Fuente Ovejuna - Act Second
ACT SECOND
E STEBAN . Better touch the reserve no further. The year bodes ill with threat of foul weather, so let the grain be impounded though there be mutiny among the people.
R EGIDOR . I am of your mind if the village may be governed in peace.
E STEBAN . Then speak to Fernan Gomez. These astrologers with their harangues pretend they know secrets God only knows. Not a scrap can they read of the future, unholy fabricators of what was and what shall be, when to their eyes even the present is blank,
For their ignorance is rank.
Can they bring the clouds indoors and lay the stars upon the table? How do they peer into heaven and yet come down with such dire disasters? These fellows tell us how and when to sow, here with the grain, there with the barley and the vegetables, the squash, mustard, and cucumber —
As squashes add them to the number.
Next they predict a man will die and one does in Transylvania, or the vineyards shall suffer drought, or people take to beer in far off Germany; also cherries will freeze and impoverish the neighbors in Gascony, while there will be a plague of tigers in Hyrcania. So or not so, pray remember
The year ends with December.
L EONELO . I grant this town nothing, upon a re-view, but as the plain seat of stupidity.
B ARRILDO . How did you fare in Salamanca?
L EONELO . That is no simple story.
B ARRILDO . By this you must be a complete Bartulo.
L EONELO . Not even a barber by this. In our faculty few trim knowledge from the course.
B ARRILDO . You return to us a scholar.
L EONELO . No, but I have learned what it is wise to know.
B ARRILDO . With all the printing of books nowadays a man might pick up a few and be wise.
L EONELO . We know less than we did when there was less knowledge, for the bulk of learning is so great no man can compass it. Confusion results from excess, all the stir goes to froth, while those who read befuddle their heads with endless pages and become literal slaves. The art of printing has raised up a thousand geniuses over night. To be sure it spreads and conserves the Holy Scriptures, that they may be known of all and endure, but this invention of Guttenberg, that famous German of Mayence, has in fact devitalized glory. Many a man of repute has proved a very fool when his books have been printed, or else suffered the mortification of having simpletons issue theirs in his name. Others have set down arrant nonsense and credited it to their enemies out of spite, to whose undoing it circulates and appals the world.
B ARRILDO . I can find no words to argue with you.
L EONELO . The ignorant have the learned at their mercy.
B ARRILDO . Leonelo, on every account printing is a mighty invention.
L EONELO . For centuries the world did very well without it, and to this hour it has not produced one Jerome nor a second Augustine. The men were saint
B ARRILDO . Sit down and rest, for my head is dizzy opposing you.
J UAN R OJO . There is not a dower on four of these farms if the fields continue as they are, and this may be seen on all sides, far and near, for all is one.
Farmer . What word of the Commander?
J UAN R OJO . Would Laurencia had never set foot by the river!
Farmer . I could dangle him gladly from that olive-tree, savage, unbridled and lewd!
Commander . Heaven for the just!
R EGIDOR . Commander!
Commander . God's body, why do you stand?
E STEBAN . Senor, where the custom is to sit, we stand.
Commander . I tell you to sit down.
E STEBAN . As honorable men we cannot do you honor, having none.
Commander . Sit down while I talk with you!
E STEBAN . Shall we discuss my hound, sir?
Commander . Alcalde, these true men of mine praise the rare virtue of the animal.
E STEBAN . The beast is swift. In God's name but he can overtake a thief or harry a coward right cruelly.
Commander . I would set him on a graceful hare that these days lopes before me.
E STEBAN . Done, if you will lead us to the hare.
Commander . Oh, speaking of your daughter —
E STEBAN . My daughter?
Commander . Yes, why not? The hare.
E STEBAN . My daughter is not your quarry.
Commander . Alcalde, pray you prevail upon her.
E STEBAN . How?
Commander . She plumes herself before me. A wife, and a proud one, of a councillor who attends before me now, and listens, at my every look darts kindling glances.
E STEBAN . She does ill. You, Senor, do ill also, speaking thus freely.
Commander . Oh, what rustic virtue! Here, Flores, get him the book of Politics , and let him perfect himself in Aristotle.
E STEBAN . Senor, the town would live in the reflection of your honor. There be men in Fuente Ovejuna.
L EONELO . I never read of such a tyrant.
Commander . What have I said, in faith, to which you take exception, Regidor?
J UAN R OJO . You have spoken ill. Speak well, for it is not meet you level at our honor.
Commander . Your honor? Good! Are we importing friars to Calatrava?
R EGIDOR . There be those that be content to wear the cross, though the heart be not too pure.
Commander . I do not injure you, mingling my blood with yours.
J UAN R OJO . A smirch is no hidden stain.
Commander . In doing my will I accord your wives honor.
E STEBAN . The very words spell dishonor, while your deeds pass all remedy.
Commander . Obstinate dolt! Ah, better the cities where men of parts and renown wreak their will and their pleasure! There husbands give thanks when their wives sacrifice upon the altar.
E STEBAN . They do no such service, if with this you would move us. God rules, too, in the cities, and justice is swift.
Commander . Get up and get out.
E STEBAN . We have said what you have heard.
Commander . Out of the square straight! Let not one remain behind!
E STEBAN . We firmly take our leave.
Commander . What? In company?
F LORES . By the rood, hold your hand!
Commander . These hinds would slander me, defiling the square with lies, departing together.
O RTUÑO . Pray be patient.
Commander . I marvel that I am so calm! Walk each one by himself, apart. Let no man speak till his door has shut behind him!
L EONELO . Great God, can they stomach this?
E STEBAN . My path lies this way.
Commander . What shall we do with these knaves?
O RTUÑO . Their speech offends you and you by no means hide your unwillingness to hear it.
Commander . Do they compare themselves with me?
F LORES . Perversity of man.
Commander . Shall that peasant retain my cross-bow and not be punished while I live?
F LORES . Last night we took him, as we thought, at Laurencia's door, and I gave an oaf who was his double a slash that married his two ears.
Commander . Can you find no trace of that Frondoso?
F LORES . They say he remains in these parts still.
Commander . And dares remain, who has attempted my life?
F LORES . Like a silly bird or a fish, a decoy will tempt him and he will fall into the lure.
Commander . That a laborer, a stripling of the soil should aim a cross-bow at a captain before whose sword Cordoba and Granada tremble! Flores, the end of the world has come!
