The Siege of Numantia, a play by Cervantes

I can hear you asking “Cervantes? Miguel de Cervantes?”. Yep, that’s him, the author of Don Quixote. 

But first, context. The Siege of Numantia, if Wikipedia can be trusted, was written circa 1582—before Lope de Vega’s career, before the Spanish Armada, before the first play by Christopher Marlowe. This is important to keep in mind. 

1/ Scipio, the new Roman general, finds morale low among his troops so he scolds them: 

“SCIPIO From your fierce mien, and from your sprightly show, 

Comrades, that you are Romans, well I know—

Romans both strong and lusty for the fight—

But in your hands so delicate and white, 

And in that pink that’s on your face written, 

Why, anyone would you think you reared in Britain…”

(Act 1) 

Excuse me??? 

The year is 135 BC. This makes The Siege of Numantia very different from the Spanish Golden Age plays I’ve been reading. 

2/ There are good bits in the play. 

“SCIPIO […] I do not wish the wasted blood 

Of any other Romans to discolour 

This ground again. Enough blood has been shed 

By these cursed Spaniards, in this long, hard war, 

Now let us all exert our hands in breaking 

And digging this hard earth. Let friends be friends

Be covered with the dust they raise, no longer 

Covered with blood by enemies…”

(ibid.) 

This version is translated by South African poet Roy Campbell. 

Cervantes starts with the Roman point of view, then writes an exchange between the Roman general Scipio and a few Numantines, and then switches to the Numantine point of view. 

“FIRST PRIEST With a pure thought and spirit cleansed of sin 

Just as I plunge and stain my knife within 

This ram’s pure blood, so may Numantia stain 

Her hard earth with the blood of Romans slain, 

And prove a mighty grave to whelm them in! 

[…] 

SECOND PRIEST But who has reft the victim from my hands? 

Ye gods, what’s this? What monstrous prodigies 

Are these we see? Have our laments not touched 

Your hearts, though coming from a tribe afflicted 

And full of tears? Have our harped hymns not softened 

Your hearts? No! they have hardened them the more

To judge from all these signs of cruel wrath. 

The remedies of life are fatal to us: 

Neglect of prayer would profit us far more. 

Our good is alien, but our ills are native.” 

(Act 2) 

That’s good. I wish I could read it in the original. 

3/ As I wrote at the beginning of the blog post, The Siege of Numantia was written around 1582—before the advent of Lope de Vega—so in many ways, it is old-fashioned. For example, there is a character representing Spain, with one representing the River Duero and three boys representing Tributary Streams. There are also personifications of War, Pestilence, Hunger, and Fame, as in morality plays.  

My impression is that Lope de Vega has a better sense of structure, pacing, and tension than Cervantes—the latter’s medium is the novel—Cervantes writes too many long speeches that the characters sometimes seem to be talking at rather than talking to each other and it affects the pacing, and the transition from one thing to another is often messy. The play as a whole, I think, is a bit of a mess. There’s even a scene involving a Numantine magician (Marquino) and a corpse! 

But there are good moments in it. The exchange between Marandro and Leonicio about love, for instance. The scene where some Numantine soldiers want to “break through the hostile wall, and rush to die” and get stopped by their wives is also good. 

I like many images throughout the play, and the descriptions of war and famine and the burning. 

“SECOND NUMANTINE […] Already 

Up in the central square they’ve made a huge 

Blazing and hungry conflagration, which, 

Fed with our riches, soars to the fourth sphere. 

There with sad, fearful haste runs everyone, 

As with a sacred offering, to feast, 

The roaring flames with his own goods and chattels, 

Sustaining them with households and estates. 

[…] The roaring mad inferno of the flames—

And not with green wood or with dried-up straw 

Nor with such things as men consign to flames

But with the homes and properties and wealth 

They can no longer live with or enjoy.” 

(Act 3) 

Some characters’ speeches before they die are also moving. 

Overall, the play is okay. 

The King the Greatest Alcalde by Lope de Vega

Originally El mejor alcalde, el rey, it is another of Lope de Vega’s famous plays. I read the 1936 translation by John Garrett Underhill. 

1/ The play begins with a poor man named Sancho (not Panza) wanting to marry Elvira, daughter of a farmer named Nuño. Elvira loves him and Nuño approves of the marriage but Sancho has to ask for blessings from his employer Don Tello, who generously gives him a bunch of sheep and cows as a present. 

