The use and abuse of history in the Spanish theater of the Golden Age: the regicide of Sancho II as treated by Juan de la Cueva, Guillén de Castro, and Lope de Vega

A. Robert Lauer

Dedicated to Doris Fraker

Although a distinction is made in early Spanish dramaturgy between a comedia a noticia and a comedia a fantasía (Torres Naharro 64), the term historical play is a misnomer. At best, it may describe, in very general terms, a work which uses historical personages (or names) for the poet's aesthetic, moral, or political intentions. Aristotle's strict distinction (1451a-b; ch. 9) between history and poetry, although undoubtedly favorable to the dramatist, is terribly unfair to the historian, whose task may be as dramatic and philosophic as that of the poet, as one observes in the works of Thucydides or Polybius. Not in vain does Nietzsche classify history as antiquarian, critical, or monumentalist, with a preference for none.

It is assumed that if one differentiates between a historical product and a product of the imagination, the former is to be judged as somewhat more truthful (as far as objective reality is concerned) than the latter. Perhaps this explains Torres Naharro's insistence that a comedia a noticia treats a «cosa nota y vista en realidad de verdad», while a comedia a fantasía is mainly concerned with a «cosa fantástiga o fingida, que tenga color de verdad, aunque no lo sea» (64). Francisco Bances Candamo, in a similar vein, insists, many years later, that a comedia amatoria has no foundation in truth («Las Amatorias [...] son pura inuención o idea sin fundamento en la verdad» [33]), while a comedia historial treats necessarily a «suceso verdadero» (35). Nevertheless, the same critics who differentiate so carefully between lo fingido and lo verdadero, assert that the comedia «es un artificio ingenioso» whose function is mainly to «recrear el alma con el poético entendimiento» (Molina 79) or that «la Poesía enmienda a la historia, porque ésta pinta los sucesos como son, pero aquélla los pone como devían ser» (Bances Candamo 35). In anger that a poet should be criticized for not observing history faithfully, Tirso de Molina extemporates in «El cigarral primero»: «¡Como si la licencia de Apolo se estrechase a la recolección histórica y no pudiese fabricar, sobre cimientos de personas verdaderas, arquitecturas del ingenio fingidas!» (208).

All this eventually brings us back to Aristotle, who ascertains that the poet is first and foremost a maker of plots rather than of verses (1464). He need not, therefore, adhere to the traditional stories upon which tragedies are based. Nor, for that matter, need he even use historical names for the tragic personages he creates.

This being the case, what use is history then? Obviously, if the poet is to use it only to recreate the world in his own fashion, then its function is rather minimal as far as he is concerned. History, moreover, does not merely relate particular events as such, as Aristotle would have us believe, for, as Nietzsche recalls, «there are no facts in themselves», since «in order for a fact to exist, we must first introduce meaning» (quoted in Barthes 153). Furthermore, it would be extremely naïve to suggest that history follows reality, since by the mere structuring of data in a given way, the individual historian interprets reality in a certain manner. Hence insofar as the historian must present a history by unifying incidents into a cohesive unit -eliminating some facts while embellishing others- in order to give his narrative a sense of order, history would seem to be merely a rhetorical construct bound by the political interest and the moral perspective of the individual historian, his age, and his circumstances (cf. White, «The Value» 27). As Rodolfo Usigli mentions in El gesticulador: «La historia no es más que un sueño. Los que la hicieron soñaron con cosas que no se realizaron. Los que la estudian sueñan con cosas pasadas; los que la enseñan sueñan que poseen la verdad y que la entregan» (32). If one then assumes that historical discourse is an imitation (in written or oral form) of that thing called reality, then the poet or maker engages in a representation of an emulation which, in addition, he may choose to recast for his own omnific purposes. When one reaches this level of flux and sublimation, one can only say that the poet not merely uses, but abuses history.

Having established this point, we will now turn to a specific example which will elucidate further this argument, namely, the treatment of King Sancho II of Castile by three Golden Age dramatists, and the circumstances that led to his regicide in 1072. Afterwards, an attempt will be made to explain, on ideological grounds, what the intentions of the poets were by their apparent historical distortions.

