Feliz 2016/Happy New Year

"Alguien dijo que las deidades no se dignan siquiera cuidarse de los mortales que pisotean el honor de lo inviolable. No era ése un hombre piadoso. La maldición se revela en los frutos de las ilícitas osadías de quienes se muestran más orgullosos de lo que es justo, cuando en exceso sus casas rebosan sobrepasando la medida óptima. Tenga sin daño la riqueza, de modo que pueda bastarle, quien por su suerte ha logrado la sabiduría, pues no es un baluarte la riqueza para el varón que por buscar la saciedad da un puntapié al grandioso altar de la Justicia, para hacerla desaparecer" (traducción de Bernardo Perea).

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Chorus:
And others will say that the gods don’t care at all if men desecrate the holy.

Chorus:
Such words are sacrilege!

Chorus:
And now it’s obvious to all, what punishment is paid for reckless pride that flies over the proper measure –when the overweening greed sends men to war so as to clutter with wealth their already over-cluttered palaces.

Chorus:
All things in moderation is best.

Chorus:
Contentment in sufficiency is best.

Chorus:
These show wisdom and good sense.

381
Chorus:
And the rich man who kicks the altar of Justice away from his sight no longer has protection from Greed. No, that man is driven by the goddess Persuasion, destructive daughter of Infatuation who makes men work against their better judgement. (Translated by G. Theodoridis). 

Agamemnon

Aeschylus

Happy New Year, Feliz 2016

To Justice, to Wisdom, to Freedom... Keys of Love and Happiness.

Por la Justicia, la Sabiduria y la Libertad...  Llaves de la Felicidad y el Amor.

On sense and reference

Often, the most obvious things are the ones that become forgotten in the years. Something obvious could be, in example, that two texts that have the same reference could not have the same sense, and it is the sense the one that defines the deep significance of a literary work. I understand the literary facet of a work as the one that possesses, as the natural and colloquial language, a wealth of significance possibilities (the same possibilities that philosophical and scientific languages intend to avoid because of the ambiguities that come along with it). It is not the fiction what gives the literacy to a work (what happens then with the poetry?), it is not a particular aesthetic value, however the use of a language full of senses, avoiding simple and overrated references, as the vanguards, staying away of the clear, strict and restricted languages that science and philosophy require to avoid misunderstandings as much as possible.

Greek tragedy and philosophy had both a clear political vocation, but the strict philosophical concepts crash with the wealth of meanings implied by its literary articulation, even when both genres are dealing with the same ideas and conflicts.

Literature sacrifices this conceptual clarity in order to get livelier ideas that better embody the concepts. What for the philosophers is a concept, for the writers is a moment in a life, a character, a feeling. The sacrifice of clarity allows a better understanding of the complexity of real life, in which is not always easy to isolate the concepts from the feelings, the ideas from the facts of existence.

It is mandatory, talking about literary hermeneutics, to have these considerations in mind, specially referring to the question of the intertextuality (conceived as a game of references and senses, the rest is simply plagiarism).

Two texts, as I was saying backwards, can have the same reference but completely different senses. Is the loss of the sense what made classical literature became a simple and common reference, beautiful but meaningless. The loss of the sense is the death of a literary work. It has a lot to do with the conception of literature as a doxographical collection, and implies the isolation of the literature of the time and place in which was created.

It is in the sense of a literary work where we can find the most valuable interpretations, because the sense in something pragmatic and Praxis requires for its understanding lots of aspects of reality, not only the textual ones.

Let’s take a look at a literary sample: the Quixote. In this novel, we have an explicit reference to the classical myth of the five Ages, focused on the Golden one. We find the whole myth perfectly exposed in Hesiod’s works, as well as other classic authors. The sense of this myth on Cervantes novel is, in my opinion, one of the capital questions to analyze the Quixote. One of the most common lectures about Quixote speeches is the one that assumes that Quixote is an insane man with some moments of sanity, moments as the one in which the Golden Age speech take place. This thesis, the madman with moments of sanity, implies the reduction of classical tradition to a question of only references without any further consideration about senses or meanings.

A mad but well educated man capable of sensible behaviour for a while that articulates beautiful and powerful speeches basis on classical tradition, that’s the way that most of the critics consider Quixote. But it is not so simple.

The Golden Age myth on Hesiod was a literary artefact to criticize the heroic mentality, a way to claim for new values: the vindication of work as a new way of justice and religious behaviour. With the decline of the aristocratic values (Hesiod adds to the myth an heroic age that disappears on Ovid), the hard and faithful workers are now the leading role. Hesiod was ending the Homeric mentality by making it part of the degenerative process described in the myth. Cervantes, that is my thesis, comes back to the Golden Age dissertation in a very special context: a moment in which classical mythology and literature had become a common and beautiful place, an exercise of erudition without sense, and Cervantes wrote against that in the prologue of the first part of his Quixote (which demonstrates that he was aware about this matter). Only in a time when classical tradition had lost its sense and meaning it is possible to think that Quixote’s speech about the Golden Age supposes a sensible break from his usual madness.

Cervantes, and Quixote, uses the myth in a very particular sense, a sense that could not be understood by a literary criticism that considered the myths as something beautiful but death and meaningless. Quixote uses the myth to justify his own modus vivendi: not a crazy one, however the way of life of an elder man that is fed up with his life, a bored man that decides start to play with everybody.

Cervantes sense of the myth serves to demonstrate that our misunderstanding of the classical myths makes us believe that speeches about the Golden Age as the Quixote one are perfectly sensible and a sign of sanity. Quixote goes against his time, but only for fun, being selfish and taking advantage of the rights he possesses. In other words, Quixote fools everybody with his speeches and Cervantes fools those ones that think that such speeches are serious, rational and sensible, further than simple ingredients of a cheeky and bored man’s game.

If the critics consider these speeches as a sensible break in Quixote’s behaviour is only because at Cervantes time it was very established that late-Roman conception of Greek mythology as a beautiful compilation of tales and nothing more than tales. The quotation of Greek mythology was associated with sanity and erudition because no one thought about the sense and meanings that Greek mythology possesses. No one doubted about the rhetorical use of Greek mythology, but anyone that knows deeply the classical tradition, and I think that Cervantes did, realizes that myths were about politics and philosophy. Myths were stories politically orientated, full of meaningful differences depending on authors and versions. Myths were stories of justification with a high element of ideology and political convictions.

