SOURCE: “Tirso de Molina's Old Testament Plays,” in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Vol. XXVII, No. 107, July-September, 1950, pp. 149-63.

[In the following essay, Metford examines de Molina's religious background, which compelled him to write about the Old Testament, and how his knowledge of the human mind transformed his plays into works of art.]

Like most dramatists of the Golden Age, Tirso de Molina tried his hand at adapting for the stage stories from the Old Testament. Three comedias of this type, acknowledged to be his, survive, but it is conceivable that he wrote others in collaboration, or that some from his pen now pass under the name of other dramatists. His extant plays are: La Mejor Espigadera, a re-creation of the ever popular history of Ruth; La Venganza de Tamar, which turns on Amnon's incestuous passion (2 Samuel, xiii); and La Mujer que manda en casa, a version of Jezebel's libidinous career (I Kings, xvi-xxii). These plays may be examined in two ways, either historically and comparatively, to determine their place in the long procession of Old Testament dramas and their relationship to similar works by other writers, or as isolated examples of Tirso's dramatic craft. It is proposed, in this article, to concentrate on the latter aspect—to ignore, for example, the superiority of La Mejor Espigadera to Horozco's earlier version of the same story, and the similarities and contrasts between La Venganza de Tamar and Calderón's Los Cabellos de Absalón, in order to emphasize the special value of these plays as specimens of Tirso's workmanship. Apart from their intrinsic merits, which place them high on the list of Tirso's best plays, they are interesting as revelations of the dramatist in action, selecting, rejecting and adding to his source-material in order to make the Old Testament come alive on the stage.

When he chose the subjects for these comedias, Tirso was, to some extent, following a convention. The continuous appearance of Old Testament plays throughout the Golden Age—and the many reprints of the best of them in the eighteenth century—testifies to their perennial popularity. Almost every company of strolling players had a few such works in its repertory, and any dramatist, hard-pressed for fresh material, was sure of success if he dressed up one of the conventional themes in the fashion of his day. The reason for this was to be found in the instinctive delight which the patrons of the theatre exhibited at the familiar represented through the medium of drama. As epics and ballads implanted the most colourful events in the national story in the minds of the people and thus gave rise to their enduring interest in historical dramas, so sermons, moral tracts and ecclesiastical art made them conversant with Biblical stories and accounted for the vogue of Biblical plays. The original impetus to represent the Bible in dramatic form derived from the association of the church with the stage. This was perpetuated in the New Testament plays of the Golden Age which continued to be linked with the great religious festivals—Tirso's La Vida de Herodes, for example, although based on Josephus' account of Herod, is intended as an Epiphany play because it identifies the protagonist with the ruler who slaughtered the Innocents. The Old Testament plays, on the contrary, are as much historical as religious in intent, because Biblical history was regarded as the forerunner of the national story and thus as part of the cultural heritage. This is best seen in La Venganza de Tamar, an episode in the life-story of David. Although basically religious, it is also historical. There are, indeed, hints in the construction that this play is the second of a trilogy written about David's reign, the first part of which is now lost, and the second embedded in the conclusion to Calderón's Los Cabellos de Absalón.

Apart from the fact that Old Testament plays were strongly favoured in the theatre, other considerations prompted Tirso's choice of subject. The three stories which he adapted revolved about outstanding women—Ruth, Jezebel and Tamar—thus providing him with the opportunity to indulge his unrivalled powers in the presentation of female characters. It is also possible that, in writing La Mujer que manda en casa and La Venganza de Tamar, he was influenced by the possibilities that his source afforded for the treatment of subjects not normally considered suitable for the stage. In this he resembled the mediaeval artists who used such subjects as Adam and Eve before the Fall, and Susannah and the Elders, as the excuse for anatomical drawing. Tirso, fascinated by the depths to which human personality could sink when in the grip of unrestrained passion, was thus given licence to depict lust in all its ugliness without exposing himself to censure, for what was in the Bible could scarcely incur criticism. In any case, it is clear that he selected the stories advisedly, because they afforded him adequate scope for his peculiar insight into human character and motives.

