La moza de cántaro | Page 9

Quien, si perdiere este pleito, Apela á Mil y Quinientas. MIL Y QUINIENTAS ha escrito: Bien es que perdón merezca.
From the gradas and barandillas, from the windows and desvanes, from all the seats, but especially from those which filled the patio, there must have gone forth then amid clamorous applause a unanimous shout of admiration, of enthusiasm, and very just national pride. "?Vítor, Lope!" shrieked that tumultuous multitude time and again. "Long live el Fénix de los ingenios! Long live Lope de Vega!"]
[Note 7: See Comedias Escogidas, Vol. I, p. xxviii, and Gassier, Le Théatre Espagnol, p. 60.]
[Note 8: Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, Vol. II, p. 275.]
The "Watermaid" belongs to the largest class of Lope's plays--the class in which he excelled--comedias de capa y espada. Ticknor erroneously classes it as a comedy "founded on common life" or as styled by others comedia de costumbres, but it is probable he did so without making himself thoroughly familiar with the comedy in its full form. Zerolo is very emphatic in attributing it to the class of comedias de capa y espada, for he says: "Más que ninguna otra, reune esta obra las circunstancias que caracterizan á las comedias de capa y espada, como embozos, equívocos, etc." Were the leading character what her name implies--a humble servant--and were the other characters of her rank, the play might well be classed as a comedia de costumbres; but that it belongs to the larger class is established by the fact that the intrigue is complicated, the question of love and rank is prominent, and the characters are of the nobility.[9] Any opposing irregularities in language or action may be explained by the period represented, for the time is that of the early years of the reign of the young monarch, Philip IV, a brilliant though corrupt epoch of Spanish history well worthy of a moment's notice.
[Note 9: The Ticknor collection in the Boston Public Library contains two copies of the play; the one is entitled "La Moza de Cántaro, comedia en cinco actos por Lope Félix de Vega Carpio y refundida por Cándido María Trigueros, Valencia, 1803," and the other, idem, "con anotaciones, Londres" (probably about 1820). These are probably the only editions of the play with which Ticknor was familiar when he made his classification of it, for certainly he could not reconcile it with his definition of "comedies on common life," but he could easily accord it with his definition of "comedias de capa y espada." (See Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, Vol. II, pp. 243 and 275.) Quoting from Lista's classification, Romualdo Alvarez Espino says: "Comedias de costumbres in which are painted vices of certain persons who, since in that epoch they could not be represented to be of the nobility, were drawn from the dregs of the people. Perhaps his very object in these compositions drew Lope away from the culture and urbanity which distinguish him in others; but fortunately they are few. Let us mention as examples El rufian Castrucho, La Moza de Cántaro, El sabio en su casa, La doncella Teodor." (Romualdo Alvarez Espino, Ensayo Histórico Crítico del Teatro Espa?ol, p. 116. See also, Alfred Gassier, Le Théatre Espagnol, p. 38.) In the broader sense of the term, comedias de costumbres could easily include not only the Moza de Cántaro but generally all comedias de capa y espada, for true comedy is the presentation of the customs of society in a diverting manner. However, the Spanish critics usually narrow the class to include only the dramas of Lope which deal with the lower strata of social life and make the error of classing the Moza de Cántaro among them. This error may be explained by the fact that the critics, especially those cited above, have probably referred directly or indirectly to the refundida edition of the play which makes prominent the part of the servants and minimizes the r?les of the masters.]
Philip III died in 1621, leaving the vast realm which he had inherited from his father, the gloomy though mighty Philip II, to his son, a youth of sixteen years, who came to the throne under the title of Philip IV. If Philip III was ruled by Lerma and Uceda, Philip IV, in his turn, was completely under the domination of the unprincipled Olivares, and his accession initiated one of the most interesting and most corrupt reigns that Spain has ever known. Philip himself was weak and pleasure-loving, but has never been regarded as perverse, and Olivares was ambitious and longed to rule Spain as the great Cardinal was ruling France. To achieve this end he isolated the monarch from every possible rival and kept him occupied with all sorts of diversions. At an early age Philip had been married to Isabel de Bourbon, daughter of Henry