The siege of Zamora, as told by Juan de la Cueva in the Comedia del rey don Sancho, y reto de Zamora (1582), is based on Florián de Ocampo's Crónica de España (Zamora, 1541) as well as on the Segunda and the Tercera crónica general of Alfonso X. The story is well known and only a few words suffice to retell it. After the death of King Ferdinand I, Don Sancho becomes the heir of Castile. But unhappy with his father's partition of the Spanish kingdoms among his other children, he decides to take by force the land of his brothers and sisters. Doña Urraca refuses to give up the city of Zamora, which she rules, whereupon the Castilian monarch swears to put her and the entire city to the sword. The Cid reminds the king of the oath to his father not to take the lands of his relatives, but the king responds by exiling him. Realizing his mistake, Don Sancho recalls his loyal vassal who, however, respects King Ferdinand's wishes by remaining neutral during the siege of Zamora. Vellido Dolfos, citizen of Zamora, pretends to be the minister of the king in order to help him win the undefeated city. A soldier advises the king not to hear the treacherous words of Vellido, but the king does not heed the admonition. When the traitor takes the king into his company to show him how to conquer the city, he takes the first opportunity to slay the king with a javelin which the monarch had given him to hold. Vellido Dolfos is pursued by the Cid to no avail and the regicide enters safely into the city, where he is eventually imprisoned but not killed for fear that the people might riot. The challenge to Zamora by Diego Ordóñez, which is the argument of the next three jornadas, does not deal with the subject of regicide and it need not be considered at this point.

King Sancho's actions of usurpation, while truly unjust as presented by Cueva, may be justified historically on at least two grounds. On a personal level, Sancho feels deprived of the inheritance by the preference shown by his parents to his brother Alfonso (cf. Alfonso X 495; Reig 10). Politically, the partition of the kingdoms would only weaken the peninsula, create dissensions among the various heirs, and contradict the imperial ideal of unity whose final goal was to extirpate the Arabs from Spain (Alfonso X 494; Reig 8). Viewed in such a light, King Sancho's fratricidal wars could be seen as a just enterprise meritorious of praise instead of contempt.

In addition, this «rey Don Sancho el querido», as the ballads call him (Durán 505), is murdered treacherously by a man of unknown origin (but who resides in Zamora) who, in exchange for the murder of the assailing king, seeks from Urraca a dubious reward which the chronicle does not specify. This man becomes the false minister of the king and later kills him in a most cowardly manner while Don Sancho has his back turned to him in order to «fazer aquello que la natura pide et que ell omne non lo puede escusar» (Alfonso X 511). This detestable and treacherous man proudly enters Zamora afterwards, proclaiming loudly that «Tiempo era, Doña Urraca, / De cumplir lo prometido», (Durán 505) making the queen an accomplice to his crime and casting strong doubts on her honor. It is hardly surprising that the ballads show strong contempt for him: «Muerto le deja un traidor, / Que siempre tuvo esta fama, / Movido de su albedrío, / Que á un traidor esto le basta» (Durán 508).

What is remarkable about Cueva's play is how the roles of the king and the assassin are completely changed. From the beginning, King Sancho is portrayed as ambitious, cruel, proud, and disobedient to his father's oath. His cupidity is boundless (14), his ferocity certain (15), his arrogance despotic (24), and his nonobservance of his father's oath obvious, as the Cid speculates in his dialogue with the king (15).

To Don Sancho is attributed, directly and indirectly, disobedience, pride, tyranny, avarice, cruelty, inhumanity, wickedness, injustice, despotism, and monstrosity by the various characters of the play, including the Cid, Urraca, and Vellido Dolfos. The Cid is the first personage to pass judgment on him; the loyal vassal accuses the king of covetousness, pride, and disobedience (16). Urraca, for obvious reasons, complains of her brother's hostility, avarice, and tyranny, calling him «aquesse enemigo / ciego, tirano y avaro» (19). Vellido Dolfos, the harshest of the three, censures Don Sancho for being cruel, inhuman, wicked, monstrous, covetous, unjust, and tyrannical (20-21, 26-27). The last denunciation, addressed directly to the wounded king in answer to his query, serves dramatically, of course, to justify his regicide:

Unlike what appears in the sources, here Don Sancho dies unrepentant and without time for confession.

On the other hand, Vellido Dolfos in this version is shown as a just avenger and liberator who seems to be divinely inspired. L. L. Barrett noted long ago how Vellido makes his first appearance on stage immediately after Arias Gonzalo comforts the queen and assures her that God will defend and avenge her (163). Vellido's dramatic entrance at this point is overwhelming, suggesting very strongly that he is the answer to Zamora's worries. This personage is also moved by the noblest of motives: «¡Limpiemos de tal monstruo nuestra España! / ¡O Cielo, seme agora favorable / Y en mi justo desseo me acompaña, / Para vengar maldad tan detestable!» (21). The reason for his undertaking is likewise honorable and expedient, as he soliloquizes in an apostrophe to Heaven: «Ya ves que a todos nos condena a muerte [Sancho] / Levantando con yra rigurosa / La tiránica espada y braço fuerte. / Ya vemos la ruina dolorosa, / Ya los muros al suelo derribados, / Ya en Çamora la llama poderosa. / Nuestros padres y hijos, degollados; / Nuestras mugeres, con infamia nuestra, / En poder de los pérfidos soldados» (20). In this state of urgency, he leaves Zamora to become the vassal of the king and, at the first opportunity, he slays him: «Pague su ciega codicia / Y páguela por mi mano; / Muera el injusto tirano / Y viva nuestra justicia» (26). Unlike the sources, this man seems to be divinely inspired, acts alone, and is not moved by ambition or treachery. He also represents the will of the people, as may be inferred from the answer given by a judge of Zamora to the Count of Cabra's query about Vellido's slight punishment: «Temimos la Ciudad alborotada» (49).