“Tirso de Molina” was the pseudonymous disguise of Fray Gabriel Téllez. Do the plays then reveal characteristics which indicate that their author was a trained theologian and Biblical scholar who achieved positions of considerable importance in his Order? There are abundant manifestations of these facts in all three comedias. At every stage in the composition of the plays, the Mercedarian seems to have guided the hand of the dramatist. It goes without saying that nothing contrary to the Faith is allowed to creep into the text. In addition, no opportunity is missed to point a moral or to deliver a short homily on the consequences of evil conduct. A very real sympathy is shown in La Mejor Espigadera and in La Mujer que manda en casa with the sufferings of the poor during a famine, and the rich man is censured for gathering his produce into barns instead of sharing it with his less fortunate neighbours. Great prominence is given in La Venganza de Tamar to the Christian belief in forgiveness for those who truly repent and mend their ways—a dogma which is always to the fore in Tirso's plays and which is given its finest expression in Tanto es lo de más como lo de menos. Despite the enormity of his crime, Amnon is forgiven by his father and vows:

Yo pagaré amor tan grande
con no ofenderle desde hoy.

Unfortunately his repentance is not sincere. To test his resolution, Tirso invents an episode where Amnon meets the disguised Tamar but is not strong enough to resist temptation and is therefore punished for his fall from grace. La Mujer que manda en casa and La Mejor Espigadera are sermons on the need to preserve the true faith despite the opposition of the infidel: Naboth, like the Constant Prince, prefers to die rather than break the Almighty's precepts; Elijah maintains his orthodoxy in face of the victory of the prophets of Baal. Ruth's fidelity to her mother-in-law is not the main theme of Tirso's treatment, as it is in other versions of the story; the chief emphasis is placed on her conversion and her determination never to desert her new belief. Masalón (Mahlon) ignores his mother's warnings, renounces his faith in order to win a bride and dies a retributive death in the hands of a rival.

Evidence that the writer was also a Biblical scholar is provided by the introduction of explanatory notes at points in the text where the uninstructed might fail to comprehend the significance of the action. In La Mujer que manda en casa, the audience is left in no doubt as to the implications of the worship of Baal and the nature of the rites conducted in the sacred groves: Naboth explains everything to his wife and thus to the spectators. In Ahab's proclamation ordering a general fast, Tirso adds in parentheses for the benefit of the ignorant: “como en Israel se acostumbra cuando se espera algún castigo riguroso”. When Naboth refuses to yield his patrimony to the king, he gives chapter and verse in support of his contention:

Gran señor, no ignoráis vos,
que en su Levítico, Dios
manda, por justos respetos,
que no se puedan vender
posesiones que en herencia
toquen a la descendencia
del primogénito; ver
puede Vuestra Majestad
en el vigésimo quinto
capítulo si es distinto
mi intento, de esta verdad

Similarly, Naomi, in La Mejor Espigadera, enlarges on the custom which prevailed in Judah whereby the owner of the estate feasted with the threshers. When Boaz covers Ruth with his cloak, a few lines are added to make the symbolism clear. These annotations are not included to demonstrate the author's knowledge of Hebrew custom, but spring from his anxiety to make the story comprehensible, just as a good preacher takes care to expound his text, for the benefit of his congregation.

Tirso's scholarly training is also revealed in the extreme care with which he reproduces the Scriptural narrative. As far as possible he incorporated the actual words of his source into the text of the play, altering them, or making additions, sparingly, and generally only in deference to the demands of his verse-form. This method is best observed in scenes of great dramatic tension or in the climax of the story, precisely where the Bible is fullest and most explicit. This verbal fidelity to the source gave the plays the stamp of authenticity, for the audience, even if they were not in the habit of reading the Bible themselves, recognized words which were familiar to them through sermons and other forms of ecclesiastical teaching. Thus, in La Mujer que manda en casa, the supernatural is made perfectly credible when narrated in strict conformity with the source:

… Baja un ángel y déjale a la cabecera un vaso de agua y una tortilla de pan, y vuela	… et ecce angelus Domini tetigit eum, et dixit illi: Surge et comede.
Ángel: Despierta y come.	Respexit, et ecce ad caput suum subcinericius panis, et vas aquae; comedit ergo, et bibit, et rursum obdormivit.
Elías: ¿Qué es esto? ¿Quimeras mi sueño fragua? Pero, un pan y un vaso de agua a mi cabecera han puesto. Reciente está, entre cenizas parece que se coció; el cielo lo sazonó. (Come).
(Duérmese y dentro dice el ángel) Ángel: Despierta y come, que tienes mucho camino que andar.	Reversusque est angelus Domini secundo et tetigit eum, dixitque illi: Surge, comede: grandis enim tibi restat via.
Elías. … (Despiértase, come y bebe) Vuelo a comer, su apetito de nuevo me fortalece; vuelvo a beber, ya parece, desmayos, que resucito. Recobráos, pues, fuerzas mías, que en virtud de este manjar bien podremos caminar cuarenta noches y días. Al monte Oreb, siento yo, Señor, quo me encamináis	Qui cum surrexisset, comedit et bibit, et ambulavit in fortitudine cibi illius quadraginta diebus et quadraginta noctibus, usque ad montem Dei Horeb.

In most cases, the Bible narrative was characterized by simplicity of style and economy of words so that it had to be expanded considerably to make it suitable for the stage. When this was so, Tirso contrived to retain the spirit of the original by incorporating its phrases passim throughout the scene. This device may be illustrated by printing the Vulgate text of 2 Samuel xiii, 15-17 alongside the phrases which are to be found in Amnon's speech at the conclusion of Act III, Scene 1 of La Venganza de Tamar. It is to be noted that, throughout this crucial scene—the incestuous rape of Tamar—Tirso is careful to conform strictly to the Biblical version, probably to protect himself from possible charges of meretricious exploitation of an unsavoury episode.

Vulgate	La Venganza de Tamar
Et exosam eam habuit Amnon odio magno nimis, ita ut majus esset odium, quo oderat eam, amore quo ante dilexerat. Dixitque ei Amnon: Surge, et vade.	Más es mi aborrecimiento que fué primero mi amor.
sed vocato puero, qui ministrabat ei, dixit: Ejice hanc a me foras, et claude ostium post eam.	¡Vete de aquí; salte fuera!
	Echadme de aquí esta víbora, esta peste.
	Llevadme aquesta mujer; cerrad la puerta tras ella.

Where it was difficult or impossible to reproduce all the incidents in the source in dramatic form, either on account of the limitations of the stage or because of nature of the action, Tirso compromised by using the device of reporting to the audience events assumed to take place off stage. This technique is best illustrated by La Mujer que manda en casa. The Book of Kings is crammed with dramatic incidents, yet even Tirso, despite his ability to fill his plays with action, quailed before the variety of episodes which his source afforded him. He therefore selected the material which could best be presented on the stage of his day—the appearance of the Angel by the juniper tree, the story of Naboth's vineyard—and regretfully excluded such episodes as Elijah's departure for Heaven in a fiery chariot and the contest with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel which would tax the ingenuity of the most competent stage manager. Yet he was unwilling to forgo even the minutest detail of the Bible, story if he could contrive to introduce it into the play. Passing reference is therefore made to the miracle of the widow's son and to the magic cruse, but the most striking incidents are related at length by one of the characters who has supposedly witnessed them off stage. In such instances Tirso makes the account a close paraphrase of the Bible—e.g., Jehu's relation of the events on Mount Carmel is a metrical version of 1 Kings xviii, 17-46.

It is probable that Tirso was so strikingly faithful to his source as much on account of the predilections of his patrons as from his natural disposition as a friar. His audience was as familiar as he with the details of the original and undoubtedly expected them to be presented with due veracity. The prestige of the Bible also demanded that it should be treated with far less freedom than would be permitted to the writer of historical plays. This reverence for the source and desire to conform to it as strictly as possible nevertheless betrayed Tirso into two cardinal weaknesses, from the standpoint of dramatic technique. He tended to dwell too long on an incident which was intrinsically dramatic but scarcely apposite to the ultimate purpose of his play. He also lacked courage to exercise his powers of selection and rigorously to exclude anything which did not directly contribute to the development of his theme. If the intention of La Venganza de Tamar is to demonstrate that death is the consequence of evil, then the sub-plot of Absalom's rebellion against David is an unnecessary complication which detracts from the dramatic force of Amnon's punishment for his sin against Tamar. The Book of Kings, based on an earlier history of Ahab's reign, was rewritten by a priestly author intent on emphasizing the religious struggle between Yahweh and Baal. It offered Tirso the ingredients of a powerful drama. Prerequisite for success was the ruthless exclusion of everything in the complicated Bible narrative which did not directly contribute to the unfolding of the conflict between the rival faiths, a conflict symbolized by the struggle between two outstanding personalities, Elijah and Jezebel. Tirso unwisely dwelt too long on episodes which were interesting in themselves but which used up his time, so that the important stages in the conflict had to be narrated instead of being dramatized. Consequently the play is not so effective as it might have become had Tirso been able to free himself from the trammels of his source.

