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Indiana University Studies 
CHAPTER XIII 
LA BOBA PARA LOS OTROS Y DISCRETA PARA SI, 
Lope de Vega 
La boha para los otros y discreta para si, another play by 
Lope de Vega, is found in the twenty-first Parte of his works, 
Madrid, 1635. 136 The date of the play is placed, tentatively, 
judging from the versification, between 1623-24. 137 
Schaeffer 138 does not include the play in the list of those he 
gives as having much in common with Moreto’s El desden con 
el desden, but he suggests, in discussing the Lope play, that: 
Die Ausbriiche ihrer — Diana’s — Eifersucht nach der Erzahlung 
Alexander’s errinern an diejenigen ihrer jiingeren Namensgenossin in 
Moreto’s El desden con el desden. 
The play 139 opens with Diana, come upon in the country by 
Fabio to tell her that her father, Otavio, Duke of Urbino, has 
died and left her as his heir instead of his niece, Teodora, who 
has always lived at his court and expected to be his heir. 
Diana, who has been brought up as a peasant by Alcino, has a 
feeling of belonging to a higher station in life than the one 
she knows. She is then prepared, when Camilo, one of 
Teodora’s suitors, who is interested in becoming the Duke of 
Urbino, comes to take her to court where the Senate will de- 
cide between her and Teodora. Julio, Teodora’s favored lover, 
and herself try to tell Diana to have nothing to do with men. 
Her attitude of being most ignorant and crude prevents them 
from being too jealous of her. She is advised by Fabio, whom 
she makes her secretary, that the only thing to do is to choose 
a husband. She sends him to find one, one whose appearance 
must please her and of whose fearlessness he is to be judge. 
He comes upon his old friend, Alejandro de Medici, brother 
of the Duke of Florence, tells him the whole story, and takes 
him to the palace in order that he and Diana may see each 
other. 
In the second act of the play, we find Diana and Alejandro 
136 Barrera, op. cit., p. 447. 
137 Buchanan, op. cit., p. 22. 
138 op. cit., Vol. I, p. 156. 
139 Based on the text of the Biblioteca de autores espanoles, Madrid, 1855, Vol. XXXIV, 
Tomo 2, pp. 523-540. 