F LORES . Blame love, for it knows no monopoly of daring.
O RTUÑO . Seeing he lived, I took it as a token of your kindly disposition.
Commander . Ortuno, the smile is false. Dirk in hand, within these two hours would I ransack the place, but vengeance yields the rein to reason until the hour shall come. Which of you had a smile of Pascuala?
F LORES . She says she intends to marry.
Commander . How far is she prepared to go?
F LORES . She will advise you anon when she can accept a favor.
Commander . How of Olalla?
O RTUÑO . Fair words.
Commander . Buxom and spirited! How far?
O RTUÑO . She says her husband has been uneasy these past days, suspicious of my messages, and of your hovering about, attended. As soon as his fears are allayed, you shall have a sign.
Commander . On the honor of a knight 'tis well! These rustics have sharp eyes and commonly are evil-minded.
O RTUÑO . Evil-minded, ill-spoken and ill-favored.
Commander . Say not so of Ines.
F LORES . Which one?
Commander . Anton's wife. Aha!
F LORES . Yes, she will oblige any day. I saw her in the corral, which you can enter secretly.
Commander . These easy girls we requite but poorly. Flores, may women never learn the worth of the wares they sell!
F LORES . No pain wipes out the sweetness wholly. To prevail quickly, cheats the expectation, but, as philosophers agree, women desire the men as they are desired, nor can form be without substance, at which we should not complain, nor wonder.
Commander . A man who is fiercely swept by love finds solace in a speedy yielding to desire, but afterward despises the object, for the road to forgetfulness even under the star of honor, is to hold oneself cheap before love's importuning.
C IMBRANOS . Where is the Commander?
O RTUÑO . Behold him, if you have the faculty of sight.
C IMBRANOS . Oh, gallant Fernan Gomez,
Put off the rustic cap
For the morion of steel
And change the cloak
For armor!
The Master of Santiago
And the Count of Cabra,
By title of the Castilian Queen,
Lay siege to Don Rodrigo Giron
In Ciudad Real,
And short his shrift unaided
Before their approaching powers,
Forfeiting the spoils so dearly won
At cost of blood of Calatrava.
Already from the battlements
Our sentinels descry
Pennons and banners,
The castles and the lions,
Quartered with the bars of Aragon.
What though the King of Portugal
Heap on Giron vain honors?
Vanquished, the Master must creep home
To Almagro, wounded,
Abandoning the city.
To horse, to horse, Senor!
At sight of you
The enemy will fly
Headlong into Castile,
Nor pause this side surrender.
Commander . Hold and speak no more!
Stay for me.
Ortuno, sound the trumpet
Here in the square.
What soldiers
Are billeted with me?
O RTUÑO . A troop of fifty men.
Commander . To horse every one!
C IMBRANOS . Spur apace or Ciudad Real
Falls to the King
Commander . That shall never be.
P ASCUALA . Don't leave us.
M ENGO . What's the matter?
L AURENCIA . Mengo, we seek the village in groups, when there's no man to go with us, for fear of the Commander.
M ENGO . How can the ugly devil torment so many?
L AURENCIA . He is upon us night and day.
M ENGO . Oh, would heaven send a bolt to strike him where he stands!
L AURENCIA . He's an unchained beast, poison, arsenic and pestilence throughout the land.
M ENGO . Laurencia, they say Frondoso pointed an arrow at his breast for your sake, here in this very meadow.
L AURENCIA . Mengo, I hated all men till then, but since that day I relent. Frondoso had courage; it will cost him his life.
M ENGO . He must fly these fields, that's sure.
L AURENCIA . I love him enough to advise it, but he'll have no counsel of me, storming and raging and turning away. The Commander swears he will hang him feet upward.
P ASCUALA . I say hang the Commander.
M ENGO . Stone him I say. God knows but I will up and at him with a rock I saved at the sheep-fold that will land him a crack that will crush his skull in! He's wickeder than Gabalus that old Roman.
L AURENCIA . The one that was so wicked was Heliogabalus. He was a man.
M ENGO . Whoever he was, call him Gab or Gal, his scurvy memory yields to this. You know history. Was there ever a man like Fernan Gomez?
P ASCUALA . No, he's no man. There must be tigers in him.
J ACINTA . Help in God's name, if you are women!
L AURENCIA . Why, what's this, Jacinta?
P ASCUALA . We are all your friends.
J ACINTA . The Commander's men, on their way to Ciudad Real, armed with villainy when it should be steel, would seize me and take me to him.
L AURENCIA . God help you, Jacinta! With you, pray he be merciful, but I choose rather to die than be taken!
P ASCUALA . Jacinta, being no man I cannot save you.
M ENGO . I can because I am a man in strength and in name. Jacinta, stand beside me.
J ACINTA . Are you armed?
M ENGO . Twice. I have two arms.
J ACINTA . You will need more.
M ENGO . Jacinta, the ground bears stones.
F LORES . Did you think you could run away from us?
J ACINTA . Mengo, I am dead with fear!
M ENGO . Friends, these are poor peasant girls.
O RTUÑO . Do you assume to defend her?
M ENGO . I do, so please you, since I am her relative and must protect her, if that may be.
F LORES . Kill him straightway!
M ENGO . Strike me heaven, but I am in a rage! You can put a cord around my neck but, by God, I'll sell my life dear!
Commander . Who calls? What says this turd?
F LORES . The people of this town, which we should raze for there is no health in it, insult our arms.
M ENGO . Senor, if pity can prevail in the face of injustice, reprove these soldiers who would force this peasant girl in your name, though spouse and parents be bred to honor, and grant me license straight to lead her home unharmed.
Commander . I will grant them license straight to harm you for your impudence. Let go that sling.
M ENGO . Senor — —
Commander . Flores, Ortuno and Cimbranos, it will serve to tie his hands.
M ENGO . Is this the voice of honor?
Commander . What do these sheep of Fuente Ovejuna think of me?
M ENGO . Senor, have I offended you, or mayhap the village, in anything?
F LORES . Shall we kill him?
Commander . It would soil your arms which we shall stain with redder blood.
O RTUÑO . We wait your orders, sir.
Commander . Flog him without mercy. Tie him to that oak-tree, baring his back, and with the reins — —
M ENGO . No, no, for you are noble!
Commander . Flog him till the rivets start from the straps!
M ENGO . My God, can such things be?
Commander . Pretty peasant, draw near daintily. Who would prefer a farmer to a valiant nobleman?