Fray Gabriel Téllez is thus seen to have exercised careful supervision over the composition of the Old Testament plays, obliging the dramatist to consult the original, to reproduce it reverently and accurately and to explain the more recondite references for the enlightenment of the audience. But what of the part played by Tirso de Molina? Did the dramatist half of this dual personality not exert some influence on the construction of the plays? He may frequently be observed at work, lightening the touch of his religious counterpart, making the plays live as dramas instead of moral exhortations. Alterations in the source which are made in obedience to the exigencies of dramatic representation are an apt illustration of this point. Chronology is changed to increase the sense of drama. In the Bible Absalom's revenge for the outrage on his sister takes place after “two full years are past”; in the play it follows inexorably on the crime; Naomi's husband, who has sinned through greed, is killed by robbers before he can enjoy the prosperity which follows his son's marriage, whereas in the Bible he dies some time after this event. Changes are made in the story, the better to integrate the various strands in the plot. Jezebel, not Ahab, is responsible for building the groves to Baal in order to satisfy her inordinate desires; Naboth's death is due not so much to his refusal to yield his vineyard to the King as to his rejection of Jezebel's amorous proposals; the revens, as a measure of poetic justice, take the food from Ahab's table to feed Elijah by the Brook Kerith. Most notable of all are the additions to the Biblical material which the dramatist makes to bring the plays within the conventional formula of the comedia. Only a small proportion of the incidents in the plays are derived directly from the source. In La Venganza de Tamar, six scenes out of forty-three are sufficient to render the Biblical text in dramatic form and the action attributable to the source does not begin until the second act. The familiar story of Ruth is not reached until the third act of La Mejor Espigadera, the first two being devoted to the events leading to her marriage with Mahlon and his death. The history of Jezebel is narrated with a wealth of detail in the Book of Kings so that, in the case of La Mujer que manda en casa, Tirso had rather more to dramatize than in the other two plays, yet even here he contrived to introduce a great deal which is extraneous to his source and the product of his fertile imagination. Some of the additional material was evidently suggested by the source, but improved almost beyond recognition in the process of adaptation. The Bible, for example, contains the statement that David captured a finely ornamented crown. Tirso developed this into a magnificent scene in which Absalom is tempted to try on the crown and so reveal to his father his secret ambition to supplant him. The mention, which Tirso found in the Book of Kings, of the cannibalism practised by two women during a famine, is, in the same way, the source of the powerful scene in La Mejor Espigadera where Jaleel threatens to eat his child to save himself from death by starvation. Most of the supplementary material, however, is entirely Tirso's invention. Some of it comes from his stock-in-trade, such as the device, used in La Mejor Espigadera, La Mujer que manda en casa and El Vergonzoso en palacio, whereby a confession of love is obtained through one of the characters feigning to dream. A fair proportion of the original scenes are concessions to the prevailing conventions which governed the composition of the comedia. This fact is best observed in the provision of low comedy to suit the tastes of Tirso's patrons. Yet, even in this, he shows great skill in developing the comedy naturally out of the action. He accomplishes this through the exploitation of rustic characters wherever the plot warrants their introduction. Thus, Ruth gleaning in the fields, Tamar seeking refuge on her brother's farm, Elijah hiding in the wilderness, provided the excuse for comic relief, but the appearance of countrymen speaking in dialect, misunderstanding strange words and indulging sometimes in bitter, sometimes gay humour was a natural concomitant of the plot. Whether the inventions are in obedience to dramatic formulae or made to eke out the Biblical incidents to fill the three acts of a comedia, one quality is strikingly evident in all Tirso's additions to his source: his inherently romantic temperament. Like Zorrilla, Tirso lived in a world of intrigue, midnight adventures and forlorn damsels. As, for Don Quixote, inns were castles and tavern-wenches high-born ladies, so, for the Mercedarian dramatist, the ordinary is transmuted into something rich and wonderful. Ruth is no longer a peasant “in tears amid the alien corn”, but a princess whom Mahlon, a beggar because he has been robbed of his possessions, wins in the course of adventures appropriate to a Byzantine novel. In the Bible he dies a natural death, but in the play he is overthrown by his rival who thus takes revenge for his defeat in love. When Ruth first caught sight of Boaz in the play she thought he was the reincarnation of her first husband and Tirso made this more credible by having the same actor double the parts. He may have used this device to lessen the popular antipathy to a second marriage, but it is more than likely that he was acting in obedience to the dictates of a romantic imagination. For the same reason, he is not disposed to tell the episode of Naboth's vineyard as it is in the Bible—the struggle between a powerful king who wishes to improve his estate and a humble man who refuses to sell his patrimony. Complications are introduced to heighten the dramatic interest so that Naboth has not only to contend with Ahab but with the importunities of Jezebel, who makes him the object of her passion, and also with the jealous clamours of his own wife, who is wrongly convinced of Naboth's infidelity. In La Venganza de Tamar, Amnon, unlike his namesake in the source, is not initially guilty of a sordid and incestuous passion. Seeking to satisfy his curiosity regarding the famed beauty of his father's wives, he scales the seraglio walls at midnight and is charmed by the voice and appearance of an unknown maiden whom he only later discovers to be his half-sister. Tirso thus constructed his Biblical plays in the same way as his other comedias. They were built as “arquitecturas del ingenio fingidas” and his powerful imagination gave them the “prodigies, adventures and intrigues in abundance” and the “wholly Romantic and chivalric” colouring which Sismondi found to be characteristic of Spanish literature in general.