As a justification of his life Hesiod wrote his version of the myth, the same that Quixote uses it as part of his game. Cervantes was counting on this loss of sense of the classical tradition to disguise the deep significance of his novel: the critic of the nobility, decadent, corrupt and only concerned about his own interests: playing, wooing girls that would be left behind eventually (the story of Dorotea) and, at last, fooling the hope and dreams of people like Sancho.

Quixote speeches are the excuse, the cynic justification of a game, a game that was brilliantly pointed out by Torrente Ballester. Only who thinks that literature is meaningless could accept that Quixote use of mythology is no more than healthy erudition.

But if the classical tradition possesses a sense, as I think, then is mandatory to wonder about this sense, and is mandatory to find out the meaning of the Golden Age myth in Cervantes novel.

If Quixote uses the myth to seriously justify his labour as a knight, it would be crazy, because even the Greeks did not consider the myth as a true story and the myth served them to express political concerns and ideas. On the contrary, if Quixote is playing a cynical game, as I think, it seems right to consider that the Golden Age speech, as the one about Laws and weapons, is only a playful tool that only makes sense in the context of his game. In other words, he is being naughty and cheeky all the time, and that is it. He is not crazy sometimes and sane when he makes his speeches.

From this point of view, I think that Cervantes was pretty sure about how the critics wouldn't be able of this interpretation of his novel. The prologue of the first part becomes this way even more facetious, because Cervantes himself foresaw the superficial interpretations that he was expecting about his novel. I insist, only a pedant can consider sensible to use the Golden Age myth in the Spanish 17th century.

A more careful interpretation of Cervantes works turns out that the author understood perfectly the classical tradition, and he reflected this tradition perfectly in the rest of his works, as he demonstrated with his conception of the tragic genre, so close to the Greek one and so far from his Spanish contemporaries.

Rare is the author that doesn't put any idea in his work and even the most apolitical and neutral is, in fact, expressing a particular conception of men and society. In literature, as in life, is impossible to be neutral, and here lies one of the highest interests of classical literature: its sense can never be closed and every new version and lecture opens the discussion again.

The prologue to the first part of Quixote is a powerful lesson about how to read literature, a sarcastic lesson about how not to read the Greek classics, a claim against the reduction of classic literature to a meaningless compilation of names, tales and common places. Cervantes knew that all this tales had a sense, and he uses it in his novel with a very clear intention, but not obvious: Quixote’s game helps Cervantes to show a very cynical attitude with Sancho as only victim. Sancho will be the one, with his generosity, that will turn the Quixote’s world upside down. That is what Cervantes shows in his novel and is something that Torrente could not explain in his brilliant essay: Why Cervantes put on scene this game? Which is the cause and objective of writing a novel about and elder bored man that decides to start playing? The answer was always a fundamental key to the interpretation of the novel, and the answer is Sancho. Cervantes did it for Sancho and for all the Sanchos of his time, real heroes of a decadent Spain, as Gabriel Celaya pointed out in one of his brilliant poems.     

  

Sartre on freedom: reflections on philosophy and literature

We are going to analyse in this essay the complex relation between philosophy and literature. I would like to share my ideas about how the literary analysis can lend a useful hand to philosophical research and I am going to prove that focusing on Jean Paul Sartre's Nausea (1938) as well as on two of his philosophical works: Being and Nothingness (1943) and Critique of dialectical reason (1960). Sartre's works and plays are the perfect sample of what literature means to philosophy.

Regarding Nausea, the first thing to emphasize is the genre that the main character chooses as vehicle of expression: a personal diary. Roquentin starts writing his diary moved by the numerous loose ends of his life. Something is missing in his life and he is intending to sort this out writing, and writing about himself and his day by day life.By now, Roquentin is not doing anything but the analysis of an existence, his own one, the same that Sartre will make some years later with the general existence of the human being in his philosophical work Being and Nothingness, where he is going to approach an ontology of Heidegger's Da sein (being there), as consciousness, body and action.

Let's stop at this point for a while. What I am saying is that a diary, at last, is nothing else than a perfect ontology of a very particular existence. It could be said that a diary is a perfect self-ontology, and the only real difference between both kinds of works, the diary and the strict philosophical ontology, is a matter of perspective: in the diary, even in a fictitious or literary one, the subject of the analysis is a particular life, with a particular world and very particular relationships, past and history. Is this particular life the one that acts as subject as well as researcher, he is the subject of his own work. In the ontology the subject becomes something abstract and general, is not an existence with name and surname, is the general idea of the existence, the general idea of the world around and the general idea of the different relationships that this existence could experience in life. This is going to be absolutely essential.

In both Sartre's works, the "decision" has always a leading role, as well as the "choice", following the most pure Heidegger's tradition. Let's focus now in Roquentin. His personal situation can be understood as the result of a very particular choice, the breakup with a past that can't be faced by him. Many of the reflections present on his diary are about his past: his travels or adventures, his ex partner Anny..., sometimes the past become so alive that certain confusion can be created in the reader. Roquentin needs to deal with his past. Like in Heidegger's Being and Time, all human life is the answer to a choice, and the truth about our existence relies on these choices and decisions, on a human being's project or, at last, an identity. Is our existence as free will entities which allow us to organize our lives according to projects, choices and decisions. This, of course, is the theory that we can find in Heidegger, but is really that simple? If it is so clear, why Roquenting is going through the nausea? What kind of trouble could be experienced for a human being that lives his own life as a perfect outcome of his true essence (freedom)?

The problems appear in the real life, not in the philosophical essays, because the particular life comes along with an essential contradiction: we think about ourselves as complete free beings but we are living in a world in which very few things depend on us. We think ourselves free in a highly deterministic world. Our idea of the essence (freedom) crashes now with the experience of our existence, and this contradiction that only shows of in the particular experience of life is the very root of the Nausea. Something is wrong with the philosophical theories, Roquentin knows it, or better, Roquentin lives it. This contradiction leads Roquentin to write his diary, he can't find a sense, he can't find a conciliation between essence and existence, between freedom and life, and maybe analysing every detail he can find some way out, who knows.

Let's examine now the nausea, because we have different kinds with different associated feelings. The nausea reveals something to Roquentin, but depending on the emerging truths we have different nauseas. We have the nausea that precedes the discovering of the existence that comes along, after premature upsetting feelings, with an experience of happiness and adventure, all fulfilling emotions. He feels like a novel hero, he is happy.

