponent. Already by Nov. 21, 1621, he had seen the danger. As the heaviest recipient of the King's mercedes, he wrote his young King a letter, one whose sincerity his enemies doubted in the light of the many favors he had accepted: “Véome a mi más obligado al real servicio de V. M. que otro ningún vasallo, y me juzgo deudor de proponer a V. M. lo que pudiere acreditar su gobierno. Y si bien deseo a V. M. amado de sus vasallos, y a todos ellos desearé beneficiados de su liberalidad y grandeza, sería grave culpa en mi si no suplicase a V. M. que la detenga en las mercedes que hubieren de salir de su real Erario, que con la noticia que tengo del estado de ella, no sólo parece justa esta limitatión, pero digna de todo gobierno prudente …; deseo, Señor, que V. M. tenga por bien de ceñirse voluntariamente a no hacer merced de lo que puede por no f altar a lo que debe. Casi todos los reyes y príncipes de Europa son émulos de la grandeza de V. M. Es el principal apoyo y defensa de la Religión Católica; y por esto ha roto la guerra con los holandeses y con los demás enemigos de la Iglesia que los asisten; y la principal obligatión de V. M. es defenderse y ofenderlos. El fundamento para todo es la hacienda; [y] la del patrimonio de V. M. está vendida o empeñada. Vive hoy V. M. de lo que contribuyen sus vasallos, desangrándose para esto con verdadero amor y fidelidad. Mire V. M. si puede disiparse .... Bien quisiera ver a V. M. en estado que pudiera imitar a los reyes que más han venerado los siglos por acciones grandes y acertado gobierno; pero como las obras heroicas en los reyes, aunque tienen principio del ánimo y virtud propia, no pueden ejecutarse sin hacienda, porque consiste la majestad en el poder, mal podemos los que ama-mos a V. M. aconsejarle imitaciones grandes, si primero no se ajusta V. M. a las disposiciones necesarias para conseguirlas dichosamente. Ninguna es más precisa que excusar gastos y mercedes voluntarias e inoficiosas …; se deshace la generosidad en el desperdicio como todas las virtudes en los extremos.” See G. Marañón, El conde, duque de Olivares (Madrid, 1936), pp. 422–425.

³¹ See my “Studies for the Chronology of Tirso's Theatre”, Hisp. Rev., xi (1943), 35–38. Therein I have included a note on Soplillo. For further information on this pygmy, see Alfonso Reyes' “Ruiz de Alarcón y las fiestas de Baltasar Carlos”, Rev. Hisp., xxxvi (1916), 175–176, n. 6; José Moreno Villa, Locos, enanos, negros y niños palaciegos (Mexico, 1939), pp. 143–144.

³² A reference to his size as well as his “malice”, since the “casa a la malicia” was one of a single story. Almost certainly, too, Quevedo had this dwarf in mind when sketching Violin of Cómo ha de ser el privado, on whose strings are sounded all the gossip of the court and who, in exchange for his services as go-between, does not hesitate to ask for his reward. See, for instance, ed. Artigas (Madrid, 1927), pp. 66–67.

³³ “El panegirico de Plinio”, en caslellano … en alabanza del mejor principe Trajano augusto … traducido del Latín … ilustrado con varias notas y diez discursos (Madrid, 1787), pp. 174, 213–217 (Princeps: Madrid, 1622). As of May 1623, one reads in Almansa y Mendoza's Cartas (p. 191): “… su Majestad dió otra cadena de cuatrocientos escudos a un bufón inglésque trajo consigo el Príncipe [i.e., de Gales].” But Philip was giving his buffoons ndirectly much more impressive sums. Turning again to the Cartas (pp. 53, 57, 77), we read that the duque de Ariscot, ambassador of the Archduke Albert of Flanders, had received from his young Spanish sovereign some time before Aug. 31, 1621 “merced de una coronelía de alemanes con quinientos ducados al mes” as well as “el sueldo que antes tenía”,—with which addition the royal gift was increased in its totality to “ocho mil ducados cada año.” The political realist might possibly conclude that there was some relation between this news and the fact that this same duque de Ariscot, when leaving the court shortly before Oct. 14, 1621, generously distributed “entre los criados del rey, truanes y otros, más de seis mil ducados.” Perhaps the political pessimist might even have the evil thought that Soplillo may have received a generous portion of this sum (and in return for services rendered!) when he discovered that Soplillo was a fellow-countryman of the duque de Ariscot, “enviado de Flandes por doña Isabel Clara Eugenia a Felipe IV, siendo éste Princípe to-davía [in 1615].” See Moreno Villa, p. 144; he also prints his regular salary. This can hardly fail to be Tirso's bufón of Los hermanos parecidos, satirized as “un bufón que tira gajes de cuantos él aconseja, porque es corredor de oreja y habla en diversos lenguajes en vituperio y favor. …” He took part in the presentation of La gloria de Niquea, in May, 1622.

³⁴ This metaphor of the ivy and the cypress was perhaps adapted from Salas Barbadillo's La peregrinaciôn sabia. See n. 62 below. Prof. Anibal points out to me, however, that “the parasitic ivy that overwhelms the cypress has all the earmarks of having been drawn from some book of Emblemas morales” from which both authors may well have borrowed it. The suggestion is an excellent one, though such search as I could make has not enabled me to find an exact source. Alciati, Los emblemas … traducidos en rhymas españolas (Lyon, 1549), pp. 186–199, offers, for instance, emblems on the following trees and vines: el ciprés, la encina, la cascoja, la yedra, el box, el naranjo, el álamo bianco, el sauce, el almendro, and el moral. But the characteristics Alciati assigns the yedra are not those of either Matías de los Reyes or Salas Barbadillo. However, there were many other emblem books.

³⁵ The task of moralists like Lisón y Biedma was not made easier in 1623 by the presence of such blithe spirits as Prince Charles and the Duke of Buckingham. Let us again turn to the indispensable letters of Almansa y Mendoza where we read this bit of gossip, ed. cit., p. 193: “Dícese que a diez déste [i.e., June, 1623, just three days before Lisón y Biedma's Desengaño was dated] llevó el duque de Boquingán al Príncipe, en secreto, en coche cerrado a casa de Vicente Juárez, músico de cámara de su Majestad, para que se entretuviera, oyendo cantar dos hijas que tiene, y después de haber cantado y tañido en todos instrumentos con notable destreza más de una hora, de que su Alteza quedó muy gustoso y alegre, pidió el Duque la hija mayor para que sirviese a la Duquesa y dió a cada una una cadena de trescientos escudos y ellas las recibieron con mucha cortesía sin responder entonces a lo demás.”

³⁶ Epislolario español, BAE, lxii, 61. See Hume, p. 54, for the translation given. 37 Ed. Artigas, Teatro inédito … de Quevedo (Madrid, 1927), Act i, p. 19.

³⁸ The name may or may not be significant. In any case, María Calderón, the King's mistress for many years and mother of his son, Don Juan of Austria (born April 7, 1629), acted the rôle of “Serafina” in Lope's El poder en el discreto, an autograph dated May 8, 1623. In this play, the King of Sicily is in love with “Serafina.” Bernardino de Pantorba, in his study Felipe IV y su êpoca (Madrid, undated), p. 146, states: “Los amores del epicúreo Felipe IV con la Calderona, supónese que empezaron en 1627 …, contando [ella] diez y seis [años] de edad. …” Yet “in March, 1623, she was the wife of Pablo Sarmiento, and both were in the company of Juan Bautista Valenciano. …” She “appeared in Lope's El poder en el discreto (1624).” See Rennert, The Spanish Stage (New York, 1909), p. 440.

³⁹ Ed. cit., pp. 223–237. The exemplary story outlined below begins on p. 231.

