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The Theme of “Stratonice” in the Drama of the Spanish Peninsula

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Ruth Lee Kennedy
Ruth Lee Kennedy*
Affiliation:
Smith College
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Extract

In a day when psychiatry, easy divorce, and the “lie-detector” are integral parts of our civilization, it can hardly be inappropriate to recall to the scholarly public the history of Seleucus, Antiochus, and Stratonice. This story, which affords interesting parallels to our own epoch, has appeared at intervals in most of the theatres of western Europe, and in Spain, at least, its recurrence would seem to form an interesting example of literary Strömungen.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , December 1940 , pp. 1010 - 1032
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1940

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References

1 An award of the University Women—the Alice Freeman Palmer Memorial Fellowship—made it possible for me to complete this study. I should like here to express my gratitude to the A.A.U.W. as well as to certain colleagues without whose ready cooperation this article could not have been written: Professors N. B. Adams, C. E. Anibal, W. L. Fichter, J. E. Gillet, O. H. Green, H. C. Lancaster, S. G. Morley, D. P. Rotunda, and R. H. Williams.

2 Valerius Maximus, “De patrum amore” in Fadorum didorumque memoralilium, ix, ed. J. Kappii (London, 1823), ii, lib. v, cap. vii, 572–573. Princeps: undated but believed to be Strasbourg, 1461; first Spanish translation: Hugo de Urries (Zaragoza, 1495).

Plutarch, “Demetrius” in Lives, tr. of Bernadotte Perrin (London, 1920), ix, 93–97. Princeps: Florence, 1517. Brunet lists a Plutarchi vitae parallelae, 2 vols. (Rome, ca. 1470), which must be an incomplete edition. First Spanish translation: Alfonso de Palencia (Sevilla, 1491).

Appian, “Liber de rebus Syriacis,” in Romanorvm historiarum, xi, tr. of H. White (London, 1912), ii, 217–223. Princeps: Venice, 1472; first Spanish translation: Diego de Salazar(?), Historia de todas las guerras civiles (Alcalá, 1536).

Lucian, “On the Syrian Goddess” in Complete Works, tr. of Thomas Francklin (London, 1781), iv, 351–384. Princeps: Florence, 1496; first Spanish translation of The Syrian Goddess: Francisco Herrera Maldonado (Madrid, 1796). It was turned into Latin by Jorge Coelho (Lisbon, 1540). There are reasons to doubt its attribution to Lucian. See D. A. Penick's “Notes on Lucian's ‘Syrian Goddess’,” in Studies in Honor of Basil L. Gildersleeve (Baltimore, 1902), 387–393.

Julian, “Misopogon,” in The Orations and Satires of the Emperor Julian, tr. of W. C. Wright (London. 1913), ii, 447–449). Princeps: Paris, 1566.

Suidas in his Lexicon under the name “Seleucus” makes reference to all these. Menéndez y Pelayo, Propalladia de Bartolom$ea de Torres Naharro (Madrid, 1900), ii, Est. prel., xcv, states that it is found in Justin. I have not been able to locate it there.

3 Lucian (125?–192? a.d.) gives two accounts while discussing the origin of the temple of Hierapolis. The first is in accordance with the versions of Plutarch and Appian except that the doctor (who is not named) lays his hand on the patient's heart rather than his pulse. The second form of the story found in Lucian shows that in Syria the history had become confused with that of the Chaldean legend of Istubar and Istar and that Stratonice, in her false accusations of the eunuch Combabus, had become blood sister to Stheneboea and Phaedra. J. Oppert's study, “Inscription d'Antiochus Soter”—see Mélanges Rénier, Recueil de travaux publiées par l'école pratique des hautes études (Paris, 1887), lxxiii–lxxiv, 217–232—confirms this confusion.

Julian (331–363 a.d.) has made several changes, some of which point to Lucian as a partial source: the doctor is from Samos; he places his hand over the heart of the sick prince Antiochus is characterized as a young man “of excessive softness and luxury” who was “constantly falling in love and being loved;” and finally, it is stated that Antiochus accepted his father's gift only after the latter's death.