The existence becomes an intuition that can be only caught in a feeling, as Sartre will explain years later in Being and Nothingness. Now he discovers that human existence means possibility, here comes the main truth. The human being is plain possibility. Our plans and dreams are possibilities and are always threatened by the weight of what really is, the weight of the others and the circumstances. Now appears a new nausea, the one that says that possibility is no necessity, the one that discovers that my existence, as plain possibility, is purely a spare one. Now the feelings are terrible, upsetting and gloomy ones. Now nothing seems real, because there is nothing necessary attached to my existence.

Roquentin is stuck between the past and the present, his literary work is about the past, M. de Rollebon. Rollebon is a death figure, he needs Roquentin to be kind of a living, and Roquentin needs him to escape from his life. The Roquentin's problem is that he is trying to fund his existence in something that is not there, the past, he is trying to avoid the mandatory necessity of acting in the present. The mankind is forced to act constantly in the present. Sartre's ethics are pragmatic, the main category is the action, and there is no way of hiding from this fact, so, at the end, Roquentin must act and must decide. These are his choices:

-To give up his research about M. de Rollebon. Now the existence is surrounding him. He is bidding for the present, and now the present is overcoming him.

-The close of his past.Now he needs to face the most important loose end of his life, and this is Anny. Does he want Anny in his life or not? Here or gone, but not both, Roquentin must make up his mind about her. After meeting her, he realizes that she is definitely settled down in the past, and he, on the contrary, has decided to move on and to live and act in the present.

His journey from the past to the present is finished now. The diary finish with a new choice, now his life is first and he is going to be the hero of his work, the protagonist of his writing.

Sartre in Being and Nothingness make a diagnosis, a right diagnosis about the essential contradiction between essence (freedom) and existence, a contradiction that is a real no way out in Sartre first philosophy, but lets look twice, Is that the same idea that appears in Nausea? I say no. In Nausea, Roquentin finds the solution to this contradiction. In Nausea, Roquentin realizes that he can act and decide and live, even when he can't design every detail of his life. Roquentin discovers that his freedom is not a fake freedom, is not a freedom that relies in a pure acting and deciding in the mere nothingness, his freedom is a real one, a freedom that must have placed in the real world and immersed in lots of different realities and existences. Roquentin overcomes the Nausea, he overcomes the existentialism, he overcomes Sartre's theories in Being and Nothingness. Roquentin make the journey from Idealism and existentialism to Marxism or, better, dialectical Materialism, even when Sartre is not ready yet to make the same journey in the philosophical theory. His philosophical work is already left behind by his play, five years before publishing.

In Nausea we have the way out when Roquentin realizes that his freedom resides in living and acting in the present, it is true that the present is never custom made, but we can tailor our own life even we can't change our circumstances. We must act in a deterministic reality, but we must and we can act. Our projects, dreams and actions can have sense in a world that is not under our control. We can control the way we move and act in the moment we are forced to live. As Roquentin says, maybe is possible to justify our own existence, maybe we can dare to be a little more happy...

Roquentin now understands: the nausea was a necessary stop in the journey from idealism to the design of an authentic existence, a present one, meaningless like all the eventualities, but full of meaning for ourselves and for the others, depending on how many of our projects we get to turn real. The ones that avoid or reject the nausea are living fake lives (professionals, lawyers, there are several samples in Sartre's novel), because they are living the dream of the idealism, they think about their lives in terms of the pure free will and unconditional choices. Lies and illusions. The nausea opens our eyes to the real freedom and the real choices, those that occurs in an otherwise deterministic world. In Nausea we have the overcoming of idealism, as I said, but we have as well the journey from ontology to ethics, from theory to action.The diary finish with a choice, with a commitment to action.
Nausea and Being and Nothingness are works from the same period in Sartre's philosophy, but in Nausea Sartre's idea of freedom is more similar to the one that he is going to explain in a 20 years after work: Critique of Dialectical reason (1960). This is an amazing anomaly, a wonderful one. How can it be that Sartre showed ideas in his 1948 play that he wouldn't be able to identify theoretically until two decades after? Looks like the literary approach (personal, biographical) to the idea of freedom put him on a path that he would not realize in theory till several years later.

At last, I have my answers. It seems that the relations between philosophy and literature are not only important regarding the impact in the public/receptor, as Plato, Aristotle and Schiller analysed before. The relations between philosophy and literature are something more essential, more deep, because the literature can really help to bring light to some of the darkest philosophical ideas. The difference between philosophy and literature is the difference between ontology and biography, between the being there and the existence of a named being one, even if is a fictional one. The literature not only makes more clear the philosophical ideas, moreover literature helps to shape philosophical ideas, and there is no better sample than the idea of freedom, as I will see in further articles, being this idea the one that I focussed on my Ph.D.

Prometheus

In this article, I intend to present a comparative lecture of three of the most fundamentals versions of Prometheus Myth, the hero (or villain, it depends on the one you ask to) that stole the fire, as a technical resource, from the gods to give it as salvation to the mankind.

Our first stop must be Hesiod and his perspectives of the myth in "Theogony" and "Works and Days". In his works, the use of this myth serves to reassure the importance of Zeus as vigilante of Cosmos and Justice. Zeus itself embodies the order and the Justice and he gives us for granted the reward that comes from a quiet, hard-working and devoted life. Prometheus is a rebel that fooled the Gods. His attempt for improving human life by stealing and defeating the divine laws and powers only could bring suffering and disgrace (Pandora and the necessity of hard work). The technical knowledge only can bring misery and pain to the mankind. Prometheus is a real sample of the dangers that comes along with pride and impiety. Hesiod, as every other writer, was a son of his times. Technology had just begun its development and the poet is not able to face the changes that the new classes of artisans and traders was about to bring to Greece. Prometheus doesn't fit in the old school view of the world, he meant a violent irruption, embodying the radical new ways in politics and production, and the radical social and economic differences that came from those. He is seen as the root of every evil, and nothing  more evil than the hunger of knowledge and progress, moreover if this hunger breaks through undermining the gods will. Prometheus is the revolution of the technicians and Hesiod was right when he foresaw that this was going to lead to multiple alterations, alterations that, obviously, he disliked. Actually, the importance that the tyrants were about to give to traders and artisans will eventually change forever the western world, and this take us straight to the tragic version of the Myth, because when the revolution reaches the political structure, the tragedy becomes the most powerful Greek tool to look for the answers or, at least, to deal with the questions.