When the Old Testament plays were presented on the stage, the audience must have been kept at a high pitch of expectancy. Incident follows incident with surprising rapidity; there is a constant succession of minor climaxes in the action; and interest is never allowed to flag because the outcome of each new turn of the story is anxiously awaited. As each episode was resolved, Tirso called up fresh complications from the inexhaustible depths of his imagination, so that the spectator's curiosity was constantly engaged as the play rushed breathlessly to its conclusion. It would seem unlikely that such a concentration of action at such a rapid pace would permit more than the slightest delineation of character, sufficient to carry the story but no more. Surprisingly, Tirso managed not only to present well-rounded personalities, but also to allow them to develop in the course of the action. Even the minor characters, no more than names in the Bible, come to life as clearly defined individuals—Elimelec, the personification of greed; Jehu, the upright soldier and instrument of God's vengeance on Jezebel; the subtle, villainous Jonadab who encourages Amnon in his evil ways: all these are vividly represented in the plays. As in all Tirso's works, the women characters in the Biblical plays reveal his insight into the workings of the feminine mind. Perhaps Ruth is the least interesting of them, especially in the concluding scenes where she is passively carrying out her mother-in-law's instructions, yet even she, in the first part of the play, acts with considerable charm as she uses her feminine powers to make Mahlon declare his passion and to compel her unwelcome suitor to find the man whom she really loves. It was implicit in Tirso's design that Tamar, although her “tragedia lastimosa” provided the plot, should not figure too prominently in the play and thus distract attention from the chief actors. She is nevertheless drawn with great sympathy and given a witty and engaging personality. Naomi and Jezebel are contrasted types, the former the vehicle of Tirso's didacticism and the latter the incarnation of a woman who is the slave to her passions. To present her as a human being and not an abstraction required considerable skill because of the proverbial villainies attributed to this female Herod. In Tirso's hands, she becomes less of a monstrosity and more of a psychological probability than she was in the popular mind. Resourceful, domineering over all with whom she is brought into contact, able to make her husband her abject servant, she obliges everyone except Naboth and the fiery prophet to pander to her will. There is more than a touch of Lady Macbeth in this masterful woman and Ahab's admiring outburst:

¡Qué pecho tan varonil te dió el cielo!

recalls Macbeth's equally approving “Bring forth men children only!” She attains true magnificence in the final scenes where she adorns herself in her finery, and, with assumed joyfulness, although there is terror in her heart, tries the power of her charms on Jehu. Tirso well knew how to create a part which gave a competent tragic actress unlimited scope for demonstrating her virtuosity. How grandly she could play the deserted queen as she listens to the doleful song which prophesies her death or as she sees in her mirror not the reflection of her own cruel beauty, but the bloody face of the man whom she has murdered!