⁴⁰ The scene in Tirso's Antona Garcia (iii. iii. 634a), wherein the Castellanos 5° and 6° are satirically advised to take their tropelías (juegos de manos), and their títeres to court, could be directed against these same people. It is one which is evidently autobiographic, and one in which the “Seventh Castilian” (clearly Tirso) “has been robbed by envy of his very name.” Baltasar Mateo Velásquez, at one point (p. 229), specifically mentions “juegos de manos.”

⁴¹ In other plays of this same epoch, Tirso has spoken more clearly concerning the King's amours. Hume has this to say on Philip's companions (Court of Philip IV, p. 46): “Though in public he assumed the marble gravity traditional thenceforward in Spanish kings, he was gay and witty in private discourse with those whose society he enjoyed, especially writers and players.” Pantorba (p. 119) sums the matter up in this fashion: “Con las aficiones de este rey podríamos jugar, f ormando una rosa de los vientos que apuntara así: al norte, las mujeres; al sur, las comedias; al este, la caza; y al oeste, los toros. Felipe IV, oyendo versos en la escena, demostraba tener buen gusto; cobrando piezas, se acreditaba de cazador; montando a caballo, lucía gallarda figura; y delante de las mujeres … perdía los estribos.” At the risk of damaging the author's neat epigram, one must add to this compass of Philip's affections two others: his buffoons, and his privado. See also J. Deleito Piñuela, El rey se divierte (Madrid, 1935), pp. 17–30.

⁴² María de Molina (Madrid, 1936), pp. 139–148 passim.

⁴³ MS. 2395, N.B., f. 111^v.

⁴⁴ The body of the didactic literature between 1619 and 1625 is tremendous. At the 1944 meeting of the MLA, I had occasion to discuss it and give some idea of the reflections it has left in the literature of the day.

⁴⁵ Quevedo, in not dissimilar words, sternly points out to his monarch in the Parte segunda of his Política de Dios, gobierno de Cristo: “Quien os dice, Señor, que desperdiciéis en la persecutión de las fieras las horas que piden a gritos los afligidos, ése más quiere cazaros a vos que no que vos cacéis … Muy poderoso y muy alto y muy excelente Señor, los monarcas sois jornaleros: tanto merecéis como trabajáis. El ocio es pérdida del salario.” See Astrana Marín, ed. cit., p. 465a. Just above, he has told Philip (pp. 464–465): “Que el reinar es tarea; que los cetros piden más sudor que los arados …; que la corona es peso molesto que fatiga los hombros del alma primero que las fuerzas del cuerpo …” What should be the relaxation of the King? Taking as his text the Biblical “Cansado del camino, Jesús estaba así sentado junto a la fuente”, Quevedo answers, playing on the word así: “… Señor … los reyes que imitan a Cristo y descansan así, no se descansan a sí; descansan de un trabajo con otro mayor … Señor, cuando Vuestra Majestad acaba de dar audiencia, de oír la consulta del Consejo; cuando despachó las consultas de les demás y queda forzosamente cansado, descanse así como Cristo, empezando otro trabajo.” Quevedo would have Philip discover with Fernando IV (La prudencia, i, iv. 289a): “ … infinito pesa esta corona.”

Just when Quevedo's lines were penned is far from certain. Fernández-Guerra says, BAE, xxiii, 5: “La segunda parte de la Política de Dios no llegó a su término hasta el año de 1635 …” Astrana Marín dates it 1634–35 in his Obras en prosa, pp. 418 and 483, n. 1. This work, like various others of Quevedo, would seem to have suffered many changes before reaching its final form.

⁴⁶ In the Siete partidas (ed. 1807, part, ii, tit. v, ley xx), King Alfonso had urged it, pointing out: “… ayuda mucho [la caza] a menguar los pensamientos et la saña, lo que es más menester a rey que a otro home; e sin todo aquesto da salud; ca el trabajo que en ella toma, si es con mesura, face comer et dormir bien, que es la mayor parte de la vida del home.” But he straightway adds: “pero … non deben hi meter tanta costa porque mengüe lo que han de complir, nin … tanto usar della que les embargue los otros fechos que han de facer.” Don Diego López de Haro in a memorial to Carlos V, advises “para la alegría y salud del príncipe ‘la caza y el monte‘”—Valbuena Prat, La vida española en la edad de oro (Barcelona, 1943), p. 21. The serious prelate, Juan de Mariana, in his Del rey y de la institutión real, discusses the matter under the heading “Del ejercicio del cuerpo”: “Añâdase a estos juegos la caza; enséñeseles a perseguir las fieras en campo abierto y a trepar por los montes; hágase que fatiguen el cuerpo con sed, con hambre, con trabajo”—BAE, xxxi, 506a. Don Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, in his Idea de un príncipe politico-cristiano, representada en cien empresas and dedicated to Philip IV on July 10,1640, when urging the necessity of training in arms for a king, points out: “Para mayor disposición de estos ejercicios es muy a propósito el de la caza.” But like Alfonso el Sabio, he straightway restricts it: “Todos estos ejercicios se han de usar con tal discretión que no hagan fiero y torpe el ánimo …” See BAE, xxv, 16b.

⁴⁷ Princeps: Segunda parte de Tirso de Molina (Madrid, 1635). Tirso states that only four of the plays included therein are his own. The problems of date and chronology in connection with this volume are so involved that I cannot enter into them here other than to say: 1) that this play was, in my opinion, written around the time of Rodrigo de Calderón's death; 2) I do not believe it Tirso's work. See “Discurso preliminar” to NBAE, iv, lxiv. Señora de los Ríos argues that the drama was first written around 1615 in collaboration with Quevedo, then reworked in 1621 by Tirso alone. See Obras dramaáticas completas, i, cxxxviii and 1854–56. Prof. C. Anibal would in his study, El arpa de David; Lisardo—his Pseudonym (Columbus, Ohio, 1925), pp. 161–174, claim the play for Mira de Amescua; so would E. Juliá, “Adversa fortuna de don Álvaro de Luna”, Revista de Bibliografía national, iv (1943), 147–150.

⁴⁸ Cf. the attitude of Rogerio, protagonist of El melancólico. Shortly to become ruler of Bretaña, he speaks of the chase in the following terms (i, x. 66b–67a):

La caza, ocupación que al noble muestra

del trato militar cifras y sumas …

que yo solía gozar, porque presumas

que el ver servir al viento de palestra

a escaramuzas de enemigas sumas,

mi natural inclina venturoso …

The play was in my opinion written in late 1622 or early 1623. See my article, “Studies for the Chronology of Tirso's Theatre”, Hisp. Rev., xi (1943), 17–27.

⁴⁸ This particular charge he was to repeat some years later in Las quinas de Portugal, and here Tirso's point of view is unmistakable. Don Alfonso Enríquez, young ruler of Portugal, is when the play opens given over to the pleasures of love and the chase. Separated one day from all his hunters, he meets the hermit Giraldo. The latter (who was at one time privado to his father) awakens him to his responsibilities as King and Defender of the Faith by pointing out to him (i. iii. 570b):

Son honestos ejercicios

los que imitan la milicia,

ensayando entre las fieras

burlas que enseñan las veras

cuando es menos la codicia

de esa noble ocupación

y goza de paz su estado.

The young king recognizes in the words of Giraldo a call to arms against the infidel Moor and gives his orders straightway—orders which are very reminiscent in their phrasing of young Fernando's in La prudencia, though very different indeed in application (i, v. 572b):

Cese, don Egas Muñíz,

la caza que Marte ensaya …

logremos las esperanzas

que el valor busca en las veras;

si hay moros para qué fieras?

This play, Las quinas de Portugal, could hardly have been written before 1628 since the princeps of Manuel de Faria y Sousa's Epítome (cited by Tirso as one of his sources for the play) is of that year. Sr. Juan Antonio Tamayo—in a study entitled “Los manuscritos de Las Quinas de Portugal”, Revista de Bibliografía National, iii (1942), 38–63—has not concerned himself with the question of the date, though he does show that MS. M-180 of the Biblioteca Nacional, dated 1638, is not an autograph as has often been asserted. My examination of the MS, carried out some years ago, led me to the same conclusions as those reached by Sr. Tamayo. I am indebted to Prof. G. E. Wade for a gift of this article.