As can be seen, by changing the rôles of Don Sancho and Vellido Dolfos, Juan de la Cueva makes the first a tyrant and the second a liberator. However, Bruce Wardropper pointed out that Vellido Dolfos sins in pride for wishing to liberate his country on his own initiative and by treachery: «No es que el tiranicidio esté prohibido por la ley divina (ciertos teólogos lo justifican), pero para matar a los tiranos hay que poner por obra la voluntad general y actuar sin cobardía ni traición, lo cual no hace Vellido Dolfos» (154). This position was refuted by Watson, who observed that the tyrannicide is innocent of treachery and ambition (41). The latter, more sympathetic observation about Vellido's motives, however, does not answer the question raised by Wardropper; it merely extenuates Vellido's guilt. Vellido Dolfos, unlike the historical one, who seems to have had the tacit approval of Urraca, does act on his own initiative in the play, although there are allusions to his being divinely summoned and of representing the vox populi. He also kills the king in a treacherous manner.

It must be noted, moreover, that Zamora is in a state of defensive war against an unjust invader. Under such circumstances, the invading king, the Castilians' natural sovereign, is a foreign usurper for the Zamorans. And since no treaty has passed between the two opposing forces, any private man has the right to defend the kingdom from tyranny by whatever means possible. Juan de Mariana, in a later period, would make the additional qualification that a private man could act against such a public enemy only as a representative member of that community (1.6). Francisco Suárez would add (6.6) that the private man can kill a usurper not by private authority but by public sanction, when the kingdom is willing to be defended (as is the case with Zamora). In this situation, the assassin's intention is undertaken for the common good and not for private advantage (as in the ballads); thus the killing of Don Sancho by a Zamoran is a legitimate act of war.

The problem, however, is that Vellido Dolfos has become the vassal of King Sancho and, by doing so, is no longer bound to Doña Urraca nor, for that matter, does he represent the city. John of Salisbury, one of the theologians to condone tyrannicide, affirms that any method of assassination is legal, even if it involves flattery and deception (8.20). But neither John nor Mariana grant the right of tyrannicide to a man under oath to a lord. Vellido Dolfos's error consists not in defending his city, but in doing so by the only means that no theologian or jurist would consent to. All the ballads on the killing of Don Sancho call Vellido a traitor, and indeed he is, regardless of his lofty motives. Perhaps ballad 782 of the Durán collection best expresses this thought: «Bellido, aquesse malvado / A mí herido me habia / Siendo él vasallo mío, / Yo por tal lo recebia» (Durán 507). But in spite of all this, Vellido is seen by Cueva as a hero and a liberator even after his treacherous deed, as is suggested by the judge of Zamora who fears that the city would riot if Vellido were to be punished severely (49). The words «Temimos la Ciudad alborotada» strongly suggest that Vellido represents the vox populi before and after the deed. And that, whether in 1582 or in John's or Mariana's time, is totally in contradiction to accepted values. This would seem to indicate that Cueva sympathizes with his evil characters, as Icaza (Introduction to Cueva xlii-xliv) and Hermenegildo (291) have suggested. The interesting point is that the king is presented as evil while Vellido suffers no opprobium.

This unusual rendering of the story has prompted critics to suggest that Cueva was indifferent to morality, in spite of Cueva's asseverations to the contrary in his preceptive works («Epístola» 75-77; «Viaje» 72-75). Moreover, the English Hispanist, Anthony I. Watson (145-46), and, to a lesser extent, E. M. Wilson (37), have suggested recently that Cueva was probably critical of Philip II's foreign policy, especially in regard to the annexation of Portugal, thus giving the play a political reading which, if true, would make Cueva a sixteenth-century Jacobin, much to his surprise.