J ACINTA . But will you heal my honor, taking me for yourself?
Commander . Truly I do take you.
J ACINTA . No, I have an honorable father, sir, who may not equal you in birth, but in virtue he is the first.
Commander . These are troubled days nor will this rude peasantry salve my outraged spirit. Pass with me under the trees.
J ACINTA . I?
Commander . This way.
J ACINTA . Look what you do!
Commander . Refuse and I spurn you. You shall be the slut of the army.
J ACINTA . No power of lust can overcome me.
Commander . Silence and go before.
J ACINTA . Pity, Senor!
Commander . Pity have I none.
J ACINTA . I appeal from your wickedness to God!
L AURENCIA . Through fields of danger
My love comes to me.
F RONDOSO . The hazard bear witness
To the love that I bear.
The Commander has vanished
O'er the brow of the hill
And I, the slave of beauty,
Lose all sense of fear,
Seeing him disappear.
L AURENCIA . Speak ill of no man.
To pray for his end
Postpones it, my friend.
F RONDOSO . Eternally.
And may he live a thousand years,
And every one bear joy!
I'll pray for his soul also
And may the pious litany
Bite, sear and destroy!
Laurencia, if my love
Live in your heart,
Let me enter there, love,
To dwell loyally.
The town counts us one,
Yet by the book we are twain.
Will you, I wonder,
Say yes,
Compulsion under?
L AURENCIA . Say for me to the town
Oh yes, yes and yes
Again and again!
F RONDOSO . I kiss your feet
For this new miracle of mercy.
Beauty grants me joy
In words grace conjures.
L AURENCIA . Flatter me no more,
But speak to my father
And win my uncle's praise.
Oh, speak,
Frondoso,
Oh may we marry, oh Frondoso,
It will be heaven
To be your wife!
F RONDOSO . In God we trust.
Hides himself.
E STEBAN . His departure outraged the square, and indeed it was most unseemly behavior. Such tyranny stuns as a blow; even poor Jacinta must pay the price of his madness.
J UAN R OJO . Spain turns already to the Catholic Kings, a name by which our rulers have come to be known, and the nation renders obedience to their laws. They have appointed the Master of Santiago Captain General of Ciudad Real, despatching him forthwith against Giron's oppression of the town. But my heart aches for Jacinta, being as she is an honest girl.
E STEBAN . They beat Mengo soundly.
J UAN R OJO . I never saw dye, black or red, to rival his flesh.
E STEBAN . Peace and no more, for my blood boils, or else congeals at his name. Have I authority or a staff of office?
J UAN R OJO . The man cannot control his servants.
E STEBAN . On top of all this they chanced on Pedro Redondo's wife one day in the very bottom of the valley, and after he insulted her she was turned over to the men.
J UAN R OJO . Who is listening concealed?
F RONDOSO . I, a petitioner.
J UAN R OJO . Granted, Frondoso. Your father brought you to be, but I have brought you to be what you are, a prop and support, who is my very son in the house.
F RONDOSO . Assured, Alcalde, of permission, I speak as one by birth honorable, and not obscure.
E STEBAN . You have suffered wrong at the hand of Fernan Gomez?
F RONDOSO . More than a little.
E STEBAN . My heart records it. The man is surely mad.
F RONDOSO . Senor, appealing to a father,
Serving a daughter,
I beg her hand
Not all a stranger.
Pardon presumption though it be extreme;
Buldly I speak for men shall count me bold.
E STEBAN . By that word, Frondoso,
You renew my life,
Brushing aside
The apprehension of the years.
Now heaven be praised, my son,
For your proposal seals our honor,
Which may love guard jealously.
Apprise your father straight
Of this new promised joy,
For my consent stays
But his approbation,
In whose fair prospect
Beams my happiness.
J UAN R OJO . The maid must consent also.
E STEBAN . Her consent should precede
And has preceded indeed,
Because a faithful lover
Is prophet and recorder.
I have taken an oath to bestow some right good maravedis upon a good young man.
F RONDOSO . I seek no dower. Gold, they say, makes the day dull.
J UAN R OJO . So long as he does not court the wineskins, you may dower him without stint or mercy.
E STEBAN . I will speak to my daughter that assurance may be doubly sure.
F RONDOSO . Do, pray, for violence has no part in love.
E STEBAN . Dearest daughter Laurencia!
L AURENCIA . Oh, father?
E STEBAN . She approves for she answers before I speak! — Dearest daughter Laurencia, step apart a moment. Frondoso, who is an honest lad, if one there be in Fuente Ovejuna, inquires of me as to your friend Gila, whom he would honor as a wife.
L AURENCIA . Gila a wife?
E STEBAN . Is she a fitting mate, a proper wife?
L AURENCIA . Yes, father, oh she is! Of course!
E STEBAN . Of course she is ugly, as ugly as they come, which led me to suggest, Laurencia, that Frondoso look at you.
L AURENCIA . Father, be serious as becomes your office.
E STEBAN . Do you love him?
L AURENCIA . I have favored him and am myself favored. But you knew!
E STEBAN . Shall I say yes?
L AURENCIA . Yes, father, for me.
E STEBAN . The yes will do for us both. Come, we will seek his father.
J UAN R OJO . Instantly.
E STEBAN . My boy, to return to the dower. I can afford, yes, and I pledge, four thousand maravedis.
F RONDOSO . Senor, I am your son now and you offend me.
E STEBAN . A day and pride abates, lad, but if you marry without a dower, by my faith, many a day will succeed and the abatement not be mended.
L AURENCIA . Frondoso, bliss!
F RONDOSO . Yes, triply.
In a single moment
I feel so happy
I could die with pleasure!
Bliss it must be
Shared among three.
I look at you and laugh,
Laugh my heart out.
Oh, what treasure
I drink in at a glance
Now love comes to me,
Laurencia!
Commander . Fly, sir! There is no remedy.
Master . The wall giving way, the weight of the enemy undoes us.
Commander . We have bled them and cost them many lives.
Master . The banner of Calatrava shall not trail among their spoils, though it were recompense turning all to glory.
Commander . Our league, Giron, crumbles and lies lifeless.
Master . Can we outstrip fortune, though she be blind, favoring us to-day, to-day to leave us?
V OICES . Hail, Victory! Hail, the Crown of Castile!
Master . The pennons show upon the battlements while all the windows of the towers thrust banners forth, proclaiming the victory.