⁶⁰ The name of Monroy is another linked with Tirso's life and theatre. Not only was Fray Alonso de Monroy general of this dramatist's order, the Mercedarians, from 1602 to 1619, but the protagonist of Tirso's historical play, Antona Garcia, was married to a Monroy. Behind its composition, as I have shown elsewhere— Hisp. Rev., x (1942), 198–208—lay a famous lawsuit which had its origin in a grant given by Isabella the Catholic. Full information as to the nature of this lawsuit may be found in a printed pamphlet, a copy of which is included in the Cartas jesuitas of the Royal Academy of History (vol. lxxii, est. 15, gav. l^a, n. 8): “Alegación por los descendientes de Antona García, mujer de Juan de Monroy, en el pleito con el fiscal y consortes sobre que no se puede revocar ni limitar su privilegio. Impresa en 22 folios.” This undated pamphlet, which presents the historical claims of the family to tax exemption, was put out in 1621 or 1622, for therein it is stated (f. 3^r): “por discurso de más de 145 años ha sido usado y guardado el dicho privilegio”; and the date when the privilegio was first granted is elsewhere given (f. 1^v) as Sept. 24, 1476. This was, in my opinion, Tirso's primary source for his play.

⁵¹ Mercedes G. de Ballesteros, op. cit., p. 148.

⁵² Soteria sive fons et viridarium D. Alfonsi Ramírez de Prado, Ludovico Sánchez (Madrid 1622). It carried an aprobación dated Nov. 14, 1621, and a tasa of Jan. 17, 1622. Pérez Pastor (Bibl. madr., iii, 119a) quotes from a MS of the Academy of History (n. 34, fol. 381) the dramatic circumstances of the imprisonment of this official “del Consejo Real y de la Junta de la Real Hacienda de su Majestad, don Felipe III” by “don Fernando Carrillo, del mismo Consejo y de la Câmara.” The latter official located on the premises of Ramirez no less than 2,175,000 ducats.

⁵³ Noticias de Madrid, p. 18. Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses states it was published Jan. 14, 1622. See the quotation given below from his Primera parte de la historia de don Felipe, el IIII (Lisbon, 1631), f. 79^r.

⁵⁴ Pérez Pastor, Bibl. madr., iii, 115.

⁵⁵ How much opposition it must inevitably have met can be judged by the all-inclusive scope of its purpose. Gonzalo de Céspedes y Meneses states (79^r): “ … tenia acordado de mandar que los virreyes, presidentes, gobernadores, consejeros, oidores, fiscales, secretarios, alguaciles de corte, relatores, escribanos de cámara y provincia, alcaldes mayores, tesoreros, depositaries, receptores, los oficiales de su casa, y en conclusion todo ministro, de cualesquier grado que fuesen, desde el menor hasta el mayor, antes de dárseles sus títulos, le presentasen inventarios de las haciendas que tuviesen cuando le entraban a servir; y siempre que fuesen promovidos de los aumentos y las creces; y que se entendiese aquesto mismo con cuantos a su abuelo y padre hubiesen servido desde el año de 1592, lo cual los unos y los otros hiciesen dentro de diez días, sin simulatión de cosa alguna, pena de …”

⁵⁶ Hume states (Court of Philip IV, p. 37): “The dying Philip urged his son to strive for the happiness of his people, … to avoid new counsellors, and to stand steadfast to the faith of Spain; but when the young Prince left the room, Uceda and his crew knew that it was to go straight and take counsel of Olivares and his supporters for making a clean sweep of all those who had not bent the knee to the cadet of the house of Guzmán …”

⁵⁷ The statement is inaccurate since don Rodrigo was not beheaded until Oct. 21, 1621. Imprisoned at Santorcaz (and later in his own house), he is said to have exclaimed on hearing the bells toll for the kindly but inept Philip III, “The King is dead and so am I.”

⁵⁸ See La villana de Vallecas, i. vi. 47a; Los cigarrales de Toledo, p. 197; Las quinas de Portugal, iii, iii. 584b; Deleytar aprovechando, ff. 188^v, 308^v.

⁵⁹ It was in 1622 that Barreda's translation of Pliny's eulogy of that emperor was printed. The first aprobación was dated Dec. 7, 1618; the erratas, June 20, 1622. One may be sure the notes and discursos were written for if not, rewritten) after Philip's accession.

⁶⁰ Memorias (Madrid, 1875), pp. 370–371 (published by the Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle and J. Sancho Rayón). Matías de Novoa was a defender of Lerma and Calderón, an avowed enemy of Olivares.

⁶¹ D. Juan Ruiz de Alarcón y Mendoza (Madrid, 1871), pp. 281, 545. Sr. Antonio Castro Leal, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, su Ma y obra (Mexico, 1943), p. 150, dates it 1619–1620? Dr. Courtney Bruerton expects to publish shortly a study of this dramatist's chronology, at which time he will consider in more detail the problem of the date.

⁶² The escutcheon of Olivares had on it two olive branches and the Biblical “sicut oliva fructifera.” See Marañón, El conde-duque de Olivares, figs. 21, 25, 26. Salas Barbadillo has, in his La peregrination sabia, used the same allegory to flatter Olivares (ed. Clas. Cast., pp. 69–73): “Hallaron congregados y unidos a los más nobles árboles de España, que aquel día coronaban al nuevo laurel recién heredado en el imperio de aquella amena y floreciente monarquía, cuya gala, cuya hermosura y alteza admiraba los ojos y disponía los ánimos a su veneración y los ingenios a su alabanza. Trataban entre ellos y conferían con voluntad de su mismo príncipe quién de ellos sería a propósito para ayudarle en tan grave peso.” The álamo, the hiedra (“simbolo de la ambitión y del estrago”; see n. 34 above), the encina, the nogal, the ciprés, the avellano, the naranjo, the moral, and the oliva (“insignia de la paz”) compete. Ultimately, the prudent moral (Marqués de Malpica?), having withdrawn his own candidacy, points to the great virtues of the oliva, and “con universal aplauso pusieron a la fructuosísima oliva junto al imperial laurel, aunque ella, con modestia y humildad, intentó valerosísima resistencia. Todos los árboles la saludaban, todos la festejaban y bendecían.” The editor failed to catch the hidden significance of this allegory in La peregrinación sabia and hence to date it. The piece was evidently written immediately after Philip IV's accession.

⁶³ Señora de los Ríos is eminently right when she says: “… la escena se trocaba en tribuna pública y exhumaban los dramaturgos a los grandes reyes justicieros y a sus validos prevaricadores con el índice tendido hacia aquel rey de diez y siete años que estrenaba la majestad con escarmientos y castigos.” I shall deal with the matter at some length in my longer study. However, Tirso was not of the Quevedian-Alarconian school—an important matter in any discussion of collaborators in the Segunda parte.

⁶⁴ The phrase occurs over and over in the literature of this particular time, as I shall show on another occasion. For three other examples, see below, n. 68, and pp. 1170 and 1174.

⁶⁵ Novoa wrote (ii, 351): “ … hasta este año de 1630, que es el último donde me pienso quedar y cerrar con este discurso …”

⁶⁶ “Un rey tiene/ dos ángeles en su guarda” (ii, ix. 296b). This idea, repeated twice in later scenes (ii, xix, xx), is also found repeatedly in the writings of the time. Cf. Quevedo's “Si dos ángeles ha dado Dios al rey” (Cómo ha de ser el privado, ed. cit., i, 11). Tirso uses the phrase again in La ventura con el nombre (i. i. 519b): “Los dos ángeles que un rey/tiene por divina ley.” On the other hand, in Privar contra su gusto, where there is likewise an attempt to murder the king, the latter says (i, ix. 349a) that his life would have been short “a no haber ángel de guarda … que deshizo de los traidores los lazos”; and in Siempre ayuda la verdad, a play given before the King in 1623, the King boasts (ii, xx. 223a): “yo soy muchos reyes/y cada rey tiene un ángel.”

