FRANCO
Tengo los ojos,
Y los juego en lo mismo; que descreo
De quien los hizo para tal empleo.
As this play influenced Espronceda, it is well to give a synopsis of it. Like the "Rufián dichoso" of Cervantes, the "San Franco de Sena" deals with the sinful life and conversion of one who was destined to be a saint. Franco of Siena, a youth noted for his wild conduct, falls in love with the inappropriately named Lucrecia. He kills her lover Aurelio in a duel, and, passing himself off for Aurelio, elopes with her and gets possession of her jewels. A cross with a lighted lamp before it is placed on a wall to mark the spot where Aurelio fell. One night, as he is passing, Franco sacrilegiously attempts to extinguish the light. A hand issues from the wall and seizes him by the wrist. Words of warning accompany this action. Franco shows neither fear nor compunction. He kills all the officers of justice who try to arrest him. Again passing the wall, he hears a ghostly voice urge him to try his hand at play, for by losing he will win. Franco hopes to win in a material way, and decides to follow this advice. He loses all and then stakes his eyes, making the blasphemous remark quoted above. He loses and is stricken blind. His conversion follows immediately. In the weak third act he becomes a Carmelite monk, and his companions in sin experience a like change of heart.
The legend of the saint of Siena has many points of similarity with the legends of Don Juan Tenorio, Don Miguel de Mañara, and Lisardo the Student; but Espronceda has been only slightly influenced by Moreto's play. If he gained from it, rather than from Dumas or Mérimée, the idea of his gambling scene, he does not follow his model closely. In each case a chain is played for, but in Moreto the game is pintas, not parar or dice, and the other details are different. Moreto (1618-1659) was one of the most graceful but least original of the dramatists of the classic period.
[438. ]The game of parar, carteta, or andaboba, as it was variously called, was played as follows: The dealer, who also serves as banker, places two cards face up at his left. The third card he places in front of himself. The fourth card, called the réjouissance card in the French form of the game, he places in the middle of the table. The players stake on this card whatever bets they desire to make, and these the banker is obliged to cover. He then deals a fifth. If this matches his own card, he wins all the money staked. If, on the contrary, it matches the réjouissance card, those who have staked money upon it win from the bank. If it matches neither, it is laid face up on the table, and money may be staked upon it precisely as upon the réjouissance card. So with all successive cards. The deal ends as soon as the banker's card is matched. He then surrenders the bank to the winner, unless the two cards laid to his left are matched before the third card dealt, his own, is duplicated. In this latter case he is privileged to keep the bank for another deal. This game, by reason of its swift action and the large number of players who could engage in it, was called el juego alegre. As results depended upon the turn of a single card, it lent itself readily to cheating. It is mentioned in a pragmática of Philip II, 1575, among a list of games to be prohibited. The modern games of monte and baccarat have points of similarity. In France and England the game is known as lansquenet, and is supposed to have been invented by the German Landsknechte, mercenary foot-soldiers of the sixteenth century. For further information see Hazañas y la Rúa, "Los Rufianes de Cervantes," Sevilla, 1906, p. 44, and Monreal, "Cuadros Antiguos," Sevilla, 1906, p. 342. For a similar gambling scene see Tirso de Molina, "Tanto es lo de más como lo de menos," Act II, sc. vii.
[455. ]El Caballo: to understand what follows some knowledge of Spanish playing-cards is necessary. In Spain the baraja, or deck, consists, according to the game played, of 48 or 40 cards (cartas, naipes, cartones), and not of 52 as with us. The ten spot is unknown, and when the deck consists of but 40 the eight and nine spots are also wanting. The palos, or suits, are four: oros (gold coins, corresponding to our diamonds), copas (cups, corresponding to our hearts), espadas (swords, corresponding to our spades), and bastones (clubs). These figures are not conventionalized. The face cards are three: el rey (the king), el caballo (representing a mounted cavalryman, and corresponding in value to our queen), and la sota (a standing infantryman, sometimes called also el infante, and corresponding in value to our knave). These figures are unreversible. The First Gambler is dealer and banker, as is shown by the fact that he covers the bets (line 466). He is losing in spite of the fact that the banker had an advantage. The caballo is clearly the card that has turned up in front of the dealer. The turning up of a second caballo would end the deal.
[457. ]Pues por poco, etc.: the Second Gambler is mocking the First. "You want the caballo, and the sota, the card next under it in the suit, has turned up. This is so close that you should be satisfied." All this is implied in his remark.
[459. ]The Second Gambler strikes an irreligious note by pretending to believe that the First Gambler's oath is a pious remark. He suggests that prayer and repentance should be deferred until one is dying. Gentlemen of equal rank formerly addressed each other in the second person plural.