Troubles begin when Don Tello, the most powerful man in Galicia, shows up during the preparations for the wedding and sees Elvira and wants her for himself. It is a very good scene. 

He calls off the wedding, and then abducts her. 

Look at this exchange: 

“DON TELLO […] How then, Elvira, could your cruel rage 

Treat me thus foully? Cannot your rigor see 

That this is love? 

ELVIRA Never, my lord, for love 

That is deficient in a true respect 

For honor, is but vile desire, not love, 

And being evil, love never can be called. 

For love is born of loving what one loves 

In mad desire, 

And love that is not chaste 

By no name of love is graced 

Nor ever can to love’s estate aspire.” 

(Act 2) 

She explains: 

“ELVIRA […] Last night you saw me, Tello, for the first; 

Why, then, your love was such a sudden thing 

That you had scarce a moment to consider 

What that thing was which you so much desired; 

Yet in that knowledge all true love resides. 

For love is born of a great-grown desire, 

And love goes mounting then the steps of favor 

Even to its own end and exercise. 

So this you feel was never love we see 

In simple truth—mad lust and longing rather…”

(ibid.) 

Isn’t this so good? Jane Austen would have loved this, and I can’t help thinking that these speeches would have fit rather well in a Shakespeare play. 

2/ Don Tello imprisons Elvira in a tower, and when Nuño has a chance to speak to his daughter, what does he say? 

“NUÑO I never thought to see your face again, 

Not that these bars have confined you prisoner 

In cruel duress, but rather in my sight 

I held you for dishonored. So foul a thing 

Dishonor is in honorable minds, 

So vile, so loathsome ugly, even to me 

Who brought you to the world, even to me 

It must forbid that I should see you more. 

[…] Let her who renders count of her soul’s treasure

In faithless wise, call me no more father. 

Because a daughter of like infamy—

And all too weak are these the words I speak—

Upon a father has one single claim, 

That he shall shed her blood!” 

(Act 3) 

This is even worse than Hero’s father’s reaction to Claudio’s accusations in Much Ado About Nothing! 

I’m getting irritated with the way 17th century Spaniards keep harping on about a woman’s honour. Look at the plays I’ve been reading: 

A Dog in the Manger (Lope de Vega): X 

Fuenteovejuna (Lope de Vega): ✓ 

The Surgeon of Honour (Calderón): ✓

Life Is a Dream (Calderón): ✓

The Trickster of Seville (Tirso de Molina): ✓

And now, The King the Greatest Alcalde (Lope de Vega): ✓ 

It’s getting rather tiresome. 

3/ I shouldn’t be comparing Lope de Vega to Shakespeare, but I can’t help noticing the parallels between The King the Greatest Alcalde and Measure for Measure: in both plays, there is a tyrant; in both plays, the tyrant wants to possess a woman but she refuses; in both plays, a more powerful person walks around in disguise to uncover the truth and restore justice.

However, Measure for Measure is in many ways a deeper and more sophisticated play: Elvira has a vivid existence, especially in the conversations with Sancho at the beginning, but she’s unambiguously good, not complex and problematic (for lack of a better word) like Isabella; Don Tello shows his generosity at the beginning, but from the moment he lusts after Elvira, he’s purely tyrannical and monomaniacal; we don’t see Don Tello question himself or struggle with his conscience, as Angelo does in Measure for Measure; it depicts tyranny and the conditions of women, but Shakespeare’s play raises questions about power, justice, mercy, virtue, goodness, and so on. The King the Greatest Alcalde is a fun play, satisfying—when Don Tello gets his comeuppance—but like Fuenteovejuna, it’s an unambiguous play between the evil tyrant and the good lower class. There isn’t much depth or complexity. 

But I will be fair and say that one thing complicates the play, whether or not it’s Lope de Vega’s intent: Nuño’s speech to Elvira (quoted above) shows the fanatical obsession with a woman’s honour and the unfairness to women. Lope de Vega himself might not have intended it to be a condemnation of Spanish culture, but that detail is there and it darkens the play—what if the King doesn’t intervene? 

The King the Greatest Alcalde is a play feminists (in the Anglophone world) would love (if they know about it).