⁶⁷ The play was first printed in Lope's Parte XIX, which carries a licencia of this date.

Morley and Bruerton state in their Chronology of Lope de Vega's “Comedias”, p. 209: “Restori, Zt R Ph, xxviii (1904), 233, pointed out a reference to La gloria de Niquea which was written in April, 1622, and concluded that since Lope had said, ‘Años ha que escribí este suceso,‘ the play had been retouched before printing … We agree with Restori that the play is early and retouched in 1622. Date 1604–12 (probably 1604–08).” Lope has stated in the preface that don Sebastián de Caravajal, “del Consejo de su Majestad y Alcalde de su casa y Corte”, was a descendant of the “illustrious” Caravajal family. Miss Bushee and Mrs. Stanford have pointed out to me that the printing of Lope's play may well have prevented Tirso from writing Los dos Caravajales he promised in the concluding lines of La prudencia. See below, p. 1175.

⁶⁸ See also Lope's insistence on “justa información” in the third act of the play itself, ed. RAE, ix, 196–197. The Conde de Benavente asks: “Si agravia el Rey la justicia, quién habrá que la defienda?” Lope was to repeat his demand for dependable evidence in La primera information, a play which Morley and Bruerton date 1620–25. See Chronology, p. 233. When King Pedro of Aragon would put Enrique to death, Nuño warns him not to act on “primera informatión” lest he win the title of “cruel” which the Pedros of Castile and Portugal have won, monarchs who have “written their names in blood.” There ensues the following dialogue:

Rey.

Imito

su justicia para el mal

o para el bien y el ejemplo;

conservan nuestro valor

el castigo y el temor

que en los súbditos contemplo.

Nuño. El rey ha de ser amado.

Rey. El rey ha de ser temido.

Nuno. Temido y amado ha sido

quien mejor ha gobernado;

pero temido no más

no es de legítimos reyes.

Rey. El temor causan las leyes

y el rey el amor.

See ed. RAE, ix, Act iii, p. 628.

⁶⁹ See pp. 203–205. This is part of an old debate, discussed by most preceplislas as to the value of fortresses in the protection of a ruler. Tirso also had it in mind when he wrote in La prudencia (iii, i. 300b): “más vence en la guerra/ el amor que no la espada.” It is, of course, closely related to the larger question as to whether a monarch should strive for the love or fear of his vassals, a topic that is likewise discussed in most of the de regimine principum. The early events of Philip IV's reign, however, necessarily made the topic very timely indeed.

⁷⁰ Cf. with Lisón y Biedma's statement given above, p. 1146.

⁷¹ Ed. cit., pp. 382–383. Baltasar Mateo Velásquez, having first asked (op. cit., p. 230) that the king “represente la majestad de la grande dignidad de su oficio”, goes on to recommend: “hable poco y aquello muy sustancial, no saiga de su palacio sino a cosas de consideración importantes al bien de su república, y si saliere a sus recreaciones y entretenimientos, saiga por donde sea visto de los menos.”

⁷² Op. cit., p. 176. For Philip's visit to the house of his montero mayor, see Noticias de Madrid, p. 86. He also attended the academias at times, even took part in a bull-fight, etc.

⁷³ Desengaño de rey …, 38^v–39^r.

⁷⁴ This is an answer to those of whom Quevedo spoke in his Grandes anales (p. 569a): “no faltaron entre los temerosos, amenazados de la justicia y de la verdad, algunos que movieron la habla de los pocos años y de la niñez, vistiendo de profecías unas malicias dictadas de vanas observaciones y abrigando sus disinios con palabras de la Escritura para achacar al Espíritu Santo sus amenazas.” Later, when speaking of don Juan de Spina in these same Anales, he expresses the same idea found in Tirso (p. 597a): “En el número de los años se conocieron las edades; en don Juan [de Spina], no, sino en el seso, palabras, inclinaciones y ejercicios …” In this matter of youth and wisdom, then, Tirso and Quevedo were in perfect accord. The opinion of Baltasar Mateo Velásquez is somewhat different. He reasons (p. 228): “… importantísima es la experiencia, a quien todos llaman maestra de las cosas y ésa es hija de las canas”; but he pacifically adds: “Pero quién, por eso, ha de negar que en afios verdes no puede haber ingenios floridos?” And while “si no está caduca la edad, siempre ha de sir preferida la experiencia”, still he grants that he himself has known “mozos discretos y viejos tontos.”

⁷⁵ See Hume, pp. 47–48.

⁷⁶ G. Marañón, El conde-duque de Olivares (La pasión de mandar), p. 99. Doctor Marañón, though he considers unjust the charge of codicia brought against Olivares, grants him among other weaknesses three that are significant: that he was obsessed by his passion for rule; that he had not the flair for the financial that his father had demonstrated in governing Sicily and Naples; that he lacked, in his early years, at least, the austerity of character which had made that father shun sensual pursuits. See ibid., pp. 16, 113–117, 314. Given the state of the National Treasury and the docile, indolent, pleasure-loving temperament of the young king who had assumed for Spain the reins of destiny, these were precisely the defects which were bound to prove fatal for the nation—especially when they were accompanied by an energy that knew no limits and an astuteness which made fools of those who did not look beneath the surface of his words. Marañón says (p. 105): “Que fué Olivares un hombre astute es innegable, desgraciadamente para su memoria …” Moreover, this historian adds (pp. 105–106): “Y para las negociaciones complicadas con los ministros extranjeros solía invitarles a pasear en sus coches … ya por los alrededores de Madrid, ya en largas jornadas con el pretexto de partidas de caza.” And if the Conde-Duque could not himself go for pressure of business, it is perhaps well to remember that Olivares' brother-in-law, the Marqués de Alcañices, had on January 15, 1622 been appointed to the strategic office of “montero mayor.” Is he the “don Álvaro” who, “en traje de caza”, accompanies the plotters on their trip?

⁷⁷ Memorias, ii, 105–107, 400–401. Cf. Sra. Ballesteros' identical statement quoted below concerning the Infante don Juan's power over Fernando.

⁷⁸ Deleytar aprovechando, ed. cit., p. 213^r.

⁷⁹ It was put out under the aegis of one don Francisco Lucas de Ávila, a “nephew” of the author, who may or may not be suppositional.

⁸⁰ One might argue, of course, that this advice is almost inevitable, granting the earlier scenes of the doctor, Ishmael. But one must also remember in this connection three things: 1) the scenes of the falling picture and the concomitant poison motif are not found in the chronicle of Ferdinand IV, but have been borrowed from the life of another king; 2) that all other advice which the Queen gives in her abbreviated espejo has been shown to be very timely; 3) that certain other plays of Tirso, written at approximately this time—for example El árbol del mejor fruto—are strongly anti-Semitic. See n. 12 above on this point.

⁸¹ Before he finished the Cigarrales, he had apparently started leafing the old chronicles of María de Molina and her inept son. There is a detail in the Cigarrales which points in that direction. Don Juan de Salcedo (who changes his name to don Jacinto de Cárdenas) takes with him a servant named Carrillo, one of whose distinguishing characteristics is his very great loyalty to his master. The name is found in only one other place in Tirso's entire works, that is in La prudencia en la mujer. It is logical to suppose that it was suggested by the name of Alfonso Ruiz Carrillo, loyal vassal of dona Marfa de Molina, according to the chronicles. See Ballesteros, p. 125; also Morel-Fatio, p. 55.

