Harlan: Moreto’s (( El desden” 
61 
CHAPTER XIV 
PARA VENCER A AMOR, QUERER VENCERLE, Pedro 
Calderon de la Barca 
A play of Pedro Calderon de la Barca (1600-1681) , 141 Para 
veneer a amor, querer vencerle, is mentioned by Alonso 
Cortes, 142 tho rejected as a model for El desden con el desden, 
and also by Klein, 143 who includes the play among those of 
“ahnlichem Motiv” as the Moreto play. 
Para veneer a amor, querer vencerle is found in the Teatro 
poetico de 12 comedias nuevas de los me j ores ingenios de 
Espana, septima parte, Madrid, 1654. It is also in the Sexta 
parte de comedias del celebre poeta espanol don Pedro Calderon 
de la Barca, Madrid, 1682. 144 
The play 145 opens with Cesar Colona very happy because his 
cousin, Margarita, has finally accepted his suit. He sends his 
friend, Carlos Esforcia, to arrange for a public festival and 
sends servants out to buy presents. Before they return, how- 
ever, Margarita has told him that she likes him as a relative, 
but not in the way she should her husband, and appealing to 
his “nobleza”, “valor 57 , and “entendimiento”, asks to be re- 
leased and also requests that her father Ludovico not know 
that she is the one who is breaking the engagement. He ac- 
quiesces and leaves, with Celio, his servant, and Espolin, the 
gracioso, to go to war against the Protestants, with the Em- 
peror Federico III, in the hope that he will soon be killed. 
Matilde, a noblewoman whose father, Baron de Momblanc, 
died in prison for his sympathies with the emperor, has pre- 
tended not to share those sympathies, but now that the em- 
peror’s army is there, she seeks the latter out and tells him 
how he can take the city. As she leads the men, her horse is 
killed and Cesar saves her, carrying her to safety. The em- 
peror, in recognition of this, wants to thank Cesar, and just 
as he is pointed out by Matilde, he is seen to fall, wounded. 
141 Fitzmaurice-Kelly, op. cit., p. 265. 
142 op. cit., p. 21. 
143 op. cit., Vol. XI, part I, p. 412. 
144 Barrera, op. cit., pp. 689, 52. 
143 Based on the text of the Biblioteca de autores espanoles, Hartzenbusch, Madrid, 
1863, Vol. XII, tomo 3, pp. 165-185. 