The male characters are drawn with comparable skill, but two are outstanding because of their complexity. Amnon and David are among Tirso's greatest creations, a son and a father who, at first sight, are completely unlike, yet, on closer examination, are seen to represent two facets of the same temperament. In the play, David, although no longer in the prime of his powers, is still the hero, winning battles as in his youth. Amnon is the man of peace in an age of war, recalling Marlowe's Edward II. Even the servants comment on the contrast with his illustrious father which Amnon himself is the first to recognize:

No soy soldado yo
cual de él la fama pregona

and he prefers an hour spent in Jerusalem to all the campaigns that his father has won. From David, the sweet singer of psalms, he has inherited only his love of poetry:

En esto quiero imitar
a David. …

and this gift he develops as a consolation for his melancholy temperament. Whereas David has been a great lover, Amnon scorns women as faithless creatures with whom he could never be happy. Nevertheless the vein of passion which he has inherited from his father manifests itself in a totally unexpected way. He listens to his brother's lewd talk and is shocked by his loose attitude to women, ironically exclaiming “¡A la mujer de tu padre!” when Absalom speaks of seducing David's concubines, but their conversation excites his curiosity and he enters the women's quarters only to find himself ensnared by the love which he pretended to despise. Even then he could have saved himself from the consequences of a passion which he soon discovers to be impossible had he not inherited a grain of David's selfishness. In the fertile soil of Amnon's indolence this has grown into an uncontrollable desire always to have his own way:

en dandole en la cabeza
una cosa, no podrán
persuadirle a lo contrario
catorce pecadores. …

explains his servant. “Lo que apetezco, he de ejecutar” and “provecho es hacer mi gusto”, says Amnon, from the first resigning himself to defeat in the age-old conflict between reason and bestial instincts—a struggle which greatly interested Tirso and which he describes with great skill in La Vida de Herodes. Amnon's violent rejection of Tamar after his lust is satiated is thus made psychologically possible. Tirso has carefully built up a picture of an unusual personality, melancholy, poetic, the prey to his desires. He shows that such a character would naturally yield to the temptations which a stronger person would have resisted. The oppressive sense of sin operating on a hypersensitive nature causes the dramatic revulsion from the person who was once the object of an all-consuming love. What a tribute to Tirso's abilities that he is able to convey all this in the narrow limits of three jornadas filled with action!

In David, Tirso comes as near finding a tragic hero of classical stature as the genius of the comedia, with its blending of grave and gay, allowed. He dominates the play, for, even when he is not on the stage, he is constantly being mentioned by the other characters who go in fear of him. Tirso presents a warrior grown old but still capable of preserving his authority. All his life, he has dedicated his efforts to one end—to carve out a kingdom which he might bequeath to his son—but his is a tragedy of thwarted ambition. Amnon is killed by his brother in revenge for the outrage committed on Tamar; the rest of his sons flee from his household and the play is full of ominous hints as to their ultimate fate. In the end David is left alone with his possessions, now of no value to him because there is no one on whom he may bestow them. His tragedy is made even more poignant when he realizes that the loss of Amnon and the dissension within his household is punishment for the sin committed long before when he stole Uriah's wife. That David was prepared to forgive Amnon for the rape of Tamar is suggested by the source—Amnon's crime was by no means comparable to Oedipus' transgression, for, although Jewish law forbade marriage to a half-sister (Leviticus xviii, 9), there is evidence that it was permissible in David's time (cf. 2 Samuel xiii, 13)—but Tirso makes his readiness to come to terms with his sons undeniably pathetic. Such is his power to create character and to exploit the resources of histrionic talent that one is driven to ask whether, had he been subject to the discipline of the classical tragic formula, he might not have produced masterpieces comparable with the greatest European dramas. In all probability, this would never have come to pass, for his was a temperament which would brook no limitations. His best creations emerge incidentally, in great flashes of inspiration, as he works at a given theme.

This is perhaps the most significant fact that is derived from a study of the Old Testament plays. The friar in Tirso impelled him to write three plays which were intentionally didactic and of religious significance, but the dramatist in him transformed the results into works of art. The framework is the Bible narrative, but the adornments come from Tirso's rich fancy and his superlative knowledge of the human mind. The comedia, subject to certain conventions, but unrestricted and free of all rules, was the only medium suited to such a genius.