4 We shall, in tracing this theme, have to limit ourselves to the development of these two essential elements: i.e. (1) the love triangle of father, son, and stepmother; (2) The rôle of the doctor, who by study of emotional changes divines the cause of the young man's illness. We can be concerned with the theme of a father's generosity toward his son only when that generosity is exhibited in his willingness to renounce his own love for a woman (his wife or his betrothed) to bring happiness to that son. To include, for instance, all plays wherein a father's generosity forms the central idea would take us far afield.

5 Nevertheless, J. G. Droysen (Geschichte des Hellenismus, i, 507) did not question its veracity according to E. Rohde (Der griechische Roman [1900], 55–59); nor does the latter critic entirely reject it—even while pointing out that the episode of the pulse has been linked with various other physicians' names (See p. 1031 of this study) and that it is found with different nomenclature and details in a third-century Byzantine novel of Heliodorus (See “The Strange Birth” in An Aethiopian Romance, tr. of Th. Underdowne with the revisions by F. A. Wright [London], 115–116) as well as in Aristaenetus Epistles (i, 13) and in various Oriental stories.

6 Op. cit., p. 57.

7 Mélanges de litt, orient., ii, 154. Quoted from Rohde, op. cit., p. 57. See p. 1031, n. of this study.

8 Ed. H. Oesterley (Berlin, 1872), pp. 339–340.

9 The author mentions Macrobius in his story, but if the episode of Erasistratus is to be read there, it is not found under the names of the classic story.

10 Decameron, ii (day), 8th story.

11 Carl Appel, Die triumphe Francesco Petrarcas (Halle, a S., 1901), pp. 289–290.

12 See Classici Italiani (Raccolta di Novelle, ii, 86–97) where the novel of Leonardi Bruni (of Arezzo) is given as the Novella di Messer Lionardo d'Arezzo.

13 Novellistica (Milano, 1924), i, 323–326.

14 He may, too, have known Valerius Maximus, for it is stated that the doctor makes his discovery by holding the pulse of the patient. He confirms his first experiment with two other identical ones and then tells the patient that he knows the cause of his illness and that he will remedy it by leading the father “a volere più tosto lasciar la moglie che perdere il figliuolo.” This is, so far as I know, the first protagonist to attempt to conquer his passion by absenting himself from the loved one.

15 Novel No. 55. See Raccolta di novellieri italiani (Florence, 1833), i, Parte ii, 515–518. Princeps: Lucia, 1554.

16 Had the theme been known to the Arcipreste, he would almost surely have included it in his Libro de buen amor.

17 Facsimile edition of princeps (Burgos, 1499), Hispanic Society Publications, i, 3–4. This corrupt reading was in other editions changed to “Crato e Galieno” and in that of Gast (1570) was corrected to “Erasístrato y Galieno.” See Menéndez Pidal (Ant. de pros, cast. [Madrid, 1917], pp. 69–70, n. 1), who not only gives the several variants for this phrase but corrects the text to read “Erasístrato.”

18 Parts of this novel-drama—a rompecabezas in textual problems as every student of Spanish literature knows—were probably written between the years of 1482 and 1484. (See Foulché-Delbosc, “Observations sur ‘La Celestine’,” Rev. Hisp., vii, 28–80; ix, 171–199, particularly 179–185). Others would place the date, at least of all acts except the first (in which this quotation is found) between 1492 and 1497. The investigations of such scholars as Serrano Sanz (“Noticias biográficas de Fernando de Rojas,” Rev. de Archivos [1902]), of Castro Guisasola (“Observaciones sobre las fuentes literarias de ‘la Celestina’” [1924]), of R. E. House (“The Present Status of the Problem of Authorship of the ‘Celestina’,” Phil. Quart., ii, 38–47; “Notes on the Authorship of the ‘Celestina’,” iii, 81–91), and of Ruth Davis, (“New Data on the Authorship of Act i,” Univ. of Iowa Studies ([1928]), tend to prove that Fernando de Rojas (of Puebla de Montalb$Aan and Talavera) was telling the truth when he stated that he had known the first act in manuscript and that he completed it. Fernández de Rojas points out as possible authors of Act i, Rodrigo de Cota or Juan de Mena. No one has ever taken seriously the second attribution, though some arguments can be adduced for the Toledan Jew, Rodrigo de Cota, who is known to have been writing by the year 1472. By the date of 1482, the period when Foulché-Delbosc thinks Rojas made his editions, Valerius Maximus, Plutarch, and Appian had all been printed in Italy, though none had appeared in Spanish translation. Castro Guisasola does not list any of these among the sources of the Celestina; he points out (op. cit., p. 133) that the story of Stratonice is found in Petrarch's Trionfi, but declares: “La procedencia . . . no es segura ni muchísimo más.” It is not, indeed, for, in the Trionfi, the doctor's name is not given. I suspect that the source was one of the medical books of the time.

