The Great Galeoto by José Echegaray y Eizaguirre
"The Great Galeoto" is a drama written by José Echegaray y Eizaguirre, exploring themes of societal gossip, honor, and the complexities of human relationships. The narrative follows Ernesto, a young playwright struggling to articulate his ambitious vision for a play while living in the home of Don Julián, a wealthy businessman. The title of the play is derived from a character in Dante's work, symbolizing the role of an intermediary in romantic affairs. Throughout the story, Ernesto grapples with feelings of inadequacy and the burden of perceived charity from Don Julián and his wife, Teodora.
As rumors circulate about Ernesto's relationship with Teodora, tension escalates, leading to a duel that ultimately results in tragedy. The dramatic unfolding raises questions about honor, the impact of societal perceptions, and the consequences of slander. The play's poignant exploration of these themes reflects Echegaray's engagement with the moral dilemmas faced by individuals in a judgmental society. Overall, "The Great Galeoto" serves as a critique of societal norms and the destructive power of gossip, making it a significant work within Spanish drama.
On this Page
The Great Galeoto by José Echegaray y Eizaguirre
First produced:El Gran Galeoto,1881; first published, 1881 (English translation, 1895)
Type of work: Drama
Type of plot: Social satire
Time of plot: Nineteenth century
Locale: Madrid
Principal characters
Don Julián , a rich Spanish businessmanTeodora , his young and beautiful wifeErnesto , a young dramatist befriended by Don JuliánSevero , Don Julián’s brotherMercedes , Severo’s wife
The Story:
Ernesto, a young playwright, is taken into the home of Don Julián, a rich businessman who was a close friend of Ernesto’s father. Ernesto is working on a great play, but he has difficulty in putting down on paper what is in his mind. As he tells Don Julián, his play is to include everyone and to reflect the whole world, not simply a part of it, but the laws of the drama make it impossible for him to put down what he wishes to say within the space of a play. Don Julián, a practical man, tells Ernesto to go get some sleep and be ready to go partridge shooting the next day. After Don Julián leaves, Ernesto’s eye falls on a work by Dante Alighieri. From it he takes the title for his play, The Great Galeoto, after a character in the love story of Paolo and Francesca.
The following evening Don Julián and his wife Teodora sit watching the sunset. Don Julián tells Teodora that he is afraid Ernesto is unhappy because they have done so much for him, that Ernesto feels he owes them much that can never be repaid. Ernesto joins them and in the ensuing conversation readily admits his belief that he is living on charity and that people are talking about him. Don Julián says the situation can be remedied and suggests that Ernesto become his secretary, thus repaying, in the eyes of the world, what Julián gives him. Ernesto is pleased by the proposal and accepts.
Don Julián leaves the room. As the sun goes down and Teodora and Ernesto continue to talk, Severo, Don Julián’s brother, enters with Mercedes, his wife. Severo and Mercedes, speaking to each other, say that the whole city of Madrid is speaking of the affair going on in Don Julián’s house between his young wife and the young man he has befriended. After the men leave the room, Mercedes tells Teodora about the slander that is being voiced in the city. Severo goes to pass on the same information to Don Julián.
When Don Julián rejoins his wife, he expresses his anger that Severo should dare to insult his honor and Teodora’s by bringing such slander into his home. Don Julián insists that Ernesto remain in his house as he had before. Ernesto, told of the slander by Severo’s son, leaves Don Julián’s fine home to live in a garret. At first Don Julián is glad, thinking that there might have been some truth in the town’s gossip. Later he arrives at a different conclusion and goes to invite Ernesto to return. While he and his brother wait in Ernesto’s garret, Severo’s son appears with word that Ernesto is to fight a duel with the Viscount Nebreda, who openly aired his malicious gossip in Ernesto’s presence at a café.
Don Julián immediately leaves to find Nebreda to force him to a duel in defense of his own honor. The boy, left behind, is searching the apartment when Ernesto returns. In the angry conversation that follows, Ernesto tells the boy that he and all society, with their slanders, are no better than Galeoto, who was the go-between for Lancelot and Guinevere in their infamous affair, as told in Dante’s story of Paolo and Francesca.
After the boy goes, Teodora comes to Ernesto’s quarters to see him. She has just learned that Ernesto is leaving Spain the following day and has come to tell him good-bye. Learning of the duel that Ernesto is to fight with Nebreda, she is disturbed that he should possibly humiliate her husband by dueling in his place, when Ernesto is the one, according to gossip, who has laid Don Julián’s honor open to question.