Commander . Much joy may they have of the day! By my soul, a day of slaughter!
Master . Fernan Gomez, I'll to Calatrava.
Commander . And I to Fuente Ovejuna. Stay upon your cousin of Portugal, or, weighing adversity, yield allegiance to the Catholic King.
Master . I shall apprise you with despatch.
Commander . Time is a hard general.
Master . God grant me few years like this, fertile in undeception.
Musicians . Joy to the bride
And long life beside!
Long life!
M ENGO . A clever boy thought that up! Oh, that boy is clever!
B ARRILDO . He could troll it out at any wedding.
F RONDOSO . Mengo sings only to the lash because he says it has more tang to it.
M ENGO . Yes, and I know a young chap in the valley, not meaning you of course, who would make a nice dish for the Commander.
B ARRILDO . Enough of gloom and amen, seeing that a ferocious barbarian offers at our honor.
M ENGO . I believe a hundred soldiers whipped me that day, and all I had was a sling that I gave up to protect me. However, I know a man, not mentioning names, who was full of honor and pursued with a syringe loaded with dye and some herbs that caused him great pain, and oh my, the pain that they caused him! How that man did suffer!
B ARRILDO . By way of jest. It was done as a laughing matter.
M ENGO . As it came out afterwards. At the time he never laughed nor even suspected, but felt much better without the dye, though while it was in, death was preferable.
F RONDOSO . A song would be preferable, or anything. Come, let it be a good one, Mengo.
M ENGO . Good! Do you invite me?
Bride and groom
Must dwell together.
Pray God neither one of them
Dare fight or row it.
Let both die
Just too tired out to live,
A long time after
They have forgotten all about it —
I mean the wedding.
F RONDOSO . God help the poet who made that up!
B ARRILDO . He needs more help.
M ENGO . Oh, that reminds me! Did you ever see a baker baking buns? He dips the dough into the oil until the pot is full, and then some swell up, some come out askew and twisted, leaning to the right, tumbling to the left, some scorched, some burned, some uneatable. Well, a poet's subject is his dough, he plops a verse onto the paper hoping it will turn out sweet, and his friends all tell him so, but when he tries to sell it he has to eat it himself, for the world is too wise to buy or else hasn't the money.
B ARRILDO . You came to the wedding so as not to give the bride and groom a chance to talk.
L AURENCIA . Uncle, you must be kissed. And you, too, Father — —
J UAN R OJO . Not on the hand. May your father's hand be your protection, and Frondoso's also, in the hour of need.
E STEBAN . Rojo, heaven protect her and her husband on whom I invoke an everlasting benison.
F RONDOSO . Ever to share with you.
J UAN R OJO . Come all now, play and sing, for they are as good as one.
Musicians . O maiden fair
With the flowing hair ,
Shun Fuente Ovejuna!
A warrior knight .
Awaits thee there ,
Waits the maid with the flowing hair
With the Cross of Calatrava.
Oh, hide in the shade
By the branches made!
Why, lovely maiden ,
Why afraid?
Against desire
No wall may aid
'Gainst the Knight of Calatrava.
Thou grim knight spare
Frail beauty there
By Fuente Ovejuna!
No screen can hide ,
No mountain bare ,
No ocean bar love anywhere
'Gainst the Knight of Calatrava.
Here in the shade ,
Shall love's debt be paid .
O peerless maiden ,
Why afraid?
Against desire
No wall may aid
'Gainst the Knight of Calatrava.
Commander . Let all in the house stand still on pain of death.
J UAN R OJO . Senor, though this be no play, your command shall be obeyed. Will you sit down? Why all these arms and weapons? We question not, for you bring home victory.
F RONDOSO . I am dead unless heaven helps me.
L AURENCIA . Stand behind me, Frondoso.
Commander . No, seize and bind him.
J UAN R OJO . Surrender, boy, 'tis best.
F RONDOSO . Do you want them to kill me?
J UAN R OJO . Why, pray?
Commander . I am no man to take life unjustly, for, if I were, my soldiers would have run him through ere this, forwards or rearwards. Throw him into prison where his own father shall pronounce sentence upon him, chained in his dank cell.
P ASCUALA . This is a wedding, Senor.
Commander . What care I for weddings? Is this your occupation in the village?
P ASCUALA . Pardon him, Senor, if he has done wrong, being who you are.
Commander . Pascuala, he has done no wrong to me, but offense to the Master, Tellez Giron, whom God preserve. He has mocked his law, scoffed at his rule, and punishment must be imposed as a most dire example, or there will be those to rise against the Master, seeing that one afternoon, but shortly gone, flower of these loyal and faithful vassals, he dared take aim, pointing the cross-bow at the bosom of the High Commander.
E STEBAN . If a father-in-law may offer a word of excuse, his dudgeon was not strange but manly, taking umbrage as a lover. You would deprive him of his wife. Small wonder the man should defend her!
Commander . Alcalde, the truth is not in you.
E STEBAN . Be just, Senor.
Commander . I had no thought to deprive him of his wife, nor could so have done, he having none.
E STEBAN . But you had the thought, which shall suffice. Henceforth enough! A King and Queen rule now in Castile whose firm decrees shall bring this rioting to cease, nor will they stay their hands, these wars once ended, nor suffer arrogance to overpower their towns and villages, crucifying the people cruelly. Upon his breast the King will place a cross, and on that royal breast it shall be the symbol, too, of honor!
Commander . Death to presumption! Wrest the staff from him.
E STEBAN . Senor, I yield it up, commanded.
Commander . Beat him with it while he capers about this stable. Have at him smartly!
E STEBAN . Still we suffer your authority. I am ready. Begin!
P ASCUALA . They beat an old man?
L AURENCIA . Yes, because he is my father. Beat him, avenging yourself on me!
Commander . Arrest her, and let ten soldiers guard this sinful maid!
E STEBAN . Justice, descend this day from heaven!
P ASCUALA . No wedding but a shambles.
B ARRILDO . And not a man of us said a word!
M ENGO . I have had my beating already and you can still see purple enough on me to outfit a Cardinal, without the trouble of sending to Rome. Try, if you don't believe it, what a thorough job they can do.
J UAN R OJO . We must all take counsel.
M ENGO . My counsel, friends, is to take nothing but forget it. I know which side I am on, though I don't say, for it's scaled like a salmon. Never again will any man get me to take it! Nor woman either.
