The Sheep Well by Lope de Vega Carpio
"The Sheep Well," a drama by Lope de Vega Carpio, is set during the tumultuous period of 1470s Spain, a time marked by political intrigue and social upheaval. The play centers around the character of Rodrigo Téllez Girón, a young grand master of the Order of Calatrava, who is manipulated by the tyrannical Commander Fernán Gómez de Guzmán into capturing the city of Ciudad Real for Portugal. As the commander abuses his power and terrorizes the villagers, notably targeting a peasant woman named Laurencia, tensions escalate.
Laurencia's defiance against the commander and the subsequent oppression faced by the villagers lead to a collective uprising. Their revolt culminates in the death of the commander, symbolizing the villagers' struggle against tyranny. When the royal authorities arrive to investigate the incident, the villagers unite in solidarity, refusing to betray one another, despite facing torture and intimidation. Ultimately, their unwavering loyalty compels the king and queen to pardon the village, highlighting themes of communal identity, justice, and resistance against oppression. The play reflects deep societal issues while illustrating the powerful dynamics between the ruling class and the peasantry in early modern Spain.
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The Sheep Well by Lope de Vega Carpio
First published:Fuenteovejuna, 1619 (English translation, 1936)
Type of work: Drama
Type of plot: Social realism
Time of plot: 1476
Locale: Spain
Principal characters
Commander Fernán Gómez de Guzmán , a lustful tyrantRodrigo Téllez Girón , youthful master of the Order of CalatravaLaurencia , a peasant woman desired by the commanderFrondoso , a peasant youth in love with LaurenciaEsteban , administrative officer of Fuenteovejuna and Laurencia’s fatherKing Ferdinand andQueen Isabella of Spain ,
The Story:
In the troubled Spain of the 1470’s, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella are trying to integrate their kingdom and preserve it from the depredations of Portugal, the grand mastership of the military and religious Order of Calatrava falls upon the shoulders of Rodrigo Téllez Girón, a young man scarcely out of boyhood. The new grand master’s adviser is the lustful, tyrannical Commander Fernán Gómez de Guzmán, who takes women whenever and wherever he sees them and keeps his peasants in constant fear of himself and of his soldiers. The commander is not loyal to Ferdinand and Isabella, and so he counsels the young grand master to capture the Ciudad Real and hold it for Portugal, which is claiming sections of Spain because the Portuguese queen is Spanish. The grand master takes the commander’s advice and captures the city.
When the commander returns to his lands, he continues his tyrannous ways with the peasants, especially the women. Among the unmarried peasants is a particularly pretty one named Laurencia, the daughter of Esteban, the administrative officer of the village. The commander sought her for more than a month, but she manages to elude his servants by staying in the fields as much as possible. Then the commander leaves to capture the city. He returns in triumph, and upon his arrival in the village of Fuenteovejuna he is praised and given two cartloads of foodstuffs as recognition of his military efforts. After receiving the gifts, he requests that the young women, including Laurencia, remain behind to amuse him. The women, however, refuse to stay. Ferdinand and Isabella, meanwhile, receive word of the treacherous action of the grand master of the Order of Calatrava and dispatch a force to retake Ciudad Real.
In Fuenteovejuna, Laurencia is wooed by a good-looking young peasant, Frondoso, but she refuses to accept him as her husband. One day, as she is working in the fields, the commander attempts to rape her. Frondoso, although a peasant, seizes the commander’s crossbow and threatens to kill the knight unless he lets Laurencia go. The commander, having no choice, lets the woman go free but swears vengeance. Frondoso flees with the crossbow.
The commander later goes to the village, confronts Laurencia’s father, and demands that he give up his daughter to him. Esteban refuses, and he and the other villagers leave the commander standing alone in the square. Some of the commander’s servants appear and report that they think they killed Frondoso. As it turns out, they cut the throat of the wrong man. As they speak, a messenger comes to inform the commander that the grand master was besieged by the forces of Ferdinand and Isabella. The commander decides to rush to the grand master’s aid.
As they ride away from the village, the commander and his servants try to force their attentions on several peasant women. The women flee until they reach one of the men of the village. When he tries to protect them, the commander has the man disarmed, bound to a tree, and flogged unmercifully with bridle reins. While that is done, the commander seizes one of the women, drags her into a thicket, and rapes her. The soldiers then proceed on their journey.