While they argue, Severo’s son returns to tell them that Don Julián found Nebreda, fought with him, and was wounded severely. He adds that Don Julián first returned to Ernesto’s quarters to see him, but that a servant told Don Julián he could not disturb Ernesto, who was with a lady. Severo and a servant appear, carrying the wounded Don Julián. Teodora hides in the bedroom, but her presence is discovered when Don Julián asks to be placed on the bed.
After a dreadful scene Ernesto rushes out to find the Viscount Nebreda. He discovers him, fights a duel, and kills Nebreda. In the meantime Severo removes the wounded man to his home. After the duel, Ernesto goes to Don Julián’s house to tell what he has done and to say good-bye to Don Julián and Teodora. Mercedes and her son refuse to let him see the sick man. Ernesto tells them how Teodora happened to be in his garret and adds that she had been trying to prevent the duel between her husband and Nebreda.
After his departure Mercedes brutally questions Teodora in an effort to make the young woman confess she is in love with Ernesto. She fails, but Teodora promises that Ernesto can never enter the house again. When Ernesto returns, he is ordered to leave, but he agrees to do so only after Teodora repeats the request. As he is leaving, Severo lays hands on Teodora. Ernesto returns and compels Severo on his knees to beg Teodora’s pardon. He assures Severo that she is innocent of any infidelity.
Don Julián, hearing the commotion, leaves his sickroom. Infuriated, he slaps Ernesto’s face and threatens to kill him in a duel. Severo and Mercedes help Don Julián, his strength exhausted, back to his room, where he dies a few minutes later. Severo, refusing to let Teodora enter her husband’s room, claims the house is his, and after his brother’s death he tries to put Teodora out of it because the scandal and shame that gossip has associated with her.
Teodora faints. Ernesto picks her up and tells Severo that he will take her away. He denounces Severo and society, who had forced him and Teodora into scandalous behavior. Society, he insists, is no better than a pimp, a Galeoto.
Bibliography
Chandler, Frank W. “The Peninsular Tradition.” In Modern Continental Playwrights. New York: Harper & Row, 1931. Shows the passage of Spanish dramatic tradition from Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Insightful regarding the power of self-examination and self-fulfilling gossip.
Clark, Barnett H., ed. Masterpieces of Modern Spanish Drama. New York: Duffield, 1917. Reprint. New York: Kraus Reprint, 1969. Contains a preface on the period, with a review of Spanish drama of the Golden Age. Includes a biography of Echegaray, as a mathematics professor and a government minister, as well as a chronological list of his plays.
Gies, David T. “The Theater in Spain, 1850-1900.” In The Cambridge History of Spanish Literature, edited by Gies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Echegaray is one of the playwrights whose work is discussed in this chapter.
Hartnoll, Phyllis, ed. Oxford Companion to the Theatre. London: Oxford University Press, 1967. Pages 906-907 put Echegaray in the company of other writers of Spanish Romanticism, “essentially an alien growth, nurtured in France and England by the Liberal exiles of the 1820’s and brought back to Spain with the return to power of the Liberals in 1835.”
Newberry, Wilma. “Echegaray and Pirandello.” PMLA 81, no. 1 (March, 1966): 123-129. Echegaray, here given credit for philosophical and aesthetic innovations not normally recognized in his work, aspired “to communicate a certain intellectual content in his plays” and dealt with the history of ideas. His plays remain relevant because they dramatize “the position of honesty for its own sake in our modern corrupt society.”
Parker, Mary, ed. Modern Spanish Dramatists: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2002. Includes an essay providing an introductory overview of Echegaray’s life and works. Includes bibliographies of his plays and of secondary sources about the playwright.
Shank, Theodore J., ed. A Digest of Five Hundred Plays. New York: Crowell-Collier, 1963. A summary, with staging problems, cast size, and other information helpful to produce the play. Points out the inadvertent humor of taking the play too seriously, but sees as the center of the play “violent situations violently portrayed.”
Shaw, Bernard. Dramatic Opinions and Essays. Vol. 1. New York: Brentanos, 1925. Contains a discussion of Echegaray’s talents in general. Acknowledges Echegaray’s indebtedness to Henrik Ibsen.
‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Dramatic Opinions and Essays. Vol. 2. New York: Brentanos, 1925. Argues in a review that Echegaray was “a man who comprehends his world and knows society not as any diner-out or Mayfair butler knows it, but as a capable statesman knows it.”