TIRSO
DE MOLINA (GABRIEL TÉLLEZ)
EL BURLADOR
DE SEVILLA Y CONVIDADO DE PIEDRA
(THE TRICKSTER OF
MAJOR CHARACTERS
JUAN
TENORIO, EL BURLADOR DE SEVILLA. The protagonist. A young man in his
twenties, he is constantly juxtaposed to the older characters who try to control
his escapades. He has been referred to throughout the centuries as DON JUAN. The
"don" is a title of address used by gentlemen before their Christian
name. Its English equivalent would be "mister" or "sir" or
"master."
CATALINON. The lackey of Don Juan Tenorio. He is characterized as a coward, but
he functions mainly as his master's conscience by repeatedly reminding the youth
that one day he will have to pay for his sins.
ISABELA. A Duchess in
TISBEA. A haughty fisherwoman of
ANA. An aristocratic lady from
AMINTA. The protagonist's fourth conquest. She is a peasant girl from
ALFONSO, KING OF
DIEGO TENORIO. Don Juan's father and the confident of the King. He is presented
as an old man with a beard.
GONZALO DE ULLOA, EL CONVIDADO DE PIEDRA. The father of Ana. He is the
antagonist who finally stops Don Juan's relentless destruction of the social
order.
MOTA. A marquis and good friend of Don Juan. He serves as a foil to the
protagonist by being characterized as of the same dissolute nature, although
just as capable of being deceived.
MINOR CHARACTERS
ANFRISO. A fisherman from
BATRICIO. The betrothed of Aminta. He is characterized as distrustful and overly
jealous.
GASENO. Aminta's father. A greedy status seeker.
THE KING OF
PEDRO TENORIO. Don Juan's uncle and the Spanish ambassador to
RIPIO. Duke Octavio's lackey.
THE ACTION
ACT ONE
SCENE ONE. A stranger is discovered by the King of Naples in the bedroom of the
Duchess Isabela. Don Pedro, the Spanish ambassador to
SCENE TWO. Octavio, Isabela's suitor, learns from Pedro Tenorio of Isabela's
seduction. Believing that the King will blame him for the illicit act, he flees
to
SCENE THREE. Tisbea, a haughty fisherwoman famous for her invulnerability to
passion, saves Don Juan from a shipwreck, and immediately falls in love with
him.
SCENE FOUR. Don Gonzalo de Ulloa recounts to the King of Spain his recent visit
to the beautiful city of
SCENE FIVE. Despite Catalinon's advice to the contrary, Don Juan prepares to
seduce Tisbea. The Act ends with the trickster's flight and Tisbea's cries of
desperation when she realizes how she was deceived.
ACT TWO
SCENE ONE. Don Juan's seduction of Isabela is brought to the attention of King
Alfonso, who changes his plans and decides to marry Don Juan to Isabela and
Octavio to Ana de Ulloa. The trickster then meets Mota, who is planning a love
tryst with Ana that night. Don Juan intercepts the letter and tells Mota that
the meeting with Ana is an hour later than it really is.
SCENE TWO. Don Juan arrives at the appointed time (an hour before Mota) and
seduces Ana. Her father catches them, however, and Don Juan has to kill him in
order to escape. Mota is arrested for the murder.
SCENE THREE. Don Juan disrupts the wedding banquet for Aminta and Batricio by
supplanting the bridegroom at the dinner table.
ACT THREE
SCENE ONE. Don Juan convinces Batricio that he has been sleeping with Aminta for
a number of weeks. Next, he assures Gaseno that he truly wishes to marry the old
man's daughter. After strong warnings of God's punishment of miscreants, Don
Juan succeeds in seducing his fourth victim of the drama.
SCENE TWO. On her way to
SCENE THREE. Don Juan encounters the tomb of Gonzalo de Ulloa and laughingly
invites the statue on top of the monument to sup with him that night.
SCENE FOUR. The stone apparition comes to dine with the trickster, after which
the statue asks Don Juan to come to the churchyard for dinner the following
night.
SCENE FIVE. The King now plans to marry Juan to Isabela, Mota to Ana, and
Octavio to one of the available ladies at court.
SCENE SIX. Don Juan dines in the cemetery with Gonzalo de Ulloa. After the
hellish meal, the stone statue takes the youth's hand and drags him bodily into
Hell.
SCENE SEVEN. The King learns from Catalinon of the trickster's demise, and
settles the various marriage problems by uniting Isabela with Octavio, Ana with
Mota, and Aminta with Batricio.
TEXTUAL TRADITION
FIRST EDITIONS. There are two extant versions of the drama. The
earliest published form is in Doze comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio y otros
autores, segunda, parte (Barcelona, 1630) with the title El
burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra, comedia famosa del
Maestro Tirso de Molina. This play was republished in Sexta parte de
comedias nuevas escogidas de los mejores ingenios (Zaragoza, 1654). The
other version of the play appeared in 1878, attributed to Pedro Calderón de la
Barca, with the title Tan largo me lo fiáis. Neither the 1630 printed
version nor the Tan largo rendition seem to be original plays, since both have
flaws in style and meter. It appears that the two pieces are the result of
alterations (perhaps by the stage director) to the primary compositions of the
author.
DATE OF COMPOSITION. The texts of the 1630 edition and the undated Tan largo
differ somewhat in content. The most significant divergence is that in Tan
largo Gonzalo de Ulloa presents a description of
EARLY HISTORY. Tirso's play was widely known before the
first published edition of 1630. A piece by Juan Francisco Vallejo entitled No
hay plazo que no llegue ni deuda que no se pague was performed in Lima, Perú,
as early as 1623; and it was assuredly a rendition of Tirso's play. A Spanish
troupe presented a drama in
BACKGROUND AND SOURCES
THE PLAY'S STRUCTURE. Tirso de Molina's drama is a
composite of two separate actions. As the full title indicates, the first action
concerns the exploits of the trickster of
ANTECEDENTS TO DON JUAN. There are no precise sources for the Don Juan character
as he is portrayed by Tirso in the first part of the drama. There are a number
of Spanish plays which portray the amorous exploits of a young nobleman and
which present a character analogous in some ways to Don Juan Tenorio, but none
of the dramas are clear antecedents to Don Juan. Juan de la Cueva's El
infamador (performed 1581, printed 1588) has a malevolent character named
Leucino as its protagonist who is vaguely like Don Juan; and Lope de Vega wrote
two plays which also present a rake who pursues women, La fianza satisfecha
(1612-15) and Dineros son calidad (1623). The latter work also has a
scene with an animated statue, but it may be that Lope borrowed the idea from
Tirso. It must be assumed that the general idea of a gallant seducer was part of
the literary repertoire of the time, and Tirso constructed his particular
character upon no definite source other than his own imagination and the stock
dramatic type known to everyone.
Besides the literary antecedents, some critics have proposed
specific persons as the source for Don Juan Tenorio. Many scholars believe that
Tirso's character was modeled on Miguel de Mañara, but it has been convincingly
shown that Mañara was not born until 1626 or 1627. Another historical theory
has proposed that the play recounts events that occurred in
ANTECEDENTS TO THE STONE GUEST. The second part of the play dramatizes an
episode totally different from the seductions in the first section. Its sources
appear to come from a popular folk tradition. The moment as dramatized by Tirso
consists of three distinct scenes: 1) the encounter with the statue of a dead
person, followed by an invitation that the monument sup that night with the
protagonist; 2) the appearance of the stone guest, who then invites the
interloper to dine with him the following evening; and 3) the second banquet,
when the ghost drags the miscreant into Hell. The origins of this three-part
ritual are so abundant and diffuse as to warrant its recognition as the Stone
Guest Motif. It has been studied closely by various scholars, the most recent
being Dorothy Epplen MacKay in The Double Invitation in the Legend of Don
Juan (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1943), Of the many tales from
all over the world included in MacKay's book and in the studies of other
scholars,- the following from northern Spain, written in the popular ballad
form, fits most closely the version Tirso probably knew and adapted to his play.
Don Gallant
was walking to a Lenten mass, not for devotion to the mass nor for any other
devotion that he might have; he went to see the ladies as they came out of the
church. At the gateway to the cemetery he encountered a skull that grinned at
him with his teeth as if it were laughing. When Don Gallant saw it he gave it a
kick: 'Skull, I invite you to dine this night with me.' At
The similarities between this version
of the stone guest motif and Tirso's drama are obvious. What is not so apparent
is why Tirso chose such an extraordinary legend for the climax of his play.
