La moza de cántaro

POR
EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
MADISON STATHERS
( Docteur de l'Université de Grenoble ) Professor of Romance Languages in West Virginia University
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1913
The vast number of the works of Lope de Vega renders the task of selecting one of them as an appropriate text for publication very difficult, and it is only after having examined a large number of the works of the great poet that the editor has chosen La Moza de Cántaro , not only because it is one of the author's most interesting comedies, but also because it stands forth prominently in the field in which he is preëminent—the interpretation of Spanish life and character. It too is one of the few plays of the poet which have continued down to recent times in the favor of the Spanish theater-going public,—perhaps in the end the most trustworthy critic. Written in Lope's more mature years, at the time of his greatest activity, and probably corrected or rewritten seven years later, this play contains few of the inaccuracies and obscure passages so common to many of his works, reveals to us much of interest in Spanish daily life and in a way reflects the condition of the Spanish capital during the reign of Philip IV, which certainly was one of the most brilliant in the history of the kingdom.
The text has been taken completely, without any omissions or modifications, from the Hartzenbusch collection of Comedias Escogidas de Lope de Vega published in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles and, where it varies from other texts with which it has been compared, the variation is noted. The accentuation has been changed freely to conform with present usage, translations have been suggested for passages of more than ordinary difficulty and full notes given on proper names and on passages that suggest historical or other connection. Literary comparisons have been made occasionally and modern forms or equivalents for archaic words and expressions have been given, but usually these have been limited to words not found in the better class of dictionaries commonly used in the study of such works.