⁸² He was born Dec. 6, 1285. The bull of legitimization was issued Sept. 6, 1301; the news reached María de Molina around mid-November of that year, when the Queen Regent was in Burgos. Straightway, “al día siguiente, muy temprano manda [ella] llamar a don Diego de Haro y a don Juan Nuñez de Lara, para que los accompañen a ella y al monarca, que van a oír misa cantada en la catedral. Terminada la misa, dona María ordena se convoque inmediatamente a cuantas personas de calidad se hallen en Burgos y cuando todos se han reunido, manda leer en medio del templo, la bula de la legitimación.” See Ballesteros, pp. 25, 135–136, 141.

⁸³ So, too, Olivares had at first shared authority with his uncle, don Baltasar de Zúñiga, and so, too, had he, within a very short time, despoiled him of it—by poison, according to unjust gossip, when don Baltasar died in October, 1622. See G. Marañón, pp. 49, 56.

⁸⁴ However, it should be remembered in this connection that Quevedo says erroneously in his Grandes anales (p. 595): “Don Felipe IV, Nuestro Señor, sucedió a Felipe III en diez y stele años de su edad.” Moreover, in the Crónica de Fernanda IV, the historian wrote of the young king and his hunting trip (ed. BAE, p. 121a): “E él commo ome que era de pequeña edad, que estonce entraba en edad de diez e siete años … díjole que le placía e que lo quería facer.”

⁸⁵ Quoted from NBAE,Discurso preliminar, iv, xxxiv.

⁸⁶ See Ballesteros, p. 76. Sra. Blanca de los Ríos has asked why Tirso should have taken as the second half of his pseudonym “de Molina.” She suggests, in her Obras dramáticas completas, i, 934b: “Recuérdese que en heráldica el emblema del apellido Molina era y es ‘una rueda de molino,‘ y la palabra Molina es la mi tad del seudónimo de Tirso, sobrenombre originado, tal vez, del lugar en que el poeta pasó su infancia, que pudiera haber sido Molina de Aragón, según los aragonesismos que abundan en La joya de las montañas y la predilection de Téllez por cuanto atañe a la Corona de Aragon y sus amplias noticias de la genealogía de la nobleza de aquel reino. (Esto es mera hipótesis.)”

To attempt to explain why Gabriel Téllez should have chosen to add “de Molina” to the pastoral “Tirso” is undoubtedly to enter the field of the conjectural. He would seem to have taken the pseudonym around 1621. The poet had, on signing the autograph of the third Santa Juana in 1614, written “Fr. Gabriel Téllez”; yet when he put out the Cigarrales de Toledo in late 1621, the title-page of the princeps, if we assume it carried the same wording as did the edition of 1624, read “compuestos por el Maestro Tirso de Molina, natural de Madrid.” Moreover, in the laudatory poems of both Lope de Vega and Castillo Solórzano which preface the book, he is referred to as “Tirso”, though the former had, in dedicating Lo fingido verdadero to him in September, 1620, addressed him as “Fr. Gabriel Téllez.” The dramatist had, in at least two early plays—La república al revés and El vergonzoso en palacio—appeared as a character with the name “Tarso.” What is more, he had retained the latter name on publishing El vergonzoso in his Cigarrales de Toledo, though from his own words concerning this play two things are evident: 1) that it was given as a particular after he returned from Santa Domingo in 1618, at which time the title rôle was played by “uno de los mayores potentados de Castilla”; 2) the comedia at that time suffered some changes, “saliendo tan acendrada (el día de hoy) de los que, sin pasión y con suficiencia, tienen a su cargo el expurgarla de palabras y acciones indecentes.” See Cigarrales, ed. cit., p. 118.

Gabriel Téllez would appear, then, to have taken the pseudonym “Tirso de Molina” in the autumn of 1621 when he published the Cigarrales, at which time he would seem to have been reading the old chronicles of María de Molina (see n. 81 above). And the form his nom de plume took may possibly be related to the protagonist of La prudencia, with whom he shared the family name of Téllez. For it must not be forgotten that María de Molina was descended on her mother's side from a Téllez. She was the daughter of don Alfonso de Molina (son of the union of Alfonso IX of León and doña Berenguela the Great) and of his third wife, dona Mayor Alfonso de Meneses, who was granddaughter (on the maternal side) of don Alfonso Téllez de Meneses.

It is not impossible, then, that Tirso, when he added the geographical tag “de Molina” to his pseudonym, was asserting relationship, real or fancied, with the great María—as Lope had claimed kinship with the Carpios. If this should be the correct explanation, then we know from Tirso's own pen the fate of his claim. In Antona García (iii, iii), a play which was clearly written or rewritten in late 1622 or early 1623—see my study, “On the Date of

Five Plays by Tirso de Molina,“ Hisp. Rev., x (1942), 198–208—the following conversation takes place in the inn of Mollorido between the ”Seventh Castilian“ (unquestionably Tirso's mouth-piece) and a Portuguese:

Portugués 2°: Y vos?

Castellano 7°: Vengo de Madrid,

huyendo casi.

Portugués 2°: Por Dios!

Pues, qué os sucedió?

Castellano 7°: Tener

enemigos y envidiosos …

Portugués 2°: Llamáisos?

Castellano 7°: Decirlo dudo,

que hasta el nombre me quitó

la envidia.

But Tirso's pseudonym could have another explanation. He may have fashioned it after such caballeresque phrases as Amadís de Gaula, Tristán de Leonís. In which case, he may merely be asserting that his family originally came from the same little village in Aragón that is so closely associated with Maria de Molina's name.

⁸⁷ Nor is there any historical evidence of La prudencia en la mujer's having been produced in the court in the early years of Philip IV's reign. It is not found among any of the several lists of plays we have of the 1620's—neither in those given in the palace in 1622–23, nor in the list which Roque de Figueroa took to Valencia in 1624, nor in that which Jerónimo Amelia had in his possession in June, 1628. Yet all these lists contain plays from Tirso's pen. See Rennert, The Spanish Stage, pp. 234–236; El Averiguador, segunda época (Madrid, 1871), pp. 7–11; Henri Merimée, Spectacles et comédiens à Valencia (Toulouse-Paris, 1913), pp. 169–178. I have searched diligently, too, in various other directions, but to no avail. Indeed, I have found no record of a performance anywhere during Philip's life or his successor's. For presentations given in the eighteenth century, see Ada M. Coe, Cat. bibl. y crítico de las comedias anunciadas en los periódicos de Madrid, 1661–1819 (Baltimore-London, 1935), p. 188. Its first performance there listed is in 1785.

⁸⁸ I have already had occasion to deal with his relation to the Benaventes in my study “On the Date of Five Plays by Tirso”, pp. 191–197, but the information there is incomplete for the present study. The Pimenteiro family, for it was originally Portuguese (and even in Philip IV's time held properties in Portugal), had migrated first to Galicia and from there into Castile during the time of Ferdinand the Great. During this monarch's reign, it became linked with the royal house of León and later with that of Aragón. Through repeated marriages, the ties with Portugal, León, and Aragón had often been renewed. In the time of Juan I of Castilla, the titular head of the house, don Juan Alfonso Pimentel, “maestre de Avís”, was, for services rendered, given the town of Benavente (León) and with it the title “Conde y Duque de Benavente.” And from the days of Juan II the family had been tightly linked with the Lunas and Aragóns: Doña Juana Pimentel (daughter of the second count of Benavente and doña Leonor Henríquez; granddaughter of the first Almirante, D. Alonso Henríquez and D^a Juana de Mendoza, “la Ricahembra”) had married D. Alváro de Luna, condestable de Castilla, whereas her sister, doña Beatriz, had wed D. Enrique de Aragón, son of Ferdinand I of Aragón. The tie with the Luna family was strengthened when D. Alonso Alfonso Pimentel, “llamado el franco”, married D^a Maria Vigil de Quinones, “hija de D. Diego Hernández Vigil de Quiñones (merino mayor de Asturias, señor de la casa de Luna) y de D^a María de Toledo.” Henceforward, the title “Conde de Luna” belonged to the second Pimentai. The bonds between the Pimentais and the Lunas (so bound up with Aragón and its history) were renewed for a third time when the eighth Conde-Duque de Benavente (whom Tirso has eulogized so warmly) married in first nuptials D^a Catalina Vígil de Quiñones, “hija única [y heredera] de D. Luis Vígil de Quiñones, quinto conde de Luna”—at which time the estate of the Lunas (for lack of male issue) became incorporated with that of the Benaventes.