19 See J. E. Gillet's “Date of Torres Naharro's Death,” Hispanic Review, iv, 41–46.

20 Propalladia, ed. Menéndez y Pelayo (Madrid, 1900), ii, p. xcv. Menéndez y Pelayo points out not only Torres Naharro's use of this theme but also Camōes' and Moreto's.

21 Today it is considered one of the weaker plays of Torres Naharro, but it was in its own time the most popular of his works. See J. E. Gillet's two articles: “Torres Naharro and the Spanish Drama of the Sixteenth Century” in (1) Homenaje a Bonilla y San Martín, (1930), ii, 437–468; (2) Hispanic Review, v, 193–207. It was perhaps written before 1511, though it was not included in editions of the Propalladia until 1524. There was a suelta around 1520(?). Strangely enough, in spite of his great influence, this story of the pulse does not seem to have found imitation in the inferior writers who followed him. It was apparently the native strain which left its deep impress.

22 Ed. Boehmer (Bonn, 1895), pp. 406–407.

23 See the Britannica. Yet Aubrey Bell, Studies in Portuguese Literature (Oxford, 1914) p. 123, indicates the beginning of the year 1549.

24 Obras completas de Luis de Camões, ed. J. V. Barreto Feio and J. G. Monteiro (Lisbon, 1843), iii, 254–297. La Barrera, Catálogo (Madrid, 1860), could not find the date of the princeps.

25 Aubrey Bell (op. cit., p. 123) identifies her as a lady-in-waiting to the Queen, Caterina de Athaide.

26 He mentions Avicenra (p. 287), but that could not have been his source. (See p. 1031 of this study.)

27 Ed. Soc. de bib. esp. (Madrid, 1934), ii, xiii, 75. He gives the physician's name as Crasistrato, indicates Plutarch as his source, and characterizes the story as “muy hermosa.”

Timoneda (died 1583) did not employ the anecdote in either of his two collections, but it was to appear again in Zapata's “Miscelánea,” Memorial histórico (1895), xi, 187–188, which was written between 1592 and 1595. It is entitled Del prudente médico—his name is given as Cristrato—and the classical story is retold to illustrate the thesis: “Así tenga un médico cuantas ciencias hay en su memoria y en su estudio cuantos libros juntó Tolomeo, que fueron más de 20,000, y la discreta prudencia le falte, todo será para mayores daños de sus dolientes reos.”

The story of Florisena (El emperador y su hijo), told in Mey's Fabulario, of date 1613 (See M. A. Buchanan's study, “Sebastian Mey's ‘Fabulario’,” MLN, xxi, 167–171), can hardly be considered more than one of analogous situation—unless one accepts the second version of Lucian, (See p. 1012, n. 3 of this study.) Florisena is of the school of Stheneboea and Phaedra rather than of Stratonice's. The theme was to be reborn in the sixteenth century with the stories of Don Carlos and his love for his stepmother Isabel de Valois: and in Robinson Jeffers' Cawdor we have it in modern American dress.

The history of Stratonice was even told in ballad form. Alonso de Fuentes, Libro de los guarenta cantos pelegrinos (Zaragoza, 1564), Parte iii, canto vii, 317v.–319v., after warning his readers that no man should judge himself immune from love and after recommending St. Thomas' three remedies in the case of unlawful love, tells the story of Antiochus and his stepmother. The doctor is not named. A few years later (1587), Juan de la Cueva published his ballad on Antiochus in the Coro febeo. (For a modern edition, see BAE, x, 338–339.) Like Fuentes' ballad, this follows traditional lines. Neither can be considered particularly beautiful.

