Untrammeled by the unities or other dramatic conventionalities, Lope was able in this drama, as in his others, to permit the action to develop naturally and simply with the various vicissitudes attendant upon every-day life and yet to weave the intricate threads of intrigue into a complex maze perfect in detail. The leading character is introduced in the first scene, which is followed by the long exposition of attendant circumstances that could be as well narrated as produced upon the stage. Thus delay and harrowing detail are avoided. The introduction of the tragic element into the play early in the first act has a tendency to soften its effect, especially as it has little relation to the subsequent action. However, the mere introduction of it in the play would probably, in the early French theater, class the drama as a tragi-comedy. And Alexandre Hardy, the French playwright and contemporary of Lope de Vega, who borrowed largely from the latter both in method and detail, so styled many of his works. The scene, opening in historic Ronda in the midst of the places made famous by the mighty family of the Guzmáns, then moving north to an obscure town in the Sierra-Morena, little known to the cultured atmosphere in which the play was to be represented, and finally centering in the capital and developing under the very eye of the audience, as it were, just as so many tragedies and comedies, less important perhaps but no less interesting, unfold in daily life about us, gives the play a broader interest than it would have and doubtless contributed powerfully to its success. The introduction of the secondary plot, affording the excuse for the prominent place given to the gracioso, is a device which Lope, like his great English contemporary, often uses as in this case with good effect. The disguising of a lady of the highest nobility and making her play so well the part of the lowly water-maid furnish the key to the intrigue and would not detract from the play in the eyes of the contemporary, following upon the reign of the pastoral and according as it did with the tastes of the times.[13]

Unlike Shakespeare, whose rare good fortune it was to establish a language as well as found a national drama, Lope de Vega took up a language which had been in use and which had served as a medium of literary expression many centuries before he was born, and with it established the Spanish drama. Here again Lope conformed to common usage. He knew of the elegant conceits of linguistic expression and used them sparingly in his plays, but usually his language was, like the ideas which he expressed, the speech of the public which he sought to please, not slighting the grandiloquent phraseology to which the Spanish language is so well adapted. We find a good example of these different elements in La Moza de Cántaro in the three sonnets of Act II, Scene III, of which the first is in the sonorous, high-sounding, oratorical style, the second, in the elegant conceits so common in Italian literature of the period, and the third in the language of every-day life. Each is well suited to the occasion and to the rôle of the speaker. Seldom in any of his works, and never in La Moza de Cántaro, does Lope descend to dialect or to slang, but rather in the pure Castilian of his time, preferably in the Castilian of the masses, he composes his rhythmic verses. Like some mountain stream his measures flow, sometimes in idle prattle over pebbly beds, soon to change into the majestic cascade, then to the whirling rapids, only to tarry soon in the quiet pool to muse in long soliloquy, to rush on again, sullen, quarrelsome, vehemently protesting in hoarse and discordant murmurings, then to roll out into the bright sunshine and there to sing in lyric accents of love and beauty. So the style like the action never settles in dull monotony, which, be it ever so beautiful, ends by wearying the audience. The great master put diversion into every thought and filled the listener with rapture by the versatility and beauty of his inimitable style.

One of the secrets of Lope's influence over his contemporaries is to be found in his versification. Ticknor says that no meter of which the language was susceptible escaped him. And in his dramatic composition we find as much variety in this respect as in any other. In el Arte nuevo de hacer Comedias, he says: "The versification should be carefully accommodated to the subject treated. The décimas are suited for complaints; the sonnet is fitting for those who are in expectation; the narrations require romances, although they shine most brilliantly in octaves; tercets are suitable for matters grave, and for love-scenes the redondilla is the fitting measure."[14] These various rimes, except the tercet, are found in La Moza de Cántaro, but in this rule, as in others which he prescribes, Lope does not follow his own precepts. The redondilla is far more common than any other, though the romance is frequently used. Most of the plays of Lope contain sonnets, and they vary in number from one to five or even seven: in the present instance we have the medium of three. The décima is used in four passages and the octava in two.[15] The widely varied scheme of versification is as follows:


ACT I
1-176Redondillas
177-260Romances.
261-296Redondillas.
297-372Romances.
373-704Redondillas.
705-744Décimas.
745-824Redondillas.
825-914Romances.

ACT II
915-1062Redondillas.
1063-1076Soneto.
1077-1088Redondillas.
1089-1102Soneto.
1103-1106Redondilla.
1107-1120Soneto.
1121-1236Redondillas.
1237-1280Décimas.
1281-1452Romances.
1453-1668Redondillas.
1669-1788Romances.
1789-1836Redondillas.

ACT III
1837-1896Redondillas.
1897-1984Octavas.
1985-2052Redondillas.
2053-2112Décimas.
2113-2226Romances.
2227-2374Redondillas.
2375-2422Octavas.
2423-2478Redondillas.
2479-2558Décimas.
2562-2693Romances.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Biblioteca de Autores Españoles desde la formación del lenguaje hasta nuestros días, 71 vols., Madrid, 1849-1880. The references to this extensive work are usually made by means of the titles of the separate volumes. Particularly is this true of the references to the dramas of Lope de Vega, which, under the title of Comedias Escogidas de Lope de Vega, include volumes 24, 34, 41, 52 of the work.

Obras Escogidas de Frey Lope Félix de Vega Carpio, con prólogo y notas por Elías Zerolo, Paris, 1886, Vol. III.

La Moza de Cántaro, Comedia en cinco actos por Lope Félix de Vega Carpio y refundida por Don Cándido María Trigueros, Valencia, 1803.

La Moza de Cántaro, Comedia en cinco actos por Lope Félix de Vega Carpio y refundida por Don Cándido María Trigueros, con anotaciones, Londres (about 1820).