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Titles

English title: The Himenea
Notable variations on Spanish title: Comedia Ymenea
Date written: 1516
First publication date: 1517
Keywords: morality > honour, identity > class/social standing, family > brothers/sisters, family > marriage, ideology > morality, family > patriarchy, love > desire
Genre and type: comedy

Pitch

This early Celestina-inspired play is perhaps Spain’s first comedia de honor, or honour drama. When a honour-obsessed Marquis finds his sister has endangered his reputation, he threatens to kill her on the spot. Her lover saves the day by proposing an advantageous marriage, for he is of noble birth.

Synopsis

The five acts of the play are preceded by an introductory monologue given by a servant which, after a humourous description of the trials of his domestic situation,with his rowdy children and drunk wife, and a warning of how awful marriage can be after the ‘summer’ of newlywed bliss, describes the main plot: Himeneo is in love with Phebea, and frequents the street beneath her balcony, much to the irritation of Phebea’s brother, the self-righteous Marquis, who is concerned about the effect an affair would have upon his family honour. When the Marquis threatens to kill his sister, believing he has caught her in a compromising position, she defends her honour, claiming she is innocent of any wrongdoing apart from being in love. Himeneo reappears just in time, and when he proposes marriage to Phebea, not forgetting to mention his own good social standing and high rank, the Marquis agrees to the match and the play ends with a song praising the victory of love.

Sources

Heavily influenced by the dialogic novel, La Celestina, attributed to Fernando de Rojas.

Critical response

Comedia Himenea is thought by some critics to be Torres Naharro’s best work (McKendrick 1989: 31). It is one of the first, if not the first, plays to employ the theme of ‘honour-vengeance’ as its key plot device. McKendrick also notes that this play is responsible for introducing the authority figure of the female protagonist’s household as an obstacle to be overcome in love; brothers, husbands and fathers will obstruct marriages of many would-be lovers in the comedia, eventually giving in or finding a solution to allow the couple to marry that protects the authority figure’s sense of honour. She calls the plot of this play ‘sketchy’, and compared to many later plays it is perhaps overly simplified, but the simplicity of this play is also one of its strengths in the clear motivations and actions of these early pre-comedia characters.

• McKendrick, Melveena. 1989. ‘Bartolomé de Torres Naharro (1485?-c. 1520)’. In Theatre in Spain 1490-1700, pp. 27-35. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Further information

No translations have been found so far in English, but there is a published French translation:

Angliviel de la Beaumelle, Victor Laurent S.M. trans. 1823. Yménée, comédie, par Bartolome Torres Naharro, pp. 1-60. Chefs-d'œuvre des théâtres étrangers 24. Paris, Chez Ladvocat, Libraire [French translation with introduction and notes]

• Angliviel de la Beaumelle, Victor Laurent S.M. trans. 1823. Yménée, comédie, par Bartolome Torres Naharro, pp. 1-60. Chefs-d'œuvre des théâtres étrangers 24. Paris, Chez Ladvocat, Libraire (in French)

Editions

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1838. Comedia Himenea, pp. 142-54. In Orígenes del teatro español: seguidos de una colección escogida de piezas dramáticas anteriores á Lope de Vega, ed. Leandro Fernández de Moratín. Appendix by E. de Ochoa. Colección de los mejores autores españoles 10. Paris, Baudry

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1936 [1517]. Propaladia. Facsimile edition of the 1517 publication. Madrid, Real Academia Española

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1943-1961. Propalladia and Other Works of Bartolomé de Torres Naharro, ed. J. E. Gillet, 4 vols. Bryn Mawr, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania (Himenea is in vol. 2 (1946) pp. 269-321

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1961. Himenea, ed. Annamaria Gallina. Milan, Istituto editoriale Cisalpino

   

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1965. Tres comedias: Soldadesca, Ymenea, Aquilana, ed. and introd. Humberto López Morales. New York, Las Américas

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1970. Teatro selecto de Torres Naharro: Comedia Soldadesca, Comedia Ymenea, Comedia Jacinta, Comedia Calamita, Comedia Aquilana, ed. and introd. Humberto López Morales. Madrid, Escelicer

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1971. Comedia Ymena. In El teatro anterior a Lope de Vega, eds. Everett W. Hesse and Juan O. Valencia, pp. 208-65. Madrid, Alcalá

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1973. Comedias: Soldadesca, Tinelaria, Himenea, ed. D. W. McPheeters. Madrid, Castalia

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1986. Comedias: Soldadesca, Ymenea y Aquilana, ed. and introd. Humberto López Morales. Temas de España 171. Madrid, Taurus

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1992. Comedia himenea. In Antología de teatro del siglo XVI, ed. Federico Carlos Sáinz de Robles,pp. 23-72. Grandes maestros de la literatura española. Madrid, Club Internacional del Libro

• Torres Naharro, Bartolomé de. 1998. Comedia himenea. In Antología del teatro español del siglo XVI: del palacio al corral, ed. Alfredo Hermenegildo. Clásicos de Biblioteca Nueva 7. Madrid, Biblioteca Nueva

Useful readings and websites

• Gillet, Joseph E. 1930. ‘Torres Naharro and the Spanish Drama of the Sixteenth Century’. In Estudios eruditos en memoriam de Adolfo Bonilla y San Martín 2, pp. 437-68. Madrid, Imprenta Viuda e hijos de J. Ratés, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras

• Gillet, Joseph E. 1937. ‘Torres Naharro and the Spanish Drama of the Sixteenth Century: II’, Hispanic Review, 5.3, 193-207

• Lihani, John. 1979. Bartolomé de Torres Naharro. World Authors Series 522. Boston, Twayne

• Lihani, John. 1979. ‘Play-Audience Relationship in Bartolomé de Torres Naharro’, Bulletin of the Comediantes, 31,  95-102

• Malinak, Edward Michael. 1991. ‘Torres Naharro’s Innovative Dramaturgic Contributions to the Spanish Theater’, pp. 140-8. In Estudios alfonsinos y otros escritos en homenaje a John Esten Keller y a Anibal A. Biglieri, ed. N. Toscano. New York, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Hispanic Foundation for the Humanities

• McKendrick, Melveena. 1989. ‘Bartolomé de Torres Naharro (1485?-c. 1520)’. In Theatre in Spain 1490-1700, pp. 27-35. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

• Surtz, Ronald E. 1979. The Birth of a Theater. Madrid, Castalia

• Thacker, Jonathan. 2007. ‘The Emergence of the Comedia nueva’. In A Companion to Golden Age Theatre, pp. 1-22. Woodbridge, Tamesis

  For Juan del Encina see p. 3-8, for Gil Vicente see p. 9-11. For La Numancia see pp. 20-1

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Entry written by Kathleen Jeffs. Last updated on 4 October 2010.

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