If the theme ever appeared in the short story of Spain—even in derived form—I do not know it.

28 P. 279. The only other reference that I have for Portugal follows this tradition of song. See p. 1027 of this study.

29 P. 264.

30 This attitude is reflected even more strongly in the Aquilana. As Mr. Gillet has pointed out, there is an “undertone of social discontent” in Torres Naharro's works. See p. 1016, n. 21.

31 P. 284.

32 See Angel Valbuena Prat's “Camões y Garcilaso” in Hom. a Bonilla y San Martín, ii, 469–478. This study does not include Camões' plays, but it proves his love for Garcilaso.

33 Pp. 276–277.

34 P. 296. Cf. with Bandello's attitude in his version. See p. 1014 of this study.

35 First printed by Menéndez y Pelayo, Obras de Lope de Vega, iv (Madrid, 1894). See Act ii, 206–207. There is a manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional (No. 14874) carrying “aprobaciones originales” that are dated 1629.

36 Princeps, 1612. See ed. Obras sueltas, xvi (1778), 68. The doctor here is Erisistrato.

37 First printed in Parte XIX (Madrid, 1623). See BAE, i, vii, 376.

38 I have noted only one direct allusion to this theme in all of Tirso's theatre (El amor médico, ed., BAE, ii, xv, 393–94):

El pulso tenéis amante;
si Erasístrato viviera,
fácilmente os conociera.

Tirso may, however, have had in mind Erasistratus' methods when writing: La venganza de Tamar (ed. NBAE, i, vi, 419, lines beginning: “Toma este pulso—”), Doña Beatriz de Silva (ed. NBAE, i, ii, 490, lines beginning: “El médico por el pulso—”), and Amar por arte mayor (ed. BAE, ii, xv, 433, lines beginning: “Oh señor—”). All mention the pulse as an index of love. In his Los triunfos de la verdad—see Deleitar aprovechando (Madrid, 1631), pp. 90 v. and 92 v.—Tirso again seems to accept the theory of the “pulsus amatorius.”

I have no check on the references of other dramatists of the period. I should expect perusal of Rojas Zorrilla's and Vélez de Guevara's theatre to reveal some.

39 El castigo sin venganza was first printed as a suelta in Barcelona, 1634, and then reprinted the following year in Madrid in Parte XXI. There is an autograph manuscript dated August 1st, 1631 (in the Ticknor collection at the Boston Public Library) which served as a source for the edition of C. F. Adolfo van Dam (Groninga, 1928).

A. Schaeffer, Geschickte des spanischen Nationaldramas (Leipzig, 1890), i, 88, has pointed out Lope's indebtedness to Bandello. See also the edition of van Dam cited above, p. 59.

40 Its date is unknown; Rojas died in 1648, and for at least two years before this the theatres had been closed. See Americo Castro's edition (Madrid, 1917), pp. 183–185. It was first published as a suelta.

41 Valerius Maximus gives his story as an example of a father's generosity toward his son. A colleague in history has pointed out (in a misogynistic moment!) that “there might be various explanations of Seleucus' willingness to give up his wife, but that if he gave up half his kingdom, then he was a generous man.”

42 For some reason, nevertheless, Lope's play seems to have met reverses. He himself states that it was represented only once, “for causes which matter little to the reader.” This remark has led to many surmises, among others that the play may have brought to Philip IV's mind (or the censor's) the gossip about Don Carlos (son of Felipe II) and his love for his stepmother. It might appear from both Camões and Lope's experience that it has not proved an acceptable theme to royalty. See van Dam (op. cit., p. 57) on this point.

43 Primera parte (Madrid, 1654). It may be read in the BAE, xxxix. The second name was used primarily in the eighteenth century.

Professor Aníbal points out to me that La fuerza de la ley is complementary to Antíoco y Selenco and could be well called A mal padre, peor hijo. It is for him, “the reverse of the medal,” a moral lesson which “demonstrates the inevitable alternative to the wise sacrifice eulogized in Antíoco.” He adds: “. . . in short we have [in these two plays] two schools of thought, and Moreto has depicted them both using the same character, Seleuco, to make the contrast more dramatic.”

