Harlan: Moreto’s (( El desden” 
63 
her, as she has loved him ever since he saved her life. Dur- 
ing* all this time, Cesar has been most cool, even rude to 
Margarita. She stops him to tell him about three things: 
first, to congratulate him on the outcome of the lawsuit; sec- 
ond, on winning the German Princess of Sustamberg, which is 
a fictitious story made up by Espolin without telling his master 
about it, and which has to be admitted by him as untrue ; and 
third, to tell him that she is acting as intercessor to him for 
Matilde, whom he accepts, saying that Margarita makes a poor 
intercessor. This at first offends her and then causes her to 
plead with him. He quotes her words on a previous occasion 
to the effect that her arguments are good but that he can- 
not accept her, and then leaves her in spite of her telling him 
to wait. The emperor wants Cesar to marry Matilde so that 
she will have a state to take the place of the one lost to her, 
but Cesar puts him off. Ludovico and Cesar come near to 
drawing swords because the latter says that Margarita does 
not love him and therefore his former promise of marriage to 
her no longer holds. The emperor makes them stop by threat- 
ening to have them each put in a tower. Cesar defends him- 
self saying that it is not right to go to the woman who hates 
him when there is one who loves him. Margarita testifies that 
she has given him occasion to scorn her, and Matilde that she 
has given him reason to praise her. Then, both Cesar and 
Margarita testify to the fact that the best way to overcome 
love is to want to do so. The emperor is satisfied and Espolin 
ends the play. 
In this play, we have Cesar corresponding to Carlos in El 
desden con el desden; Margarita to Diana ; Matilde to Cintia ; 
Espolin to Polilla; and Ludovico, more or less, to the Count of 
Barcelona. The characters of the emperor, Carlos, and the 
Baron of Brisac have none to correspond to them in the Moreto 
play, as, in the latter play, we have Bearne and Fox with no 
counterparts in the Calderon play. 
Cesar takes on characteristics similar to Carlos only after 
he goes back to Ferrara, where, after declaring his love again 
to Margarita, from every standpoint trying to appeal to her, 
he, at first hesitatingly, takes the advice of the emperor to go 
on with the lawsuit, at the same time promising Margarita to 
try to forget her. He says to Espolin : 
