Dancing in the Theaters of Seventeenth Century Spain 81
CAVA
REY
CAVA
REY
(KING
CAVA
KING
CAVA
KING
CAVA
KING
“Mira, Zaide, que te aviso
Que no pases por mi calle.”
Esto manda mi aficion
Y a obedecerla me obligo.
“Mandadero sois, amigo,
Non tenedes culpa, non.”
Pues cruel, £de mi haces asco? (350-1)
I am in such state
that for you my heart is staggering.
“Because of Gila’s ficklenesses,
how sick is Pascual!”
From your beauty and figure
I want to make my paradise.
“Look, Zaide, I advise you
not to pass by my street.”
This orders my fondness
and I oblige myself to obey it.
“Messenger you are, my friend,
you are not guilty, not.”
So, cruel, do you turn up your nose at me?) (350-1)
Conclusion
What is the ultimate intention of these parodies? Are they an attempt to
subvert and question the values (whatever they are) supported by the long plays
or are they just a source of entertainment or are they both things? Answering this
question would be like trying to explain the real meaning of carnival, which
goes beyond the scope of this article. Some scholars, such as Rafael de Balbin
(“Notas” 604—5), believe that in a society like that of seventeenth century Spain,
in which social stratification was so rigid, the comic elements could only be
connected to the lower social classes. According to this author, the errors
committed by the low people are funny because its consequences are always
irrelevant to the society as a whole. The audience could then find funny that a
servant cheats on her husband because, after all, her honor is not that important,
and the legitimacy of a servant’s son inconsequential to others. That same
situation, transferred to a queen, is not a joke, but a national problem. Although
this is true in many cases and literary genres, these three dances of Moreto show
that the opposite is also possible; the audience can find the comical side of
historical situations that had tragic consequences.
In all these dances, the tragic stories become an excuse for the comedy.
Both the characters’ names and the main story line are retained, but they become
so grotesquely transformed that they cease to be connected to the real, original
event. The characters are so transformed that it is difficult to see in them a king
or a nobleman, they are just clowns dressed up. I do not think the dances parody
nobility, traditional norms of monarchy, because their point of reference is not