E STEBAN . Better touch the reserve no further. The year bodes ill with threat of foul weather, so let the grain be impounded though there be mutiny among the people.
R EGIDOR . I am of your mind if the village may be governed in peace.
E STEBAN . Then speak to Fernan Gomez. These astrologers with their harangues pretend they know secrets God only knows. Not a scrap can they read of the future, unholy fabricators of what was and what shall be, when to their eyes even the present is blank,
For their ignorance is rank.
Can they bring the clouds indoors and lay the stars upon the table? How do they peer into heaven and yet come down with such dire disasters? These fellows tell us how and when to sow, here with the grain, there with the barley and the vegetables, the squash, mustard, and cucumber —
As squashes add them to the number.
Next they predict a man will die and one does in Transylvania, or the vineyards shall suffer drought, or people take to beer in far off Germany; also cherries will freeze and impoverish the neighbors in Gascony, while there will be a plague of tigers in Hyrcania. So or not so, pray remember
The year ends with December.
L EONELO . I grant this town nothing, upon a re-view, but as the plain seat of stupidity.
B ARRILDO . How did you fare in Salamanca?
L EONELO . That is no simple story.
B ARRILDO . By this you must be a complete Bartulo.
L EONELO . Not even a barber by this. In our faculty few trim knowledge from the course.
B ARRILDO . You return to us a scholar.
L EONELO . No, but I have learned what it is wise to know.
B ARRILDO . With all the printing of books nowadays a man might pick up a few and be wise.
L EONELO . We know less than we did when there was less knowledge, for the bulk of learning is so great no man can compass it. Confusion results from excess, all the stir goes to froth, while those who read befuddle their heads with endless pages and become literal slaves. The art of printing has raised up a thousand geniuses over night. To be sure it spreads and conserves the Holy Scriptures, that they may be known of all and endure, but this invention of Guttenberg, that famous German of Mayence, has in fact devitalized glory. Many a man of repute has proved a very fool when his books have been printed, or else suffered the mortification of having simpletons issue theirs in his name. Others have set down arrant nonsense and credited it to their enemies out of spite, to whose undoing it circulates and appals the world.
B ARRILDO . I can find no words to argue with you.
L EONELO . The ignorant have the learned at their mercy.
B ARRILDO . Leonelo, on every account printing is a mighty invention.
L EONELO . For centuries the world did very well without it, and to this hour it has not produced one Jerome nor a second Augustine. The men were saint
B ARRILDO . Sit down and rest, for my head is dizzy opposing you.
J UAN R OJO . There is not a dower on four of these farms if the fields continue as they are, and this may be seen on all sides, far and near, for all is one.
Farmer . What word of the Commander?
J UAN R OJO . Would Laurencia had never set foot by the river!
Farmer . I could dangle him gladly from that olive-tree, savage, unbridled and lewd!
Commander . Heaven for the just!
R EGIDOR . Commander!
Commander . God's body, why do you stand?
E STEBAN . Senor, where the custom is to sit, we stand.
Commander . I tell you to sit down.
E STEBAN . As honorable men we cannot do you honor, having none.
Commander . Sit down while I talk with you!
E STEBAN . Shall we discuss my hound, sir?
Commander . Alcalde, these true men of mine praise the rare virtue of the animal.
E STEBAN . The beast is swift. In God's name but he can overtake a thief or harry a coward right cruelly.
Commander . I would set him on a graceful hare that these days lopes before me.
E STEBAN . Done, if you will lead us to the hare.
Commander . Oh, speaking of your daughter —
E STEBAN . My daughter?
Commander . Yes, why not? The hare.
E STEBAN . My daughter is not your quarry.
Commander . Alcalde, pray you prevail upon her.
E STEBAN . How?
Commander . She plumes herself before me. A wife, and a proud one, of a councillor who attends before me now, and listens, at my every look darts kindling glances.
E STEBAN . She does ill. You, Senor, do ill also, speaking thus freely.
Commander . Oh, what rustic virtue! Here, Flores, get him the book of Politics , and let him perfect himself in Aristotle.
E STEBAN . Senor, the town would live in the reflection of your honor. There be men in Fuente Ovejuna.
L EONELO . I never read of such a tyrant.
Commander . What have I said, in faith, to which you take exception, Regidor?
J UAN R OJO . You have spoken ill. Speak well, for it is not meet you level at our honor.
Commander . Your honor? Good! Are we importing friars to Calatrava?
R EGIDOR . There be those that be content to wear the cross, though the heart be not too pure.
Commander . I do not injure you, mingling my blood with yours.
J UAN R OJO . A smirch is no hidden stain.
Commander . In doing my will I accord your wives honor.
E STEBAN . The very words spell dishonor, while your deeds pass all remedy.
Commander . Obstinate dolt! Ah, better the cities where men of parts and renown wreak their will and their pleasure! There husbands give thanks when their wives sacrifice upon the altar.
E STEBAN . They do no such service, if with this you would move us. God rules, too, in the cities, and justice is swift.
Commander . Get up and get out.
E STEBAN . We have said what you have heard.
Commander . Out of the square straight! Let not one remain behind!
E STEBAN . We firmly take our leave.
Commander . What? In company?
F LORES . By the rood, hold your hand!
Commander . These hinds would slander me, defiling the square with lies, departing together.
O RTUÑO . Pray be patient.
Commander . I marvel that I am so calm! Walk each one by himself, apart. Let no man speak till his door has shut behind him!
L EONELO . Great God, can they stomach this?
E STEBAN . My path lies this way.
Commander . What shall we do with these knaves?
O RTUÑO . Their speech offends you and you by no means hide your unwillingness to hear it.
Commander . Do they compare themselves with me?
F LORES . Perversity of man.
Commander . Shall that peasant retain my cross-bow and not be punished while I live?
F LORES . Last night we took him, as we thought, at Laurencia's door, and I gave an oaf who was his double a slash that married his two ears.
Commander . Can you find no trace of that Frondoso?
F LORES . They say he remains in these parts still.
Commander . And dares remain, who has attempted my life?
F LORES . Like a silly bird or a fish, a decoy will tempt him and he will fall into the lure.
Commander . That a laborer, a stripling of the soil should aim a cross-bow at a captain before whose sword Cordoba and Granada tremble! Flores, the end of the world has come!
F LORES . Blame love, for it knows no monopoly of daring.