Only one play remains from the trilogy that Aeschylus dedicated to Prometheus (I defended in my first book the thesis of Aeschylus as original author of the "Prometheus bound"). We are now in the fifth century, in the climax of Athenian democracy and pan-Hellenic euphoria, after the Persian war. In Aeschylus age, the hesiodic fears became one of the main roles in the new political organization (is with the tyrants when the future democratic mentality starts to be shaped), and these new circumstances were asking for a new order: Democracy. Prometheus still is a rebel that took the wrong way but he is not evil, he is the solution, the answer, the new class fighting for the necessary changes that needed to be promoted. Prometheus faces Zeus absolute power, he faces a God that pretends mankind to remain ignorant, a puppet on the god's strings. Zeus is wrong, so does Prometheus. Both must learnt, that's the aeschilean dialectics: there is always a third path. Prometheus must learn that there is another way to grant the progress (not tyranny but democracy), a way supported by the law, not forced by revolutions, crazy, stubbing and suicidal way, as Prometheus is about to find out by himself. Zeus must learn indeed that his power requires a fair and moderate execution, or will come to an end (yes, even the gods can fall if they don't learn). Zeus and Prometheus must work together, the old world must deal with the new times in order to the foundation of a new order, a new state. This conciliation is on the basis of the new democratic system. Prometheus is only a mandatory stop in the journey, and democracy is going to configure everything like if was new, with unknown meanings and senses: gods, laws, myths, costumes, rights, freedoms, war...

Now that we have the political and tragic answer to the myth, is time for the philosophers to speak out their minds, here comes Plato and his "Protagoras". Prometheus stole the fire, it is true, but this was never the key to human survival, not at least in Plato's era, now the things  are complicated so far. Plato lived in a consolidated democracy and Prometheus is not as useful as he was any more. Now his heroism is anecdotal, he brought indeed the technical knowledge but this is not enough. The technical wisdom and the arts are now perfectly assimilated by the democratic system and the philosophers are in a rush to find the key of the social and political perfection, inside (women, slaves, foreigners, citizens) and outside the borders of the City-State (Sparta and  and other political civilizations as the Persians). In this situation, the discover of fire is meaningless and now the political skills are the leading and urgent ones. In the platonic play his point against Protagoras is not about Prometheus, both agree in his loss of significance. The dialogue evolves into a political discussion: the political virtues, and not the technical skills, are the ones that are going to compromise the survival of the Athenian world's conception. The way of teaching and learning such skills, the way of making everyone involve in the "polis", is going to be the root of the conflict between philosophers and sophists. The technical skills are essential, it is true, but this is not the problem any more. Its meaning and social relevance and economic utility is settle down and now they need to get the same equilibrium and balance regarding the status of the citizenship, its meaning, its importance, its scope and range. Is at this point where the analysis is more urgent, because the govern of the City-State is not threatened by the technical power, now the enemy is the very politics itself, inside and outside (the right to be citizen, the politics of other empires and cities). And the enemies are so powerful that even the tragedy starts to focus on that topics (like Euripides and his concern  about those ones that are not being assimilated by the democratic system, that is Media's tragedy).

The myth of Prometheus is about the technical assimilation in the Greek world and about the evolution of its treatment depending on the social and political stages. In Hesiod, Prometheus, as the technical skills, is seen with fear and distrust, as long as is something new and revolutionary. In Aeschylus is a tyrannical hero that needs to learn the democratic ways to become part of the system. In Plato, we can say that they had another problems at the moment.

Always that the technology evolves fast and in threatening ways, the men turn their eyes to this myth, that constitutes a powerful tool in the reflection about science and its social consequences. It is not strange that another great version of the myth came along in the nineteenth century by the hand of Mary Shelley, but in complete accord with the hesiodic version, just a modern update on the old epic lecture. When mankind faces technical advances and science, the first answer is always full of fear (Hesiod, Shelley), but as we learnt from the Greeks, it becomes the moment when we need to put ourselves together and to give an answer to technical and scientific knowledge: a political answer (Aeschylus) or a philosophical one (Plato). At the end, the men, as political and social animals, need to assimilate every progress into a deeper consideration, where our own success as society lies down.

Science and technology are not evil tools but are not the ultimate answer as well. These are only essentials elements of our evolution, but are not the end of our problems or the close of our history, political and social. As humans, the answer that we demand is always a political and philosophical one, because there is always a moment, as Plato taught us, when we realize that scientific and technical progress are mere tools that require a further discussion about its use and meanings, and there will be always a fundamental question that remains the same time after time, although the circumstances may change: how can we build a righter and fairer society besides all the tools that we achieved in our journey? Schiller told us that the most advanced use of science, reason and technical abilities does not come hand by hand with the most fine society. Often, the men search for salvation in the wrong places. We still think that science and technology are the ultimate answers and we forget about philosophy. Bur the history always takes us back to Plato and the necessity of wondering about our political existence. The most essential question is still asking from us to do our best, and is a question that never will be obsolete: how do we take every tool, every skill, every advance, every knowledge, in order to learn to live with each other avoiding the most senseless destruction and brutality.

Sobre los ataques a mi web, a mi FB y a mi blog

Ahora que las cosas están un poco más calmadas, quiero compartir los sucesos que han tenido lugar en el comienzo de este año. Jesús González Maestro y quienes le protegen (Rosa Navarro por ejemplo: en los vídeos que se encontraban en youtube sólo aparecían los testigos) decidieron emprender una batalla para impedir que toda la documentación acerca del juicio sea pública.


Primero atacaron los vídeos en youtube alegando derechos de imagen y privacidad...) y acto seguido Jesús González Maestro me envió un burofax en el que se me exigía retirar todo documento, vídeo o comentario que tuviera que ver con el juicio y me amenazaba con su equipo de letrados (son asombrosos: no lograron salvarle de lo que hizo pero consiguieron que no tuviera consecuencia alguna. Da gusto poder usar el dinero ganado como profesor de una Universidad pública para cometer acciones penosas y pagar luego lujosas protecciones). Se me daban siete días para retirarlo todo. Se atacaba mi Facebook, mi blog, mi página web y los vídeos colgados en youtube (que estaban siendo bastante populares y con muy interesantes comentarios). Se puede consultar toda la documentación en mi web. No se pierdan la carta del señor González, tras leerla sobran las palabras.




http://www.violetavareladenuncia.com/reacciones/


Desde aquí, deseo expresar mi más inmensa gratitud a la asociación Manos Limpias que se hizo cargo del caso y que envió una pronta respuesta al señor González. La web con toda la documentación sigue en marcha y a día de hoy ya no puede quedar ninguna duda de que yo dije la verdad, mis documentos y pruebas son clarísimos y en ese juicio lo último que hubo fue justicia y por eso hay mucha gente interesada en que se tape lo ocurrido (empezando por el acusado y siguiendo por sus testigos). En fin, quizás algún día España cesará de ser ese pedazo de tarta que se reparten entre sí distintas mafias... Así lo espero. Mientras tanto, sólo nos queda seguir luchando para que nadie pueda ignorar lo que ocurre.