Evidently, the author recognized in the tale a fitting end to the drama he had
begun, and he avoided compressing or changing the double invitation motif
because he knew that most of his audience would be familiar with the legend.
Another equally plausible explanation is that Tirso originally had the folktale
in mind as a dramatic possibility, and that the first part containing the four
seductions was written as an introduction to the encounter with the stone
monument. The true circumstances behind the composition of El burlador de
Sevilla y el convidado de piedra will forever remain a mystery, but the
attachment of the stone guest motif to the figure of Don Juan in almost all the
later renditions of the Don Juan myth demonstrates that Tirso achieved a
dramatic combination which fascinated not only the audiences and writers of his
time but also those of the centuries that followed.
"EL BURLADOR DE SEVILLA":
A CRITICAL COMMENTARY
ACT ONE
SCENE ONE: The royal palace in
SETTING. The stage is in darkness. The sounds of a man and a woman making love
are heard. She refers to him as Duke Octavio, and he promises to marry her. The
woman lights a lamp. She discovers to her surprise that the man is not Duke
Octavio at all, but someone who only replies that he is "a man without a
name ('un hombre sin nombre')." In the very first lines of the play, Don
Juan thus succinctly describes his nature. He is not an individual. He is a
generic force, the masculine sexual drive personified, who thinks solely in
biological terms. When the King of Naples enters moments later, for example, and
asks: "Who are you?", Don Juan answers: "Who did you expect? A
man and a woman." That is, they are two sexes, nameless individuals,
generic man and generic woman. The fact that Isabela is a duchess and that Don
Juan is an aristocrat does not matter; they are two naked humans indulging in
the most elemental act of animal desire: The play thus begins in medias res, and
the event it dramatizes is the major motif of the work: the deceitful seduction
of the female, the burla, or trick. The seducer is "a man without a
name," an elemental and biological force in nature who, through the use of
darkness, self-effacement, and lies, deceives the unsuspecting female. He is
clearly also the master of disguise, being able to impersonate the voice and
body of others to such a degree that the female is totally unaware of the
masquerade.
THE DECEITS. When the King of Naples and the Spanish Viceroy, Don Pedro Tenorio,
enter to investigate the commotion, the audience sees again Don Juan's ability
to trick and to compromise those with whom he comes in contact. The King
requests of Don Pedro that he settle the matter secretly so that the other
members of the household will not learn of the scandal. Don Pedro then finds out
that the interloper is his nephew, Don Juan Tenorio, who deceived the Duchess
Isabela by pretending to be Duke Octavio, the girl's fiancé. Don Pedro points
out that this is not the first time Don Juan has been in trouble. In fact, the
youth was sent to
DON JUAN'S METHOD. This first scene establishes the methodology that Don Juan
will employ in virtually every situation. He lies, uses the cover of darkness,
and works on the moral weaknesses of others to achieve his own ends. He could
not have seduced Isabela if she had not wanted to be seduced. The fact that it
was Don Juan and not Duke Octavio who consummated that act does not detract from
her own willingness to commit an illicit sexual act within the very chambers of
the royal palace. The King is compromised by his desire to avoid scandal, and
Pedro is forced to commit basically the same sins as his nephew in order to
protect the family name. In fact, the way Don Juan plays on the personal
weaknesses of his uncle is characteristic of the trickster's method. Don Pedro's
first reaction when he encounters the intruder is to order his arrest. But Don
Juan responds that he would rather die than be jailed because he is a knight of
the Spanish embassy. Don Pedro immediately fears a scandal, so he orders
everyone to leave the room. Don Juan then informs the ambassador that he is his
nephew, and that what he did is really nothing more than Don Pedro also did as a
youth: "I am a young man, as you were; and since you also knew about love
intrigues, excuse mine." Don Pedro remains infuriated by his nephew's
daring crime, however; so Don Juan feigns humility and kneels before the
ambassador, declaring: "I am submissive at your feet, and here is my
sword." Don Pedro's anger is tempered by this humble act, and he endeavors
to resolve the whole disagreeable business by letting his nephew flee to
SCENE TWO: Another part of the Neopolitan palace.
Octavio, Isabela's suitor, learns from Pedro Tenorio of Isabela's seduction.
Believing that the King will blame him for the illicit act, he flees to
SETTING. The first moment of the play was characterized by physical action that
portrayed Don Juan as the perfect seducer who used his supreme intelligence to
trick those who came into contact with him. This second moment presents the
opposite type of action and character. Duke Octavio is the typical ineffectual
romantic dreamer who is incapable of assertive action. The scene is comic at his
expense. The Duke has not slept all night because of the burning desire he feels
for Isabela. His servant Ripio tells him that he should be trying to seduce his
fiancée (which is what she expected Octavio to do and what Don Juan has done),
but the Duke pompously states that such an indecent act is beneath his dignity.
Don Pedro then enters to explain to Octavio in ornate, deceitful poetry the
events that transpired in scene one. He describes the seducer as a monster or
gaint who acted like the devil in human form, since he leaped from the balcony
wrapt in smoke and dust. Don Pedro further points up the extent to which he has
been compromised by Don Juan when he declares that Isabela confessed Octavio to
be the man in her room. The disillusioned Duke, on Pedro's advice, decides to
escape to
DON JUAN AND SATAN. The various references to snakes and demons as well as the
clear presentation of the modus operandi of Don Juan Tenorio would cause the
seventeenth-century spectators of El burlador de Sevilla to associate
immediately the main character with the prototype of all deceits and lies, who
is none other than Satan. The devil is universally known as the Prince of
Darkness, and Don Juan always carries out his seductions in the dark. In
Catholic theology, Lucifer is the master of disguise who, as an incubus, takes
human form to seduce unsuspecting women. He is the lord of the natural universe
because, although God ejected him from Heaven, he retains on earth all of his
angelic powers. Furthermore, Lucifer is allowed to function so freely because
God uses him as an instrument for His justice. In an analogical manner, Don Juan
Tenorio is a part of the divine plan of justice. He punishes Isabela for
succumbing to her lustful appetites, as he will punish the other women he meets
for their particular sins. Christian theology also emphasizes that the devil
cannot deceive anyone without that person's expressed consent; any other
theological position would give to Satan the power to force a person's will,
which is something that not even God can do. The sinner must therefore open the
door to Satan, precisely as Isabela and the other three girls freely admit Don
Juan into their bed chambers. Of most importance to the structure of El
burlador de Sevilla, Satan is considered to be so powerful that, according
to Church doctrine, nemo contra diabolum nisi Deus ipse (No one can
conquer the devil but God himself). Likewise, no mortal in the drama is able to
stop the destructive force of Don Juan; so God sends an immortal creature to
punish the miscreant. This theology of the devil is one of the most saliant
reasons Tirso attached the statue episode to his play.
SCENE THREE: The shores of
SETTING. The first episode with Isabela took place at night in
TISBEA'S SOLILOQUY. The opening moment is a long monologue by Tisbea that
expresses the girl's attitude toward love and men. It is a brilliant
psychological analysis of the haughty woman, a type that abounds in world
literature. Tisbea considers herself fortunate for being the only person exempt
from love's sting, and she boasts that her spirit is completely free from male
domination. She then expresses her peculiar psychological state by
characterizing her straw hut as a refuge against the fires of love ("I
conserve my honor in straw"), completely unmindful of the fact that straw
is the easiest material to catch fire and instantly consumes itself.
Furthermore, straw has the unfortunate property of being most flammable when
most dry. Accordingly, Tisbea's dry, disdainful soul, like the straw that
symbolizes it, needs only a small spark to set it ablaze. Moreover, Tisbea
refers to her honor preserved in straw as "delicious fruit" and as
glass. The first metaphor for her honor thus describes her as ripe for the
picking, while the second image characterizes her nature as being very fragile.
She also relates that her hut (which is described in phallic imagery as a straw
obelisk) is barren of the crickets-a symbol for fecundity-and the loving turtle
doves which normally nest in the roofs of such houses.
Tisbea is especially proud for her tyrannical power over the
men of the village, who all adore her. She therefore dedicates her love-free
life to the catching of what she calls "dumb little fish" with her
nets. The emphasis on her desire to catch fish in her net would be of greater
significance for Tirso's audience than for a present-day one, because the fish
was a symbol in traditional hieroglyphic literature for lasciviousness and
sexual delight, which is precisely what the young girl is going to net.
TISBEA'S PSYCHOLOGY. Tisbea is clearly a psychological type given to overweaning
arrogance. She mistakenly believes that she is exempt from the flames of love,
which she sees as a cruel force that subjects the soul to the appetites. In
humoral terminology, Tisbea is of an exceedingly hot and dry nature, which is
the opposite of the normal feminine temperaments of coldness and wetness. Her
humoral quality is further aggravated by the cold and disdainful exterior she
presents to the outside world. Since she consciously thinks her nature is the
opposite of what it really is, she doesn't realize that one small spark of fire
will set ablaze her hot and dry soul with its low kindling point. For the
spectator of the play, as well as for the modern reader, she is out of joint
with nature and the natural inclinations of the female for the male. Moreover,
she is guilty of rejecting haughtily the honest advances of her fellow
fishermen, a position that makes her as much a burlador as is Don Juan.
THE ENCOUNTER. As Tisbea casts her net into the sea, she espies a shipwreck from
which two men swim to shore. They are Don Juan and his servant Catalinón , whom
the audience meets now for the first time- Tisbea pulls the young man from the
waves and places him in the most dangerous position conceivable: her lap. The
trickster immediately awakens with the question, "Where am I?' Tisbea, who
'has immediately fallen in love with this creature from the deep, responds in
the most elemental terms: "In the arms of a woman."
FIRE-SYMBOLISM. The dialogue that follows is heavily charged with images related
to fire and burning. Tisbea explains that Don Juan is pregnant with fire, and
that he promises much fire for a person so wet. She then realizes that the
flames she senses in him have entered her, and leads him to her straw hut.
Little does she know that the fires with which Don Juan is pregnant are the
castigating flames of Hell.
SCENE FOUR: The royal palace at
SETTING. Tirso interrupts the Tisbea episode to insert a brief scene with the
King of
THE DESCRIPTION OF
IRONY. The irony in the King's desire to marry Don Gonzalo's daughter to Don
Juan Tenorio is heightened by the realization that the audience immediately
before has seen Don Juan thwart the King's plans by seducing Isabela; and,
simultaneous to the King's suggestion, the trickster is planning the seduction
of still another lass, which he carries out in the next scene. There is thus no
possibility for the King's intentions to be realized. In fact, every time the
Monarch attempts to resolve the problems caused by Don Juan through some
legitimate act of social justice, he will already have been stymied by Don
Juan's next subterfuge.
SCENE FIVE: In front of Tisbea's hut. Despite Catalinón's
advice to the contrary, Don Juan prepares to seduce Tisbea. The Act ends with
the trickster's flight and Tisbea's cries of desperation when she realizes how
she was deceived.
SETTING. It is night. Don Juan enters telling Catalinón to prepare two of
Tisbea's horses for their escape. The horse is a well-known sex symbol, and it
is repeatedly associated with Don Juan's desertions of the women he seduces.
CATALINON. The servant, who considers himself a coward, warns Don Juan that if
he continues to seduce and abandon women he will eventually have to pay for it:
"You who trick and deceive women in this way will pay for it in
death." Such advice, which accumulates throughout the play to become a
constant motif toward the end, is consonant with the etymology of Catalinón's
name. Catar means to perceive; and linón can be construed to be a
derivation of lejos, far away. So the servant's name means catalejos,
"to see afar," which is also the Spanish word for telescope. Catalinón
thus functiong as the voice of Don Juan's conscience, constantly reminding the
youth of the two things that he has apparently forgot: God and Death. Catalinón
also sees clearly the higher purpose of Don Juan's ways, for he tells his
Master: "I now know that you are the punisher of women." Through all
the chaos and disorder that Don Juan generates, the servant perceives that,
since Don Juan, like Satan, cannot work without the consent of others, the
trickster is to a certain degree an instrument of God's justice who punishes
women for their sexual and intellectual sins.
DON JUAN'S MOTTO. Don Juan pays no attention to his lackey's warnings. He
replies to the servant's advice: "If deceiving is an ancient habit of mine,
why do you bother me?" To Catalinón's references to a final judgment at
death, Don Juan exclaims the famous words: "What a long time you set for
me! ('Qué largo me lo fiáis!').'' The statements again set up analogical
reminiscences in the mind of the spectator between Don Juan and Satan. For Satan
too, burlar is a very ancient habit, and the devil, like Don Juan, is obstinate
in his sins, having sworn never to repent. The essence of Don Juan's motto is
that he believes that he has a long time to repent before his death. Since
salvation depends basically on repentance and confession of sins, the youth
determines that he can sin as much as he wishes during his early life. When he
becomes an old man-he will change his ways and live a life worthy of divine
approval. In a loose sense, this is the height of blasphemy, for he believes
that he can play with God's mercy.
TISBEA'S SEDUCTION. When Tisbea enters, she repeats the motifs of the earlier
dialogue. She understands that to a certain degree Don Juan is punishing her for
her past haughty ways: "I see that what I have found in you was a
punishment of love." But the lass little realizes how great the punishment
will be. After Don Juan promises to marry her, she warns him that there is a
just God and death for those who lie. But Don Juan only repeats twice his
characteristic motto, "What a long time you set for me!" Tisbea then
confidently invites him into her hut, blissfully predicting that it will be the
bridal chamber for their amorous fire. Indeed it is. For the trickster seduces
her and immediately abandons her. Tisbea rushes out of her cabin exclaiming:
"Fire! Fire! I am burning! My hut is aflame!" Thus the symbol of fire,
which Tisbea herself first used to describe the ardor of Don Juan and the heat
he kindled within her, reaches a just climax. For her cabana is not really on
fire; it is her soul which is aflame, as the last lines of the Act indicate:
"Fire, fire, fishermen, water, water! Love, clemency, for my soul
burns!" The straw hut had been associated with Tisbea's dry disdainful
nature in her monologue; and Tirso, brilliantly coordinates the girl's
submission to the fires of love through her declaration that the hut, which
represents her soul, is aflame.
LIGHT VERSUS DARK. The abundance of fire imagery points up the juxtaposition
throughout Act One of light and dark metaphors. The opening scene began in the
dark, then Isabela's light seemed to dispel the darkness. The King entered with
a candle, but Don Juan's verbal gymnastics cast a shadow over all. The inset
with Don Gonzalo and the King of Spain was shot through with references to
light, order, and clarity; but another cloud of darkness appeared in their
innocent decision to plan a marriage between Don Juan and Ana de Ulloa. The
Tisbea seduction begins in the dark, only to be illuminated tragically by the
fire in her soul. The same alternating rhythm of light and dark will continue
throughout the play. Don Juan will arrive with the light of day; he will seduce
in the dark, and escape in the false light of candles, torches, and bonfires.
TISBEA'S ANAGNORISIS (RECOGNITION). One of the last remarks Tisbea makes before
she throws herself in desperation into the sea is "I am she who always
deceived so much the other men, for those who deceive others always turn out
deceived themselves." Tisbea realizes that she deserved to be castigated,
and that she was punished in the same way as she treated others. The technique
Tirso uses here for Tisbea's revelation is called counterpassion. It basically
entails the doctrine that a person pays for his crimes in exactly the same way
as he committed them. Its most famous use was by Dante Alighieri in the Inferno,
where the people suffered in Hell the same torment and anguish that they had
inflicted on others. Thus, Tisbea always made fun of men, so she is castigated
in the same way: by Don Juan seducing and abandoning her. This moment is of
intense importance to the outcome of the play, because the technique applies to
Don Juan just as much as it does to Tisbea. He is no more exempt from the truism
that "those who deceive others always turn out deceived themselves"
than is Tisbea or any other person who lives by guile and duplicity.
DON JUAN AND MEMORY OF DEATH. Another aspect of the scene between Tisbea and Don
Juan is the repeated declaration by the trickster that a long time has been set
for him before he dies. Such an attitude goes directly against two of the basic
precepts of the Catholic belief of Tirso de Molina's time. By continually
putting off any conscious idea of his own death and judgment, Don Juan is
ignoring the ages-old doctrine of memento mori, remember that you will
die. All traditional Christian theology is based on the doctrine that death
comes suddenly, and that a pious person should be constantly prepared to meet
his Maker. A good Christian should therefore always be as thoroughly absolved
from sin as is possible through regular confession of sin and acts of penitence;
and the best way to remain aware of the transitoriness of life on earth is to
contemplate the finality of death. Don Juan does precisely the opposite. He
thinks only in worldly terms and regularly rejects the notion of memento mori by
such statements as "What a long time you set for me!" If death should
come unexpectedly for him, as it always does for everyone, the trickster will be
unshriven of his sins and will inevitably go directly to Hell.
DON JUAN AND MEMORY OF GOD. Death is not the only thing Don Juan does not want
to remember. He also avoids any recognition of the power of God. The proper
attitude is best expressed in the famous words of Ecclesiastes (12:1):
"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." In Catholic dogma
the precept is more commonly expressed as memoria Dei, remembrance of
God, If Don Juan would correctly ponder his own creatureliness and subordination
to a higher creative authority, he would not feel so free to do as he pleases;
more literally, he would not attempt to create his own universe of action in the
terrestrial sphere. In both cases, the doctrines that Don Juan ignores have to
do with memory. Don Juan is characterized by a supreme intelligence, one so
brilliant that he can seduce and deceive all those who come in contact with him.
Don Juan also has a frightfully powerful will. He can and does do anything he
desires, and it becomes increasingly apparent throu.ghout the play that no mere
mortal can stop him. But the trickster is totally devoid of memory. He refuses
to think about the girls he has beguiled, moving methodically from one conquest
to the next without any thought to what he has done or to what the consequences
may be. At the end of the drama, the stone guest will painfully remind him of
all these things, but for Don Juan it will be too late.
DON JUAN AND THE CAUSE OF THE ACTION. What has caused the action dramatized in
Act One? In most dramas, some event acts as a catalyst for the circumstances
portrayed on stage. But Tirso avoids any use of external events to motivate his
play. Instead, he places the cause of all the action within the character of Don
Juan. Without Don Juan, there would be no play,. for his deeds are what provoke
the other personages to act the way they do. He is a chemical catalyst that
changes radically the composition of the society into which he is introduced.
When he is excised from that social cosmos at the end of the drama, order
returns; although the catalytic effects of his presence remain. No one forgets
that the trickster has been there, as the Don Juan theme in world literature
testifies. It is this ingenious use by Tirso de Molina of a character rather
than an event as the motivating force in the drama that gives to the personality
of Don Juan such incredible dramatic strength. Moreover, the youth does not act
the way he does because of any ulterior motive. Tirso intentionally avoids any
mention of personal or family circumstances that might cause his character to
commit such heinous crimes; nor does the author attempt to present Don Juan as
any traditional "type" such as the Noble Lover (Galán) in
medieval poetry, or the Braggart Soldier (Miles Gloriosus) of.
Roman comedy, or the Impostor (Alazon) of Attic comedy. The personage is
free of all impediments that could tie him to any stock character, or any
special time and place. Of most importance, Don Juan is the source of his own
action. He alone decides what course to take in every situation, and he alone
precipitates the reactions of the other dramatic personages. Nor does Don Juan
ever tell precisely why he enjoys seducing others; he only states that it is an
old habit of his and that it is what gives him the most pleasure. It is for this
reason that later writers have been able to lift Don Juan out of his original
sphere of activity and locate him in one of their own choosing; for since Don
Juan is his own motivating force, he exists outside the limits of any particular
time and place or any specific web of circumstances.
SUMMARY. The course of events in Act One is breathtaking. The spectator has seen
Don Juan seduce two girls, one, in
ACT TWO
SCENE ONE:
SETTING. The King of Spain learns from Diego Tenorio, Don Juan's father, that
the youth was found in the bedroom of the Duchess Isabela. To remedy the
delicate situation, Alfonso dictates a series of solutions. Don Juan will marry
Isabela, but will have to go into voluntary exile to Lebrija until the wedding.
Duke Octavio will be married to Ana de Ulloa, who was earlier promised to Don
Juan; and Don Gonzalo de Ulloa, Ana's father, will be made head chamberlain in
recompense for the annulled contract to marry Don Juan to his daughter.
THE INEFFECTUALNESS OF ROYAL JUSTICE. The plan seems very feasible and logical
in intention. But, as is demonstrated by forthcoming events, none of the
proposals are ever realized. Don Juan never goes to Lebrija, Don Gonzalo is-
murdered before being named officially head chamberlain, and Octavio eventually
weds Isabela. Why does Tirso present a King whose every order is countermanded
by later events? Because he wishes to present the society inhabited by his hero
as weak, rigid, and ineffective. On the one hand, it is a sexually deviant
society where noblemen unhesitatingly commit illicit sexual acts with
noblewomen. On the other hand, it is a social entity ruled by an old, impotent
King who is powerless to control the youths of his realm because he has a
twisted sense of justice. From the beginning of the play, the spectator has seen
certain punishments thwarted by personal interests. The King of Naples should
have remained at the scene of the adulterous act to ascertain the true reality
of events. Instead, because he was more concerned with reputation and honor, he
turned the whole case over to the Spanish ambassador. Don Pedro in turn
obstructed justice by allowing his nephew to escape rather than incarcerating
him, as the case demanded; and then he blatantly lied to the innocent Duke
Octavio. Now, after King Alfonso, who is the highest authority in
OCTAVIO. The Duke considers the Monarch's offer to marry Doña Ana de Ulloa a
personal triumph, and boasts to his servant Ripio about how he won the King's
favor. Octavio is thus admirably characterized as the typical pompous courtier
capable of being deceived by everyone. His transparent vanity is further
emphasized when Don Juan enters and praises the Duke's good fortune, causing
Catalinon to comment: "When he praises him he betrays him."
MOTA. The Marquis of Mota enters as Octavio leaves, and greets his good friend
Don Juan. The trickster immediately asks about the only thing ever on his
mind-women-and Mota lists some of Don Juan's old acquaintances. It turns out
that Mota evidently knows every whore in
MOTA AS A FOIL TO DON JUAN. Tirso presents the Marquis of Mota as the typical
rich playboy. Not only is the man planning to break all the social standards by
eloping with Ana, but he has an acquaintance with the Sevillan harlots that can
be based only on experience. In fact, he is even more knowledgeable about the
girls than his friend Don Juan. Nevertheless, the man is going to be bitterly
deceived by the trickster in much the same way as Mota deceives the whores on
ANA. Mota leaves the stage for a moment, and Don Juan is pleasantly surprised by
a feminine voice who calls him to a window and hands him a letter from Doña Ana
to give to Mota. In the note, Ana relates that since her father has promised to
marry her to another person without first consulting her, she wants to
consummate their love that night. Mota should come to her bedroom window at
DON JUAN AND THE BURLA. Upon reading the letter, Don Juan cannot believe his
good fortune. "How lucky I have been in this," exclaims the trickster.
"
ADMONITIONS OF DIVINE JUSTICE. Catalinón enters and Don Juan explains his new
trick. The servant strongly disapproves: "He who lives by deceits will end
up cheated and paying for so many sins." Don Juan ignores this
admonishment, however, as he has disregarded all the others. When Mota reenters,
Don Juan tells him that Ana will be waiting for him at
SCENE TWO: The same street in
SETTING. It is about
SEDUCTION OF MOTA. A group of musicians enter singing a love song which, within
the context of the action, is highly ironic: "He who awaits to enjoy a good
fortune, the more he waits the more he agonizes." Mota exclaims naively
that the song expresses his sentiments, not realizing that while he waits until
SEDUCTION OF ANA AND MURDER OF GONZALO. The next moment is almost totally
visual. When Mota and the musicians leave, Don Juan enters the house that forms
the stage props. There is a long pause as the darkened stage is empty of people;
but the spectators are well aware of what is happening behind the scenes during
the silence, and the suspenseful pause allows their imaginations to create the
dramatic action. Suddenly, a woman's voice is heard: "Impostor ! You aren't
the Marquis. You have deceived me." Another pause in the action, but with
noises of people moving about back stage. Then Don Juan bursts out of the house,
his sword in his hand, followed by Doña Ana with a light and Don Gonzalo with a
sword. The old man attempts to stop the youth, but is run through by the other's
weapon. With his last breath, Gonzalo exclaims "I am dying; there is no
good I can expect. My fury will pursue you, for you are a traitor, and the
traitor is a traitor because he is a coward."
THE AFTERMATH. As Ana flees for help off on side of the stage, Don Juan rushes
to the other side and encounters Mota, who is unaware of what has happened. The
assassin returns the cape, explaining that he carried out the, deceit, although
at quite a great cost. Mota innocently replies: "I will pay for it, Don
Juan, because the woman will lodge the complaint against me." The trickster
then takes his leave and disappears into the darkness, laughing to himself at
Mota's incredible naiveté and the ambiguous sense of their dialogue. As Mota
approaches center stage, he sees a mass of lanterns and torches drawing near. He
then distinguishes Diego Tenorio, the King, and the prone body of Gonzalo de
Ulloa. They take him prisoner for the murder, while amidst the confusion Doña
Ana takes refuge in the royal palace. The King promises to build a tomb with a
life-size statue of Don Gonzalo in memory of the fatal tragedy.
LIGHT VERSUS DARK. The juxtaposition of light and dark moments in Act Two
continues the motif that Tirso used so brilliantly in Act One. The King and Don
Diego, who together represent the two earthly authorities to which Don Juan
should be subject, are the bearers of light. Whenever they appear, as at the
beginning of the Act and at the end of the Ana episode, they bring clarity and
illumination with them. Don Juan, however, is a carrier of darkness and evil.
The whole play is based on the alternation of these characters and the symbolic
atmospheres they represent. Tirso also alternates rhythmically the physical
presence of light and dark on stage. The Ana episode begins at night with the
stage in total darkness. The Marquis, Don Juan, and the musicians enter, the
latter carrying lanterns; then all but Don Juan leave the stage, bearing the
light with them. The seduction of Ana takes place off stage with the set pitch
dark; it is interrupted by Ana's entrance with a candle in pursuit of Don Juan.
After Gonzalo dies, Ana flees with the candle, and the stage is again in
darkness until Diego Tenorio and the King enter with torches. There is thus a
brilliant pattern of what the critics term chiaroscuro (the distribution of
light and shade in a work of art) on the scenic level as well as throughout the
play.
SCENE THREE: The countryside near
SETTING. This scene is in direct contrast to the immediately preceding night
scene of shouting men, agitated movement, and blazing torches. Tirso moves the
dramatic action to the pastoral setting of a country wedding, and opens the
scene with a lilting song of peasant gaiety. The group has gathered for the
traditional banquet before the bride (Aminta) and bridegroom (Batricio) retire
to the bedchamber to consummate the marriage. Gaseno, Aminta's father, is the
host, and proudly invites all present to enjoy the songs and the food. In the
middle of the song, however, Don Juan and Catalinon, on their way to exile in
Lebrija, enter and ask to take part. Batricio immediately suspects that there
must be some ulterior motive for a nobleman to want to participate in a country
feast, and declares: "I imagine that the devil has brought him here."
Catalinon, then reinforces this reference to his master's demonic nature by
remarking: "Unfortunate you, for you have fallen into the hands of
Lucifer!"
TIME. The author could just as easily have placed this short scene (one hundred
and fifteen lines) at the beginning of Act Three, because it has nothing
concretely to do with the Ana episode. If he had moved the scene to he next Act,
he would have paralleled the ending of Act One (Tisbea's outrage) with the
ending of Act Two (Ana's outrage). But Tirso was more interested in dramatizing
the inexorable progression of Don Juan's actions. As s on as the trickster
leaves one place in ruins and chaos, he appears in another to create the same
bedlam. By compressing the action to dramatize only Don Juan's entrance into
social groups (
BATRICI0. Another reason for the short scene that ends Act Two is to prepare the
spectators for the events that transpire in the first part of Act Three. This
fourth episode treats the physical seduction of Aminta, but Tirso changes his
format somewhat to present first the intellectual seduction of Batricio. It is
this latter character, therefore, who dominates the present moment. When it is
announced that Don Juan Tenorio has come to participate in the wedding, Batricio
exclaims: "I take this as a bad omen!" This phrase characterizes
Batricio as superstitious and mistrusting. He immediately suspects the
worst-that Don Juan will obstruct the wedding-and sees every incident as an
affront to his peasant honor. The audience is well aware that Batricio has every
reason to suspect possible harm from Don Juan's presence; but Batricio has no
reason to distrust the nobleman. His present anxiety about his honor and his
constant remarks that he feels pangs of jealousy because of Don Juan's presence
mark him as an easy prey for the trickster. In Act Three, Don Juan will cater to
Batricio's false sense of honor in order to take Aminta from him.
AMINTA. The bride speaks only one line after Don Juan's arrival: "You seem
to flatter me." The modern reader must assume that Tirso would want the
actress playing Aminta to be hypnotized by the young gentleman precisely as
Tisbea magically fell into his arms. The action between Don Juan and Aminta
verifies this suggestion. The trickster sits at the table where Batricio was
sitting, causing the distrustful peasant to remark: "If you sit in front of
me, Sir, you will be considered the bridegroom." But Don Juan keeps his
seat and even dares to take Aminta's hand in his-own, demonstrating in that way
that he has supplanted the bridegroom, to whom Aminta has given her hand in
marriage. The Act ends with Catalinón remarking: "He has marked her and
set her aside for the shearing! With this one there will be four
seductions."
ACT THREE
SCENE ONE: Aminta's house in
SETTING. Night has fallen. The banquet has ended, and the bride and bridegroom
should be preparing for the wedding night. Instead, it is Don Juan who prepares
for the sublime moment in the bridal chamber. Tirso orchestrates magnificently
his fourth and last seduction into four distinct moments: a monologue by
Batricio, followed by Don Juan's intellectual seduction of him; a short moment
with Aminta; a dialogue between Catalinón and Don Juan, which continues the
leitmotif of warnings about the sinner's approaching death; and the sexual
seduction of Aminta.
BATRICIO'S MONOLOGUE. The peasant bridegroom opens Act Three with a monologue in
which he expresses his mistrust and jealousy of Don Juan. The soliloquy is
structurally reminiscent of Tisbea's speech, but here the character and themes
are the reverse of the earlier scene. While Tisbea, a woman, was proud and spoke
with overconfidence and disdain for others in imagery of fire and water,
Batricio, a man, expresses disconfidence in terms related to eating and the
appetites. His speech is addressed to Jealousy, to whom he reviews in his mind
how Don Juan sat beside the bride at the banquet and never let him eat any of
the food. Batricio then makes a comparison between eating food and indulging the
sexual appetites by pondering that even in the bedchamber Don Juan will sit
beside the bride and keep the bridegroom from enjoying the matrimonial
pleasures.
SEDUCTION OF BATRICIO. Don Juan enters and tells the peasant: "Many days
ago, Batricio, I gave my soul to Aminta and I have enjoyed..." The
bridegroom asks: "Her honor?" And the trickster responds:
"Yes." Don Juan thus lets Batricio deceive himself with his own
distrust and jealousy, for it is the peasant who makes the wrong conclusions
about Don Juan's indirect statements. In complete disillusionment, the peasant
forfeits his bride to Don Juan and leaves the stage. The trickster remarks to
himself: "I conquered him with his own honor, because peasants always carry
their honor in their hands, and are always looking out for themselves."
SOCIAL DECADENCE. The next moment focuses on Aminta, who enters speaking to her
servant Belisa about how she is worried by the presence of the strange courtier:
"In
CATALINON'S WARNINGS. Don Juan enters with Gaseno, who has promised his daughter
to the courtier. In this final episode, Don Juan has thus reached the female
through the male, playing on the bridegroom's distrust and the father's desire
to marry his daughter to an aristocrat. Catalinón then enters and Don Juan
tells him to saddle the horses. The servant reminds the trickster that Isabela
is waiting in Lebrija to marry him; but Don Juan's mind is on other things:
"This joke is going to be the best of all," he replies. Catalinón
then reminds his master that they may not escape from it, and Don Juan continues
the theme of social corruption by asserting: "Since my father is the chief
justice and is the favorite of the King, what are you afraid of?" Catalinón
now specifically Warns Don Juan: "God usually takes vengeance on those who
enjoy the protection of a magnate, if they are not punished for their crimes....
Look what you have done, and observe that until death, Sir, the longest life is
short; for there is punishment, pain and death." Don Juan's answer is the
same as always: "If you set such a long time for me, then let the tricks
continue." And he ends the moment by declaring his instinctive drive in the
clearest biological terms: "I want to get to bed ('Quiero llegar a la cama')."
SEDUCTION OF AMINTA. This last episode expresses most clearly the way Don Juan
operates when he desires to trick the female. It is analogous to Tisbea's
seduction, but here the trickster has to convince the girl rationally that she
should submit to him. When Aminta expresses surprise at finding Don Juan outside
the door of her bedroom at such a late hour, the gentleman cryptically responds:
"These are my hours ('Estas son las horas mias')," emphasizing thus
his diabolica I personification as the Prince of Darkness. Don Juan explains to
Aminta that he is a noble knight of the Tenorio family and that he has her
father's permission to marry her. She protests that she is already betrothed to
Batricio, but the intruder, in a typically dissolute manner, tells her:
"Since it was not consummated, it can be annulled by deceit or
malice." Don Juan then swears by her hand that he will marry her: "If
by chance my word and faith should fail you, I ask of God that through treachery
or perfidy some man (dead, for alive, God would not permit it!) may murder
me." After Don Juan enumerates all the riches she will have, Aminta
surrenders herself to the lover, causing him to remark in an aside: "How
badly you know the Trickster of Seville!"
IRONY OF DON JUAN'S PROMISES. The spectator has been witness to the trickster's
silver-tongued persuasion of three of the four girls. He promised Isabela (under
the guise of Octavio) no more than the pledge of marriage, and the audience did
not hear what he said to Ana. But his pledges to Tisbea and Aminta were quite
elaborate. He promised to be Tisbea's husband by declaring: "I swear,
beautiful eyes, that looking at me kill me, to be your bridegroom." Tisbea
responded that if he should default on his pledge God would come to punish him;
but Don Juan replied with the characteristic "What a long time you set for
me." Clearly, Don Juan conveniently made sure to bind his word to Tisbea's
beautiful eyes rather than to her person, which casuistically would annul the
oath. Nevertheless, the scene was ironic, because Don Juan defaults on his
pledge and, consequently, suffers God's punishment. Tirso employs the same use
of ironic vows in the Aminta episode. Don Juan swears to marry her, and she
exhorts divine punishment if he renegs; and Don Juan's words are of the same
enigmatic quality as were those to Tisbea, for he swears to her hand rather than
to her person. Likewise, the trickster's further avowal that some dead man take
vengeance on him if he should fail her is replete with unforeseen irony. The
youth unwittingly describes the manner in which he will soon die; for it is
indeed a dead man who comes to punish him because no live person is capable of
it. Tirso thus ingeniously ties together the episodes in the first part with the
destruction of Don Juan in the second part by insinuating that it is because Don
Juan forfeited on his promises that God sends the stone statue to punish him.
SUMMARY OF THE FOUR EPISODES. With this scene the first
part of the play-EL BURLADOR DE SEVILLA-terminates. The rest of the drama
centers on the concerted efforts of the seduced women to retrieve their lost
honor and on the events that comprise the drama's subtitle-EL CONVIDADO DE
PIEDRA. This first part has consisted principally of four episodes analogous in
content:
Isabela: darkness, Duchess, novelesque, Don Juan is
self-effaced as Octavio, Naples, she lets him into her room, she acts out of
lust, violation of friendship and an offense against the King's dignity;
Tisbea: daylight, fisherwoman, poetic, open deceit,
Tarragona, she lets him into her hut, she acts out of passion, violation of the
laws of hospitality;
Ana: darkness, aristocrat, dramatic, self-effaced as
Mota, Seville, she lets him into her house, she acts out of love, violation of
friendship and murder of an old man;
Aminta: daylight, peasant girl, pastoral, open deceit,
Dos Hermanas, she willingly accepts him, she acts out of greed, profanation of
the marriage rite.
In every case, Don Juan is the guest, which prepares for the irony of the second
part, where the Stone Guest is the one who seduces Don Juan. With each episode,
Don Juan's crimes become graver and the motivations for the woman's response
exhibit increased culpability. Of more importance for the tenor of the play,
none of the girls perceive the inner maliciousness of Don Juan; but then none of
them are who they appear to be either. Isabela is a royal Duchess who is easy
prey for a seducer; Tisbea vainly boasts of her frigidity, but immediately falls
into the hands of Don Juan; Ana is thought by her father, the Monarch, and Don
Diego to be a sedate virgin who will obey her father, but she makes secret
marriage plans with a man who apparently knows every prostitute in Seville; and
Aminta appears to be an innocent and simple country girl, but she is swiftly
corrupted by greed and desire for status. The entire first section is thus a
four-part symphony in which the same chords are struck in each movement, with
the major differences being in tone and rhythm. The overall effect is one of
eternal repetition. The spectators sense that Don Juan has been committing the
same acts over and again since the beginning of time, and no one has yet been
able to deter him. This sense of the timelessness of the trickster's deeds and
the highly orchestrated repetition of the same event give a strong universal air
to the drama and to its chief actor. Don Juan is The Seducer; he is never
described, he is always on the move from one place to the other, and he lives
with only one thing on his mind: the malicious betrayal of women. In the second
part of the drama, however, the tone and atmosphere change radically so as to
present the justifiable castigation of this chaotic force in nature that lives
only for the moment and the pleasures of deceit.
SCENE TWO:
SETTING. Tirso returns his audience to the shores of
ISABELA. The Duchess enters complaining bitterly about her loss of honor,
although she is somewhat consoled by the fact that the King of Spain is planning
to marry her to Don Juan. When Isabela meets Tisbea, however, she realizes that
her only remedy is to demand some other justice of the King than marriage to the
villain.
TISBEA. The fisherwoman's return to the stage serves mainly to give the author
another opportunity to penetrate her psychological constitution. Tisbea enters
speaking in the same fire imagery as earlier, but now from the position of one
who knows the terrible effects of passion. She describes the sea as a- fiery
ocean that turned her hut into another
SCENE THREE: A churchyard in
SETTING. The remaining scene locales alternate from a churchyard, to Don Juan's
house, to the royal palace, to the churchyard, to the royal palace. There is
thus a rhythmic sequence from Don Juan and the stone guest to the King of Spain
and his retinue. While the latter futilely try to cope with the destructive
chaos created by Don Juan, the stone guest carries out God's justice and drags
the sinner into Hell.
THE ENCOUNTER. Catalinon enters with his master and vainly attempts to awaken
him to his past crimes. He cites the past treacheries against Octavio and Mota
as well as the proximate arrival of Isabela. But Don Juan slaps him in a rage
and explains that he is not concerned with past actions. Catalinon then warns
his master that they should be careful what they say because they are on sacred
ground; but the trickster cynically replies: "Tell them to kill me some day
here," little aware that his blasphemous remarks will come true. Don Juan
then encounters the stone effigy that King Alfonso has erected over Gonzalo's
tomb. He reads the inscription, which states: "Here the most loyal knight
awaits from the Lord vengeance on a traitor." Instead of respecting the
dead, however, Don Juan commits the ultimate sacrilege by laughing at the
inscription and tweaking the statue's beard. The villain then offers his first
invitation of the drama by telling the statue that if it wants vengeance it can
come to dinner at his house that night. The scene terminates with Don Juan
remarking: "If you are awaiting my death for vengeance, it is best that you
lose all hope; since for your anger and vengeance you set such a long time for
me."
SCENE FOUR: The house of Don Juan Tenorio. The stone
apparition comes to dine with the trickster, after which the statue asks Don
Juan to come to the churchyard for dinner the following evening.
SETTING. Two servants set the table for dinner as Don Juan and Catalinon enter.
They sit down to eat, but are immediately interrupted by a loud knock at the
door. The first servant goes to open it, but returns running across the stage
and exits on the opposite side. The dramatic tension of the scene is intense,
and Tirso objectifies it in the short, half-line staccato which forms the
dialogue between Don Juan and his servant. The knock is repeated, and Catalinon,
stricken with fear that it may be the stone statue, slowly works his way to the
door. He then turns, falls, gets up, falls again, and scrambles across the stage
babbling in short phrases: "Sir I there ... I saw ... when I got there ...
who seizes me? Who shakes me? I arrived when ... afterwards, blind ... when I
saw him, I swear to God ... he spoke and said: Who are you? He responded, I then
responded ... I met and I saw..."
The stuttering speech brilliantly heightens the moment. Catalinon's cowardly
character is clearly juxtaposed to Don Juan's strong nerves. The master now
takes a candle in his hand and goes to the door. He opens it to find the statue
of Don Gonzalo de Ulloa standing before him. The stage directions describe
succinctly the action on stage: "Don Juan draws back terrified, grasping
his sword in one hand with the candle in the other; and Don Gonzalo approaches
him with measured steps as Don Juan retires until they reach the center of the
stage." The host immediately regains control Of his faculties and invites
the stone guest to dine with him.
COMIC RELIEF. Catalinon, meanwhile, has recovered his senses enough to make
absurd conversation with the effigy, asking him such inane questions as if
there, are taverns in the other world and if they put ice in their drinks. The
moment is a perfect example of comic relief. At the height of. the dramatic
tension, the servant is making the audience laugh at his cowardliness and absurd
jokes. The punctuation of the drama with comic antics is a brilliant intuition
by the author into the functions of the human psyche when under stress. Everyone
has had the unfortunate experience of nervously laughing at the most solemn
moment, as when someone wishes to express regret at the death of a friend but
finds himself for some unknown reason giggling. The reason this so often happens
is that when one finds himself in a difficult and uncomfortable emotional
situation, nervous tension builds up as energy in his psyche and erupts as
laughter at unguarded moments. This release is precisely what causes Catalinon's
cackling and ridiculous attempts to make conversation. In addition to the
servant's hysteria, moreover, Tirso copes with the nervousness his scene causes
in the spectators; for he uses Catalinon's comicalness to make the spectators
laugh at the most serious moment of his drama. The reason Tirso makes them laugh
is of course to control the wiredrawn tension that the highly dramatic scene
must be creating in the spectator's psyche. If the onlookers had to watch the
entire scene between Don Juan and Don Gonzalo without being able to expel
periodically the taut excitement that naturally builds up, then the moment might
lose its tension because the spectator would either become accustomed to the
dramatic tension, or would have time to realize that it is only a play and not
real life that is being presented on stage, or would break down into nervous
laughter as Catalinon did. Tirso keeps the tension at the highest level by
controlling the spontaneous attacks of laughter caused by nervous apprehension
that inevitably accompanies such scenes. Besides being very realistic, then,
Catalinon's overexcited talkativeness serves as a carefully manipulated outlet
for the near hysteria that accumulates in the spectators.
THE FIRST BANQUET. Don Gonzalo asks that he and Don Juan be left alone, and the
servants leave the stage. The ghost then asks the youth if he will keep a
promise as a gentleman. Don Juan swears he will, and Don Gonzalo says:
"Give me your hand, don't be afraid." Don Juan replies: "What, I
afraid? If you were from Hell itself I would give you my hand." The effigy
invites him to dinner the following night in the church, and Don Juan accepts.
Don Gonzalo leaves, and the trickster finally drops his guard and expresses his
true emotions. He admits that his whole body is covered in sweat and that his
heart almost stopped when he took the effigy's hand. But he gathers his strength
and declares that the next day he is going to the chapel so that all
TIRSO'S USE OF MUSIC. Tirso has' used music throughout the play to reinforce the
atmosphere and the meaning. Almost every seduction is accompanied by some form
of music that objectifies the actions of the characters. The first use of music
is in the Tisbea episode. While Don Juan is inside seducing Tisbea, Anfriso and
the other fishermen pass by singing: "The lass went afishing, casting her
nets, and instead of fishes she caught men's souls." The song is very
ironic when compared to the events occurring off stage, for it is Tisbea who has
her soul robbed by Don Juan. Tirso repeats this same ironic use of music in the
Ana episode. While Don Juan is busy seducing Ana, Mota's servants serenade Ana's
house by singing: "He who awaits a good pleasure the more he waits the more
he becomes desperate ('cuanto espera desespera')." Mota, who is naively
waiting until
SCENE FIVE: The royal palace; the same time as scene
four. The King now plans to marry Juan to Isabela, Mota to Ana, and Octavio to
one of the available ladies at court.
SETTING. Sandwiched between the double invitation is this scene in which King
Alfonso futilely attempts to bring some sort of order to the chaos caused by Don
Juan's actions. The Monarch has definitely decided to marry the youth to Isabela,
and he even makes Don Juan the Count of Lebrija so that he will be of the same
noble rank as the Duchess. The King also decides to marry Ana to Mota, and
requests Don Diego to release Mota secretly from jail so the marriage can take
place. Octavio then enters, however, to demand retribution for the crimes
committed against him by Don Juan. The King declares Don Juan to be a gentleman
of his bedchamber and therefore unable to be challenged by Octavio, but he
promises to marry Octavio to a noblewoman.
INEFFECTUALNESS OF ROYAL JUSTICE. None of these plans that the King makes are
going to reach completion until Don Juan is eliminated by God's avenging
instrument. The Monarch's proposals are, in effect, precisely the opposite of
what a just ruler should prescribe. Instead of punishing Don Juan for his
crimes, King Alfonso actually increases the youth's status, making him Count of
the very village to which he exiled him. The King's manipulation of Octavio is
another case of miscarried justice, for he protects Don Juan from the Duke by
declaring the youth a gentleman of his bedchamber, and then he bribes Octavio
with the promise of marrying him to some noble lady at the court. There is also
of course the obvious irony that Don Juan is no "gentleman" nor is he
the kind of person one would want to put in charge of the
"bedchamber."
CORRUPTION OF OCTAVIO. In the earlier scenes, Octavio has been characterized as
a well-meaning although pompous man who has been victimized by Don Juan and the
royal authority. Now, however, Tirso presents Octavio in a different light, for
the Duke stoops to the same kinds of tricks as Don Juan. Aminta and her father
enter asking for Don Juan, whom they declare has promised to marry the girl.
Octavio seizes upon the situation to avenge himself by imitating the tricks of
his rival. He tells Aminta to come with him so he can dress her as a fine lady,
for he plans thus to embarrass Don Juan and to stop the marriage of his rival
with Isabela.
SCENE SIX: The churchyard in
SETTING. Don Juan enters with Catalinon. The youth has just come from an
interview with the King, his father, and Isabela, whom he is planning to marry
that very night. But before he goes to the wedding he obstinately demands to
keep his promised appointment with the stone guest. Catalinon asks why Don Juan
wants to keep this promise when he has broken so many others, and the youth
replies illogically that it is because the dead man may tell everyone he is a
coward. They call at the church door, and Don Gonzalo, dressed as in the earlier
scene, comes out to meet them.
NECESSITY OF A SECOND BANQUET. The question now arises as to the necessity for
the double invitation. It is clear that Tirso could have organized his drama in
such a way that only one meeting between the trickster and the stone guest would
be necessary. Don Gonzalo could have easily taken Don Juan to Hell when he
grasped his hand at the first banquet. The answer may be that Tirso was
following so faithfully the Spanish versions of the legend (which with but one
exception have the double invitation motif) that it never occurred to him to
write the drama otherwise. Tirso's audience would certainly be well acquainted
with the story, and they would therefore be able to understand the drama better
with the legend presented in its entirety. It may also be that Tirso desired to
increase the dramatic effect of the encounter between the Trickster of Seville
and the Stone Guest (as the full title of the play reads) by bringing them
together twice rather than once. Another justifiable explanation for including
the double invitation motif is that, for theological reasons, Tirso wanted to
give his protagonist every possible chance to acknowledge the power of God and
the supernatural before sending him to Hell. If God were punishing Don Juan
solely for seducing four women, murdering Gonzalo, and desecrating a graveyard,
he would have taken him away at the first meeting. The utilization of a second
encounter illustrates that Tirso perhaps wanted his audience to see that God
condemns Don Juan for the youth's total rejection of the Christian way of life
and its dictates of remembrance of God, humility, and creatureliness, all of
which should have been made clear to him by the, first appearance of a
supernatural being. God, in other words, wanted to give Don Juan an opportunity
to repent his sins; but He also wanted to make sure that Don Juan would
obstinately choose the temporal world even after confronting supernatural
reality personified in the stone guest. Finally, the second banquet is a
gruesome parody of the first. The two servants are dressed in black and the
supper consists of snakes and scorpions, gall and vinager; and Gonzalo's
servants sing the song which expresses the exact opposite of Don Juan's, since
it declares the retribution of sins and the necessity for facing death:
"Take notice those who weigh God's great punishments, that there is no time
limit that does not arrive nor any debt that is not paid ('no hay plazo que no
llegue ni deuda que no se pague'). While one lives in this world, it is not just
for him to say, what a long time you set for me, being so short the time to
pay."