O RTUÑO . Seeing he lived, I took it as a token of your kindly disposition.
Commander . Ortuno, the smile is false. Dirk in hand, within these two hours would I ransack the place, but vengeance yields the rein to reason until the hour shall come. Which of you had a smile of Pascuala?
F LORES . She says she intends to marry.
Commander . How far is she prepared to go?
F LORES . She will advise you anon when she can accept a favor.
Commander . How of Olalla?
O RTUÑO . Fair words.
Commander . Buxom and spirited! How far?
O RTUÑO . She says her husband has been uneasy these past days, suspicious of my messages, and of your hovering about, attended. As soon as his fears are allayed, you shall have a sign.
Commander . On the honor of a knight 'tis well! These rustics have sharp eyes and commonly are evil-minded.
O RTUÑO . Evil-minded, ill-spoken and ill-favored.
Commander . Say not so of Ines.
F LORES . Which one?
Commander . Anton's wife. Aha!
F LORES . Yes, she will oblige any day. I saw her in the corral, which you can enter secretly.
Commander . These easy girls we requite but poorly. Flores, may women never learn the worth of the wares they sell!
F LORES . No pain wipes out the sweetness wholly. To prevail quickly, cheats the expectation, but, as philosophers agree, women desire the men as they are desired, nor can form be without substance, at which we should not complain, nor wonder.
Commander . A man who is fiercely swept by love finds solace in a speedy yielding to desire, but afterward despises the object, for the road to forgetfulness even under the star of honor, is to hold oneself cheap before love's importuning.
C IMBRANOS . Where is the Commander?
O RTUÑO . Behold him, if you have the faculty of sight.
C IMBRANOS . Oh, gallant Fernan Gomez,
Put off the rustic cap
For the morion of steel
And change the cloak
For armor!
The Master of Santiago
And the Count of Cabra,
By title of the Castilian Queen,
Lay siege to Don Rodrigo Giron
In Ciudad Real,
And short his shrift unaided
Before their approaching powers,
Forfeiting the spoils so dearly won
At cost of blood of Calatrava.
Already from the battlements
Our sentinels descry
Pennons and banners,
The castles and the lions,
Quartered with the bars of Aragon.
What though the King of Portugal
Heap on Giron vain honors?
Vanquished, the Master must creep home
To Almagro, wounded,
Abandoning the city.
To horse, to horse, Senor!
At sight of you
The enemy will fly
Headlong into Castile,
Nor pause this side surrender.
Commander . Hold and speak no more!
Stay for me.
Ortuno, sound the trumpet
Here in the square.
What soldiers
Are billeted with me?
O RTUÑO . A troop of fifty men.
Commander . To horse every one!
C IMBRANOS . Spur apace or Ciudad Real
Falls to the King
Commander . That shall never be.
P ASCUALA . Don't leave us.
M ENGO . What's the matter?
L AURENCIA . Mengo, we seek the village in groups, when there's no man to go with us, for fear of the Commander.
M ENGO . How can the ugly devil torment so many?
L AURENCIA . He is upon us night and day.
M ENGO . Oh, would heaven send a bolt to strike him where he stands!
L AURENCIA . He's an unchained beast, poison, arsenic and pestilence throughout the land.
M ENGO . Laurencia, they say Frondoso pointed an arrow at his breast for your sake, here in this very meadow.
L AURENCIA . Mengo, I hated all men till then, but since that day I relent. Frondoso had courage; it will cost him his life.
M ENGO . He must fly these fields, that's sure.
L AURENCIA . I love him enough to advise it, but he'll have no counsel of me, storming and raging and turning away. The Commander swears he will hang him feet upward.
P ASCUALA . I say hang the Commander.
M ENGO . Stone him I say. God knows but I will up and at him with a rock I saved at the sheep-fold that will land him a crack that will crush his skull in! He's wickeder than Gabalus that old Roman.
L AURENCIA . The one that was so wicked was Heliogabalus. He was a man.
M ENGO . Whoever he was, call him Gab or Gal, his scurvy memory yields to this. You know history. Was there ever a man like Fernan Gomez?
P ASCUALA . No, he's no man. There must be tigers in him.
J ACINTA . Help in God's name, if you are women!
L AURENCIA . Why, what's this, Jacinta?
P ASCUALA . We are all your friends.
J ACINTA . The Commander's men, on their way to Ciudad Real, armed with villainy when it should be steel, would seize me and take me to him.
L AURENCIA . God help you, Jacinta! With you, pray he be merciful, but I choose rather to die than be taken!
P ASCUALA . Jacinta, being no man I cannot save you.
M ENGO . I can because I am a man in strength and in name. Jacinta, stand beside me.
J ACINTA . Are you armed?
M ENGO . Twice. I have two arms.
J ACINTA . You will need more.
M ENGO . Jacinta, the ground bears stones.
F LORES . Did you think you could run away from us?
J ACINTA . Mengo, I am dead with fear!
M ENGO . Friends, these are poor peasant girls.
O RTUÑO . Do you assume to defend her?
M ENGO . I do, so please you, since I am her relative and must protect her, if that may be.
F LORES . Kill him straightway!
M ENGO . Strike me heaven, but I am in a rage! You can put a cord around my neck but, by God, I'll sell my life dear!
Commander . Who calls? What says this turd?
F LORES . The people of this town, which we should raze for there is no health in it, insult our arms.
M ENGO . Senor, if pity can prevail in the face of injustice, reprove these soldiers who would force this peasant girl in your name, though spouse and parents be bred to honor, and grant me license straight to lead her home unharmed.
Commander . I will grant them license straight to harm you for your impudence. Let go that sling.
M ENGO . Senor — —
Commander . Flores, Ortuno and Cimbranos, it will serve to tie his hands.
M ENGO . Is this the voice of honor?
Commander . What do these sheep of Fuente Ovejuna think of me?
M ENGO . Senor, have I offended you, or mayhap the village, in anything?
F LORES . Shall we kill him?
Commander . It would soil your arms which we shall stain with redder blood.
O RTUÑO . We wait your orders, sir.
Commander . Flog him without mercy. Tie him to that oak-tree, baring his back, and with the reins — —
M ENGO . No, no, for you are noble!
Commander . Flog him till the rivets start from the straps!
M ENGO . My God, can such things be?
Commander . Pretty peasant, draw near daintily. Who would prefer a farmer to a valiant nobleman?