In Las mocedades del Cid, part two (1618), Guillén de Castro presents a more balanced version of the story. Not dissimilar from the Cueva play on the same subject, Castro's drama presents Don Sancho, at least initially, as a cruel, bloodthirsty, irascible individual who engages in unjust war against his relatives. The Cid is one of the first characters to comment on the situation: «Todo es valor español / y todo sangre cristiana; / aquí mueren y allí matan; el peso oprime la tierra, / y al cielo ofende la causa» (209). Don Sancho has already taken the lands of Don García, who is now in prison; he is now persecuting Don Alonso, whom he orders twice to be killed (an order severely criticized by the Cid); and now he plans to besiege Doña Urraca's city, although the Cid will not help him to take it. His asperity is boundless since he contemplates drinking the blood of his detestable brothers, «beberé su sangre ingrata» (211). His perseverance is unshaken by the Cid's reminder of his father's curse and heaven's vengeance. Furthermore, his intemperance is incapable of being moved by reason, as the Cid ponders on the behavior of his hapless lord: «¡Oh Rey mal aconsejado! / ¡Oh infelice doña Urraca!» (212).

So absonant is his behavior that his father must emerge from the netherworld to reveal his death to him for having offended heaven. If Don Sancho desists momentarily from his intentions, he soon returns to his normal state of being, easily persuaded that his father's phantasmal apparition was probably a chimera, a witch's fabrication: «Mía Zamora ha de ser, / aunque para hacerme guerra / brote gigantes la tierra» (220).

Unlike Cueva's Sancho, however, there is in Castro's king an element of frailty and human weakness. There are statements throughout the play that indicate that Sancho's wickedness is the consequence of youth, and not of deep-seated vice. For this reason, he is easily persuaded by Bellido, a transparent deceiver, in spite of the fact that Arias Gonzalo and Don Rodrigo remind him that he is a traitor, a parricide, and a would-be regicide. When the king chooses to believe his future killer, a man wholly unknown to him until now, instead of his most loyal vassal, whom he exiles for a year for contradicting him, Don Rodrigo can only comment, «¡Ah, mal regido mancebo!» (223). When Bellido asks the king to accompany him alone to an open gate by which to take Zamora, Don Sancho hesitates but is again easily swayed by Bellido, whom he rashly makes his privanza and second in command in the kingdom. When the Count of Cabra informs the newly recalled Cid that Don Sancho has been left alone in Bellido's company, the Cid's comment is that «es Rey mancebo en efeto, / y atropella su corona» (224), making it appear that his royal faults are the consequence of his youth and not his evil temperament. Don Diego Ordóñez also calls the king «¡Oh mancebo mal regido!» words followed by Don Rodrigo's «¡Oh Rey mal aconsejado!» (224).

But if Castro presents Don Sancho as an indomitable despot and as an unfledged youth, he adds another dimension which is lacking entirely in Cueva, namely, his faith. As soon as he is struck by Bellido's weapon, the king calls on God, the heavens, and his father, and realizes he has been punished justly (cf. Alfonso X 512; Durán 507). If in life he was immoderate in his behavior, in his last moments he is temperate and philosophical. When Don Diego Ordóñez brings his wounded body on stage, accusing the Zamorans of treason, Don Sancho will blame no one but himself: «la culpa es mía, / y de Dios la justicia» (228). In his moribund state he ponders, in true Senecan fashion, on how no crown is safe from knives, for all breasts, even royal ones, are made of clay. Before dying, Christ-like, he only asks that his brothers forgive him (cf. Durán 507) as he forgives the traitor who killed him. In this aura of saintliness, he is removed from the stage and, soon afterwards, Don Diego returns alone to announce his demise.

Bellido de Olfos, on the other hand, is presented in a very negative fashion as soon as he appears on stage. He is a harbinger of bad news, as Doña Urraca mentions upon seeing him. He is an evil and cowardly man, as he himself soliloquizes. He is also a false liberator, an opportunist who will defend Zamora on the condition that he receive a reward. In order to achieve his despicable act, he insults Doña Urraca's most trusted vassal, Arias Gonzalo; he deceives the king by becoming an untrue liege; and he casts doubts on the Cid's loyalty by reminding Don Sancho of his subject's former passion for Doña Urraca. But in spite of the detestable way that he is presented, Bellido feels a sense of loyalty for his city and believes himself to be God's instrument of retribution: «¿Quién me anima? ¿Quién me arroja? / ¿Quién me tienta o quién me inspira? / [...] / Algún impulso divino / da fuego a mi pensamiento; / del cielo soy instrumento; / aunque malo, peregrino» (218).

Despite his lofty motives, «¡Ay Zamora desdichada! / ¡Ay patria amada y querida / injustamente perdida / y dignamente adorada! / [...] / la libertad de Zamora / gallardamente he dispuesto» (217), Bellido lacks the courageous spirit or the impeccable intentions of Cueva's avenger to be worthy of being Zamora's liberator. With trembling hands, Bellido gains courage only when the king turns his back to him and only when, by chance, the monarch loses his balance and drops his javelin, which then falls into the assassin's hands. But even now his strength fails him once more: «Si es un hombre sin defensa, / ¿cómo el ser rey puede tanto? / [...] / Mataréle; que el cobarde / de lejos mata mejor» (225). In this state of agitation, he gains his presence of mind by appealing to Heaven for strength: «¡Cielo, cielo soberano, / valedme en esta ocasión! / Esforzad mi corazón, / pues castigáis con mi mano» (226). Only then can he drive the weapon home, moving backwards immediately after the act, as he hears his lord call on God's name.

