The Ismael Episode in Tirso's La prudencia en la mujer

4.Digo "comedias serias" porque para el siglo XVII no tenemos otro remedio que aludir a "comedias serias" y "comedias farsas". Los términot "tragedia," "comedia" "tragicomedia,", "de capa y espada" no me satisfacen. La "comedia seria" puede acercarse a la "tragedia" greco-romana o puede ser lo que Diderot llamó "drame". En cuanto al racionalista francés, se le acredita como el fundador de la comedia de tesis. La comedia española del siglo XVII, en lo que toca a la "comedia seria", no fué mas que comedia de tesis y no tenía más que dos tesis: la teológica ? la de la defensa de la monarquía. Y si no es así, pruébese. 5.Nada más barato que esa idea algo difundida de que el Barroco es un arte huero, vacuo, sin ideas, sin ideales, sin nada. Es una idea tan superficial , que no le llega a la suela del zapato de Lope. The Ismael Episode in Tirso's La prudencia en la mujer by Joseph G. Fucilla, Northwestern University In his detailed study entitled "La Prudance chez la femme, drame historique de Tirso de Molina," in Etudes sur l'Espagne. Troisième série, Paris, 1904, Alfred MorelFatio devotes about ten pages, 59-68, to the actions of the Jewish court physician Ismael in Act II of La Prudencia en la mujer and to the source of the incident in which he takes part. He quite rightly observes that there is a scene in Damián Salustrio dei Poyo's Prospera fortuna de Rui López Dávalos , written at the beginning of the seventeenth century, which Tirso very likely used as his model. Here we find a Jewish doctoi, Don Mair, with a poison in his hand with which he intends to kill King Enrico at the time bedridden by a cold. However, he quickly decides that it might be a better procedure to strangle him, and as he is about to enter through the door of his chamber, a portrait of the princess which had been hanging above it falls and bars his way. The noise arouses Enrico and Rui Gómez who come out to question him. When the king asks for what he refers to as a jarabe he is told that it has been spilt on the floor. The monarch thereupon gives the following order : Llévanle preso, y sacad un lebrel que lama el suelo, do echó el jarabe que el cielo descubrirá la verdad; y si el lebrel muere, es cierto que es veneno, el que virtió. Don Mair confesses and is sentenced to death.1 In La Prudencia en la mujer Don Juan asks the Jewish physician Ismael, to kill the king who is ill with smallpox, for which purpose the doctor has a potion of poison. at hand. As he prepares to go into the chamber a portrait of the queen hanging ovei the doorway falls and foils his entrance. Doña Maria now appears and upon asking what he has in the glass receives the answer that though Don Juan had ordered the king's death by poison, the glass really contains a purga, which he tries to spill. She prevents him from doing so and forces him to drin* it while ironically appealing to his supposedly good repute: Tened la mano y el vaso; que pues mi Fernando está para purgarse dispuesto, no es bien perder la ocasión por una falsa opinión, que en mala fama os ha puesto. Conozco vuestra virtud; médico habéis siempre sido sabio, fiel y agradecido. Asegurad la salud del Rey, y vuestra inocencia, haciendo la salva ahora a esa purga. After imbibing the poison the dying Ismael remarks that the lex talionis is now being applied to him on account of the many murders he has committed: Pero la que receté a costa de tantas vidas, en julepes y bebidas, por el tallón pagaré. Aunque en ser tantas advierto que, para que no me igualen, a media gota no salen los infinitos que he muerto, (bebe)2 Up to the spilling of the poison the scene closely follows the action of the...