J ACINTA . But will you heal my honor, taking me for yourself?
Commander . Truly I do take you.
J ACINTA . No, I have an honorable father, sir, who may not equal you in birth, but in virtue he is the first.
Commander . These are troubled days nor will this rude peasantry salve my outraged spirit. Pass with me under the trees.
J ACINTA . I?
Commander . This way.
J ACINTA . Look what you do!
Commander . Refuse and I spurn you. You shall be the slut of the army.
J ACINTA . No power of lust can overcome me.
Commander . Silence and go before.
J ACINTA . Pity, Senor!
Commander . Pity have I none.
J ACINTA . I appeal from your wickedness to God!
L AURENCIA . Through fields of danger
My love comes to me.
F RONDOSO . The hazard bear witness
To the love that I bear.
The Commander has vanished
O'er the brow of the hill
And I, the slave of beauty,
Lose all sense of fear,
Seeing him disappear.
L AURENCIA . Speak ill of no man.
To pray for his end
Postpones it, my friend.
F RONDOSO . Eternally.
And may he live a thousand years,
And every one bear joy!
I'll pray for his soul also
And may the pious litany
Bite, sear and destroy!
Laurencia, if my love
Live in your heart,
Let me enter there, love,
To dwell loyally.
The town counts us one,
Yet by the book we are twain.
Will you, I wonder,
Say yes,
Compulsion under?
L AURENCIA . Say for me to the town
Oh yes, yes and yes
Again and again!
F RONDOSO . I kiss your feet
For this new miracle of mercy.
Beauty grants me joy
In words grace conjures.
L AURENCIA . Flatter me no more,
But speak to my father
And win my uncle's praise.
Oh, speak,
Frondoso,
Oh may we marry, oh Frondoso,
It will be heaven
To be your wife!
F RONDOSO . In God we trust.
Hides himself.
E STEBAN . His departure outraged the square, and indeed it was most unseemly behavior. Such tyranny stuns as a blow; even poor Jacinta must pay the price of his madness.
J UAN R OJO . Spain turns already to the Catholic Kings, a name by which our rulers have come to be known, and the nation renders obedience to their laws. They have appointed the Master of Santiago Captain General of Ciudad Real, despatching him forthwith against Giron's oppression of the town. But my heart aches for Jacinta, being as she is an honest girl.
E STEBAN . They beat Mengo soundly.
J UAN R OJO . I never saw dye, black or red, to rival his flesh.
E STEBAN . Peace and no more, for my blood boils, or else congeals at his name. Have I authority or a staff of office?
J UAN R OJO . The man cannot control his servants.
E STEBAN . On top of all this they chanced on Pedro Redondo's wife one day in the very bottom of the valley, and after he insulted her she was turned over to the men.
J UAN R OJO . Who is listening concealed?
F RONDOSO . I, a petitioner.
J UAN R OJO . Granted, Frondoso. Your father brought you to be, but I have brought you to be what you are, a prop and support, who is my very son in the house.
F RONDOSO . Assured, Alcalde, of permission, I speak as one by birth honorable, and not obscure.
E STEBAN . You have suffered wrong at the hand of Fernan Gomez?
F RONDOSO . More than a little.
E STEBAN . My heart records it. The man is surely mad.
F RONDOSO . Senor, appealing to a father,
Serving a daughter,
I beg her hand
Not all a stranger.
Pardon presumption though it be extreme;
Buldly I speak for men shall count me bold.
E STEBAN . By that word, Frondoso,
You renew my life,
Brushing aside
The apprehension of the years.
Now heaven be praised, my son,
For your proposal seals our honor,
Which may love guard jealously.
Apprise your father straight
Of this new promised joy,
For my consent stays
But his approbation,
In whose fair prospect
Beams my happiness.
J UAN R OJO . The maid must consent also.
E STEBAN . Her consent should precede
And has preceded indeed,
Because a faithful lover
Is prophet and recorder.
I have taken an oath to bestow some right good maravedis upon a good young man.
F RONDOSO . I seek no dower. Gold, they say, makes the day dull.
J UAN R OJO . So long as he does not court the wineskins, you may dower him without stint or mercy.
E STEBAN . I will speak to my daughter that assurance may be doubly sure.
F RONDOSO . Do, pray, for violence has no part in love.
E STEBAN . Dearest daughter Laurencia!
L AURENCIA . Oh, father?
E STEBAN . She approves for she answers before I speak! — Dearest daughter Laurencia, step apart a moment. Frondoso, who is an honest lad, if one there be in Fuente Ovejuna, inquires of me as to your friend Gila, whom he would honor as a wife.
L AURENCIA . Gila a wife?
E STEBAN . Is she a fitting mate, a proper wife?
L AURENCIA . Yes, father, oh she is! Of course!
E STEBAN . Of course she is ugly, as ugly as they come, which led me to suggest, Laurencia, that Frondoso look at you.
L AURENCIA . Father, be serious as becomes your office.
E STEBAN . Do you love him?
L AURENCIA . I have favored him and am myself favored. But you knew!
E STEBAN . Shall I say yes?
L AURENCIA . Yes, father, for me.
E STEBAN . The yes will do for us both. Come, we will seek his father.
J UAN R OJO . Instantly.
E STEBAN . My boy, to return to the dower. I can afford, yes, and I pledge, four thousand maravedis.
F RONDOSO . Senor, I am your son now and you offend me.
E STEBAN . A day and pride abates, lad, but if you marry without a dower, by my faith, many a day will succeed and the abatement not be mended.
L AURENCIA . Frondoso, bliss!
F RONDOSO . Yes, triply.
In a single moment
I feel so happy
I could die with pleasure!
Bliss it must be
Shared among three.
I look at you and laugh,
Laugh my heart out.
Oh, what treasure
I drink in at a glance
Now love comes to me,
Laurencia!
Commander . Fly, sir! There is no remedy.
Master . The wall giving way, the weight of the enemy undoes us.
Commander . We have bled them and cost them many lives.
Master . The banner of Calatrava shall not trail among their spoils, though it were recompense turning all to glory.
Commander . Our league, Giron, crumbles and lies lifeless.
Master . Can we outstrip fortune, though she be blind, favoring us to-day, to-day to leave us?
V OICES . Hail, Victory! Hail, the Crown of Castile!
Master . The pennons show upon the battlements while all the windows of the towers thrust banners forth, proclaiming the victory.
