Lope de Vega - Three Major Plays

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OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

LOPE DE VEGA

Fuente Ovejuna

The Knight from Olmedo

Punishment Without Revenge

Translated with an Introduction and Notes by

GWYNNE EDWARDS

OXFORD WORLDS CLASSICS

THREE MAJOR PLAYS

LOPE DE VEGA (15021635) was one of the three great dramatists of the most vital political and cultural period in Spanish history, the Golden Age, when Spain ruled much of the western world. Born in Madrid, where he spent most of his life, i . ope's passionate and impulsive nature led to his involvement in numerous sexual relationships, even after he took holy orders at the age of 51, and often landed him in serious trouble with the law.

Lope's sexual appetites were equalled only by his energy as a writer. During a literary career of some fifty-five years, he wrote both poetry and prose and, it was claimed, more than 2, 000 plays. At a time when the theatre was beginning to flourish in Spain, Lope largely shaped the three-act play, with its exciting action, vivid characterization, and mixture of serious and comic elements, which would be adopted by his contemporaries and successors.

Drawing for his material on history, the Bible, and contemporary life, Lope's theatre had a vitality which thrilled contemporary audiences and made him the most popular dramatist of his day. Fuente Ovejuna, The Knight from Olmedo and Punishment Without Revenge are three of Lope's greatest plays and exemplify not only the characteristic themes of his dramalove, honour, revengebut also his consummate artistry.

GWYNNE EDWARDS is Professor of Spanish at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. He has written critical studies of Lorca and Bunuel, as well as of Spanish theatre and cinema in general. He has also translated more than forty Spanish plays, of which more than twenty have been published and performed professionally.

INTRODUCTION

The Golden Age

The Spanish Golden Age, in which Lope de Vega was one of the brightest jewels, embraced, broadly speaking, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when Spain was, in territorial terms, the most powerful nation in the world. In 1492, with the conquest of Granada, the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabella, had succeeded in ending the Muslim domination of Spain which

In 1556 Charles, exhausted by his efforts, abdicated in favour of his son Philip II, who ruled Spain almost until the end of the sixteenth century. Less imperialist in outlook than his father, Philip's dream, nevertheless, was to be the sole ruler of a Catholic Europe, as well as to spread the Catholic faith in the New World, regardless of the cruelty and suffering which this might involve. By the end of the sixteenth century, however, the image of a powerful and successful country scarcely concealed the underlying reality of serious and rapid decline, due in no small measure to the economic demands of maintaining a large empire. The wealth imported from the New World, though vast, proved insufficient, and led to inflation in Spain itself. High taxation became crippling, Spanish industry gradually declined, and agriculture was seriously affected as country people abandoned the land in the hope of a better life in the towns and cities. When Philip II died in 1598, his prophecy that God had given him many kingdoms but no son fit to rule over them was uncannily accurate.

Philip III (15981619) and his successor Philip IV (161965) lost little time in handing over power to a succession of powerful royal favourites in order to spend their leisure in often facile amusements. During their reigns Spanish influence in Europe was slowly whittled away, while at home the economic situation reached a stage where devaluation became common, the cost of collecting taxes became greater than the value of the taxes themselves, and neither soldiers serving overseas nor the palace guards at home received their wages. When Philip IV died in 1665 he was replaced by his wife Mariana of Austria, acting as regent until their son, Charles II, came of age. The result of constant inbreeding, he was, however, a sickly individual whose poor health in a way mirrored that of his country. His death in 1700 at the age of 40 marked not only the end of Spain's Golden Age but also the end of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty.