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Popular Culture Review
it is supposed to be happening. In the dance, Claranina and the Count are in a
garden when a female servant (not a hunter) surprises them. The Count tries to
bribe her, but he has no money, so she denounces them to the King. The King
arrives to the garden where the two lovers are and tries to figure out what is
happening. First, the Counts tells him that the only thing happening is that “Hoy
lunes la hable cortes / y me convido a salchichas” (“Today, Monday, I
courteously talked to her / and she invited me to sausages”) (380). He latter
admits to his actions but argues that he should not be punished because he is not
the first to have sex with the Princess. The King covers the head of the Count
with a hood and sends him to be beheaded. He dies offstage, but returns after his
death. The dance concludes with Charlemagne, the Princess and the beheaded
Count (holding in his hands his own head) singing and dancing all together.
The modifications of the plot are more obvious in The Dance o f Lucretia
and Tarquin. This piece recreates a Roman legend that was first collected by
Titus Livy in Ab Urbe Condita I, (59). Most of the audience will be familiar
with the story not through Livy’s account, but by having heard the popular
ballad starting “Aquel rey de los romanos / que Tarquino se llamaba” (“That
king of the Romans / called Tarquin”) (362). The dance follows the version of
the ballad and uses the name “Colatino” for Lucretia’s husband, instead of the
name “Lucius Junius Brutus” that appears in Ab Urbe Condita. In the ballad,
Tarquin falls in love with Lucretia and, while her husband is out, he is hosted at
her house. In the middle of the night, he enters her room, puts his sword on her
chest, and asks her to accept him as a lover (and therefore become rich) or to
die. When she refuses, Tarquin threatens to rape her, kill her, and then put the
dead body of a black servant in the bed, so everyone will think that she had been
sleeping with the servant. When faced with such a destiny, Lucretia has no
choice but to give in. The next day, Lucretia tells her husband about the rape and
immediately commits suicide with a dagger. Colatino, with the help of the
Roman people, goes to the palace of Tarquin and kills him.
The Lucretia of the dance is far from being the virtuous woman of the
legend. The dance opens with Tarquin chasing Lucretia by the sea. A female
servant appears and Tarquin asks her for advice to seduce Lucretia. The servant
tells him that money can buy everything, which gives Tarquin the idea of
offering Lucretia a bag with half a real (a ridiculously small amount of money).
Lucretia starts to feel that she will not be able to resist such an offer, but
eventually decides to preserve her honor. At that moment, Tarquin kisses her
hand and notices that it is dirty. She feels bad because af