The eighth Conde de Benavente had, after the death of D^a Catalina, taken for his second wife D^a Mencia de Zúñiga y Requesens, “linaje de los Graios de Cataluña”, and don Jerónimo Pimentel, whose life also touches Tirso's, was one of the many sons of this second marriage. With his family, too, the bonds with northeast Spain were to be renewed. For the information given above, see MS. 11569 (B. N.), Casa de los Condes de Benavente, written by one “don Domingo de Ascargota, criado de la casa de los Condes de Benavente.” The information was apparently first got together in 1656.

⁸⁹ Nevertheless, it should be remembered that Tirso has included in the Cigarrales (pp. 320–324) a poem in praise of him, one which they had “just sent him from Madrid” and one which almost certainly was written in 1619 or early 1620, since the eighth Conde-Duque is referred to as “el vice-Filipo … nuestro español Numa.” He had charge of foreign affairs during Philip Ill's absence in Portugal and the illness that followed. The Casa de los Condes de Benavente (B. N., MS. 11569) tells us: “Fué … su Majestad a Portugal; dejóle [al Conde de Benavente] el cuidado de oír en su ausencia los embajadores.” Moreover, Tirso pays splendid tribute to his memory—he died Nov. 8, 1621—in La fingida Arcadia (i, iv. 438), where he is again “aquel Numa, aquel Catón.” I strongly suspect another compliment to him in the following involved metaphor in the Cigarrales (p. 197): “Madrid … cabeza en lo secular del mundo, si en lo espiritual Roma, y en fin tan superior a todas las demás poblaciones registradas del Sol, que si el f uego, como rey de los elementos, tiene su esfera sobre los demás, Madrid, edificada sobre el de sus pedernales, postrándole a sus pies, puede honrarse con el blasón del primer cielo, jurisdictión de la luna, en cuya superficie cóncava ha dado la filosofía natural habitación a sus invisibles llamas.” In deciphering this very obscure passage, it should be remembered that Marco Antonio, who speaks these words, is a brother-in-law of “don Artal de Aragón”, almost certainly a real person. See n. 92.

I am, in fact, very inclined to think that there is much more of the factual in the Cigarrales than has been recognized. For instance, the don Miguel, “libre y burlador, satírico de toda ocupación amorosa” (p. 102), is don Miguel de Monsalve—Tirso himself lets the name slip (p. 329)—and he is probably related to the Francisco de Monsalve, “sobrino de [1 cardenal] Quiroga”, who waged a legal battle with don Jerónimo de Miranda Vivero over the cigarral de Malpica. See G. Marañón's Elogio y nostalgia de Toledo (Madrid, 1941), p. SO. Anarda, beloved of don Suero (perhaps don Suero de Quiñones y Acuña, to whom Los cigarrales de Toledo is dedicated?) must be Ana del Río, if the lovers' mote and Tirso's explanation mean anything (p. 95):

Hoy por vos, Ánade, el río

pasa a nado mi fe honrada;

por vos nada y sin vos nada!

The author elucidates: “Agradecida fué de los entendidos la agudeza del mote, conociendo quién era la dama a quien servía el dueño del y la correspondencia con que era pagado, ponderando el ver incluido en el verso primero su nombre y sobrenombre con tanto artificio, puesta que hubo escrupulosos que dijeron ser falta reprobada en las empresas … el aprovecharse o jugar el vocablo en ellas.” The don Fernando, director of cermonies in these fiestas of the Imperial City, may possibly be don Fernando de Toledo of the house of Alba. See Cigarrales, p. 93.

⁹⁰ For date, see my study “On the Date of Five Plays by Tirso de Molina”, Hisp. Rev., x (1942), 191–197.

⁹¹ The Bazáns, “una de las doce [casas] de ricos hombres del reino de Navarra”, and the Benavides of León had long been interrelated by marriage. Álvaro de Bazán, the founder of the marqueses de Santa Cruz (one branch of the Bazáns), had married dona Mencía de Quiñones, and of this marriage had been born MencZía Manuel (sic) de Bazán, “esposa de Juan de la Cueva y Benavides, Comendador de Biedma.” What is more, in each generation thereafter of this same Une, some Bazán married a Benavides. Don Jerónimo's wife herself was daughter of the second Marqués de Santa Cruz, don Alvaro de Bazán y Benavides. Her mother was doña Guiomar Manrique de Lara, daughter of Bernardino Manrique de Lara

(“Comendador de Herrera, de la Orden de Calatrava, de la Casa de los Duques de Nájera”) and of doña Ana de Castro. She inherited the title of 4th Marquesa de Santa Cruz when her elder brother died. Moreover, the Bazáns and Benavides, it should be noted, were closely linked up almost from the first with the illustrious family of the Condes-Duques de Benavente. The same Álvaro de Bazán, mentioned above—from whom the line of the Marqueses de Santa Cruz stems—was the son of Pedro de Bazán (died Dec. 5, 1429) and his first wife, dona Teresa de Meneses (hija de Juan Alonso Pimentel, primer conde de Benavente y de la condesa dona Juana de Meneses). And again, the third Pedro de Bazán, “juntamente con su hermana doña Maria [de Meneses Pimentai], fué llamado en 1440 al Condado de Benavente por el Conde Rodrigo Alonso de Pimentai, su tío, en falta de descendencia.” And the town of Benavides (León), according to the Espasa Encyclopedia, “perteneció a la jurisdicción del Conde de Luna, quien nombraba los corregidores y jueces.” For all other genealogical information in this note, see Garcia Carraffa, Enciclopedia heráldica y genealógica (under the names Bazán and Benavides). There are other names found in the tables of these families that could well be significant for Tirso's life and theatre.

⁹² Berni says of the Sástagos (p. 170): “Este antiguo condado en el reino de Aragón viene desde el señor rey, don Jaime de Aragón … Fácil me sería hacer un tomo, delineando la antiquíssima nobleza de esta ilustrísima familia … El actual poseedor es el excelentísimo señor don Vicente Fernández de Córdoba y Alagón, … conde de Sástago.” Berni quotes as sources for any study of this family's genealogy: 1) Zurita's Anales de Aragón; 2) two separate works of don José Pellicer, who, in addition to publishing the history of the family “con el árbol genealógico y ramas”, also put out in Madrid Los servicios de don Blasco de Alagón, Marqués de Villasor, Conde de Monte-Santo en el reino de Cerdeña; 3) one of don Tomás Tamayo de Vargas, who wrote “un memorial … de dicha nobilísima familia de Alagón.” Berni does not mention Tirso's Genealogía de la Casa de Sástago, which P. Hardá and Álvarez Baena state was printed in 1640. Sra. Blanca de los Ríos tells us that Tirso's genealogy of this family has been included in the history—as yet in MS—which he wrote of the Mercedarians. See her Obras dramáticas completas, i, 957a. It should not be forgotten either that Tirso dedicated his Cuarta parte in 1635 to “Don Martín Artal de Alagon, Conde de Sástago, Marqués de Aguilar, sefior de la casa de Espes, y de la villa de Pina, Camarlengo de Aragón y el que Ileva el Estoque desnudo en las Cortes Reaies, gentilhombre de la Cámara del Rey, Nuestro Señor, su Capitán de la Guarda Tudesca, Comendador Mayor del Reyno de Aragón, y de la villa de Alcañiz, de la Orden de Calatrava, etc.”

