Lope's Viuda Valenciana and Its Bandellian Source

fate is to marry Leonora, whom he does not love. It is interesting to note that Castro invents this punishment for Celinos, for in the romance upon which the play is based, Celinos is pardoned by the Emperor.5 At times death is preferable to a forced marriage. In El amor constante, the King gives Nisida her choice of marrying him and becoming Queen or taking poison. Nisida, who is in love with Celauro, the King's brother, prefers the poison and dies (I, 34 ff.). The instances in which an arranged marriage causes unhappy matrimony in Castro's plays are many. Thus in Los enemigos hermanos , the Duke is unhappily married because "quiso el rey . . . / casarme con la Duquesa, / casamiento al fin forzado" (III, 9). Similarly, when the King in El perfecto caballero exclaims that "triste cosa es ser casado" (II, 151), the real reason is that he had been forced to marry the Queen by the Pope, who had arranged the marriage "por no ver guerra en Italia" (?, 145). The King, however, has not learned from his own experience and attempts to persuade don Miguel to marry Diana, but is told by Miguel that "sólo en el casarse los honrados / no han de seguir el gusto de los reyes" (II, 160).6 Less common, but not unusual, is the unhappy marriage due to a disregard for the principle that the lovers should be of the same age. At the end of the entremés Cornelio, Guillen de Castro, by means of a letrilla, informs the audience that "[del] viejo [que] casa con moça ... se hará un tonto famoso" (III, 540). This is echoed in El desengaño dichoso, referring to the King and Queen who are unhappily married because the Queen is much younger than her husband: REINA.¡Desdichada la mujer que con un viejo se casa! GINEBRA. ¡Desdichado el hombre viejo que casa con mujer moza! (I, 322) Thus it has been shown that unhappy matrimony in Castro's theater is often caused by a disregard for one of the principles discussed above. Hence the conclusion that Guillen de Castro does not disdain matrimony fer sey but bases many of his plays on the problems which cause marriage to fail. NOTES 1 Eduardo Julia Martinez, ed., Obras de don Guillen de Castro (Madrid, 1925-1927), vol. I, p. xlv. All the references to Castro's works are taken from this edition and are indicated in parentheses by volume and page. 2 Carroll Camden, The Elizabethan Woman (Houston , New York, London, 1952), p. 63. 3 P. W. Bomli, La Femme dans VEspagne du siècle d'or (La Haye, 1950), p. 94. 4 Julia Fitzmaurice-Kelly, "Woman in Sixteenth Century Spain." Revue Hispanique, LXX, 157 (June, 1927), p. 587. Cf. Las siete partidas, partida IVj título I, ley VI: ". . . para casamiento fazer, ha menester que el varón sea de hedad de catorze anos, e la muger de doze." 5 Si ha errado Celinos, / hízolo con mocedad, / en escribir que érades muerto, / pues no era vardad. —Romance del conde Oírlos in Romances viejos castellanos, vol. IX of Antología de poetas líricos castellanos (Madrid, 1912), p. 23. *> Cf. Las siete partidas, partida IV, título I, ley X: "Que los padres non pueden desposar sus fijas, non estando ellas delante, o non lo otorgando." Lope's Viuda Valenciana and Its Bandellian Source by Joseph G. Fucilla Northwestern University In his discussion of La Viuda Valenciana in Geschichte des Spanischen Nationaldramas. Erster Band. Leipzig, 1890, p. 153, Adolf Schaeffer writes: "Die Grundidee des Stücks fand Lope bei Bandello (Theil IV, Nov. XXVI), aber alle Episoden, sowie die Katastrophe sind sein ausschliessliches Eigenthum. Bei Bandello endigt die Fabel damit, dass nach sieben Jahren heimlichen Verkehrs der Liebenden, der Cavalier an einem heftigen Fieber stirbt, ein Schluss, der allerdings nicht für ein Drama gepasst hätte." Almost fifty years later in "Lope et Bandello," Hommage à Ernest Martinenche (Paris, c. 1939, p. 122), Professor Eugène Kohler substantially echoes the same opinion. "Le thème de la Viuda Valenciana (he notes), comedia qui abonde en belle scènes d'un comique parfois très...