CHRONOLOGY

La Mejor Espigadera and La Venganza de Tamar were published in 1634, in the Parte Tercera of Tirso's collected plays; La Mujer que manda en casa appeared in 1635, in the Cuarta Parte. A document discovered by Henri Mérimée¹ indicates that the first two plays existed in manuscript at least ten years before they were printed. It is the record, made in 1628 by a Valencian notary, of the fabulas sive comedias belonging to a company of players. These plays were impounded because their manager, Juan-Jerónimo Amella, or Almella, was unable to discharge a debt due to the Teatro de la Olivera. Hieronymo Almella, fabularum Auctore, et domna Emanuela Henriquez, viuda are cited as the principals. The lady is easily identified as the wife of Juan Bautista Valenciano, an actor-manager who was killed in a brawl in 1624.² Cotarelo y Mori reprinted the notice of his burial which he found in the register of a church in Madrid. It included words which echoed the phrase used by the Valencian notary: “… Enterróle su mujer D^a. Manuela Enríquez y Juan-Jerónimo Valenciano, hermano del difunto …”³ There is little reason to doubt that this brother (whose remarkable likeness to Juan Bautista was exploited in Tirso's Los Hermanos parecidos) was the Juan-Jerónimo Almella mentioned in Mérimée's document. The title valenciano, used by both brothers, was possibly no more than a locative, a nickname useful in Madrid but pointless in their native city, where Juan-Jerónimo would naturally revert to his patronymic, especially in matters involving legal proceedings. It is known that in July 1627, Juan Bautista's company—which apparently remained intact after his death and continued to use his name—was obliged to abandon certain performances in Valencia after five days—“per auer falta de gent.”⁴ The players are next heard of in April 1628, in Ciudad Rodrigo, but Almella is now their manager. They are invited once more to Valencia and a sum of money is advanced towards the cost of their journey.⁵ Failure to repay part of this advance led to the seizure of the company's property, recorded by Mérimée. Among the plays on the notary's list was Tanto es lo de más como lo de menos, published in the Parte Primera, 1627, with the note: “Representóla Juan Bautista”. It has been questioned whether this refers to Juan Bautista Villegas or to the valenciano⁶ but the fact that a manuscript of the play was part of the repertory of the latter's company resolves the doubt in favour of the valenciano. Moreover, of the five plays mentioned by Rennert as performed by Juan Bautista, four appear on the notary's inventory.⁷ There is considerable justification, therefore, for the assumption that all the plays seized in Valencia had been performed in Juan Bautista's lifetime and were inherited by his wife as part of the property used for the reconstituted company when her brother-in-law succeeded her deceased husband as autor de comedias—otherwise the notary would not have mentioned her in the document. If this is so, then La Mejor Espigadera and La Venganza de Tamar, both on the Valencia list, must have been written before Bautista's death in 1624. This must certainly be true in the case of La Venganza de Tamar because Tirso would scarcely have risked dealing with such an unsavoury subject after the ecclesiastical injunction of 1625.

Professor Ruth Lee Kennedy has stated that Tanto es lo de más como lo de menos was written in 1620, though possibly retouched later.⁸ A verbal resemblance between that play and La Venganza de Tamar suggests that they were composed about the same period, although La Venganza de Tamar was written first. In Tanto es lo de más como lo de menos, Nineucio drives the beggars out of his house, shouting:

Echádmelos de aquí a palos;
cerradme esas puertas todas.(9)

These lines are reminiscent of the scene where Amnon, overcome by loathing for Tamar, orders his servants:

Llevadme aquesta mujer;
cerrad la puerta tras ella.(10)

Here Tirso paraphrased the Bible: “Ejice hanc a me foras et claude ostium post eam.” The words seem to have impressed themselves on Tirso's mind, for he also uses them in La Vida de Herodes when Herod orders Mariamne to be thrown into prison:¹¹

Cerrad esas puertas todas,
llevadme de aquí esta infame.(12)