If for St. Augustine, the ruler is the representative of God, whatever his conduct may be («Per me reges regnant, et tyranni per me tenent terram» 798; ch. 32), for John of Salisbury, God, as the giver of all power, also concedes the right to wipe out tyrants. The tyrannicide, therefore, is moved by God and becomes his agent of vengeance (8.20). But although for John, the killer of the tyrant is blameless in his deed, a man of valor, and a liberator whose memory is preserved by posterity for being a servant of the Lord (8.20), for George Buchanan, the tyrannicide may also be a despicable man: «Many times [He] doth stirre up from amongst the lowest of the people some very mean and obscure men to revenge tyrannical pride and weakness» (104). This being the case, the Zamorans are not obliged to defend this citizen, despicable on all human counts, even though he may be God's avenger.

This last point has not been understood fully by the critics. Lidia Santelices notices that Castro's Bellido is a Zamoran (in spite of the fact that the historical sources insist that he was not) and questions the magnitude of his treason: «¿Querría [Castro] atenuar su traición, realzando su patriotismo y su más loable interés en salvar a Zamora?» (175). Sturgis E. Leavitt, insisting too much on Bellido's divine impulse (at the expense of the killer's more human motivations), arrives at the exaggerated conclusion that «Los dos [Don Sancho y Bellido] son movidos por una fuerza sobrenatural, y no pueden por lo tanto ser juzgados por normas humanas» (436). Furthermore, Jack Weiner contends that Bellido de Olfos is a hero in spite of his perfidious regicide: «Bellido, amante de la libertad y gran patriota no tuvo otro motivo para matar a Sancho sino el de dar libertad a su patria» (191).

It would seem that Santelices, Leavitt, and Weiner fail to acknowledge that this comedia is a tyrannicide play only as far as God and Don Sancho are concerned, but a regicide drama with respect to the king and Bellido. In this and other respects the Castro play is unlike Cueva's. It should be noted, for instance, that Don Sancho is never addressed as a tyrant by either the Castilians or the Zamorans. When Bellido questions his jailers whether «¿traición es poner la mano / en un rey que fué tirano?», the answer he receives is that «nunca es tirano el señor» (232). Apart from these two hypothetical references to tyranny, the term is never mentioned again, perhaps because, as has been indicated previously, the king's actions are being judged as the consequence of his youth, and not as the result of a perverted nature. God, however, may choose to judge otherwise, as He may also choose to save or damn the monarch afterwards, depending on the sincerity of the latter's repentance.

Consequently, the regicide lacks public support. As soon as the Zamorans hear of Don Sancho's slaying, Arias Gonzalo and some soldiers demand Bellido's death: «¡Muera Bellido, mataldo! ¡Muera, muera!» Another voice says, «¡Oh infelice rey don Sancho!» (228). Although initially, Doña Urraca gives asylum to Bellido de Olfos, perhaps because she feels a certain obligation to defend a subject, even the children of Zamora ask for the killer's punishment. Bellido tries in vain to convince them of his lofty motives, simply because his reputation as a traitor and a parricide speak better for him than his words. Malevolently, the regicide accuses the Zamorans of inconstancy for imprisoning him who gave them their freedom with his courageous hands; reminding them also that he was only the hand with which they threw the stone, which they now choose to hide. But the Zamorans will not be intimidated by Bellido's false accusations, ordering him instead to be silent, and threatening him with death otherwise. As far as they are concerned, Bellido acted on his own volition and for profit (regardless of his divine impulse, which concerns only God and the killer [cf. Durán 506]) and they refuse to partake in his act. Thus they disallow Bellido's contention that he represented the common will and, unlike the sources or Cueva's drama, the traitor is then torn asunder by horses who pull his body in four different directions.