⁹³ Don Jerónimo later took up residence in Cerdeña. In the aforesaid MS dealing with the Benaventes, we read: “Don Jerónimo Pimentai, comendador de Calasparra de la Orden de San Juan, General de la Caballería de Milán. Sucedió a su hermano D. Alonso en este oficio [after the death of the latter in the defense of Vercelli]. Fué gran soldado y murió en el gobierno de Cerdeña.” There is, in my opinion, no reason to assume that Tirso was ever there. In fact, the lack of realistic detail in the section dealing with Cerdeña would argue the contrary. I suspect that the Italian settings of so many of Tirso's plays are due to his relations with the Benaventes and their related branches. This connection may also well explain his “lusitanismo.”

⁹⁴ There is either an “Artal” or a “Blasco” in each generation. The family is tightly linked up with the Urreas, the Coronels, the Lunas, and the Centellas, all names of importance for Tirso and his theatre. Don Ximeno de Urrea, “famous caballero del tiempo de D. Jaime I … casó con D^a María Rodríguez Viel y Palavicino, perteneciente por su madre a la Real Casa de Portugal; e hija suya fué … D^a Eva de Urrea, casada con D. Artal de Alagón, hijo de D. Blasco” (Linajes de Aragón, Revista Quincenal, i–iii [1910–13]; see under “Urreas”). There were various other marriages between the Urreas and the Alagóns, and in this connection it should be remembered: 1) that some of the copies of Tirso's Tercera parte that exist today are dedicated to “D. Antonio de Urrea, Capitán general del Reyno de Cerdeña”; 2) that the noble protagonist of El celoso prudente is called “don Sancho de Urrea”, a descendant of the Kings of Aragon, though the setting is in Prague.

The Cornels (written by Tirso “Coronels”) had a branch in the same little town of Alagón and were intermarried with the family of that name, as well as with the Lunas. Under “Cornel”, García Carraffa (who seeks to distinguish between the “Coronels and the ”Cornels“) says: ”En la villa de Alagón (Zaragoza) radicó una linea dimanada de la rama troncal de este linaje.“ This branch is supposed to have originated with Pedro Cornel, an illegitimate son of Pedro Cornel de Luna who was married to doña Urraca Artal de Luna. Tirso's La firmeza en la hermosura, which contains an episode of a falling picture that is very similar to the scenes in La prudencia, has to do with the marriage of doña Elena Coronel with D. Juan de Urrea, and the setting is ”Zaragoza y sus immediaciones.“ The heroine's rival is doña Josefa de Luna. This play was, in my opinion, also written while Tirso was in Aragon, and probably as a particular for the Coronels or Urreas. The aya and lifelong friend of Maria de Molina was a Coronel. Their descendants might well have had many records of the queen that were available to Tirso.

The Centellas (of the Oliva family) were tied up by marriage with both the Urreas and the Alagóns. Don Lope Ximénez de Urrea (son of D. Pedro Ximénez de Urrea and his third wife D^a Marfa Bardaxí, another name that has significance for Tirso's theatre) had a daughter D^a Beatriz who married “D. Francisco Gilabert de Centellas, hijo del Conde Oliva.” Moreover, Don Lope himself took for his second wife “doña Catalina de Centellas.” Yet again, when Juana Fernández de Hijar (daughter of D. Alonso Fernández de Hijar and dona Toda Centellas) married one “D. Artal de Alagón, señor de Sástago y Pina”, they became “the progenitors of the Condes de Sástago.” And Tirso's La fingida Arcadia was written as a particular to celebrate the marriage of don Felipe Centellas, a friend to don Jerónimo. Finally, “don Jaime de Centellas” of Valencia is, in Tirso's El amor médico, rival of “don Gaspar de Benavides” from Toledo.

⁹⁵ We do not know when Tirso started out for Aragon. He was in Madrid part of 1621. Matîas de los Reyes, on dedicating to him Sept. 21, 1622, El agravio agradecido, first makes clear his desire to leave the little town of Villanueva de la Serena and return to Madrid (his patria chica), then adds: “y cuando este natural amor no me llamara, la conversación de V. P. (imán de mi voluntad) era bastante para afectar más este deseo. Quando estuve en esa Corte el año passado, ofrecí cumplir su mandato de bolverme a ella con toda presteza …” Moreover, Pedro Arias (possibly Alonso Remón), on dedicating to Tirso some time before Sept. 16, 1621, his Primavera y Flor de los mejores Romances que han salido ahora nuevamente en esta corte, makes no suggestion that would lead us to believe Tirso out of Madrid. And finally, his presence there in 1621 is suggested by the fact that he sent his Cigarrales to press some time between Philip IV's accession and Oct. 8, 1621, since on the latter date Fr. Miguel Sánchez signed its aprobación. And in dedicating his book to don Suero de Quiñones y'Acuña, Tirso uses the phrase “la buena fama y general aceptación con que V. M. es amado en esta corte.” There is, on the other hand, no evidence, so far as I know, to suggest that Tirso was in Madrid the last two or so months of 1621 or the first five of the following year. I strongly suspect that Tirso spent much of this time in Aragon.

⁹⁶ That it was not done in León (home of the Benavides), where much of the action takes place, is suggested by a geographical error which Tirso has carried over in La prudencia, i. vii. 289c, from Argote de Molina's Nobleza del Andalucía. Tirso makes Benavides say: “Ya sabes que aquí en Valencia/de Alcántara está fundado/el solar de mi ascendencia.” Both Argote de Molina and Tirso should have written “Valencia de Don Juan.” See Morel-Fatio, Etudes sur l'Espagne, troisième série, p. 58.

⁹⁷ There is yet another conduit through which Tirso may possibly have hoped to bring his influence to bear. In La prudencia en la mujer, he has apparently made conscious effort throughout the play to exempt the representative of the Haros from the discredit which he heaps on Enrique, Juan, and the other dissidents—though it must be granted that don Diego López de Haro plays a more admirable rôle in the chronicles themselves than do the others. The titles of the Haro family, to whom the proud don Diego of La prudencia presumably belonged, became incorporated with those of the Duque de Frías. The most powerful representative of the Haros in Philip IV's time was don Luis (son of the Marqués del Carpio) who was, in October, 1622, appointed “gentil-hombre de la boca del rey.” From the many other references concerning him found in the Noticias de Madrid (see “Índice onomástico” under Carpio), he was evidently a warm personal friend of both the King and his brother Carlos. It was he who was eventually to supersede his uncle, the Conde-Duque de Olivares. At the time, however, that La prudencia en la mujer was written, relations between uncle and nephew were almost those of father and son. It therefore seems highly improbable that Tirso should have attempted to work through him. We should possibly remember in connection with the Carpio family that Tirso's Deleytar aprovechando was dedicated to “Don Luis Fernández de Córdova y Arze, Señor de la villa del Carpio …”

⁹⁸ See Noticias de Madrid, p. 158. This ninth Conde-Duque had received his father's position as mayordomo in the palace when the latter died on Nov. 8, 1621. As early as June 18, 1622, he was having his troubles with the King. On that date, according to the same chronicler (p. 27), as the result of an incident with the Marqués de Almazán (“caballerizo mayor”) over the jurisdiction of their respective offices, both the ninth Conde-Duque and the Marqués were ordered to leave the court temporarily for their estates. On April 29, 1627, the same chronicler relates other and more serious difficulties with the King and Olivares: “A 29 [de Abril] se desposó en palacio de secreto el Conde de Benavente, Mayordomo Mayor de la Reina, Nuestra Señora … con doña Ana Sandi, Marquesa de Valdefuentes y de la Ribera … Pretendió el novio que la diesen almohada; no lo consiguió y se fueron a velar a la ermita del Ángel de la Guarda f uera de la Puente Segoviana, y de allí se fueron a Portugal.” Yet in the Casa de los Coudes de Benavente, one reads of this ninth count (MS. 11569, B. N., f. 24^v): “Su Majestad le hizo merced del oficio de Mayordomo Mayor, y en este oficio murió de sentimiento de verse desfavorecido del rey cuando la lealtad y amor con que sirvió y el querer excusar algunos lances, de que dió cuenta al Conde de Olivares, fué causa de mandarle retirar a su casa sin hacerle merced, ni habérsele pagado los gajes que le quedaron debiendo del tiempo que sirvió para satisfacer sus empeños, que fueron muchos.” According to this account, his first wife was dona María Ponce de León, daughter of the third duque de Arcos; his second, doña Leonor María Pimentel, hermana del Marqués de Tabara.“ See also Noticias de Madrid, p. 40. This is the Conde-Duque de Benavente whose portrait Velásquez painted in 1648.

