Harlan: Moreto’s “El desden” 
95 
head. Margarita sends Luciano for Alejandro, who still pre- 
tends his love for Matilde. She, finding Margarita weeping 
and hearing a full confession of her love for Alejandro, tells 
the latter, who is for showing less rigor, but is prevented from 
doing so by Moclln. Margarita then sings a song which is 
scorned by Alejandro. In the confusion of the crowd, the 
report comes that Tebandro has been defeated, and Margarita 
takes the opportunity to get even with Alejandro for his scorn 
of her by saying that she showed him favor only to save her 
father, and now that it is not necessary, she continues her 
scorn of him. Luciano announces that the report was false, 
and Tebandro appears, saying that he has accomplished for 
his friend Alejandro what he had said he would “para que el 
poder de la amistad se vea”. The king begs Alejandro’s 
pardon and says that if he still had a crown, he would offer it 
to him with his daughter. Alejandro says that the crown 
must be for one who deserves it and Margarita, and the lat- 
ter confesses that she loves him, which is all Alejandro wants 
to hear. The play ends with three weddings to take place: 
those of Margarita and Alejandro, Matilde and Luciano, and 
Moclin and Irene. 
Since, as Schaeffer suggests, there is no outward evidence 
to prove that El poder de la amistad preceded El desden con 
el desden, both being first printed in 1654, and the date of 
completion of the former being 1652, with but a possibility 
that El desden con el desden followed it, any definite opinion 
must be based on internal evidence. To begin with, the pur- 
pose of El poder de la amistad is not the same as that in El 
desden con el desden. In the former, the main idea is to show, 
as the title indicates, the value and power of real friendship. 
The task undertaken in this test brings up the situation which 
is in common between the two plays, but wdiich is the main 
point in the latter play, namely, the overcoming of a woman’s 
disdain by pretending a disdain greater than hers. Speaking 
in general, then, it would seem that El desden con el desden, 
which specializes on one situation found in the other play and 
works out to such an extent as we find in this masterpiece, 
a psychological evolution, as a logically motivated unit with 
no distracting situations, may be assumed to have followed 
El poder de la amistad, just as Fernandez-Guerra y Orbe as- 
sumes. The basis of comparison of the two plays must be 