Finally, when Lope de Vega treats the same theme in Las almenas de Toro (1620), a work dedicated to Guillén de Castro and the only one of Lope's plays where the Cid appears, he presents the king in a completely different fashion from Cueva or Castro, but in a way which is closer to the chronicles. The sources of this drama are the Primera crónica general (Alfonso X ch. 829), wherein is stated that «Et empos aquello fuesse el rey don Sancho con toda su hueste pora Toro, et tomola a la inffante donna Eluira, con la meatat que tenie dell inffantadgo», and the anonymous ballad, «En las almenas de Toro», which appears in Juan Timoneda's Rosa española (v. Durán 526; Moore 114-25; Case, Introduction 11-47). Owing to the briefness with which the sources relate the events at Toro (Fr. Prudencio de Sandoval was exasperated by such brevity, as Menéndez y Pelayo tells us in 23), Lope de Vega invented a historical composite based on the incidents at Zamora. The product, of course, is not a «historical» play, but a poeticized account which explains the motivations of Sancho II and his killer in a way that had not been done previously by Juan de la Cueva or Guillén de Castro. What is extraordinary about Lope's drama is that, in spite of its anachronisms and inventiveness, it is perhaps closer to its historical sources than other works, before or after it, in its psychological and political presentation of the ambitious king and his execrable killer. As Thomas E. Case, the modern editor of this work, states, «the play was meant to entertain and please the public, and perhaps to inspire it morally. Neither the playwright nor his audience were really interested in historical accuracy» («Lope's...» 338).

In this play, King Sancho of Castile is severely criticized for his words and deeds by most of the dramatic characters. Count Ançures censures the king for trying to dispossess his sisters of their inheritance instead of protecting them, as he promised his father, King Ferdinand, to do. The Cid reminds him that parental curses are visited by God on tyrants. Don Diego Ordóñez, in a conversation with Elvira, decries the king's ambition and hopes that God will protect her from her tyrannical brother. Doña Elvira complains about his madness, monstrosity, and treachery. Flores and Layn, two soldiers from Toro, judge the king's actions against Elvira to be caused by envy that another man should enjoy the company of such a discreet and beautiful lady. When Don Sancho fails to fulfill his word to Bellido that he will betroth his sister to him if he gives him Toro, the deceiver denounces the king for his ingratitude, injustice, and tyranny. After Sancho takes Elvira's city and proceeds against Zamora, Don Vela, one of the Cid's relatives, reprehends the king for his inhumanity, while his daughter speculates that the king «solicita su daño» (279) and that King Ferdinand's curse is the cause of his death: «Ya Bellido al Rey mató, / y de su padre Fernando, / la maldición alcanzó» (290). Don Enrique de Borgoña surmises that Sancho was careless and ill-advised for following Bellido's evil counsel. Finally, Nuño Velázquez conjectures that God punished the king for his unjust usurpation of his sisters' cities: «quizás el cielo, / por quitárselas don Sancho, / le dio el castigo que vemos» (293).

On the other hand, it is clear that the king's attempts against his relatives are not motivated by greed or self-interest but by reason of state. Sancho is afraid that if his sisters marry foreigners, they will in turn disrespect his vassals, rise against him and Spain, and attempt eventually to be kings of Castile. As he tells the Cid, «El intento que yo llevo / conviene al reino y a mí» (245). In this verse one should not fail to notice the priority of national to personal interests. Eventually, even the Cid, who does not approve of the king's conduct, cannot fail to agree with the king that a divided kingdom cannot be preserved, «pues un reino dividido / no se puede conservar» (247). Furthermore, Don Sancho is willing to give Elvira, in exchange for Toro, a substantial remuneration with which to found a religious house where she can live happily and serve God, «que importa a mi reino todo / que no lo tenga mujer» (258). After he takes the first city and proceeds against Urraca's, he informs Don Vela that he cannot be lord of Castile until he takes Zamora, for only then will the kingdom be pacified. Perhaps the one damning accusation against him at this point is that he disobeys his father's wishes. But as he tells Count Ançures, he promised to please his father out of respect for him, but now that he is dead, he is no longer obliged to obey King Ferdinand. It is perchance for Sancho's political discernment that Suero, a peasant, remarks that no better king than Sancho will be found.

A modern reading of this passage, or even a pre-seventeenth-century interpretation, would probably lead one to believe that this is another aspect of Don Sancho's inhumanity, injustice, and betrayal. It is interesting to note, however, that the Catholic royalist William Barclay remarks that since laws are given by superiors to inferiors, superiors cannot be compelled by themselves nor by the laws of preceding princes since equals cannot have power over equals (3.16). In this play, Lope shows Don Sancho anachronistically, as a sovereign lord totally misunderstood by all the other characters, who judge him from a feudal point of view. This explains the ambiguity surrounding Don Sancho's actions-tyrannical from the point of view of the personages, judicious and enlightened from the sovereign's perspective. It is not accidental that Sancho tells Count Ançures early in the play that the Count knows very little about reason of state and hence should not pass judgment on the king's actions against his kin. This opinion of the king, of course, is in agreement with the historical Sancho, who reminds his father that his partition of the kingdom contradicts Gothic tradition, «ca los godos antiguamientre fizieran su postura entresi que nunca fuesse partido el imperio de Espanna, mas que fuesse todo de un sennor» (Alfonso X 494). The political object lesson of the Crónica, moreover, is its imperial theme, with its insistence on the dangers that overcome the commonwealth when power is divided. As Charles F. Fraker mentions in an important study on the Alfonsine chronicle: «We recall that the prologue of the Crónica speaks of the ills that overtook Spain when the kingdom was divided, and that a lengthy series of chapters on the division of his lands by Fernando I and its aftermath tells in detail precisely this story» (97).

