«Bellaco sois, Gomez» Its Date, Ambient, and Authenticity in Tirso's Theatre

«BELLACO SOIS , GOMEZ» ITS DATE, AMBIENT, AND AUTHENTICITY IN TIRSO'S THEATRE Ruth Lee Kennedy, University of Arizona Bellaco sois, Gómez,(í) with its high-powered feminine protagonist, looks back to Don Gil de las calzas verdes (1615) and forward to La huerta de Juan Fernández of 1626. In all three comedias, the heroine appears, sometimes in masculine attire, sometimes in feminine costume. When dressed as a man, she has no hesitation whatsoever in feigning love for her rival. Her ultimate purpose in all three is to make a recalcitrant lover redeem his earlier promise of marriage. As in Don Gil de las calzas verdes, so in Bellaco sois, Gómez, she will pretend to have come back from the other world as a «soul-in-pain», the better to bring pressure on this faithless lover. In both, the gracioso will be frightened out of his wits by this «master» who has returned to the world of the living as an alma-en-pena and will want to give notice forthwith. In the closing scene of Don Gil, any number of «Don Giles», all dressed in calzas verdes, present themselves, to the great confusion of other characters concerned . Just so at the end of Bellaco sois, Gómez, several of the characters will usurp the name of the imaginary «Don Gómez». But Bellaco sois, Gómez in turn made its contribution to La huerta de Juan Fernández. (Indeed, the latter play is a patch-work, made up of scraps cut from earlier Tirsian comedias.*) From Bellaco sois, Gómez, Tirso not only carried over the general role of the heroine, but he transferred there as well the name of Petronila, one found only in these two plays and in La dama del Olivar.(2) What is more, Doña Petronila of La huerta de Juan Fernández , when playing in masculine role, assumes the very same name of «Don Gómez», where, it should be remembered, the name she assumes is an inseparable part of the title itself. Finally, if Doña Ana of Bellaco sois, Gómez, in her disguise as Don Gómez Portocarrero, creates out of whole cloth a non-existent wife and child who are in Madrid, the feminine protagonist of La huerta de Juan Fernández (III, iii) repeats this stratagem, though without giving her brain-child a name, as Doña Ana had done in the earlier play. In Bellaco sois, Gómez, the heroine baptizes her imaginary child with the name «Cristobalico», and «little Cristobalico» will, from time to time in the comedia,be mentioned by name, though he never appears on the stage. The fact that the child carries this particular name suggests that at one point in its history, it may have been done as a particular for some branch of the Portocarrero family: probably for the «Montijos», for «Cristobalico» was, in the sixth branch of that family, almost an inevitable name for the eldest son, as a hasty glimpse at that family tree in García Carraffa's Catálogo genealógico 56 makes evident.(3) I consider the spring of 1626-i.e., the date of composition ofLa huerta de Juan Fernández as an ad quem date forBellaco sois, Gómez. There are, however, in Bellaco sois, Gómez various internal allusions which place it in the year 1622. First of all, one finds a significant reference to «Anfriso», which can only refer to the hero of Lope's pastoral novel, La Arcadia, or else to the protagonist of Tirso's play, La fingida Arcadia (1622) which, as Gabriel Téllez himself tells us (III, xiii), is based directly on it. In both novel and comedia, Anfriso is the pastoral name which the hero assumes . It is to this character that Montilla refers in the second act of Bellaco sois, Gómez. His master, Don Gregorio de Toledo y Leiva, is in the Prado, enjoying «el frecuentado bullicio / de tanto coche que al Prado / trasladaron los Elíseos. » He dismisses Montilla, his servant, who thereupon answers (II, x): A estos álamos me asiento; si el sueño me dijere «envido» diré «topo»; y tú, entretanto...