Greek Tragedy and Spanish Golden Age Theatre: Reading the tragic genre Part four

Appendix

On the translation of “El medico de su honra” by Gwynne Edwards

“Similarly, Brenan’s suggestion that Calderon approved of Gutierre’s murder of Mencia can be shown to be erroneous, for what he shows us is the process whereby a man who is basically good and loving is destroyed by an inflexible ideology” Edwards, Introduction, xxi.

Edwards is one of the scholars that consider a mistake the thesis that I held in this paper: that Calderon supports the crime. The question is that, with the purpose of defending Calderon from this mistake, the critics are manipulating the play, and Edwards translation is the perfect sample.

On the following lines I quote the Spanish text, the Edwards translation and a completely literal translation that follows the Spanish words. As anyone can see, the textual evidences that can be argued against Edwards view of the play, are completely vanished in his translation: lines that disappear, words that change substantially, the sense of the play becoming another… Edwards, by the way an excellent translator, seems to do a reinterpretation about some aspects of the play that can sustain other thesis (that no supports his own reading). 

In his version, his English version, Gutierre’s jealousy is not vile, despicable or wrong, no; he is only a man that gets worried about his honour.

In his version, Mencia’s blood is guilty, and Leonor accepts Gutierre in the condition of that he killed a guilty woman, and, of course, she doesn’t say that the crime doesn’t frighten or amazed her… These few changes modify completely the sense of the play: not even Calderon dares to say that Mencia’s blood is guilty; his vision of Gutierre is not so naïve as the one of his defenders.

Spanish text	Edwards translation	Literal translation
TEXT 1 Gutierre, mal informado / por aparentes recelos, / llegó a tener viles celos / de su honor; TEXT 2 Rey- Dásela, pues, a Leonor, / que yo sé que su alabanza / la merece. Don Gutierre- Sí la doy. / Mas mira, que va bañada / en sangre, Leonor. Doña Leonor- No importa; / que no me admira ni espanta. / Don Gutierre- Mira que médico he sido / de mi honra: no está olvidada / la ciencia. Doña Leonor- Cura con ella / mi vida, en estando mala. / Don Gutierre- Pues con esa condición/ te la doy [...]. (vv. 2940-2951).	TEXT 1 My master is, as you well know, Aman suspicious of his honour, and of hiswife, Mencia, in particular. TEXT 2 King: Then give your hand to Leonor. Her reputation merits it. Gutierre: So be it, with the reservation that It has been cleansed with guilty blood. Leonor: On that condition I accept it. Gutierre: Do not forget. I have already been The surgeon of my honour. It is A skill, I promise you, that lasts forever. Leonor: If I am ever sick, Gutierre, do Not hesitate to cure me. Gutierre: Then here’s my hand, my dear”.	TEXT 1 Gutierre, that handles wrong information, became despicably jealousy by his own mistrust and suspicious mind about his honour TEXT 2 2940 King: Give it, then to Eleanor, I know that she is worth it. GUTIERRE: Yes I give it. But look, which is bathed in blood, Leonor. ELEANOR: It doesn't matter; 2945 not admire me or scares. GUTIERRE: Look that I have been the doctor of my honour.It is not aforgotten Science. LEONOR: Cure with it my life in being bad. 2950  GUTIERRE: On  that condition I give it to you.

Notes

1 Many authors exercise a political definition of the tragic genre. Only to mention, by way of example, the following: Jaeger (1933 / 1954: 248), Murray (1940 / 1954: 29), Luis Gil (1988), Carlos García Gual (1988: 182-183), Adrados (1992: 4, 5), Trapp (1996: 82), Pelling (1997: 224), Parker (1997: 146), Vidal-Naquet (2001 / 2004). I refer, for a detailed justificaci6n, to the first chapter of Varela Álvarez (2008).

2 While Lope himself considers as a tragicomedy his play “the Knight of Olmedo”, “The punishment without revenge” was conceived, I insist, by the author as a tragedy. The difference would hinge on the non-fictional origin of the story, although the author does not hesitate to modify following the first Aristotelian principle which differences the history from the tragedy according to this judgement: the History tells the particular facts while the Tragedy tells the facts as should have been. Lope is moving between the new and old art, between the comedy and the tragedy and what make the difference and serves for distinguishing between tragedy and tragicomedy is not the level of the characters, or the outcome of the play, but the historicity of the argument. It's a historic fact, taken from written sources; this is something that Lope makes clear. On the contrary, this kind of historicity is not found in plays as “The Celestina”, for example». (Ynduráin, 1987: 148). (Translation by Violeta Varela Alvarez).

3 The dedication and the preface do not appear in Kossoff edition (1985).

4. For a discussion about the sources of “the punishment without revenge” I refer to Kossoff (1985: 20 and ff.).

5 “If the protagonist, before facing his own death, has to humbly regret about all the mistakes in his life, he can be a Saint, but not a tragic hero ". (MacCurdy, 1989: I, 180).

6 It has been pointed out how such tragedies, which would be after the undermining of revenge, are connected with the reign of Felipe IV and his interest for loving affairs, as well as the adjustment to the courtly taste. (Ynduráin, 1987: 150).

7 I entirely agree with MacCurdy (1989: I, 178) and the thesis that emphasizes the incompatibility between Catholic values and the tragic perspective: « Catholicism, according to several critics, is mainly the value that avoids the tragedy, because the true tragic experience is not going with the essential optimism of the Christian faith».

8 I disagree, consequently, with Ynduráin (1987: 151): [...] It seems that there is a progression from revenge to punishment, through discretions, secrets and prudence: the one replaces the other, with all that it implies. Lope, is even pleased to lead the reader or listener into a revenge fact to, at the last moment, with one master swerve, frustrate that expectation and replacing it with an act of punishment, new and different, an unexpected outcome in any case.