⁹⁹ See Ángel González Palencia, “Quevedo, Tirso, y las comedias ante la Junta de Reformatión”, BRAE, xxv (1946), 83.

¹⁰⁰ It was, no doubt, partly a question of the treatment of his religious order. Señora de los Ríos states in El enigma biográfico (1928, p. 46): “Cuéntanos el cronista de su orden que cuantas esperanzas se prometían los Mercedarios de la protección de Felipe III y de Aliaga murieron para ellos con el rey, y hallamos que todo el teatro de Tirso anterior a la muerte de Felipe el Piadoso (1621) es adicto y todo el posterior a esa fecha de oposición detidida a Felipe IV y al de Olivares …” In the study preliminary to El vergonzoso en palacio, Sra. de los Rfos states, Obras complétas, i, 299: “… sus sátiras políticas [las de Tirso] iban flechadas hasta 1621 a Lerma y D. Rodrigo Calderón; y desde, 1621 al Conde Duque de Olivares y a Quevedo, mezdado a la política de Olivares …”

¹⁰¹ I shall have to leave the burden of proof for this statement until later.

¹⁰² MS. 3797, fol. 253, B. N. First published by Bonilla y San Martin in the Revista de Aragón (1902), pp. 573–583. Five of the poems there included were later studied by Rodríguez Marín in the RABM, xix (1908), 62–78, with the title “Cinco poesías autobiográficas de Luis Vélez de Guevara.” For the quotation given, see p. 75.

¹⁰³ In a copia satirizing Tirso and Alarcón, Téllez is referred to as “el padre de la Merced.” See BAE, v, 520c. The Junta, in its indictment, uses the term, “fraile mercedario.” See above.

¹⁰⁴ Presumably Francisco de León y Arce, who in 1624 was escribano de S. M. He was not only “autor de las Jornadas de Francia, Portugal e Inglaterra”, but also of La perla en el nuevo mapa-mundi hispdnico …, wherein he apparently describes the King's trip to Sevilla. This pamphlet, dedicated to the King and with an introductory décima of Luis

Vélez, has an aprobación dated March 20, 1624, according to Gallardo, Ensayo, iv, Supplemento. In his analysis of the book, Gallardo says “Al autor le dicen poéticamente Arceo.” León y Arce was evidently having his troubles with the buffoons and the “poetas repentistas” of the King. He addresses them in the following terms: “Oh, gitanos, que con subrepticias diligencias y extravagantes rodeos, queréis ganar el rostro a la ventura que pierde este retirado avechucho y pensativo poetista, pobre sin haberle hecho rico 20 afios que con realzada pluma vuela penetrando cual águila real el sol de los reyes …” Possibly, practiced though he was in such matters, Arceo had not made the incense which he poured on the royal head sufficiently heavy. He had, too, it would seem, written an Alegórica chancilleresca (sic) which has unfortunately been lost. His right to its paternity had apparently been called into question. He also refers to another he had written in verse “sobre las mercedes de Felipe IV.” Prof. G. Wade suggests that Arceo could be D. Luis Fernández de Córdova y Arze. See n. 97.

In this same year of 1624, we remember, Baltasar Mateo Velásquez (possibly a pseudonym for Tirso's fellow Mercedarian, Alonso Remón) was in his El filósofo de la aldea (p. 232) complaining of a King who surrounded himself with buffoons and who “a nadie premiaba ni honraba sino a gente perdida y ociosa … y a los que le componían versos en su alabanzas …” Tirso was, too, as we have seen, sending broadsides in Soplillo's direction some time after March 1,1623, in Los hermanos parecidos—see above—and he was bitter against the repentistas. To quote but one of several: “No hay poeta de repente/que escriba bien de pensado” (Amor y celos hacen discretos, i. vi. 152a).

¹⁰⁵ He mentions the victory again in Habladme en enlrando (i. xii. 497a).

¹⁰⁶ See i. iii. 584b. The play was apparently not written before 1628. For reasons, see n. 49 above.

¹⁰⁷ Tirso was, from the moment that the Thirty Years' War broke out, keenly aware of its importance for his country and church. I have not yet seen Sra. de los Ríos' study “Exaltación de la hispanidad en Tirso de Molina”, Mediterraneo (1944), nos. 7 and 8, but my statement will, perhaps, find confirmation there.

¹⁰⁸ Ed. cit., 308^v and 188^v.

¹⁰⁹ Fray Manuel Penedo, who has spent some years in transcribing the MS text of Tirso's history, made this statement to me in the summer of 1946. I doubt very much indeed Tirso's having written the passage about Philip IV and his Queen which is found in En Madrid y en una casa, i. ii–iii. 539a. For the history of this play and its refundición, see BAE, v, cat. raz., p. xliii, and NBAE, ix, cat. raz., pp. xix–xx. It is even less probable that he should have written the pedestrian Breve suma y relatión de las grandes fiestas que en la corte se hicieron a la entrada del señor príncipe de Guastala (1629). Therein the King is praised as “prudente en sabiduría”, words which Tirso was too honest ever to have penned.

¹¹⁰ My attempts to find it in Rome in the summer of 1938 were not successful. Neither the chapter of the Mercedarians there nor the librarians at the Vatican could help me locate a copy.

¹¹¹ Pérez Pastor had evidently never seen it. His description is taken word for word from Gallardo's.

¹¹² Sr. M. Herrero García—“La monarquía teorética de Lope de Vega”, Fenix, 1935 (nos. 2 and 3), 179–224; 305–362—has stressed the political significance of Lope's theatre. He observes (p. 179): “Las ideas políticas de Lope son las de su época, las de los grandes teólogos y juristas españoles … Lope levanta también su cátedra en los corrales y tablados del orbe teatral y allí expone, defiende, propaga entre las clases semi-cultas y analf abetas de la nación la ciencia política de Vitoria, Suárez y Menchaca. Éste es su mérito …” Señor Arco y Garay has also dealt with certain political aspects in his La sociedad española en las obras dramáticas de Lope de Vega (Madrid, 1942). See also n. 29 above.

¹¹³ This study has been made possible through the generosity of the American Association of University Women and the University of Pennsylvania. To the former I am indebted for two awards, the Alice Freeman Palmer and the Margaret M. Justin Fellowships (1937–38, 1945–46); to the latter, for the Jusserand Travelling Fellowship (1945–46). I should also like to thank six friends who were so good as to read this study in MS and give it the advantage of their discriminating criticism: Prof. C. E. Anibal, Dr. C. Bruerton, Miss Alice H. Bushee, Prof. W. L. Fichter, Prof. H. C. Heaton, and Mrs. Lorna Lavery Stafford. In yet a third direction, I am deeply indebted: to Spanish scholars and friends who, in archives, in libraries, in museums, in offices, and in homes, lived up to the great traditions of hospitality and courtesy for which their country has always been justly famed. They not only made life exceedingly pleasant for a wandering American in the summer of 1946, but did all within their power to make her stay as profitable as possible. I do not name them here individually because their very number makes it impossible.