La Vida de Herodes also resembles La Venganza de Tamar in other respects: Antipatro's concern for his son (Act I, Scene iv) is similar to David's anxiety over Amnon's behaviour (Act II, Scene iv); Joab's misinterpretation of Tamar's innocent pretence of love for Amnon (Act II, Scene viii) is expanded into a dramatic climax where Herod is driven mad with jealousy when he mistakes the nature of the feigned love-play between his wife and Josefo (Act III, Scene viii). Tirso used similar scenes and situations in a number of plays. From the point of view of chronology, it is necessary to establish whether these repetitions tended to recur over a number of years or whether they were made within approximately the same period, but there is not sufficient evidence available regarding the dates of Tirso's plays for an accurate answer to be given to the question. The close similarities in these scenes and the verbal coincidence cited above would appear to confirm that La Vida de Herodes and La Venganza de Tamar were written about the same time. It is interesting to note in this connection that, in Lope de Vega's El Mejor Alcalde el rey, Act III, Scene v, the heroine is defended with the words “… Elvira no es Tamar. …” This suggests that the story of Tamar was topical because it had been played about the same time as Lope's play. This is dated 1620-23 by Morley and Bruerton.¹³

A convenient terminus ante quem non for the composition of La Vida de Herodes is provided by the fact that Tirso drew the plot of this play direct from the works of Josephus. The Jewish historian narrated the Herod-Mariamne story twice, in the Antiquities and in the Jewish War, the main difference in the accounts being that the command to kill Mariamne, should Herod fail to return to her, is given twice in the former and once in the latter work. Tirso's version resembles the Jewish War in this respect, but there are also indications that he was conversant with the Antiquities. Flavius Josephus was available to him in translation as well as in Latin, and the republication in Madrid, in 1616, of the Antwerp version of the Jewish War of 1557, seems to have given Tirso the idea for a play about Herod. Thus interested in Josephus, he evidently consulted the Antiquities for the account of David's reign and incorporated two of Josephus's variants from the Scriptural narrative in La Venganza de Tamar:

(1) Act III, Scene xvi. Absalón: A Gesur huyendo voy que es su rey mi agüelo, y padre de nuestra injuriada madre.

Josephus, Antiquities, VII.14 At Abesalomus in Gesuram ad avum maternum confugit, istius loci dynastam.

The relationship is not given in the Bible: “Porro Absalom fugiens, abiit ad Tholomai, filium Amniud, regem Gessur.”¹⁵

(2) David, believing all his sons to be dead, is overcome by grief, but the sound of horses gives him new hope:

Act III, Scene xvii. Caballos suenan: ¿ si serán mis amados hijos éstos?

Josephus, Antiquities, VII. Interea vero sonitus equorum et venientum turba illos in se convertit.

The horses are not mentioned in the Bible: the lookout gives warning of the approach of a large body of men.

Except for a single instance in La Mujer que manda en casa where Josephus and Tirso make Elijah tell the prophets of Baal to call on their gods for help, whereas the Bible has “on their god”, there is nothing to indicate that this play was composed under the influence of the Antiquities. In all other cases where Josephus differs from the Bible, Tirso follows the Bible, thus suggesting that La Mujer que manda en casa was written some time before he became interested in the Jewish historian as a source for his plays. No evidence is available to fix when before 1616 the play was likely to be composed.

In the cases of La Mejor Espigadera and La Venganza de Tamar, it would appear that the earliest date for their composition would be 1616 and the latest 1624, the most probable period being around 1620, either just before or soon after Tanto es lo de más como lo de menos.

Notes

1. Spectacles et comédiens à Valencia, Toulouse, Paris, 1913, pp. 175-8.

2. H. A. Rennert: The Spanish Stage, New York, 1909, p. 465.

3. N.B.A.E., Vol. IX, pp. xxiii b, xxxviii a.

4. Mérimée, op. cit., pp. 194-5.

5. Cristóbal Pérez Pastor: Nuevos datos acerca del histrionismo español, Madrid, 1901, p.214.

6. See Hispanic Review, Vol. IX, 1941, p. 35, n. 59.

7. Rennert, op. cit., p. 614.

8. Hispanic Review, Vol. XI, 1943, pp. 42-45.

9. N.B.A.E., Vol. IV, p. 126a.

10. Op. cit., p. 425a.

11. Vulgate, 2 Regum, xiii, 17.

12. N.B.A.E., Vol. IX, p. 202a.

13. The Chronology of Lope de Vega's Comedias, New York, 1940, p. 368.

14. Flavii Josephi Hebraei Opera Omnia, Lipsiae, 1782, p. 765.

15. Vulgate. 2 Regum xiii, 37.