9. Actually, Lope would have been pointed out, on more than one occasion, as the responsible for the extinction of the tragic genre in Spain. «On the contrary, Agustín Montiano, in his “discourse on the Spanish tragedy”, does not hesitate to claim for the Spanish a natural inclination to the tragedy: "the cause of this tragic, serious and great inclination, would be discovered in the Spanish mentality, that naturally prefers the tragic circumspection;»» The pity that excites; the authenticity that exercises; the benefit that produces and the rationality that keeps; opposite to unsuitable triviality, the insensitivity of the soul, the impossible facts, the useless activities, the disruption of the speech: and this, not only when it is possible to discern what’s best, but even when the tendency to goodness is hidden». Montiano, inveterate classicist by the way, considers Lope de Vega the responsible for the denaturising of the Spanish propensity to tragedy» (MacCurdy, 1989: I, 176). Same opinion would be shared by Martínez de la Rosa (apud MacCurdy, 1989: I, 177).

10. I do not believe that the outcome of the play can be considered ironic (O'Connor, 1982: 788-789). The end of the play is a happy ending and is even facetious. The attitude of Leonor, the King and Gutierre communicate an absolute satisfaction about the new marriage, and the young woman, that feels confidence in her own virtue, doesn’t seem to fear anything about her future marriage with a man who is able of such a brutal act.

11 Life, in the tragic experience, is an insignificant value, but a value after all. If life is not absolutely essential, its sacrifice would be meaningless. 

12 we disagree, consequently, with O'Connor’s opinion regarding to the treatment of the honour in the play: «In some way, he demonstrates [Calderon] how the honour is divorced of the virtue, its traditional source, as he describes what kind of resorts the man will use to protect its place in the social hierarchy. [...] In “The doctor of his honour” Calderon is interested more in the human problems that underline the obvious troubles caused by an unreasonable consideration of the honour» (1982: 785).

13 O'Connor says (1982: 784): “The Prince Don Enrique behaves boldly, without worrying about the problems that he provokes to Mencfa. He abuses of his position and of his royal powers, he refuses as well to consider the situation that she describes... Mencia shall be the innocent victim of this egomaniac prince, although she had already been before when she was forced by her father to marry don Gutierre». It is true, but this fact does not mean the existence in the play of any sort of social critic. Enrique's attitude serves Calderon for, through the figure of the King, the demonstration and enunciation of a doctrine in which the honour is the only fundamental only value.

14 «In this paper I propose to broaden the traditional conception of the drama by the inclusion, basically, of other problems: those that concern the relations between men and women» (O'Connor, 1982:783).

15 We must remember that Leonor refuses to marry don Arias because she believes that this union could serve as a confirmation to old suspicions (vv. 1755-1784).

16. Again, we disagree deeply with the interpretation of O'Connor (1982: 786-787): "At the end of the work, the marriage between Leonor and don Gutierre emphasizes the victimisation of women by men." We have just seen the sacrifice of Mencia due to the honour- and with his hands already bathed in her blood, the high priest of honour extends the link of marriage to Leonor, previous victim and, in this terrible scene, likely candidate for a new victimisation. [...] With the murder of the innocent Mencia and the victimisation of the naive Leonor, Calderon reveals the acceptable traditions of his society; a society established on a false and destructive pattern, the need of the subordination of women to the male power and privilege. To carry out ineluctably with this debt of honour, serves Calderon to reveal tacitly those horrible assumptions of a society dominated and driven by men».

I do not see anything naive in the behaviour and the character of Eleanor: is vindictive (she wants that the evil caused by Gutierre reverts in himself VV. 1007-1020); It is clever (knows that a marriage with don Arias will not return her previous social position); It is cruel (she tells to Gutierre, in the face of Mencia’s corpse, that if she acts badly, Gutierre can apply the same medicine to her): she takes an approving look on the murder of Mencia (Mencia introduced doubts in the honour of her husband and she deserved the punishment, but Leonor, on the contrary, considers herself as a virtuous woman whose dishonour was due to a misunderstanding and for this reason she accepts Gutierre with the confidence possessed by those that believe themselves better); and, finally, she does not feel any pity or sorry for Mencia (she couldn’t care lees and she says it clearly: the crime does not frighten or amazes her, as well as she is not worried about the bloody hands of her future husband). Calderon performances for sure a horrible act, but it doesn’t mean that he makes a critical approach. Finally, it is true, as O'Connor says (1982: 787), that Leonor represents the exposed situation of a woman without males in the family that can protect her, but it is not true that Calder6n intends to denounce the indefensi6n of Leonor: what Calderon shows us is that even the more humble and unprotected vassals can expect relief and protection of their King.

Bibliography

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For the translations:

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Calderon de la Barca, Plays: one, Gwynne Edwards, Methuen Drama (2000).

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Greek Tragedy and Spanish Golden Age Theatre: Reading the tragic genre Part three

Calderon

Calderon’s play tells us the story of an atrocious crime: the murder of a innocent woman due to the honour of her husband. The man instigates the murder of his wife on the belief, falsely, that she has committed adultery with the prince don Enrique. Such a crime appears, as we will see, completely justified in the play and in the outcome the author will guarantee the killer a happy ending and a new marriage with Leonor (v. 2940. and next).

Is not new in the wide field of the tragic events that a horrible crime being justified. In the Greek tragedy, we attend to multiple and terrible deaths and crimes, but the insertion of these actions in the conflict between the family range and the political ambit confers to this actions a tragic dignity, what it means that the tragedy lies in the fact of killing someone beloved due to political or religious reasons. The tragedy always has shown us the pain and suffer of whom that are meant to loose. These notes are fundamental, because, as we will see soon, the crime that Calderon places for us in the stage is absolutely irreconcilable with the tragic experience, since in the last scenes the death of the woman does not mean anything to anyone 10. Her savage murder does not matter or concern anybody, with the only exception, we will see further, of Coquin, the clown and the comic relief in the play.

Even with her remains being still on the stage, Calderon decides to resolve comically the play. There is no possible a bigger disdain for a human life, contempt that barely and hardly fits in the tragic perspective 11. The death of the wife is divested of any significance in Calderon’s play. With the corpse bloodily present, a new wedding will be set up for the murderer, weddings sponsored and blessed by the king who, even being aware of all the facts, does not consider that the death of the woman deserves any kind of punishment. The outcome of the play gives us a happy ending and the reasons of the murderer prevail through the words of the king. The play involves from beginning to end the simplistic statement of the codes of honour 12. The honour Code is above all: either above state distinctions (Enrique is not safe in spite of his noble condition), or even above evidences and realities (Enrique and Mencia never consummate their relationship). The laws of honour do not meet estates or realities and the deaths that come of its application are not questioned, nor censored, and nor judged.

