Harlan: Moreto’s “El desden” 
101 
pretense, on the basis that scorn or attraction are matters of 
the imagination, founded on no real reasons. This play has, 
then, more or less the same fundamental idea as El desden eon 
el desden, namely, that it is possible, by the proper piece of 
artifice, to make any lady love the one who loves her. The 
process, in both plays, includes the character of the gracioso, 
who suggests and helps to carry out the deception. Motril, as 
the counterpart of Polilla, has much the same philosophy as 
the latter and to a certain extent the same ideas as to a rem- 
edy for the situation. He says : 
6 Que hay hombre que desespere 
De mal que en mujer consista? (Act I, scene 1.) 
In his promise to overcome the difficulties, in the same act 
and scene, he says : 
Si amor es enfermedad, 
6 No ha de tener medicina? 
He promises to effect a cure by resort to the botica, which 
is along the same line as Polilla works. Motril, in the ninth 
scene of the second act, expresses his satisfaction with the way 
things are going, suggesting that his “prescription” is worth 
“un millon de oro”, and further reminds one of Polilla when 
he says : 
I Que brava ha sido la purga ! 
However, the main importance of Motril is to “urdir” for 
his masters, which he does in no such subtle way as Polilla 
“worms”, unostentatiously, into the heart of Diana. 
It is impossible to say whether Yo por vos, y vos por otro 
preceded El desden con el desden, or followed it. Since the 
play did not appear in printed form until 1676, whereas El 
desden con el desden was printed in 1654, it is possible to agree 
with Gassier (cf. note 180) that it followed the latter play, 
but lacking any other definite information regarding it, there 
is no way of deciding the question. In any case, there is less 
in common between these two plays of Moreto’s than between 
El poder de la amistad and El desden con el desden, and the 
most that can be said is to agree with Fernandez-Guerra y 
Orbe, when he points out “la predileccion que tuvo (Moreto) 
por este asunto” (cf. note 179), which naturally leads to the 
other suggestion made in the same connection, that the 
“asunto” may be considered as Moreto’s own, possibly growing 
out of some experience of his life. 