The point is an interesting one, though there is no question of a triangle between father and son nor of a psychiatrist who by study of emotional changes finds out the situation. The father Seleucus, who largely for reasons of state, marries his son Demetrius against the latter's wishes (and at the expense of his daughter's and his niece's happiness as well), realizes ultimately that he is largely responsible for the adultery which follows. Moreto was evidently interested in the education of the young in the years of 1651–53; cf. also De fuera vendrá, which might well be entitled A mala tía, peor sobrina. He gave further evidence of this interest in 1659, the year in which No puede ser was played as a “new” comedy.

44 There are two other plays in Moreto's theatre, aside from Antíoco, which are indicative of the lasting impression that El castigo sin venganza made on Moreto: La fuerza de la ley (written in 1651) and El poder de la amistad (finished in 1652).

The verbal influence of Lope's play on the three comedias of Moreto diminishes in the following order: Antíoco y Seleuco, La fuerza de la ley (1651), and El poder de la amistad (1652). This gradual decrease of influence, when taken in connection with certain other facts, strongly points to Antíoco y Seleuco's having been written a short time before La fuerza de la ley, that is in late 1650 or early 1651.

This date is further indicated by the fact that, like La fuerza de la ley, it claims in its final lines to be a “true history.” While no study has been made to ascertain just how much relation this phrase, found at the end of so many comedias of the seventeenth century, has to do with the various decrees of 1644, 1646, and 1651 (February), which permitted only comedias de historias or vidas de santos, it is my present opinion (based on incomplete data that I have been collecting for some time) that those plays which make this claim—and especially those which are so novelescas in tone that the author feared that they would not pass the censor—were almost all printed after 1651 (the public theatres were closed completely a large part of the time between 1644 and 1650) and that in the case of many of these which are known to have been written before that time, the final lines at least were altered to meet this new law of 1651 which includes the phrase “En esta corte se ha ido tolerando el que haya comedias de historias . . .” See Rennert, The Spanish Stage (N. Y., 1909), p. 250. In the case of Moreto's plays, I am convinced that the claim is significant. It is a point which I hope to develop later.

45 It is possible that this detail, as well as that of the storm, may have been suggested by Luca Assarino's novel, Stratonica. (See p. 1030, n. 62 of this study.) In it both storm and portrait play an important rôle in the plot, though the circumstances surrounding their use are not analogous.

The thought may occur to the student of French literature that the elder Brosse's play, La Stratonice ou Le Malade d'Amour (first published in 1644) may have influenced Moreto's work. I have not seen Brosse's play. For a resumé, see H. C. Lancaster's A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century (Paris, 1932), ii, 397–399 and 473. But it is, to my mind, highly improbable that it had any influence on Moreto's Antíoco. The dramatic flow was from Spain to France at that time, Brosse himself being one of the many who helped themselves with largesse from the granary of Spanish plots. It remains to be shown, moreover, that Moreto knew more French than the word allons (spelled alón).

46 It is also possible that the lost auto of Cubillo de Aragón, El rey Seleuco en Asia (listed in Medel's Indice) may have influenced Moreto's play or been influenced by it. Cubillo, born in Granada in the early years of the seventeenth century, was writing plays as early as 1632. He was still living as late as 1660.

From the title of this play, however, it is far from certain that it had to do with the situation under discussion. Not every work in which there is a Seleucus or Antiochus is related to our theme. For instance, Lope's El rey por semejanza has for one of its chief characters “El rey Antíoco de Asiria” and Belmonte's Los tres señores del mundo, a “Seleuco.” Moreover see note 62 of this study.

Moreto has almost certainly utilized bits of other plays. The first scenes of Antíoco (with its contrast of Luquete's “capa tosca . . . burda” and his master's “delgada y guarnecida” as well as the lines which start “Hay más que ver al labrador sencillo . . .) are strongly reminiscent of the Peribáñez. Luquete's question ”¿No se antojó a una preñada morder a un fraile el pescuezo?“ is probably a reference to Tirso's Gilote whose wife Torilda had just this strange desire. See Ventura te dé Dios, hijo (NBAE edition, i, x, 381).