Moreover, the honour is defined as a category that is always moving in the level of the appearances: it doesn't matter so much that the honour being intact: the essential issue is that the honour must seem intact. If the appearance of honour vanishes, then, equally, this appearance must be repaired with a public and ostentatious act, as finally happens in Calderon’s play. It is true that Gutierre’s honour didn’t take any offence at the actions of Mencia and Enrique, but it is no less true that their acts caused a dishonourable appearance that Gutierre shall repair with the public execution of his innocent wife. The appearance that holds the honour of Gutierre is restored by a crime that is displayed in front of the King and of other spectators.

Calderon, in a different way than other Spanish authors, shows off such a socio-political idealism in his play that even goes against the political reality that effectively shapes The Spain of the seventieth century. Other authors, like Rojas Zorrilla, in example, dramatised analogous situation but in this case the rules of honour are highly liable to its dissolution in the more complex structure of estates, stratum and classes that are implied by a Nation, which it means that if the King is the offender there is no possible reparations. In Calderon’s play, the King embodies the reason. His judgment about the crime will prevail at the end of the drama: he sanctions, approves and rewards, with a new marriage, the right and the moral prerogative of Gutierre to kill his innocent wife making use of the codes o honour, according to which the apparent offences demand the same response as well as the real ones.

Calderon had in his hands a perfect tragic material: the brutal murder of an innocent woman due to the only suspicions of her husband, the terrible duty that the honour Code, regulated by appearances, imposes to anyone, a Code that rules the life and that makes a beloved husband become a cruel executioner. Lope, as we have just seen, was so critic with the honour and its reasons and rules. But Calderon make the choice of reducing this tragic event to a mere anecdote without meaning and importance, what’s more, the death of Mencia is the only way to solve the problems of honour that another woman, Leonor, is suffering.

We will see now the basic and essential significance of these points that I come repeating and insisting on. It could be argued that in Claderon’s play we effectively have two dialectical approaches: the genre and the socio-political ones (O'Connor, 1982).

In this paper I'm going to defend that there is no way of talking about any presence of such dialectical conflicts in this play. I will argue this thesis down to the last detail.

1- Regarding the socio-political dialectic 13, I have already argued that the play has as one of its main purposes the denial of this sort of conflicts regarding to the Idea of honour in the Spanish golden age. The important matter is not the estate to where each one belongs, but the honour that each one owns. In the play, Gutierre is above the prince Enrique because Gutierre has fulfilled the requirements of honour, ordering the killing of his wife, while Enrique has desecrated those same rules, does not matter that he was unsuccessfully, courting and wooing a married woman. This is not, therefore, a dialectical approach, but a not critic and idealistic assertion of the honour and its procedures. Here are the words of the King claiming the rules of honour above any distinction of any other kind:

Act three, 75: “King: Do you not realize

That, more than once, avenging swords

Have sought to right with royal blood

Unjust offences done to them?

Enrique: I do, your majesty, But who

Can you be saying this about?

King: You, Enrique! How could you so forget

That honour is a sacred thing,

The province of the soul, where I,

The King, have no authority?

I’ll say no more.

Enrique: It isn’t true.

King: You must take greater care where love’s

Concerned and learn to act more prudently

Where female beauty, even though

It draws you, is impossible.

We deal here with the soul of someone whose

Allegiance is forever promised to

Authority far greater than my own;

Who, if he asks me to be fair

And just to him, as I must be,

Would make it difficult for me

To spare the blood of my own family”.

Rey- Vos, Enrique no sabéis / que más de un acero tiñe / el agravio en sangre real. / Don Enrique- Pues, ¿por quién, señor, lo dice / Vuestra Majestad? Rey- Por vos / lo digo, por vos, Enrique; / el honor es reservado / lugar, donde el alma asiste; / yo no soy Rey de las almas: / harto en esto solo os dije. / Don Enrique- No os entiendo Rey- Si a la enmienda / vuestro amor no se apercibe, / dejando vanos intentos / de bellezas imposibles, / donde el alma de un vasallo / con ley soberana vive, / podrá ser de mi justicia / aun mi sangre no se libre. (vv. 2189 y ss.).

2-The sexual dialectics.14  I can’t find in his play any sort of critic about the subjugation of women, but all the contrary. The play defines the wife role as a kind of slavery (in the verses 1240-1241, words that are not counteracted by any other assertion in the play), but, even, moreover, the damage of one woman, Mencia, becomes the solution for another, Leonor. Mencia’s death means the salvation of Leonor, that finally reaches a marriage and a happy ending with the only man that can give this to her, the man that had already promised to her before15 . Let’s see how both of them, Leonor and Gutierre, received the news regarding their future wedding:

Act three, 97-100 Mencia’s body is revealed, a bloodless corpse lyingon a bed.“King: The tale is most remarkable!

Aside.

But prudence is required here.

His vengeance is quite admirable.

Aloud.

Conceal this vision; hide at once

This pitiful admission of

The way misfortune rues our lives,

And flls our hes with fear for

Those things that lie in store for us.

Gutierre, you have our pity.

Your loss is great, and our duty is

To try to compensate that loss

As best we can. And so it seems

The best solution is to marry Leonor.

Do not forget, she is a creditor

To whom you owe a debt of honour.

And that will satisfy me too,

And help me keep a promise I

Once made to her.

Gutierre: Your majesty,

It is not time to think of this.

The ashes of my tragedy

Are not yet cold. I beg you, do

Not make me keep this bargain. Give

Me time, the opportunity

To weep and find some peace again.

King: I have decided. See it’s done.

Gutierre: Your majesty. Mencia’s death

Has freed me from the storm that raged

About my head. Must I set sail

Upon that sea again now she is dead?

King: It is your King’s command.

Gutierre: My lord,

I beg of you. Do not make this demand.

King: You think I am unreasonable?

Gutierre: What if again I were to find

Myself in such a situation?

What if again your brother’s presence in

JMy house inflamed suspicions…?

[…]

Gutierre: A man must sometimes cleanse his hands with blood

In order to protect his honour.

King: Then give your hand to Leonor.

Her reputation merits it.

Gutierre: So be it, with the reservation that

It has been cleansed with guilty blood.

Leonor: On that condition I accept it.

Gutierre: Do not forget. I have already been

The surgeon of my honour. It is

A skill, I promise you, that lasts forever.