Juan de la Cueva and Guillén de Castro failed to see, or to use, the political motivations behind Don Sancho's actions. Was Lope more enlightened in this respect, or did authors like Cueva condemn, by inference, Philip II's designs of a universal empire, as Watson suggests? Likewise, in view of the 'beatification' of the king in Las mocedades del Cid, part II, is it accurate to suggest that Castro was anti-Castilian and anti-Hapsburg, as Crapotta has recently stated (48)? (Cf. Lauer, rev. 540 and ch. 6 of forthcoming Tyrannicide).

In Lope's play, however, the king is damned in his attempt to unite the kingdom for stooping to the lowest means to do so. When he relies on Bellido Dolfos to take Toro, Don Sancho is no different from his Machiavellian vassal, who insists that a discreet man is not successful by force alone, but by invention, cunning, and deceit. When Bellido manages to give him the desired city, the monarch fails to fulfill his part of the bargain by refusing to give him Elvira in marriage: «De ti aprendo yo a engañarte, / y así pago engaño con engaño» (273). One would say that a sovereign lord, if he is to be legibus solutus, is not obliged to fulfill his obligations. According to Barclay, his royal dignity cannot be lost even if he becomes an adulterer, a homicide, a perjurer, or a heretic, for he is accountable to God alone. But as Herrero-García mentions, the king's word was the only guarantee a people had that an absolute monarch would carry out his duties (305). In Vélez de Guevara's words in El diablo está en Cantillana, «No puede mentir el Rey» (qtd. in Herrero-García 222).

Thus, when Sancho goes against his word, Bellido is rightfully angered and departs for Zamora, where he expects to be treated better. Before leaving, Bellido reminds the king that if the former attempts to take Urraca's city, the latter will defend it. Sancho, therefore, is warned in advance by a man who has just broken his oath to him and who may no longer be trusted, for Bellido now has a good reason to despise the king and, furthermore, he will shortly be in Urraca's service.

Although Doña Urraca has qualms about her new vassal's honesty, Bellido reassures her that he is a man of loyalty, for if indeed he helped Don Sancho before in taking Toro, he did so out of fealty to him, not treason. Now that he knows Don Sancho's tyranny, he has come to serve her in a land where he seeks justice. All this, of course, is true. When Bellido promises his mistress to lift the siege of Zamora without war, weapons, or combat, he fulfills his word. This act of allegiance to the queen, however, is judged as treasonable by the Castilians.

The killing of Don Sancho would seem to be related, in the moral scheme of the author, directly to his perjury, and not entirely to Bellido's viciousness. If this is the case, then one must agree with Arco y Garay that the king is defective not because he ceases to be human when he becomes a king, as the latter critic suggests (96), but because he ceases to be recognized as a king when he becomes, in Nietzsche's words, human-all-too-human. As George Buchanan, the sixteenth-century humanist, mentions, «the mind of man hath somewhat sublime and generous imbred therein by nature, that it will obey none, unless he governe profitably» (71). When Bellido is no longer able to trust Don Sancho, all bonds are broken between the two and their final, tragic encounter may only be judged as an act of war, not murder.

When all is said and done, we are left with three kings who have nothing in common with each other (except the name) and which tell more about the poets' intentions than about the historical Sancho, whatever he may have been like prior to his treatment by the ballads and the chronicles. It is perhaps obvious that Cueva is not really concerned with Sancho's lofty motives. From what may be inferred from his play, Cueva is more interested in presenting a moral type, an execrable human being who, abusing his office, engages in internal wars which cause the destruction of the land. That this is mainly his intention explains why the king has no positive qualities and why he is criticized so severely by the various personages of the play. This, in turn, explains the other, equally exaggerated character, Vellido Dolfos, who turns out to be a liberator who, in a state of extreme urgency, engages in the kind of activity which could be justified, if not on Christian, at least on Senecan grounds (the referential point of view of sixteenth-century dramatists). We recall that for Seneca, the king differs from the tyrant only in conduct, not in title (1.12). Furthermore, a tyrant is outside the bond of humanity and no ties or fellowships are kept with despots, since they are not even considered human, but monsters, animals, or lifeless, bloodless members that need to be severed for the better health of the body politic. Cueva's conception of the world, therefore, is essentially Manichean. There is good and there is evil, and there is no way of reconciling both objectively in what Hegel would call ethical reconciliation (1198; 3.3.C.3.a). Thus, Don Sancho dies unconfessed as he is called a tyrant, and Vellido suffers no opprobium for his action. In the end, this agrees with Cueva's moral intentions. As he mentions in «El viaje de Sannio» (1585): «[La poesía trágica] Es un retrato que nos va poniendo / delante de los ojos los presentes / males de los mortales miserables / en héroes, reyes, príncipes notables» (74-5). In the «Epístola dedicatoria a Momo» (1588) he adds: «Pues la comedia es imitación de la vida humana, espejo de las costumbres, retrato de la verdad, en que se nos representan las cosas que debemos huir, o las que nos conviene elegir, con claros y evidentes ejemplos» (76).