Moreto's mind was in fact a veritable work-bag stuffed with retazos that had been clipped from the many plays he had read. Cancer was right! See my study The Dram. Art of Moreto (Northampton, Mass., 1931–32), pp. 28–29.

47 Lope's: BAE, xxiv, i, 573; Moreto's: BAE, xxxix, i, 44.

48 Lope's: ii, 576; Moreto's, ii, vi, 48.

49 For other verbal similarities compare: (1) Lope's gloss, “En fin, Señora, me veo sin mí, sin vos y sin Dios” (ii, 578) with Moreto's “sin mí, sin él, y sin vos” and the variations he has rung on these lines (iii, iv, 51); (2) Lope's “¿Qué voces son aquéllas?” (i, 570) with Moreto's “mas ¿Y qué voces son éstas?”; his “y corno celos son linces” (El castigo, iii, 579) with “también son linces los celos” (Antíoco, i, v, 43).

Compare, too, the similarity of ideas reflected in Batín's question “¿No era mejor para tí esta clavellina fresca?” (El castigo, i, 572) with that of Luquete: “Pues ¿más glorioso casándote con ella no quedaba . . .?” (Antíoco, i, 1, 39) as well as the distrust that each exhibits toward his “betters” in matters of money (El castigo, iii, 583 and Antíoco, i, vi, 43). And finally note the similarity of development in (a) Lope's scene wherein the protagonists first meet (i, 570bc) and the corresponding ones in Moreto's play (i, ii–iii); (b) in the welcome accorded the heroine on her arrival at court (concluding scenes of Act i in both cases). Still further analogies could be pointed out if space permitted.

In recasting Lope's play, Moreto has worked in a thoroughly characteristic fashion; he has (1) increased the didactic and the comic, (2) rejected the tragic conclusion; (3) added songs; (4) eliminated all characters that are not dramatically essential and rationalized the action of those that remain. Needless to say, he has lost much of the poetic beauty of the original.

50 Cotarelo (La bibl. de Moreto, Madrid, 1927, p. 20) records six editions of this play, aside from the princeps.

Compilations for performances in Valladolid, Barcelona, Valencia, and Madrid are as follows:

Valladolid (between 1681 and 1798): from 1681–1700, ten times; between 1701–56), sixteen times; between 1757–98, none. See N. Alonso Cortés, El teatro en Valladolid (Madrid, 1923), 286–413.

Barcelona (between 1718 and 1794): An Antíoco was acted once in 1729; then, between 1774 and 1787, it was presented nine times. See A. Par, “Representaciones teatrales en Barcelona,” Bol. de la Real. Academia, xvi, 326–346, 492–513, 594–614.

Valencia (first half of 18th century): It was played twelve times. Cf. with El desdén's 37 performances, No puede ser's 25, etc. See E. Juliá, “Preferencias teatrales del público valenciano en el siglo xviii,” Rev. de fil. esp., 1933, 113–159.

Madrid: The theme was before the public (between 1784 and 1810) thirteen times, sometimes under the title El gran Seleuco. See Cotarelo, Isidoro Máiquez (Madrid, 1902), pp. 574–837, and Ada Coe, Catálogo bibliográfico, Johns Hopkins Studies (1935). There is a review of a performance in the Memorial literario of 1784 which criticizes it primarily for its anachronisms.

51 First published in the Escogidas, Parte xxi (Madrid, 1663).

52 See MS 16908, Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. The author of Act I is not indicated, but as Paz y Melia has indicated, Catálogo (Madrid, 1934), i, 29, the handwriting certainly looks like Matos Fragoso's. Given the many occasions on which this Portuguese collaborated with Moreto, together with his preeminence as a dramatist over his collaborators, it is, to me, highly probable that he was the driving force in this enterprise. Alonso de Olmedo died in 1682.

53 It belonged in 1898 to J. Antonio da Fonseca e Vasconcellos who has supplied the small amount of information that I have been able to find concerning this musician. See his Os musicos portuguezes (Porto, 1870), i, 40–42, and Catalogue des livres rares . . . d'un amateur (Porto, 1898), p. 187.

