"¿Yo a un vasallo . . .?" Prince Henry's Role in Calderon's El medico de su honra

'¿YO A UN VASALLO . . .?" PRINCE HENRY'S ROLE IN CALDERON'S EL MEDICO DE SU HONRA* Frances Exum, Winthrop College The role and responsibility of King Peter I of Castile in Calderón's El médico de su honra has been the subject of much scholarly attention. On the other hand, the role of Prince Henry of Trastamara is an aspect of the play that has been commented upon but not fully developed by its critics.1 An unusual set of circumstances has led to an overemphasis upon Peter's role and a consequent neglect of Henry's. A detailed examination of the latter's actions and influence on the other characters demonstrates that his role is of primary importance in the evolution of the tragedy. There is no doubt that A. A. Parker is correct in his opinion that El médico de su honra is "Calderón's most problematic play."2 However, there is less truth in his statement that the imprudence of Prince Henry is "self evident" and therefore not in need of analysis. In fact, much of the difficulty of interpretation arises precisely from the problematic nature of Henry's role in the play. In other Golden Age plays such as La estrella de Sevitta and La corona merecida we see a royal personage, the king, seeking to seduce a married woman in willful disregard of his official position as source of honor and justice in his realm. The situation in El médico de su honra is complicated by the fact that the transgressor here is not the king himself, but his halfbrother , a free agent whose actions are beyond the king's control. Prince Henry had courted the unmarried Mencia during what was for both a brief but happy period before he had been called away from Seville. While Henry was away, Mencia's father convinced her that she should marry the punctilious Gutierre, who only recently had broken off his own engagement to Leonor because he had seen a disguised man (Don Arias) leave her house one night. As Bruce W. Wardropper observes, this GutierreLeonor episode closely resembles an unwritten capa y espada play.3 Unlike most heroes of the comedies, however, Gutierre reacts strongly to the episode, and he terminates his relationship with Leonor, leaving the capa y espada plot without a satisfactory resolution. When the situation is duplicated in El médico de su honra with Prince Henry and Gutierre's wife rather than his sweetheart in the principal roles, the techniques of mistaken identity, disguise and concealment used in the comedies to add interest to the dramatic plot, lead instead to a tragic ending for the innocent, if imprudent Mencia. Henry enjoys a double immunity in this play. Not only is he immune from Gutierre's physical retaliation because he is of royal blood, he is also immune from our final assessment of his degree of guilt for the tragedy, since he exits from the scene early in Act III and we do not know if there is any kind of satisfaction that he, as a royal prince, might have given to Gutierre that could have prevented the murder. King Peter is unable to give Gutierre satisfaction. Instead, he aggravates the conflict by having him overhear his interview with Henry. Once the prince flees from the scene, King Peter assumes the combined responsibility for his own im- prudence and that of his half-brother. This is highly ironical, since at this point only Henry and Gutierre are capable of actions or gestures that can bring about a resolution to the problem of the latter's compromised reputation . The absence of Prince Henry contributes as surely as the imprudence of King Peter to the isolation of Gutierre and his decision to murder his wife. In the first scene of Act I Henry falls from his horse, a symbolic representation of his future, more serious fall into passion and a lack of prudence. He has a premonition that his fall was the will of God rather than an accident:¡Ay, don Arias, la caída no fue acaso, sino agüero de mi muerte! Y con razón, pues fue...