Castro's purpose is ideologically different. On the one hand he follows the footsteps of Cristóbal de Virués, perhaps the greatest Neo-Senecan of the generation of Juan de la Cueva. On the other, he later adopts the style of Lope de Vega, who insists on the essentially dramatic function of the theater and lessens its moral import. Thus, his Don Sancho is a hybrid figure. On the one hand, he seems to be a toned down Cueva character for half of the play. But as soon as he is struck by Vellido, he suffers a dramatic transformation. At this point, the king becomes a saintly figure who soliloquizes in true Senecan fashion on the ephemeral nature of the world, and who dies Christ-like, forgiving those who betrayed him and asking in turn to be forgiven by those whom he harmed in life. Moreover, Castro alludes to the fact that the king's behavior is the consequence of his youth and lack of proper counsel. By presenting the king in such a wise, Castro succeeds, on the one hand, in criticizing the ruler for his initial lack of composure and, on the other, he exalts the embodiment of sovereignty. This in turn concurs with the author's utter respect for royalty, which is clearly expressed in El curioso impertinente, a play of the same period as the Mocedades: «Hace un rey con tal afeto / que me parece al de España, / de suerte que a mí me engaña / y obliga a tener respeto» (qtd. in Sánchez Escribano and Porqueras Mayo 204).

Finally, we have Lope de Vega, a man who has no qualms in presenting royal figures in whatever guise he likes, in spite of the dissatisfaction of Philip II at seeing royalty dramatized (Arte 291; vv. 157-64). His Don Sancho is neither a demon nor a saint. He is merely a man. At times a great and shrewd politician; at times a person like any other, afflicted by passions which he seems unable to control, as is his love for Doña Elvira; and at times a lowly being who will stoop to the vilest means of treachery and deceit to accomplish his imperial designs. Lope, moreover, is able to present not merely a king and a man, but also a victim of his own acts. In a way he incorporates all we know about Don Sancho from the various sources at our disposal. He was a ferocious man, he was a man politically obsessed by an ideal, and he was also a man betrayed, perhaps on account of his lack of discernment, by an individual who probably felt justified by his action.

And thus we return to the original question: what good is history? In his famous essay on the subject, Nietzsche classified this art as antiquarian, critical, and monumentalist, and he eventually decided that «history is nothing but the manner in which the spirit of man apprehends facts that are obscure to him, links things together whose connection heaven only knows, replaces the unintelligible by something intelligible, puts his own ideas of causation into the external world, which can perhaps be explained from within; and assures the existence of chance where thousands of small causes may be really at work» (38). Thus, history's «real value lies in inventing ingenious variations on a probable commonplace theme, in raising the popular melody to a universal symbol and showing what a world of depth, power, and beauty exists in it» (39). Hayden White would add that what one learns from history is that such a study is never innocent, whether it is presented from the ideological perspective of the right, left, or center, for in its 'inquiry into knowledge', a story (whether told or written) relies on literary topoi and the imagination, the tools, of course, of the poet («Politics...» 137). Roland Barthes, perhaps a more radical critic than the above thinkers, would conclude by saying that «reality is nothing but a meaning, and so can be changed to meet the needs of history, when history demands the subversion of the foundations of civilization» (155).

Thus, if in the final process, intelligibility is what the historian seeks (the universal in Aristotle's words), the poet's task, not dissimilar from the chronicler's may be as profoundly significant and as justifiable as that of the historiographer. The poet, in fact, may be a better historian, as in Lope's case, on account of the freedom with which he can present the facts to make them more intelligible. By inventing or 'coming into' the universal vis-à-vis the particular -what I call the abuse of history- he not only recreates reality but, by transforming it, by signifying it, he gives it a new lease on life in our human consciousness, making it comprehensible anew, literally before our eyes.

With Nietzsche in mind, we may conclude by saying that all language, regardless of its mode (whether historical or poetic), is rhetorical and not representational. Hence it can only offer doxa, not episteme (Man 35). But of course, not all doxai are equal. A convincing, working opinion may be the closest if not the only form of truth that we, within our limitations, may be capable of producing.

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