MAYOR OF ZALAMEA, The (AEI Al calde de Two Spanish plays bear this title, the first by Lope de Vega (1562 1635), the second, an adaptation, by Calderon de la Barca (1600-81). The superiority of the adaptation over the original is admitted by all critics. A comparison of the two works is somewhat unfair to Lope de Vega, because his play is one of his least worthy productions. He reveals, indeed, his characteristic spontane ity, but fails to seize resolutely upon the dramatic possibilities of his story, preferring for some reason to narrate events in their chrono logical sequence. Calderon studies the dramatic situations more carefully and by discarding ir relevancies, reducing the number of personages and sharpening the features of those retained, produces a masterpiece. To his predecessor he owes his plot, the dramatic conflict, the prin cipal personages and a few lines which he transfers to his play unaltered. The most striking difference between the two pieces is the character of Isabella, daughter of the mayor magistratl. In Lope's play there are two bot flirtatious to the last degree. So little control has the father over them, that when he is appointed magistrate, he asks pa thetically, ((How can a father who fails to rule at home, govern a town?" The fate of the daughters at the hands of dissolute soldiers does not surprise the spectator, and the penalty of death imposed upon the seducers hardly seems justified. Calderon corrects this defect, and in Isabella, who replaces Leonora and Agnes, he presents a modest young woman, the unhappy victim of a crime which she strives in vain to prevent. Her soliloquy after she
has been wronged is pathetic and poignant, and is one of the best passages in the play (Act II, scene i). Among other excellent scenes may be noted the magistrate's farewell to his son, in which shrewd advice and good feeling are happily blended (Act II, scene xxi), and the prolonged struggle between the magistrate and the gouty, blustering, irascible, old soldier, Lope de Figueroa (Act III, scene xv). King Philip II, who appears suddenly at the close of the play, sets his seal of approval upon the action of the father-magistrate in avenging the wrong done to his daughter and thus vindicates the triumph of justice and local autonomy (a pre cious privilege to Spaniards) over the lawless ness of undisciplined soldiery. The events nar rated by the two dramatists are so circumstan tial that it is assumed that they are based on a real incident in the march of Philip II into Portugal (1580), when the Tercio de Flandes, a famous regiment commanded by Lope de Figueroa, passed through Zalamea, a small town in Estremadura. Krenkel published both plays with valuable notes in published Biihnen dichtungen der Spaniel-) (Vol. III, Leipzig 1887). Consult also Meandez y Pelayo's edi tion in 'Obras de Lope de Vega) (Vol. XII, 1902), and Plays of Calderon' (ed. Maccoll, London and New York 1888).