54 Pp. 620, 628, 630.

55 No. 98, Josef Ferrer de Orga (Valencia, 1811), 20 pp. This play is to be found in Freiburg.

56 In Moreto's play, ii, 1–3, 8; iii, 7, 8. There are cuts.

57 This name is borrowed from Moreto's play.

58 The literary worth of this tour de force is nil, but there is one speech in it which reflects a tolerance that is interesting, given the troubled times in which it must have been written. Antiochus, having conquered Demetrius, hopes his father will not insist on destruction of the vanquished but will come to terms with him. He asks (i, 4):

Los poderes destruidos,
aunque se logren y venzan,
¿qué ventajas facilitan?
Ningunas. Todo es tragedia.
Llora el vencedor (si es justo)
los soldados que se quedan
víctimas de la campaña,
aunque con victoria sea;
el estado que conquista
arruinado se le entrega;
luego, ¡cuánto mejor es
que tratos de paz pretendan
evitar tantos rigores
que igualmente se toleran!
Además que lo que hoy pasa
por mi contrario, la adversa
fortuna puede hacer mañana
que a mí talvez me suceda,
y siempre es bueno temer
en dicha, desdicha cierta.

Is this at once a plea and a warning to Napoleon's forces?

59 Of those authors who are linked to the theme by virtue of mere reference, only Tirso is, as it happens, of Castilian blood. Rodrigo de Cota (if he be the author of the first act of the Celestina) was of Jewish blood and Lope was of mountain stock. I would not, with this statement, have one conclude that I am denying Lope's national qualities!

60 All dramatists have found it convenient to forget a historical fact mentioned by both Appian and Plutarch: the son which Stratonice had borne Seleucus before her marriage to Antiochus. In Don Juan de Castro, the royal stepmother has a son, but this character belongs in the class of conscious adultresses rather than in that of Stratonice who, it should be remembered, was divorced and remarried according to the wishes of her royal spouse and the laws of her country.

61 Mr. Lancaster would perhaps not agree with this statement. In commenting on Brosse's Stratonice (to which he applies depreciatively the term “opéra—bouffe”), he adds (op. cit., part i, ii, p. 399): “The subject is one from which a great dramatist could have drawn a tragedy of passion and renunciation.” It seems to me that this is possible only if the end is made tragic, and in that case the story ceases to be what it is.

62 The list for Italy is a very long one. In fact, one gains the impression that Italy is the home of this theme, and that it is from there that interest has radiated. All of the references that I have in my files may be found in the following sources (under the names of the three principal characters): Lione Allacci, Drammaturgia (Venice, 1755); Giambattista Passano, Dizionario di opere anonime e pseudonime in supplemento a quello di Gaetano Melzi—the reference is to a dictionary of the same name, published in 1857 in Milano—(Ancona, 1887); Salvioli, Bibliografia universale del teatro drammatico italiano—extends only through “C”—(Venice, 1903); J. Towers, Dictionary—catalogue of Operas and Operettas—limited to those performed on the public stage—(Morgantown, W. Va., 1910). It should be kept in mind that plays named Antioco do not always refer to our theme. For instance, the Antioco attributed to Niccoló Minato (Venice, 1658) has to do with Antiochus II, who was married first to Laodice and then to Berenice, daughter of Ptolemy II. When the development of this theme is known in other countries, it will be found, I suspect, that Luca Assarino's novel Stratonica—there were editions of 1635 (2), 1637, 1638 (2), and 1651—played a large part in stimulating interest in Italy and France of the seventeenth century. There was a French translation by Claude de Malleville et d'Andiguier in 1640 which had a second edition in 1651. Moreover, it was translated into English in 1651 and in 1653 into German. In turn it may have drawn inspiration from Angelita Scaramuccia's La Stratonica (“Tragicomedia in prosa e con gl'intermezzi in verso”), 1609. From this title, it would seem that it was a woman who was the first to center attention on the heroine. In Spain, interestingly enough, there is no version which has for its title the name of the heroine, though in France and in Italy, after Assarino's novel, this became the more usual one. Assarino himself was born in Andalucía.