During the commander’s absence, his subject peasants relax a bit. In the quiet interval, arrangements are made for the wedding of Laurencia and Frondoso, the young peasant who has become dear to her after he saved her from the commander’s lust. On the day of the wedding, the commander returns and demands the woman for his own purposes. When her father again refuses, the commander has him beaten, and the wedding is broken up by the soldiers. Frondoso is imprisoned to await hanging; Laurencia is taken to the commander’s citadel.
The next day, the town board assembles in the village hall to discuss what might be done to prevent further acts of violence by their wicked master. While they debate, Laurencia, who has escaped from the citadel, runs into the hall, where she rouses the men and women of the village to open revolt against the commander who treats them so brutally and ruthlessly. The people, spurred to action by their anger, storm the citadel. Once inside, they kill many of the soldiers and finally find the commander. They put him to death and return to the village with his head held high upon the point of a spear. Their plan is to leave the head in the village square as a symbol of the tyranny they broke. Not really rebels, the villagers hasten to raise the escutcheon of Ferdinand and Isabella in place of the commander’s. Their plan is to place themselves at the mercy of the king and queen.
One of the commander’s servants escapes and carries news of the uprising to the king and queen. The king, anxious to prevent revolt from spreading throughout Spain, dispatches soldiers and a judge to the village of Fuenteovejuna to investigate. When word arrives at the village that a judge is coming, the villagers meet and decide to stick together, even to hiding the murderers of the commander and his men. It is agreed that the entire village did the deed and that they will hang together, if need be.
The judge has the soldiers bring in villagers for questioning. When the villagers refuse to tell who were the leaders of the revolt or who actually killed the commander, the judge has them tortured. More than three hundred of the villagers are tortured, including small children, but not one breaks his or her vow to claim that the whole town is responsible for the deeds.
At last, the judge and the soldiers return to the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, where the judge reports that he made no decision, for in order to punish justly he would have to wipe out the entire village. He also reports to the king and queen the cruelties of which the commander was guilty. Villagers he brought with him to court plead with the king and the queen, pointing out that they did not rebel against the crown; they were forced to rid themselves of a tyrannous lord who threatened their lives and honor. The king, after hearing their stories, pardons the entire village of Fuenteovejuna and makes it a protectorate of the crown.
Bibliography
Cañadas, Ivan. Public Theater in Golden Age Madrid and Tudor-Stuart London: Class, Gender. and Festive Community. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2005. Compares English Tudor and Spanish Golden Age drama, focusing on theatrical conventions, social significance of the plays, and reception of audiences in London and Madrid. Part 5 is devoted to an examination of “Class, Gender, and Carnival: Communal Heroism in Fuente Ovejuna.”
Crow, John A. Spain: The Root and the Flower. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Chapters 6 through 9 contain a readable account of the history of Spain during the epoch of Vega Carpio.
Larson, Donald R. The Honor Plays of Lope de Vega. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977. Treats the concept of honor in Vega Carpio’s comedias. Contains an informative section pertaining to The Sheep Well in the chapter titled “Plays of the Middle Period.”
Northup, George Tyler. An Introduction to Spanish Literature. 3d rev. ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. A helpful presentation of the Spanish comedia. Includes a chapter devoted to Vega Carpio and his dramatic school.
Pring-Mill, R. D. F. “Sententiousness in Fuenteovejuna (Sheep Well).” Tulane Drama Review 7 (1962): 5-37. Relates the importance of maxims in The Sheep Well. The conclusions concerning the abundance of aphorisms in The Sheep Well can be applied to various comedias of the era.
Samson, Alexander, and Jonathan Thacker, eds. A Companion to Lope de Vega. Rochester, N.Y.: Tamesis, 2008. Twenty-one essays provide various interpretations of Vega Carpio’s life and work. Includes discussions of Vega Carpio and the theater of Madrid, his religious drama, his chronicle memory plays, his comedies, and Vega Carpio as icon.
Wright, Elizabeth R. Pilgrimage to Patronage: Lope de Vega and the Court of Philip III, 1598-1621. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 2001. Chronicles how Vega Carpio used his publications and public appearances to win benefactors at the court of Philip III. Describes how his search for patrons shaped his literary work, and how the success of his plays altered the court’s system of artistic patronage.