Commander . Much joy may they have of the day! By my soul, a day of slaughter!
Master . Fernan Gomez, I'll to Calatrava.
Commander . And I to Fuente Ovejuna. Stay upon your cousin of Portugal, or, weighing adversity, yield allegiance to the Catholic King.
Master . I shall apprise you with despatch.
Commander . Time is a hard general.
Master . God grant me few years like this, fertile in undeception.
Musicians . Joy to the bride
And long life beside!
Long life!
M ENGO . A clever boy thought that up! Oh, that boy is clever!
B ARRILDO . He could troll it out at any wedding.
F RONDOSO . Mengo sings only to the lash because he says it has more tang to it.
M ENGO . Yes, and I know a young chap in the valley, not meaning you of course, who would make a nice dish for the Commander.
B ARRILDO . Enough of gloom and amen, seeing that a ferocious barbarian offers at our honor.
M ENGO . I believe a hundred soldiers whipped me that day, and all I had was a sling that I gave up to protect me. However, I know a man, not mentioning names, who was full of honor and pursued with a syringe loaded with dye and some herbs that caused him great pain, and oh my, the pain that they caused him! How that man did suffer!
B ARRILDO . By way of jest. It was done as a laughing matter.
M ENGO . As it came out afterwards. At the time he never laughed nor even suspected, but felt much better without the dye, though while it was in, death was preferable.
F RONDOSO . A song would be preferable, or anything. Come, let it be a good one, Mengo.
M ENGO . Good! Do you invite me?
Bride and groom
Must dwell together.
Pray God neither one of them
Dare fight or row it.
Let both die
Just too tired out to live,
A long time after
They have forgotten all about it —
I mean the wedding.
F RONDOSO . God help the poet who made that up!
B ARRILDO . He needs more help.
M ENGO . Oh, that reminds me! Did you ever see a baker baking buns? He dips the dough into the oil until the pot is full, and then some swell up, some come out askew and twisted, leaning to the right, tumbling to the left, some scorched, some burned, some uneatable. Well, a poet's subject is his dough, he plops a verse onto the paper hoping it will turn out sweet, and his friends all tell him so, but when he tries to sell it he has to eat it himself, for the world is too wise to buy or else hasn't the money.
B ARRILDO . You came to the wedding so as not to give the bride and groom a chance to talk.
L AURENCIA . Uncle, you must be kissed. And you, too, Father — —
J UAN R OJO . Not on the hand. May your father's hand be your protection, and Frondoso's also, in the hour of need.
E STEBAN . Rojo, heaven protect her and her husband on whom I invoke an everlasting benison.
F RONDOSO . Ever to share with you.
J UAN R OJO . Come all now, play and sing, for they are as good as one.
Musicians . O maiden fair
With the flowing hair ,
Shun Fuente Ovejuna!
A warrior knight .
Awaits thee there ,
Waits the maid with the flowing hair
With the Cross of Calatrava.
Oh, hide in the shade
By the branches made!
Why, lovely maiden ,
Why afraid?
Against desire
No wall may aid
'Gainst the Knight of Calatrava.
Thou grim knight spare
Frail beauty there
By Fuente Ovejuna!
No screen can hide ,
No mountain bare ,
No ocean bar love anywhere
'Gainst the Knight of Calatrava.
Here in the shade ,
Shall love's debt be paid .
O peerless maiden ,
Why afraid?
Against desire
No wall may aid
'Gainst the Knight of Calatrava.
Commander . Let all in the house stand still on pain of death.
J UAN R OJO . Senor, though this be no play, your command shall be obeyed. Will you sit down? Why all these arms and weapons? We question not, for you bring home victory.
F RONDOSO . I am dead unless heaven helps me.
L AURENCIA . Stand behind me, Frondoso.
Commander . No, seize and bind him.
J UAN R OJO . Surrender, boy, 'tis best.
F RONDOSO . Do you want them to kill me?
J UAN R OJO . Why, pray?
Commander . I am no man to take life unjustly, for, if I were, my soldiers would have run him through ere this, forwards or rearwards. Throw him into prison where his own father shall pronounce sentence upon him, chained in his dank cell.
P ASCUALA . This is a wedding, Senor.
Commander . What care I for weddings? Is this your occupation in the village?
P ASCUALA . Pardon him, Senor, if he has done wrong, being who you are.
Commander . Pascuala, he has done no wrong to me, but offense to the Master, Tellez Giron, whom God preserve. He has mocked his law, scoffed at his rule, and punishment must be imposed as a most dire example, or there will be those to rise against the Master, seeing that one afternoon, but shortly gone, flower of these loyal and faithful vassals, he dared take aim, pointing the cross-bow at the bosom of the High Commander.
E STEBAN . If a father-in-law may offer a word of excuse, his dudgeon was not strange but manly, taking umbrage as a lover. You would deprive him of his wife. Small wonder the man should defend her!
Commander . Alcalde, the truth is not in you.
E STEBAN . Be just, Senor.
Commander . I had no thought to deprive him of his wife, nor could so have done, he having none.
E STEBAN . But you had the thought, which shall suffice. Henceforth enough! A King and Queen rule now in Castile whose firm decrees shall bring this rioting to cease, nor will they stay their hands, these wars once ended, nor suffer arrogance to overpower their towns and villages, crucifying the people cruelly. Upon his breast the King will place a cross, and on that royal breast it shall be the symbol, too, of honor!
Commander . Death to presumption! Wrest the staff from him.
E STEBAN . Senor, I yield it up, commanded.
Commander . Beat him with it while he capers about this stable. Have at him smartly!
E STEBAN . Still we suffer your authority. I am ready. Begin!
P ASCUALA . They beat an old man?
L AURENCIA . Yes, because he is my father. Beat him, avenging yourself on me!
Commander . Arrest her, and let ten soldiers guard this sinful maid!
E STEBAN . Justice, descend this day from heaven!
P ASCUALA . No wedding but a shambles.
B ARRILDO . And not a man of us said a word!
M ENGO . I have had my beating already and you can still see purple enough on me to outfit a Cardinal, without the trouble of sending to Rome. Try, if you don't believe it, what a thorough job they can do.
J UAN R OJO . We must all take counsel.
M ENGO . My counsel, friends, is to take nothing but forget it. I know which side I am on, though I don't say, for it's scaled like a salmon. Never again will any man get me to take it! Nor woman either.
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