Leonor: If I am ever sick, Gutierre, do

Not hesitate to cure me.

Gutierre: Then here’s my hand, my dear”.

Rey- Dásela, pues, a Leonor, / que yo sé que su alabanza / la merece. Don Gutierre- Sí la doy. / Mas mira, que va bañada / en sangre, Leonor. Doña Leonor- No importa; / que no me admira ni espanta. / Don Gutierre- Mira que médico he sido / de mi honra: no está olvidada / la ciencia. Doña Leonor- Cura con ella / mi vida, en estando mala. / Don Gutierre- Pues con esa condición

/ te la doy [...]. (vv. 2940-2951).

Where is, in these words (for the problems with the English translation see the appendix), the gender solidarity that some critics notes and realizes in the play? Leonor says clearly: the crime does not amazes or scares her 16, as well as to all the characters of the play but the clown, Coquin, the only one that feels horror of Mencia’s death describing the jealous and possessive conduct of Gutierre as vil and despicable.

This character, the clown, is the only one that seems to have some empathy for the hideous and cruelty of the crime, a character whose ideas and beliefs are discredited in the play by its own kind of "clown" and "coward" (v. 1253 Et seq. Act two 43 and 44, note the contrast that Calderon establishes between Gutierre and Coquin in this specific dialogue: Don Gutierre, future killer of his wife through a forced Ludovico, embodies the honesty of those who can’t flee from justice, Coquin does not). How a coward and a clown is supposed to understand the issues of honor? No way. Let's take a look at the lines of Coquin, verses 2728 et seq.

Act three, 93. “Coquin: I swear,

Your majesty, that this time it

Is most unfunny. I know you think

That I’m a clown, but want to tell

You that, deep own, there’s really quite

A serious side o me, and what

I have to tell you now is, not

To put too fine a point on it,

Well… pretty bloody. No, I haven’t come

To make you laugh; more to see if what

I’ve got to say will break your heart.

My master is, as you well know,

A man suspicious of his honour, and of

His wife, Mencia, in particular.

Well just today, by some unlucky chance,

He came across her just as she

Had started putting pen to paper, which,

It seems, consisted of a letter to

Your brother, Prince Enrique. She begged

Him not to leave the city, knowing well

That people, when they heard the news,

Would straight away believe that she’s

The one who ought to be accused

Of it. Approaching her, Gutierre saw

How she was overcome by fear, took

The letter, thought suspicion justified,

Had all the servants leave, the doors

All locked, and him the only one

Still left inside with her. I feel

Such pity for the poor girl.

She seems so cruelly abused

By harsh, unfeeling fate, I had

To come and tell your majesty,

So you could maybe bring your strong

And mighty arm to bear on it”.

Esta es una honrada acci6n I de hombre bien nacido, en fin; I que aunque

hombre me consideras / de burlas, con loco humor, / llegando a veras, señor,

/ soy hombre de muchas veras. / Oye lo que he de decir, / pues de veras vengo a hablar, / que quiero hacerte llorar, / ya que no puedo reír. / Gutierre, mal informado / por aparentes recelos, / llegó a tener viles celos / de su honor; y hoy, obligado / a tal sospecha, que halló / escribiendo (¡error cruel!) / para el Infante un papel / a su esposa, que intentó / con él que no se ausentase,

/ porque ella causa no fuese / de que en Sevilla se viese / la novedad que causase / pensar que ella le ausentaba... / con esta inocencia pues / (que a mí me consta), con pies / cobardes, adonde estara / llegó, y el papel tomó, / y, sus celos declarados, / despidiendo a los criados, / todas las puertas cerró, / solo se quedó con ella. / Yo, enternecido de ver / una infelice mujer, / perseguida de su estrella, / vengo, señor, a avisarte / que tu brazo altivo y fuerte / hoy la libre de la muerte.

It could be argued that the clown is the one that bears the hard work of telling the truth. It could be argued that Calderon beliefs agrees Coquin’s ones, but the truth is that we will never know what Calderon thought about, the only thing that can be proven is that the end of the play points to the fact that the crime is viewed as something excusable and pardonable, and what we can demonstrate it is also that the acclaiming of the codes of honour, as Calderon does, supposes to support a system in which the mere appearance of crime implies guilt and revenge, what is absolutely consistent with the outcome of the facts and with the drawing of offences and reparations that the author puts in the scene.

The development of the play discredits the clown, not Gutierre. The King supports Gutierre, and, consequently, turns a blind eye to a vile and unfair murder. May be objected too, it is true, that the King responses to Coquin’s calling, and he doesn’t save the life of Mencia because he can't (he arrives late). It’s also true that he feels a faithful horror when he discovers the bleeding body of the woman, and expresses his reproach to Gutierre for his rush, but all these gestures and signs, quite insignificant, lose all their meaning when the King decides, I must insist, not to punish Gutierre by the horrible crime (see verses 2923-2939, Act three 97: in this dialogue it’s clear that the king couldn’t care less about the murder), and to reward him with a new wife (Act three 97, vv. 2940-2942), and Gutierre does not hesitate to warn her that he would do the same again if the situation requires it.

The denial of dialectics through the category of honour help us to find out that in Calderon’s mentality, the contrary that in Lope, then rules of honour are use for legitimating criminal proceedings. The honour dissolves in this play all sort of socio-political conflict, even above estates or classes. In Calderon there is politics and he puts his play in the service of very specific political ideas: the reaffirmation of the royal power. In this sense, the classical tradition remains alive in his work.

The main problem that we find to consider this play as a tragedy comes from its treatment of violence. To finish such a brutal and terrible play according to comical codes (the announcement of a wedding) is something that any tragedy can’t stand. The tragic genre has always offered us valuable reflections on the terrible fact of violence, doesn’t matter how much unavoidable or necessary it may be. A King that, in the face the corpse of an innocent murdered woman, does not punish the guilty; a woman who isn’t frightened or amazed by the crime; a man who receives the new nuptials threatening his future wife with the image of the inert body of his first one... Unpunished injustices which no one cares or concerns about, apart from Coquin the servant…  And all of this is happening in the midst of the joy for the new wedding... The tragedy becomes extinct in Calderon as the same time as the respect due to Mencia vanishes, at once with the absence of dignity of murderers and spectators, almost accomplices. And this is not a critic taken out of the context. The Greeks knew this respect and this dignity, both were present in its literature, it is not an extrapolation of modern sensibilities, it’s simply the horror that has always gone with the violence and the injustice in every tragedy that worth it.