Era El Remedio Olvidar

Era El Remedio Olvidar by Frank Thomas Platt, Ohio State University In the Bulletin for Spring, 1952, Warren H. McCready ("A Note On Matos' El Ingrato Agradecido''') suggests that the verses which H. C. Heaton was unable to identify in his edition of Matos' play ("Era el remedio casarte,/ y olbidósete el remedio") probably derive from El alcázar del secreto by Antonio de Solís, where they occur several times and are sung as follows: ETa el remedio olvidar y olvidóseme el remedio. Another play in which these same verses occur is Jiménez de Enciso's El príncipe don Carlos (1621-1627?). Fadrique, the jealous lover of the subplot, recites the following lines toward the end of the third act: Que antee, aunque me remedio olvidando, no hallo medio ni. olvido para no amar} que era el remedio olvidar, y olvidóseme el remedio.1 In a manuscript of this play (MS. 17.407 at the Biblioteca Nacional) the last two verses are underlined and ojo is written in the right margin, evidently indicating that they be sung or declaimed with certain emphasis . Adolph Schaeffer, in his unpublished manuscript of Enciso's play at the Universit ätsbibliothek, Freiburg, notes that these terminal verses are a "Refrán de una antigua canción," but he does not further identify them. Heaton likewise says in a note: "These verses are possibly the refrain of a popular song," but the song itself remains unidentified . This refrain (I employ the term in its musical rather than its proverbial sense, inasmuch as it is not included in any of the classical refraneros) assumes a more definite form in Cubillo de Aragón's El invisible príncipe del baúl (after 1636), where it is a recurrent theme of the drama (as it is in El alcazar del secreto) rather than an incidental device for discreteo, and where it is found as part of a complete song. Musicians sing the following letra in the middle of the second act: Corazón, buscad un medio que alivie tanto pesar j era el remedio olvidar, y olvidóseme el remedio. The last two verses are again sung later on, and then bring the act to a close when the Prince recites the first line and Matilda the second. The same two verses are divided between Matilda and César in the third act, and are later employed to bring the play to its conclusion.2 It is this redondilla by Cubillo de Aragón which seems to have attracted the most attention . Harbottle and Hume include it in their Dictionary of Spanish Quotations (London , 1907, p. 50), where it is translated as follows : My heart, pray find some means for me To mitigate my constant fret, The remedy was to forget, But I forgot the recipe. Santiago Magariños includes the same redondilla in his Canciones foptdares de la edad de oro (Barcelona, 1944, p. 327), but neither collection mentions its previous occurrence in literature. 1."El principe don Carlos of Diego Jiménez de Enciso, a critical edition, with introduction and notes," unpublished dissertation (Ohio State University, 1956) by Frank T. Piatt, pp. 142143 , verses 2749-50. 2.BAE, XLVII, 189c, 191b, 194c, 197c. Comediantes Will Convene The tenth annual meeting of the Comediantes will be held in Madison on Tuesday, September 10, from 11:00 to 12:30. (For information concerning the locale see the official program of the MLA convention.) The topic will be: "Tragedy in the Golden Age." Helen Sears, William McCrary, Raymond MacCurdy, and A. Valbuena Briones will read papers—each limited to five minutes —on Lope, Tirso, Rojas, Zorrilla, and Calderón, respectively. It is the desire to allow more time than usual for the general 10 ...