CALDERON'S REBEL SOLDIER AND POETIC JUSTICE

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Notes

¹The conditions for a just rebellion are fulfilled in Fuenteovejuna. (1) The Comendador is a tyrant, and the decision to rebel is made (2) by the whole commune, (3) meeting in concejo. None-the-less it is clear that Lope would have made King Ferdinand punish the offence if it had been possible to pin the guilt on any particular individuals. At the end the act is not condoned; it is pardoned under necessity: ‘Pues no puede averiguarse/el suceso por escrito,/aunque fue grave el delito,/por fuerza ha de perdonarse’. For the ethics of revolution and tyrannicide, see Bernice Hamilton, Political Thought in Sixteenth-Century Spain: A Study of the Political Ideas of Vitoria, De Soto, Suárez and Molina (Oxford 1963), 61–64.

¹ Obras completas, ed. Ángel Valbuena Briones (4th ed., Madrid 1959), 1, 1055 a. (I revert to Vera Tassis in making two alterations to the text and punctuation of this passage.) The incident of the soldier is on 1062 a and 1074 a.