For France I have the following references: Brosse, Stratonice (1644); Du Fayot, La nouvelle Stratonice (1657); Quinault, Stratonice (1666); Thomas Corneille, Antiochus (1666); Peyraud de Beaussol, Stratonice, date unknown to me; H. M. F. Langlé, Antiochus et Stratonice; Mehul (music) and O. C. Hoffman (words), Stratonice (“Comédie heroique”), 1792; E. M. Diet, Stratonice, date unknown; A. Foumier (music) and M. Louis Gallet (words), Stratonice (“Opera en un acte”), 1892. Other derivates are: Rayssiguier's La Celidée (1635); Desmaretz, Aspasie (1636); Gillet de la Tessonerie, Triomphe des cinq passions (1642); Campistron, Tiridate (1691). In Soleinne's catalog (No. 1158), there is mention of a La mort d'Antiochus, which may be related to this theme. There was a novel Antiochus, Prince de Syrie (“histoire galante,” 1679) which is “apparently the same” as Les amours D'Antiochus, Prince de la Syrie, et de la Reine Stratonique (1679). See R. Williams, Bibl. of the Seventeenth Century Novel in France, pp. 270, 725. Prof. Williams believes this work may be related to Luca Assarino's novel. See also Prof. H. C. Lancaster's A Hist, of French Dramatic Lit. in the Seventeenth Century (Baltimore, 1926–36) under the names of the dramatists given above.

My English references indicate much less interest: John Mottley, Antiochus (“A tragedy”), 1721; T. Chas. Shackborough (“A gentleman of Gloucester”), Antiochus, 1740. Thomas Francklin in his edition of Lucian's works (iv, 362) mentions a tragedy on this subject which was printed but never acted in 1733. He did not know the name of the author, nor do I.

German versions of which I have notice would indicate some attraction for the nineteenth century: C. Gaupner, Antiochus und Stratonice (An opera or operetta—see J. Towers op. cit.); Johann Jacob Engel, Stratonice (1801); Hermann Stegemann, Stratonika (“Trauerspiel”), 1888. See L. Melitz, Die Theaterstücke der Weltliteratur (Berlin, 1920).

Ingres, Adrien van der Werff, and others have found inspiration in this theme for their pictures. See Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universal (under Stratonice) for its influence in painting, sculpture, etc.

63 Given the Petrarchan influence in Spain during Juan II's reign, one is surprised that the theme did not appear at that time. Perhaps the answer lies in the predilection of that period for lyric poetry. I do not find it in Juan de Mena's Trescientas.

64 There may be others. Any one who may wish to take up the study of the theme in other countries will find it an interesting point to follow.

65 Messina, 1931.

66 J. R. Whitwell in his Historical Notes on Psychiatry (Philadelphia, 1937), p. 96, gives the story.

67 Ed. Floyd Dell and Paul Jordan-Smith (1927), p. 723.

68 These names may all be found in the British Museum Catalogue. They are in some cases commentators of Galen and are connected with the complete edition of his works put out in 1541. See also J. R. Whitwell's book cited above.

69 See K. Haebler, Bibl. ibérica del siglo XV (Leipzig, 1917), ii, 183–184. His Philonium (1501) is probably the book that Burton had in mind.

70 Med. Contr., 13, 1, 3, according to the Democritus Junior edition (1893), iii, 126. Valles' dates are 1524–92.

71 Doctrines of pulses, v, cap. 17.

72 What is the modern psychologist's point of view? J. F. Dashiell, Fundamentals of General Psychology (1937), pp. 180–194. declares that “experimental study of emotion is the most baffling and tricky that the psychological laboratory knows—this in spite of the sphygmograph, the Plethysmograph, the cardiograph, the sphygmomanometer, etc., which have been invented for that purpose. The scientist at the present writing is willing to concede as certain only that instrumentation will reveal ”the mere fact of disturbance,“ not that it will distinguish one emotional pattern from another. Applied to our story, this would mean Antiochus' racing pulse could have been due to hatred for his mother-in-law rather than to love.

Prof. Anibal points out to me that Mira de Amescua in El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha (Clas. cast., Vol. 82, ii, 200) was aware of this fact:

Indicios son
las turbaciones que han hecho
de que tienen en el pecho
alguna oculta pasión.
Afecto es de amor o agravios;
enemigos son o amantes.

Here, as in the story of Stratonice, it is a royal wife who is concerned.