La moza de cántaro

La moza de cántaro, by Lope de
Vega

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Title: La moza de cántaro
Author: Lope de Vega
Editor: Madison Stathers
Release Date: October 26, 2007 [EBook #23206]
Language: Spanish
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LA MOZA DE CÁNTARO

POR
LOPE DE VEGA
EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
MADISON STATHERS
(Docteur de l'Université de Grenoble) Professor of Romance
Languages in West Virginia University
COPYRIGHT, 1913,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

PREFACE
The vast number of the works of Lope de Vega renders the task of
selecting one of them as an appropriate text for publication very
difficult, and it is only after having examined a large number of the
works of the great poet that the editor has chosen La Moza de Cántaro,
not only because it is one of the author's most interesting comedies, but
also because it stands forth prominently in the field in which he is
preëminent--the interpretation of Spanish life and character. It too is
one of the few plays of the poet which have continued down to recent
times in the favor of the Spanish theater-going public,--perhaps in the
end the most trustworthy critic. Written in Lope's more mature years, at
the time of his greatest activity, and probably corrected or rewritten
seven years later, this play contains few of the inaccuracies and obscure
passages so common to many of his works, reveals to us much of
interest in Spanish daily life and in a way reflects the condition of the
Spanish capital during the reign of Philip IV, which certainly was one
of the most brilliant in the history of the kingdom.

The text has been taken completely, without any omissions or
modifications, from the Hartzenbusch collection of Comedias
Escogidas de Lope de Vega published in the Biblioteca de Autores
Españoles and, where it varies from other texts with which it has been
compared, the variation is noted. The accentuation has been changed
freely to conform with present usage, translations have been suggested
for passages of more than ordinary difficulty and full notes given on
proper names and on passages that suggest historical or other
connection. Literary comparisons have been made occasionally and
modern forms or equivalents for archaic words and expressions have
been given, but usually these have been limited to words not found in
the better class of dictionaries commonly used in the study of such
works.
The editor is especially indebted to Sr. D. Eugenio Fernández for aid in
the interpretation of several passages and in the correction of
accentuation, to Professor J. D. M. Ford for valuable suggestions, and
to Sr. D. Manuel Saavedra Martínez, Professor in the Escuela Normal
de Salamanca, for information not easily accessible.
M. S.
WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY.

INTRODUCTION
I. LIFE OF LOPE DE VEGA
The family of Lope de Vega Carpio was one of high rank, if not noble,
and had a manor house in the mountain regions of northwestern Spain.
Of his parents we know nothing more than the scanty mention the poet
has given them in his works. It would seem that they lived a while at
least in Madrid, where the future prince of Spanish dramatists was born,
November 25, 1562. Of his childhood and early youth we have no
definite knowledge, but it appears that his parents died when he was
very young and that he lived some time with his uncle, Don Miguel del

Carpio.
From his own utterances and those of his friend and biographer,
Montalvan, we know that genius developed early with him and that he
dictated verses to his schoolmates before he was able to write. In school
he was particularly brilliant and showed remarkable aptitude in the
study of Latin, rhetoric, and literature. These school days were
interrupted once by a truant flight to the north of Spain, but at Astorga,
near the ancestral estate of Vega, Lope, weary of the hardships of travel,
turned back to Madrid.
Soon after he left the Colegio de los Teatinos, at about the age of
fourteen, Lope entered the service of Don Jerónimo Manrique, Bishop
of Ávila, who took so great an interest in him that he sent him to the
famous University of Alcalá de Henares, where he seems to have spent
from his sixteenth to his twentieth year and on leaving to have