DESTRUCTION OF DON JUAN. Don Gonzalo serves his guest (Don Juan is always the
guest) the plates. of scorpions and snakes, which foreshadow the diet the
trickster will encounter in Hell, and then asks Don Juan: "Give me your
hand; don't be afraid to give me your hand." Don Juan, to prove his valor,
grasps the hand of the stone figure, and immediately senses the fires of Hell
shoot through him: "I am burning! Don't burn me with your fire!" The
analogy of this scene with the Tisbea episode is obvious. There Don Juan took
Tisbea's hand and she felt the flames of love sear her soul. Moreover, she later
admitted that the passion she suffered was a just punishment for her haughty
disdain of her fellow fisherfolk. Now, in a brilliant use of counterpassion, Don
Juan suffers a punishment that is identical in kind to the injury that he
inflicted on his victims. This use of counterpassion makes the destruction of
Don Juan the greatest burla of all, for Don Gonzalo tricks his guest in
precisely the same way as the youth tricked the four girls. Don Gonzalo then
declares, in the mercantile jargon of payments, credits, and debts, the purpose
of his return from the dead: "This fire is little compared to the fire you
sought. God's wonders, Don Juan, are inscrutable, and He wishes that your sins
be paid at the hands of a dead man. And if you pay in this way, it is God's
justice: as a man soweth, so shall he reap ('quien tal hace que tal pague')."
Don Juan desperately attempts to free himself from the statue's grasp. He pulls
out his dagger and stabs the apparition, but the blows encounter empty space. He
then tries to lie his way out of the situation, declaring that he in fact never
succeeded in seducing Doña Ana; and he begs for confession and absolution of
sins before death. The effigy only replies: "There's no time, for you
remember too late," emphasizing thus with the word "remember" the
Christian theological doctrines of memento mori and memoria Dei that Don Juan
throughout the drama so conveniently refused to consider. Don Juan finally falls
dead at the feet of the apparition, who proclaims: "This is God's justice:
as a man soweth, so shall he reap." The effigy and Don Juan then sink
loudly under the stage, and Catalinon, who has watched the whole catastrophe,
rushes out of the burning chapel to report the event.
SUMMARY OF THE CLIMAX. Such is the climax of The Trickster of Seville.
Don Juan is punished by the only person capable of punishing him: an agent of
God. Throughout the play, Tirso has characterized his protagonist as a
personification of the devil, supremely beautiful, a prince of darkness, more
powerful than any mere mortal, and capable of bringing total chaos to a corrupt
society who by its sins allows him to operate in its midst. This absolute power
is what gives Don Juan his mythic aura. He is wholly evil, without a taint of
saving grace, but the heroic dimensions that always accompany a figure more
powerful than his contemporaries cause the spectators to view Don Juan with a
sense of awe and fearful respect. The protagonist is finally destroyed-as he
must be, since he would eventually have destroyed all of society-by the one
person more powerful than himself. Moreover, it is supremely appropriate that
the divine instrument be Don Gonzalo de Ulloa, for he rights all the wrongs
committed by Don Juan. The offence committed by the nephew of the Spanish
ambassador to Naples (Don Pedro Tenorio) is avenged, through default, by the
Spanish ambassador to Portugal; the repeated violation of the law of hospitality
(Isabela's bedchamber, Tisbea's hut, Ana's house, Aminta's banquet) is repaid by
the trickster's last host, the stone statue; the dishonor to Doña Ana is
requited by her father, who simultaneously fulfills the vow to avenge his
murder; and the disruption of Aminta's wedding is avenged on the very night when
Don Juan's wedding to Isabela was to take place. The drama thus comes full
circle to a complete retribution of the various sins committed by the trickster.
SCENE SEVEN: The royal palace in
SETTING. The play's action has now terminated because the cause of all the
action-Don Juan-has been eliminated. But Tirso adds a final scene to dramatize
the apparent restoration of order by the King. As will be seen, it is this final
moment that reinforces the moral lesson of the whole drama.
RESTORATION OF ORDER. King Alfonso enters with Diego Tenorio discussing the
marriage that evening of Juan and Isabela. Suddenly, he is descended upon by all
the people whom Don Juan has tricked or beguiled. Batricio and Gaseno declare
that Tenorio has promised to marry Aminta. Tisbea enters to demand justice for
what the villain did to her. Aminta, dressed in ridiculous finery, enters with
Duke Octavio. Mota nears the King to explain that it was Don Juan Tenorio who
actually murdered Don Gonzalo. In all, seven people come on stage in less than a
minute; and each blames Don Juan Tenorio (all use the trickster's full name
here) for something about which the King and Don Diego knew absolutely nothing.
The Monarch, in an act of futile justice, demands that Don Juan be arrested and
killed immediately. The audience knows on the one hand that the trickster is
already dead, and on the other hand that King Alfonso and his corrupt ministers
are as incapable of controlling Don Juan now as at the beginning of the drama.
It is supremely ironic that only after Don Juan's demise do all the characters
visually unite on stage to denounce his ways; and it is a clear example of the
ineffectiveness of human justice that the King, who is God's representative on
earth and the highest judicial authority, is the last person to learn of
Tenorio's crimes. Tirso conveniently resolves all of King Alfonso's problems by
now having Catalinon enter to describe in detail how Don Juan was killed by the
stone statue. Moreover, before he died, the youth admitted that he failed to
seduce Ana. With a sigh of relief and the comment that it was a just punishment
from heaven ('justo castigo
THE DRAMA'S MORAL LESSON. The theological lesson to be learned from the events
in The Trickster of Seville is quite obvious: you will pay for the
sins you commit, and the punishment will befit the crime; so do not delay
repentance and absolution of sins. No one in the audience would miss such a
clear moral statement. It is difficult to say, however, whether the characters
within the drama have learned anything from their various encounters with the
demonically possessed man, except for Tisbea, who receives nothing. The men
appear totally unconcerned that their new wives were all willingly defiled by
another man; and the women make no reference to the spiritual weaknesses of
their new husbands, who through sheer stupidity were so easily supplanted by Don
Juan. Tirso's spectators must have made these same observations, and they
probably left the theater with a clear awareness that although the cause of the
action (Don Juan) was eliminated, and although the effects of the action
(seductions) were resolved, the moral deficiencies that allowed Don Juan to
operate so successfully remain. Tirso appears to be showing his audience a
society that from the King to the peasant is totally without scruples, witness
to which is everyone's eager desire at the end to marry a compatible partner
without the remotest reference to moral respectability. It seems that no one in
the drama learned anything, that everyone, including Don Juan, remains
unrepentant. The cause is gone, and the effects have been remedied; so they all
simply forget that it ever happened. Nothing has really changed.
Why should Tirso, who was a devout priest, write a drama that
ended in such a way? He evidently realized that his Don Juan character was too
supernatural in power and dexterity to fulfill any role as a warning to the mere
mortals in the audience who might also enjoy tricking women. Tirso therefore
reversed the ethical emphasis of his play to show a morally degenerate
society-his society that ignores the fundamental issue of why such a creature
could so successfully operate in its midst. The drama's message is therefore
directed to everyone in the audience rather than to a particular type of rake.
If the theater-goers see the social decadence on stage as a reflection of their
own milieu, then perhaps out of moral shame and self-respect they will try to
remedy the situation and make their society one in which the Don Juan type
cannot operate. This appears to be the fundamental moral lesson of the drama;
and it is of course the most denunciatory, for it speaks to the whole of society
and not just to a few isolated members.
From: http://www.modlang.fsu.edu/darst/trickster.htm