Scene I

CALISTO, who has met MELIBEA in her garden, where her falcon took refuge the day before
when it escaped from her, imagines in his dreams that he is in front of her beloved, making her
fall in love with her. Both young people are in the same garden where they met. MELIBEA is
standing; CALISTO, surrendered to his plants.

CALISTO.- In this I see, Melibea, the greatness of God.

MELIBEA.- In what Calisto?

CALISTO.- In giving power to nature that endowed you with such perfect beauty and in doing
me the favor of seeing you in such a convenient place to reveal my secret pain. I do not believe
that there is a greater reward for service, sacrifice, devotion and pious works than, for
achieving it, I have offered to God. Who in this life has seen a body as happy as mine is now?
The blessed saints, who delight in divine vision, do not enjoy what I enjoy in your compliance.
But in this we differ, unfortunately, that they do not fear losing their blessedness and I rejoice
suspiciously at the elusive torment that your absence will cause me.

MELIBEA.- Well, I have to give you an even greater award, if you persevere.

—8→

CALISTO.- Oh blessed ears of mine, that unworthily you have heard such a great word!

MELIBEA.- They will be unfortunate when you finish listening to me, because the pay will be as
fierce as your crazy daring deserves. The intent of your words, Calisto, has been that of a man
who intends to go out to lose himself in the virtue of a woman like me. Get out, get out of
there, clumsy, that my patience cannot tolerate that the attempt to reach in me the delight of
illicit love has risen to a human heart!

CALISTO.- I will go as the one whom adverse fortune torments with cruel hatred.
Scene II

Both figures disappear and, lying on his bed, CALISTO wakes up. He gets up and calls
SEMPRONIO, his servant.

CALISTO.- (Going from one side of the stage to the other.) Sempronio, Sempronio! Where is
this damn?

SEMPRONIO.- Here, sir, taking care of the horses.

CALISTO.- Where have you been?

SEMPRONIO.- The gyrfalcon fell and I came to straighten his perch.

CALISTO.- He opens the windows and fixes the bed! (Suddenly repenting.) Better, he closes the
windows again and lets the darkness accompany the sad and, the unfortunate, blindness. Oh
blessed death that, being desired, comes to the afflicted!

SEMPRONIO.- What thing?

—9→

CALISTO.- Get out of here! Don't talk to me, well, if not, maybe, before I die, I'll kill you.

SEMPRONIO.- I'll go, since you want to suffer alone.

CALISTO.- Go with the devil!

SEMPRONIO.- I don't think the one who stays with you will come with me. (He begins to walk
away, and as he does, he ponders and hesitates.) What has happened to this man? What do I
do now? If I go and leave him alone, he kills himself. If I go back in, he kills me. Better that he
die who is angry with life, than I, who take pleasure in it. I must take care of myself for my
Elicia, but if he kills himself without another witness, I will have to account for his life. Better,
he went in. No, it's better for him to vent a bit, because if he came in now, he could be
dangerous. Let's let him cry. If he kills himself, let him kill himself. Perhaps he can keep me
something with which he can shed bad hair, although it is bad to expect health in someone
else's death. On the other hand, the sages say that it is good for those who suffer to find
someone to unload their troubles on. I don't know what to do. I am perplexed. I will go in, I will
suffer him and I will console him, because, if it is possible to heal without art or gear, it must
be easier to heal by art.

CALISTO.- Sempronio!

SEMPRONIO.- (Going back in.) Sir?

CALISTO.- Give me the lute.

SEMPRONIO.- Here he is.

CALISTO.- What pain can equal mine?

SEMPRONIO.- (Strings the lute and comments.) The lute is out of tune.

—10→

CALISTO.- How can the intemperate person be tempered? How will he feel harmony who is so
discordant with himself? He sings and sings the saddest song you know.

SEMPRONIO.-

Mira Nero of Tarpeia

to Rome how it burned:

cries give children and old

and he didn't hurt at all.

CALISTO.- Greater is my fire and lesser the mercy of whom I know.

SEMPRONIO.- How can the fire that torments a living being be greater than the one that
burned such a city and so many multitudes of people?
CALISTO.- How? I'll tell you! The flame that lasts eighty years is greater than the one that
passes in one day and the one that kills the soul is greater than the one that burns a hundred
thousand bodies. Certainly, if purgatory is such, I would rather have my spirit go with those of
the animals than gain the glory of the saints by this means.

SEMPRONIO.- Aren't you a Christian?

CALISTO.- Me? Melibeo I am and Melibea I adore and in Melibea I believe and Melibea I love.

SEMPRONIO.- I know well which foot you limp on. I will heal you.

CALISTO.- You promise impossible things.

SEMPRONIO.- Rather, easy, that the beginning of health is knowing the ailment.

CALISTO.- What advice can govern what in itself has no order or advice?

—11→

SEMPRONIO.- (Laughing.) Ha, ha, ha! Is this the fire of Callisto? These, his sorrows? As if love
fired its shots against him alone! O sovereign God, how high are your mysteries!

CALISTO.- Sempronio!

SEMPRONIO.- Sir?

CALISTO.- Don't leave me. What do you think of my bad?

SEMPRONIO.- That you love Melibea.

CALISTO.- I love her, before whom I find myself so unworthy, that I do not hope to reach her.
SEMPRONIO.- How is she?

CALISTO.- Because you find pleasure in it, I have to imagine it in parts and in full. I start with
the hair. Do you know the skeins of thin gold that are spun in Arabia? They are more beautiful
and they do not shine less. Green, slanted eyes; the eyelashes, long; eyebrows thin and raised;
the mouth, small; teeth small and white; the lips, red and currant; the circle of her face, slightly
longer than round; the chest, high; the roundness and shape of her small tits, who could
imagine? That the man stretches when he looks at her. Her complexion, smooth, lustrous; her
skin darkens the snow. Her color is mixed, just as she chose it for herself. Her hands, small, are
accompanied by sweet meat. Her fingers are long; her nails, too, long and red, that look like
rubies among pearls.

SEMPRONIO.- Although all this is true, you, for being a man, are more worthy. She is imperfect
and, due to this defect, she desires you and —12 → she desires you and someone less than
you. Haven't you read the philosopher who says that "just as matter desires form, so does
woman desire man"?

CALISTO.- And when will I see that between me and Melibea?

SEMPRONIO.- I'll tell you. I have known for a long time in this neighborhood an old bearded
woman who calls herself Celestina, a sorceress, cunning, shrewd in all kinds of evil. I
understand that more than five thousand Virgos have been made and unmade by her
authority. She will soften her hard rocks and provoke lust if she wishes.

CALISTO.- Could I tell you about her?

SEMPRONIO.- I'll bring her here. Get ready. Be funny with her. Be frank. She studies from her
while I go how you have to tell her your sorrow so that she finds the remedy.

CALISTO.- Go now! Why are you late?

SEMPRONIO.- I'm coming. God be with you.

Scene III
SEMPRONIO leaves and goes to CELESTINA's house. They both talk in the dark.

SEMPRONIO.- Oh my mother! I want you to know about me what you have not heard, and that
is that I could never, after I put my faith in you, wish for any good of which you did not have a
part.

CELESTINA.- Abbreviate and go to the fact, that in vain is said with many words what can be
summarized in a few.

—13→

SEMPRONIO.- That's right. Calisto burns in love with Melibea. He needs you and me. For
together he has needed us, together we will take advantage, that knowing time and
opportunity makes men prosperous.

CELESTINA.- It's enough for me to move my eye. I say that I am glad of these new ones, like the
surgeons of the broken ones. And since those damage wounds in the beginning and make the
promise of health more expensive, that's how I understand what we can do with Calisto. I will
extend the certainty of the remedy to him, because, as they say, long hope afflicts the heart
and, when he loses it, then we will promise him. You understand me well!

SEMPRONIO.- Let's keep quiet, we're at the door and the walls are listening.

Scene IV

CALISTO and PÁRMENO, his servant, in the former's room. Sounds of someone knocking are
heard at the door.

CALISTO.- (Addressing his servant impatiently.) Open up now, damned deaf man! Runs!
(PARMENO exits and returns.)

PÁRMENO.- Sir, Sempronio and an old whore with dyed hair were the ones who called.

CALISTO.- Shut up, wicked, she's my aunt. Open him!

PÁRMENO.- Do you think the name by which I called her is insulting in her ears? Don't believe
it, he's as proud to be told as you are to be called clever gentleman. With that title she is —14
→ her named and known. If she goes among a hundred women and someone says "Old bitch!"
She unashamedly turns her head and smiles. If she walks past the dogs to "Old bitch!" her
barking sounds; if near the birds, they don't sing anything other than «Old bitch!». The herds
proclaim it, the beasts bray saying "Old bitch!" and the frogs in the puddles do not usually
mention anything else. If it goes among the blacksmiths, that is what their hammers say, and,
among the carpenters, gunsmiths, blacksmiths, boilermakers and archers, there is no
instrument that does not form its name in the air, that, if a stone bumps into another, you
immediately hear: "Old whore!" Oh what a great eater of roasted eggs her husband was!

CALISTO.- And how do you know? do you know her

PÁRMENO.- My mother gave me to her as a servant, although she doesn't know me because of
the short time I served her and because of what I've changed with her age.

CALISTO.- What use were you to her?

PARMENO.- Everything. I helped her in those chores for which my tender age was enough. The
old woman has six trades: seamstress, perfumer, master of shaving and mending virgos, pimp
and a bit of a sorceress. Under her first office the others are hidden. She is friends with
students and clerks, waiters and abbots. I have seen many undercover women enter their
house and, behind them, contrite men with unbuttoned breeches who went to mourn their
sins.

CALISTO.- Don't tell me more, that what matters now is my health. Open him! (PÁRMENO
opens the door and CELESTINA and SEMPRONIO enter.) I see her! I am healthy! I am alive!
What a reverend person! What compliance! O virtuous old age! Oh old virtue! I want —15→ to
kiss those hands full of medicine. (He gets up from the bed, he kneels before CELESTINA and
takes her hands to kiss them.)

CELESTINA.- God protect you, magnificent sir. I bring with me the medicine for your ills.

PÁRMENO.- Calisto has fallen. On land he is worshiping the oldest of whores, the one who
scrubbed her back in all the brothels. Undone it is. Defeated is. Fallen is.

Scene V

CELESTINA and PÁRMENO are alone in CALISTO's room.

PÁRMENO.- (Grumbling.) Skinny old whore!

CELESTINA.- (Confronting him.) Damn long live, scoundrel! How dare you?

PARMENO.- Because I know you.

CELESTINA.- Who are you?

PÁRMENO.- Alberto's son, your compadre. I was with you when you lived on the slope of the
river, next to the tanneries.

CELESTINA.- Are you Pármeno, Claudina's son?

PARMENO.- Yes!
CELESTINA.- Well, let the fire burn you, your mother was as old a whore as I was! Come closer
to me, come here, I gave you a thousand lashes in this world and many other kisses. Tell you,
son Pármeno, that your master —16→ seems to expect me from everyone without anything in
return. Now is the case that we all benefit and that you remedy yourself. You will benefit a lot
from being Sempronio's friend.

PÁRMENO.- I tremble listening to you. I have you for a mother, but, on the other hand, Calisto
is my master. I want riches, but I would not want ill-earned goods.

CELESTINA.- Well, I do. "One-eyed or right, our house to the roof."

PÁRMENO.- Well, I wouldn't live happily that way, and I consider happy poverty to be an
honest thing.

CELESTINA.- Well they say that there can only be prudence in old people, and you're still a
young man. Look at Sempronio. If you agree, both of you will be able to get a lot of profit and
pleasure, since you are at the age of playing, dressing, teasing, eating, drinking and doing love
business. Sempronio loves Elicia, Areúsa's cousin.

PÁRMENO.- Of Areúsa, the daughter of Eliso?

CELESTINA.- Areúsa herself.

PÁRMENO.- (Emphatic and enraptured.) It is a wonderful thing.

CELESTINA.- Well, if you want happiness, here is someone who can give it to you.

PÁRMENO.- I believe you, but I don't dare. Forgive me, mother. Peace must not be denied,
how blessed are the peaceful. Love should not be shunned. Forgive me. Tell me. Give me your
advice. Command, that at your command my consent is humbled.

—17→

CELESTINA.- Of men it is to err and of beasts, to persist. I'm glad, Pármeno, that you've finally
cleaned the murky cloth from your eyes. You look like your father. Sometimes, like you, he
defended hard purposes, but then he came back to the truth. Oh what a person! What a
venerable face! I seem to be seeing it. But let's keep quiet, Calisto and your new friend
Sempronio are coming.

(Enter CALISTO and SEMPRONIO.)

CALISTO.- I had doubts, mother, about finding you alive, because my misfortunes are so great.
Even more wonderful is that he arrives, as he did, alive. Receive the poor gift of the one that
life offers you with it. (Hand him a leather bag of coins.)

CELESTINA.- As in fine gold, wrought by the subtle hand of the craftsman, the work exceeds
the material from which it is made, so, sir, your magnificent reward is outdone by the grace
and form of your sweet liberality.

PÁRMENO.- (TO SEMPRONIO, in confidence.) What has he given you, Sempronio?

SEMPRONIO.- One hundred gold coins.

PÁRMENO.- (Containing laughter.) Hee, hee, hee!

SEMPRONIO.- Did the mother talk to you?

PÁRMENO.- Shut up, yes.

SEMPRONIO.- And how are we?

PÁRMENO.- As you wish, although I confess I'm scared.

—18→

SEMPRONIO.- Well, I'll make you twice as scared.

CALISTO.- Go now, mother, and comfort your house. And then come and comfort mine. Do it
soon.

CELESTINA.- May God be with you.

CALISTO.- And may he protect you.

Scene VI

CELESTINA alone in her house.

CELESTINA.- Conjúrote, sad Pluto, lord of the infernal depth, emperor of the damaged court,
superb captain of the damned angels, lord of the sulphurous fires that the boiling, ethnic
mountains flow, governor and overseer of the torments and the tormentors of the sinful souls,
ruler of the three furies, Tesífone, Megera and Aleto, administrator of all the black things of
the kingdom, of Estigie and Dite, with all their gaps and infernal shadows and litigious chaos,
maintainer of the flying harpies, with all the another company of frightening and terrifying
hydras. I, Celestina, your best-known client, conjure you by the virtue and strength of these
vermilion letters, by the blood of that nocturnal bird with which they are written, due to the
seriousness of those names and signs that are contained in this paper, due to the harsh poison
of the vipers with which this oil was made, with which I anoint this yarn; come without delay
to obey my will and get involved in it and stay with it without separating for a moment until
Melibea, with whatever opportunity there may be, buys it and with it gets so entangled that
the more I look at it, the more her heart softens to grant my request, and opens and hurts
from Calisto's raw and strong love, so much so that, losing all honesty, it reveals —19→ me
and rewards my steps and message; and this done, she asks and demands of me at your will. If
you don't do it quickly, you'll have me as an enemy capital; I will strike your sad and dark
prisons with light; I will cruelly accuse your continuous lies; I will press your horrible name with
my harsh words. And again and again I conjure you; And so, trusting in my great power, I go
with my yarn, where I already have you wrapped.
 —[20]→ —21→

UpDownAct II

Scene I

CELESTINA arrives at MELIBEA's house and knocks on the door. She opens the door for him,
LUCRECIA, a maid.

CELESTINA.- (Saluting.) Peace be in this house.

LUCRECIA.- Mother Celestina, you are welcome. What brings you to these neighborhoods?

CELESTINA.- Daughter, my love, the desire of all of you, to bring you parcels from Elicia and to
see your ladies, the old woman and the girl.

LUCRECIA.- Is that why you left your house? I am amazed that this is not your habit, nor do you
usually take a step that does not bring you profit.

CELESTINA.- Do you want more profit, stupid, than the one who fulfills my wishes? We old
women are never short of necessities, and since I have other people's daughters to support, I
come to sell a bit of yarn.

ALISA.- (From inside the house.) Who are you talking to, Lucrecia?

LUCRECIA.- With the old woman with the knife who lived next to the tanneries, the one who
perfumes you touch and makes solimanes and has about thirty —22→ other trades. She knows
a lot about herbs, heals children and some call her the old lapidary.

ALISA.- Tell me her name, if you know it.

LUCRECIA.- I'm ashamed.

ALISA.- Come on, fool, say it.

LUCRECIA.- Celestina, speaking with reverence, is her name.

ALISA.- I already remember her. Good piece! Something will come to ask me. Tell him to come
in.

CELESTINA.- (Entering.) Good lady, the grace of God be with you and with your noble daughter.
My ailments have prevented me from visiting your house, but God knows my clean entrails
and the affection I have for you. With adverse fortune, a shortage of money has befallen me
and, as I know of no better remedy than to sell a little yarn, I have approached your house
because I have heard from your maid that you have some need of it.

ALISA.- Honest neighbor, I thank you for what you said. If the yarn is good, you will be paid
well.

CELESTINA.- (Praising her spinning, she shows it.) White as a snowflake, all spun by these
thumbs. Here you see it in skeins. Yesterday they gave me three coins for the ounce.

ALISA.- (Addressing MELIBEA, who is by her side.) Daughter Melibea, let this honorable woman
stay with you, I am late to visit my sister and her page is coming to call me, because she has
had a hard time her illness. (To CELESTINA.) And you, mother, forgive me, we'll have the
chance to see each other more another day. (Exit ALISA.)

-23

CELESTINA.- May God forgive you, what good company I have left. God let her enjoy her noble
youth and her flowery youth, which is the time when greater pleasures and more pleasant
delights are achieved. (Complaining.) Old age is an inn of illnesses, an inn of thoughts, a friend
of quarrels, continual anguish, an incurable wound, a neighbor of death, a hut without
branches that drips everywhere, a wicker staff that bends with little load.

MELIBEA.- Well, if that's the case, you'll be very sorry for the age you lost. Would you want to
go back to the first?

CELESTINA.- Crazy is, madam, the walker who, angry with the day's work, wants to start the
day again to return to that place again.
MELIBEA.- Even to live longer it is good to wish what I say.

CELESTINA.- No one is so old that they can't live a year, nor so young that they can't die today.
So in this little advantage you take us.

MELIBEA.- You have me scared with what you say. Tell me, mother, are you Celestina, the one
who lived in the tanneries, fits the river?

CELESTINA.- Madam, as long as God wants.

MELIBEA.- I wouldn't have known you except by the look on your face. I remember you were
beautiful. You look like another You are very changed.

LUCRECIA.- (To herself.) Hee, hee, hee! She Beautiful she was she with that scar that crosses
her face!

CELESTINA.- I turned gray early and I look older than I am.

—24→

MELIBEA.- Celestina, friend, I have enjoyed your visit very much. Take your money and go to
God, it seems to me that you should not have eaten.

CELESTINA.- Oh angelic image! O precious pearl! I enjoy watching you speak. Don't you know
that for the divine mouth it was said "we will not live by bread alone"? It's not just eating that
keeps us going, especially for those of us, like me, who are used to negotiating other people's
parcels. If you give me permission, I will tell you the reason for my coming, which we would all
lose if I left without you knowing.

MELIBEA.- Say, mother, your needs, that, if I can remedy them, I will gladly do so.

CELESTINA.- Mine, madam? Before, outsiders, I pass mine inside my door, without the earth
feeling them, eating when I can and drinking when I have.

MELIBEA.- Ask for what you want, be it for whoever it is.

CELESTINA.- Graceful maiden of high lineage! Your soft speech, your cheerful gesture and the
liberality you show with this old woman give me enough audacity to tell you. I leave a sick
person at the gates of death who with a single word from your mouth has faith that he will
heal.

MELIBEA.- Honest old woman, I don't understand you, if you don't declare your demand. On
the one hand, you upset me and make me angry; on the other, you move me to compassion.
Blessed am I if there is a need for my word for the health of any Christian. So do not stop your
request out of embarrassment or fear.

CELESTINA.- I lost my fear looking, lady, at your beauty. You will have good news, madam, of a
young gentleman, gentleman of fair blood, who is called Calisto.

—25→

MELIBEA.- (Altered.) Now, now, now! Good old woman, tell me no more, don't go ahead. Is
this the mourner for whom you have come to seek health, you shameless bearded one?
Madness will be his evil. Burned you, pimp, false, sorceress, enemy of honesty! Jesus! Get her
out of my sight, Lucrecia, I'm dying! Do you think I don't understand your message? Answer
me, traitor, how did you dare so much?

CELESTINA.- (To herself.) I have tamed other braver ones. No storm lasts long.

MELIBEA.- What are you whispering, enemy? Do you have any excuse to satisfy my anger and
excuse your error and your audacity? What word could you want for such a man that would
not detract from my honor?

CELESTINA.- A prayer, madam, that they told him you knew about Santa Apolonia for
toothache. Likewise, your cord, which is famous for having touched all the relics in Rome and
Jerusalem.

MELIBEA.- Is that what you wanted? Why didn't you tell me right away? Why didn't you tell me
in those same words?

CELESTINA.- Because my clean reason made me believe, madam, that you shouldn't suspect
anything wrong. If the due preamble was missing, it was because the truth does not need to
abound in many colors.
MELIBEA.- Your false tricks have praised me so much, that I don't know whether to believe that
you ask me for a prayer. There were two things in your speech that were enough to get me out
of my head: name that gentleman who dared to speak with me and ask me to speak without
further cause. But, since everything comes from a good part, there is forgiveness for the past.
It is a pious and holy work to heal the passionate and the sick.

—26→

CELESTINA.- And so sick, madam!

MELIBEA.- How long has he been sick?

CELESTINA.- Eight days, madam.

MELIBEA.- How much my lack of patience weighs me down! In payment for your suffering, I
want to give you my cord later and, since there will be no time to write the prayer until my
mother comes, if this is not enough, come tomorrow for her very secretly.

LUCRECIA.- (To herself.) My mistress is lost! She wants Celestina to come secretly! There is
fraud: she must want more than she has said!

CELESTINA.- I'll leave, if you give me leave.

MELIBEA.- Go with God, neither your message has brought me any benefit, nor can any harm
come from your departure.

Scene II

CALISTO and PÁRMENO in the former's room. PARMENO looks out the window.

PARMENO.- Sir, sir!

CALISTO.- What do you want, crazy?

PÁRMENO.- I see Sempronio and Celestina coming. They stop from time to time and, when
they are stopped, they make scratches on the ground with their sword. I don't know what this
means.

—27→

CALISTO.- Look how negligent you are. Do you see them coming? So go downstairs and open
the door for them. (Exit PARMENO.) What news will they bring? Celestina brings in her mouth
the remedy or the sorrow of my heart. Oh, if in dreams he would spend this short time until he
saw the beginning and end of what he has to say to me! I am certain that it is more painful for
the delinquent to wait for the crude and capital sentence, than for the act of death itself.
Parmeno, dead man's hands, how slow you are! Now remove the annoying knocker and let
that honest lady enter whose language my life is now!

Scene III

Enter SEMPRONIO and CELESTINA, accompanied by PÁRMENO.

CELESTINA.- My lord Calisto, how are you? New lover of the very beautiful Melibea, and with
good reason! With what will you pay this old woman who today has put her life on the board
in your service?

PÁRMENO.- (TO SEMPRONIO.) Medrar wants the old woman. Pay attention, Sempronio, and
you'll see how she doesn't want to ask for money so she won't share it with us.

SEMPRONIO.- (TO PÁRMENO.) Shut up, desperate man, Calisto will kill you if he hears you.

CALISTO.- (TO PARMENO.) Abbreviate your reasons, mother, or take this sword and kill me.
CELESTINA.- Sword? Bad sword kill your enemies and those who want you badly! I want to give
you life with the good hope that I bring from the one you love the most.

CALISTO.- Tell me, for God's sake, lady, what was she doing? How did you get into her house?
What dress was she wearing? What face did he show you at first?

—28→

CELESTINA.- The one that the brave bulls usually show against those who shoot them with
sharp arrows in the bullring, the one that the wild boars put against the hounds that harass
them.

CALISTO.- And you call these signs of health? Well, what will be the mortal ones? If you don't
want, my queen and lady, that my soul be damned, briefly certify me if your glorious demand
had a good end or not.

CELESTINA.- All the rigor of Melibea I bring converted into honey, her anger in meekness, her
acceleration in calm. Well, what did you think old Celestina, whom you awarded so
magnificently, was going there, if not to soften her fury, to suffer her accident, to be a shield of
your absence, to receive in my mantle the blows, the deviations, the contempt and the disdain
shown by those in the beginning of their requests for love so that later their dedication is more
valued? You must know that everything was very good.

CALISTO.- How did you get into her house?

CELESTINA.- Selling yarn. So I have hunted more than thirty of her condition. When the sale
began, there was her mother to leave her, called by her sister, and she left Melibea in her
place to take care of the deal. Communicate to him, then, my embassy and how sorry you
were for a word from him that would alleviate such great pain. She remained suspended and
wondering who could be the one who so grieved for a word from her mouth. Hearing your
name, she gave herself a big slap on the forehead and ordered me to shut up, if I didn't want
to make her servants the executioners of my last days. She called me a sorceress, a pimp, an
old woman, a false one, a bearded one, a malefactor, and many other ignominious names with
whose titles they astonish the children of the cradle. Wounded by that golden arrow, which
from the sound of your name touched her, she writhed so much that it seemed that she tore
her hands to pieces, —29 → she looked everywhere with her eyes and kicked the hard ground.
I, to all this, cornered, shrunken and silent, but enjoying her ferocity, because I knew that the
more she freaked out, the closer she would be to surrendering. I told her that your pain was a
bad tooth and that the word I wanted from her was a prayer that she knew, very devout, for
your health.
CALISTO.- Oh marvelous cunning! O unique woman in her trade! (To her servants.) What do
you think, lads? Is there a woman like her in the whole world? (To CELESTINA.) What did you
answer to the request for prayer?

CELESTINA.- That she would pray it willingly.

CALISTO.- Willingly? Oh God, what a high gift!

CELESTINA.- Well, I asked for more.

CALISTO.- What, my honorable old lady?

CELESTINA.- A cord that she usually brings. I told him that it would be profitable for you, since
he has touched many relics.

CALISTO.- And what did she say?

CELESTINA.- Give me good luck! I'm gonna tell you.

CALISTO.- Oh, for God's sake, take this whole house and everything in it and tell me! Ask what
you want!

CELESTINA.- Mr. Calisto, you have been very generous with a skinny old woman like me, and in
return for such high liberality I restore your lost health, the heart that you lacked, the brain
that was disturbed. Melibea —30→ sorry for you more than you for her. Melibea loves you
and she wants to see you. Melibea thinks more hours about you than hers. Melibea is called
yours and this has the title of freedom and with this tames the fire, which burns her more than
you. She made the appointment at her house at the clock striking twelve. You will find her
between her gates.

CALISTO.- Guys, am I here? Guys, do I hear this? Is it day or is it night? Oh Lord God, Heavenly
Father, please let this not be a dream! God go with you, my mother. I want to sleep and rest
for a while to satisfy the past nights and fulfill the one to come.
Scene III

PÁRMENO and CELESTINA trying to get into Areúsa's room.

CELESTINA.- Go ahead. Do you see her door here? Let's go in quietly, don't let your neighbors
feel us.

AREÚSA.- Who is there?

CELESTINA.- (Entering stealthily.) Who doesn't want you bad, by the way. Who does not take a
step without thinking of your benefit. Who remembers you more than herself? A lover of
yours, although old.

AREÚSA.- The devil take this old woman who comes like a ghost at such an hour! Aunt, ma'am,
why are you coming so late? She was already undressing me to go to bed.

CELESTINA.- With the chickens, daughter? This is how you are going to make your farm!

AREÚSA.- I'm going to get dressed again, it's cold.

—31→

CELESTINA.- Don't do that. Get in bed and we'll talk. How cool are you! Blessed be you! What
sheets and what a quilt! What a pillow! What whiteness! Let me look at you at my will, which
pleases me.

AREÚSA.- Let's leave that, it's late, and tell me why you came.

CELESTINA .- Pármeno, who complains that you still don't want to see him. Love is never paid
but with pure love and works, with works. You already know the kinship that exists between
you and Elicia and that Sempronio has Elicia in my house. Pármeno and he are companions,
they serve that gentleman that you know and for whom you can have so much favor. Do not
deny what costs you so little to do. You, relatives; them, companions. See how it comes better
measured than what we want. Here it is with me. You say if you want me to enter.

AREÚSA.- And if he has heard us? I was always ashamed of him.

CELESTINA.- Here I am to take it from you.

PÁRMENO.- (Entering.) Madam, God save your graceful presence.

AREÚSA.- Gentleman, good be your coming.

CELESTINA.- Get over here, donkey. Where are you going to sit over there in the corner?

PÁRMENO.- (TO CELESTINA.) I'm dying of love at the sight of her. Offer him what my father left
me. Tell him I'll give him what I have. Come on, tell him, I think he doesn't want to look at me!

AREÚSA.- What is that man whispering in your ear? It won't be so impolite for him to enter the
off-limits without a license.

CELESTINA.- Are you in courtesies and licenses? I don't wait here anymore. —32 → Since he's a
slut, rooster, bearded man, I understand that in three nights his mohawk won't fall off. Of
these the doctors of my land ordered me to eat in my time, when I had better teeth.

AREÚSA.- Oh, my lord, be careful, out of courtesy, I'm not one of those who are willing to sell
their bodies for money.

CELESTINA.- What is this, Areúsa? What are these strangeness, these novelties?

AREÚSA.- Mother, if I made a mistake, forgive me and he can do what he wants, I want to keep
you happy more than me, and I'll break my eye rather than make you angry.

CELESTINA.- I'm not angry anymore. Stay with God, I'm leaving only because you give me set
teeth with your kissing and romping.
AREÚSA.- God go with you.

PÁRMENO.- Mother, do you order me to accompany you?

CELESTINA.- God be with you, I am old and I no longer fear being forced in the street.

Scene IV

SEMPRONIO and PÁRMENO arrive at CELESTINA's house. CELESTINA is sitting at a table. ELICIA
and AREÚSA are in another room.

CELESTINA.- Sit down, my children, there is plenty of room for everyone. Girls, come, there are
two men here who want to force me!

—33→

ELICIA.- (Angry.) My cousin has been here for three hours. This lazy Sempronio must have been
the cause of the delay, because he doesn't have eyes to see me.

SEMPRONIO.- Shut up, my lady, my life, my love, whoever serves another is not free. Let's sit
down to eat.

ELICIA.- (Still angry.) Yes! To sit down to eat, very diligent. A table set with your hands washed
and little shame.

SEMPRONIO.- Later we will fight. Let's eat now. Sit down, mother Celestina. Let's eat and talk,
that later there will be no time to understand the loves of our master and the graceful and
gentle Melibea.

ELICIA.- What you eat does not benefit you. How disgusting to hear you call that gentile! To
whom, gentle? Gentle, gentle is Melibea? That beauty for a coin is bought in the store. By the
way, I know in the street where she lives four maidens in whom God distributed more grace
than in Melibea. If there is something beautiful about it, it is because of the good clothes that
she wears. I'm not saying this to praise myself, but I think I'm more beautiful than your
Melibea. She (she gets up from the table.)

AREÚSA.- I don't know what Calisto has seen in him.

CELESTINA.- By my life, let those reasons of anger stop. And you, Elicia, sit down and eat.

ELICIA.- Would I have to eat with this villain who has insisted to my face that his Melibea rag is
more gentle than me?

SEMPRONIO.- Shut up, my life, you compared it. Any comparison is hateful. You are to blame
and not me.

—34→

AREÚSA.- Come, sister, eat. Don't please these crazy people.

ELICIA.- (TO SEMPRONIO.) You very much think that you have won over me! Well, I'll let you
know that you haven't turned your head when someone else I love the most is at home,
funnier than you, and that he's not out there looking for a way to get me angry.

CELESTINA.- (TO SEMPRONIO.) Son, let her say, she's delusional. The more of this you hear, the
more it is confirmed in your love. She is jealous, because you have praised Melibea. Enjoy your
fresh youth. God bless yourselves, how you laugh and enjoy it, slutty, crazy, naughty!

ELICIA.- Mother, there's a knock at the door.

CELESTINA.- Look, daughter, who is she?

ELICIA.- Either the voice deceives me or it's my cousin Lucrecia.

CELESTINA.- Open the door for him and let him come in.
(ELICIA gets up and goes back to LUCRECIA. ELICIA sits down at the table again.)

LUCRECIA.- Good service to you, aunt, and the company. God bless so many people and so
honored.

CELESTINA.- So much, daughter? How much do you have this one? It is clear that you did not
know me in my prosperity, twenty years ago now. I saw, my love, at this table, where your
cousins are now seated, nine girls from your days, that the oldest was not more than eighteen
years old and none was under fourteen.

—35→

LUCRECIA.- You had work, mother, with so many girls, that it is cattle very difficult to keep.

CELESTINA.- Daughter Lucrecia, tell me why you came.

LUCRECIA.- My coming, lady, is because of what you know: to ask for your girdle and,
furthermore, to tell you that my lady begs you to visit her and soon, because she feels very
tired of fainting and heartache.

CELESTINA.- Of those little pains, more is the noise than the nuts.

LUCRECIA.- Mother, let's go quickly and give me the cord.

CELESTINA.- (Getting up.) Come on, I'll take it!

Scene V

CALISTO, SEMPRONIO and PÁRMENO in the former's room. This one is lying on his bed. The
clock on the tower of a nearby church strikes ten o'clock.
CALISTO.- Guys, what time does the clock strike?

SEMPRONIO.- Ten.

CALISTO.- Oh, how dissatisfied I am by the oblivion of young men!

SEMPRONIO.- My master wants to fight and he doesn't know how.

PÁRMENO.- It would be better, sir, to spend this remaining hour preparing weapons than
looking for lawsuits.

—36→

CALISTO.- Pick up my armor, Pármeno, and arm yourselves and that way we'll be safe.

PÁRMENO.- Here they are, sir.

CALISTO.- Help me dress them. Look, Sempronio, if someone comes down the street.

SEMPRONIO.- No one appears, sir.

Scene VI

They leave the house and walk carefully down the street towards MELIBEA's house. They
approach the house.

SEMPRONIO.- (TO PARMENO.) Melibea must have left. Listen, they speak softly.
PÁRMENO.- I'm afraid it's not her, but someone who fakes her voice.

SEMPRONIO.- God save us from traitors. They haven't taken the street where we have to flee, I
don't fear anything else.

Scene VII

They arrive at the door of the house, where MELIBEA and LUCRECIA, his maid, are waiting for
them.

CALISTO.- My lady!

LUCRECIA.- This is Calisto's voice. Who is out?

CALISTO.- He who comes to fulfill your mandate. (Reconsidering.) I have been deceived. It was
not Melibea who spoke.

—37→

MELIBEA.- Go, Lucrecia, and lie down. (To CALISTO.) Lord! What's your name? Who told you to
come here?

CALISTO.- The one who deserves to command the whole world, the one I don't deserve to
serve. The sweet sound of your speech, which never falls from my ears, certifies me that you
are my lady Melibea. I am your servant Calisto.

MELIBEA.- The audacity of your messages has forced me to speak, Mr. Calisto. My coming is
only for the purpose of seeing you off. Do not want to put my fame in the balance of the
cursing tongues.
CALISTO.- Oh unfortunate Callisto! How your servants mock you! O deceitful Celestine woman!
You would have let me die rather than raise my hopes. Didn't you tell me that my lady was
favorable to me? In whom will I find faith? Who dared to give me such a crude hope of
perdition?

MELIBEA.- Cease, my lord, your quarrels, that neither my heart can bear them nor my eyes
hide them. You cry with sadness, judging me cruel; I cry with pleasure, seeing you so faithful.
Oh my lord and my good all! Clean, sir, your eyes. Order from me to your will.

CALISTO.- Oh my lady, hope of my glory, rest and relief of my pain, joy of my heart!

MELIBEA.- Lord Calisto, your great deserving, your extreme graces and your high birth have
meant that, once I had complete news of you, you did not depart from my heart at any time.
The doors prevent our joy and I curse them and I curse their strong locks and my little strength,
that, otherwise, neither you would be complaining, nor I would be dissatisfied.

—38→

CALISTO.- How, my lady, can a stick prevent our joy? Let me call my servants to break it.

PÁRMENO.- (TO SEMPRONIO.) Do you hear, Sempronio? At a bad point I think these loves
began. I don't wait here anymore.

SEMPRONIO.- Shut up, shut up and listen, she won't let us go there.

MELIBEA.- Do you want, my love, to lose me and damage my fame? Content yourself with
coming tomorrow at this time through the walls of my orchard, for if you were to break down
the cruel doors now, even if we were not felt, the terrible suspicion of my mistake would dawn
in my father's house.

PÁRMENO.- Lord, come out quickly, many people are coming with axes and you will be
recognized, because there is nowhere you can hide!

CALISTO.- Oh petty, and how I am forced, lady, to separate from you! The fear of death does
not force me as much as your honor. May the angels be with you. My coming will be, as you
ordered, through the orchard.
MELIBEA.- So be it and may God go with you.

Scene VIII

CALISTO and his servants leave and make their way back home. PÁRMENO and SEMPRONIO
talk.

PÁRMENO.- Where are we going, Sempronio? To bed to sleep or to the kitchen to uncover the
pots?

—39→

SEMPRONIO.- You go wherever you want, because, before the day arrives, I want to go to
Celestina's house to collect my share, because she's an old whore. I don't want to give her time
to fabricate some vile thing with which she will exclude us.

PÁRMENO.- You say well. She had forgotten. Let's go both and, if he thinks to deceive us, let's
give him such a scare that it weighs him down, that there is no friendship over money.

—[40]→ —41→

UpAct III

Scene I

PÁRMENO and SEMPRONIO at the foot of CELESTINA's window. It is night, as in the previous
scene.
SEMPRONIO.- (To PÁRMENO.) Shut up, who sleeps next to this window! (Knocking with his
knuckles.) Senora Celestina, open up for us.

CELESTINA.- Who is calling?

SEMPRONIO.- Open up, they are your children.

CELESTINA.- I don't have children who are out on the street at such an hour.

SEMPRONIO.- Open up to Pármeno and Sempronio, we've come to have lunch with you.

Scene II

CELESTINA opens the door and the two servants enter the house.

CELESTINA.- Naughty fools! Come in, come in! What have you done? What happened to you?
Has Calisto's hope said goodbye or does he still live with her?

—42→

SEMPRONIO.- If it weren't for us, his soul would be looking for a lodging forever, because his
estate isn't enough to fulfill what we're obligated to.

CELESTINA.- Jesus! How much is the danger in which you have seen yourselves? Tell me, for
God's sake.

PÁRMENO.- You ask him a long thing, as we come upset and tired of the anger we've had. You
would do better preparing us lunch, that way perhaps the disturbance we bring would tame us
somewhat. My glory would now be to find someone to avenge the anger that I could not in
those who caused it to us, for having fled.

CELESTINA.- Well, what happened to you?

SEMPRONIO.- I bring, madam, all the weapons in pieces, the buckler without a ring, the sword
like a saw, the dented cap in the chapel. They agreed to meet tonight in the orchard. How will I
buy a new one? I don't have a single maravedí.

CELESTINA.- Ask your master, son, because in his service he broke.

SEMPRONIO.- Pármeno also brings his lost weapons. At this rate, his estate will go up in arms.
How do you want me to be so inopportune to ask him for more than what he, of his own
degree, does, which is already a lot? He gave us the hundred coins and then he gave us the
chain. Let's be content with what is reasonable, lest by wanting more we lose everything, that
whoever covers a lot, squeezes little.

CELESTINA.- Funny is the ass! Are you in your head, Sempronio? What does your award have
to do with my salary, your soldier with my mercedes? Am I obliged to weld your weapons, to
fulfill your faults? They'll kill me if you don't accept a little word that —43→ I told you the
other day coming down the street that everything I had was yours and that everything I could
with my little strength would never be lacking. You know, Sempronio, that words of good love
do not oblige.

SEMPRONIO.- This is not the first time that I have said that greed reigns in old people. When
poor, generous; when rich, greedy. Oh God, and how need grows with abundance! When she
thought that the benefit would be scarce, the old woman told me to take everything with me
and now, that she sees it grown, she does not want to give anything to fulfill the saying of the
children who say: «Of the little, little; nothing at all."

PÁRMENO.- That she give you what she promised you or let's take it all. I used to tell you who
this old woman was.

CELESTINA.- The anger that you bring with yourselves or with your master or with your
weapons, do not take it out on me. I know well which foot you limp on. You think I have to
keep you all your life tied and captive to Elicia and Areúsa without wanting to find you others.
Keep quiet, because whoever knew how to carry them will give you another ten.
SEMPRONIO.- Do not mix your mockery in our demand. Give us both parts on account of how
much you have received from Calisto, you don't want us to discover who you are. Others with
those compliments, old.

CELESTINA.- Who am I, Sempronio? Are you going to remove me from the whorehouse? Shut
up your tongue and don't insult my gray hair, I'm as old as God made me, not worse. I make a
living from my trade, like every officer of his, very cleanly. And you, Pármeno, do not think that
I am your captive for knowing my secrets and my past life and the cases that befell me and
your unfortunate mother.

PÁRMENO.- Don't swell my nose with those memories. If not, I'll send you to her so you can
complain more to your heart's content.

—44→

CELESTINA.- (Screaming.) Elicia, Elicia! Get up. What is this? What do such threats mean in my
house? With a meek sheep do you dare? With a chicken on a leash? With a sixty-year-old
woman? It is a sign of great cowardice to attack minors and those who can do little.

SEMPRONIO.- Greedy old woman, throat dying of thirst for money! Won't you be happy with a
third of what you've earned?

CELESTINA.- What third part? Get out of my house! Don't make me get out of this. You don't
want Calisto's things and yours to go out into the square.

SEMPRONIO.- Give voices or shouts, that you will fulfill what you promised or you will end your
days today.

CELESTINA.- (Screaming.) Justice, neighbors, justice, these ruffians are killing me in my house!

SEMPRONIO.- Wait, doña sorceress, I'll make you go to hell with letters.

CELESTINA.- (With her chest pierced by a dagger.) Confession, confession!

PARMENO.- Come on, come on! finish it! Die, die! Of the enemies, the least.
CELESTINA.- Confession!

—45→

Scene III

Enter ELICIA.

ELICIA.- (Bending over CELESTINA, already dead.) Oh, cruel enemies, you see yourselves in bad
power! And for whom did you have hands? Dead is my mother and my good everything!

SEMPRONIO.- Run away, run away, Pármeno, a lot of people are coming! Beware, the bailiff is
coming!

PARMENO.- Oh sinner that I am, I don't know where to escape, because the door is taken!

SEMPRONIO.- Let's jump through the windows. Let us not die in the power of justice.

PÁRMENO.- Jump, I'll follow you.

Scene IV

Areúsa is with CENTURIO, a ruffian, with whom he argues. ELICIA is at the door, listening.
ELICIA.- (With her ear to the door.) Why does my cousin shout so much? She must already
know the sad news I bring her. Let her cry, because men like that are not found in any corner. I
like that she feels it and that she messes, as I have done, her hair. How much more I love her
for the great feeling she shows.

AREÚSA.- (To CENTURIO, furious.) Get out of my house, scoundrel, liar, trickster, you have
tricked me with your vain offers and flattery. I gave you, miscreant, tunic and cape, sword and
buckler, I gave you weapons and a horse and I put you with a lord you didn't deserve. Now that
I'm asking you for something unimportant, you make up a thousand excuses for not doing it.

CENTURIO.- Send me to kill with ten men for your service and not that I walk a league on foot.

AREÚSA.- Why did you play the horse? If it hadn't been for me, you'd already be hanged. Three
times I have freed you from justice. Why do I do it? I'm crazy? Why do I have faith in this
coward? What's good about it? Curly hair, stabbed face, one-handed maimed and thirty
women in the whorehouse. Come out, I won't see you anymore, because, if not, by the mother
who gave birth to me, I'll make you give a thousand blows to those miller's backs.

CENTURIO.- If I get angry, someone will cry. I'd rather go than suffer you. I don't know who
enters. Don't hear us.

ELICIA.- I want to go in, because threats don't make you cry well. (Enter.)

AREÚSA.- (Leaving her anger.) Is that you, Elicia? What is this? Why are you sad? You scare me,
my sister. What's happening?

ELICIA.- More is what I feel and cover up than what I show. I bring the heart blacker than the
mantle. Oh sister, sister, I can't speak! I can't get my voice out of her chest.

AREÚSA.- Tell me, don't scratch yourself or mistreat yourself. Is this evil of both? It's my turn?

ELICIA.- Oh, my cousin! Sempronio and Pármeno no longer live. Their souls are purging their
error.

AREÚSA.- What are you telling me? Shut up, for God's sake, I'll drop dead.
 —47→

ELICIA.- I'll tell you more. Celestina, the one I had for a mother, the one who gave me gifts and
covered up, the one with whom I was honored, by whom I was known throughout the city, is
already giving an account of her works. They killed her on my lap.

AREÚSA.- Irreparable loss! Tell me how such a cruel case happened.

ELICIA.- You already know, sister, the loves of Calisto and crazy Melibea. Calisto gave my
unfortunate aunt a gold chain. She did not want to give her part to Sempronio or Pármeno, as
they had agreed. They asked Celestina for part of her chain. She denied them her promise. So
they, very angry, argued with her for a long time. At last, seeing her so greedy, they put their
hands to her swords and gave her a thousand slashes.

AREÚSA.- And what about them? What did they stop at?

ELICIA.- To flee from justice, they jumped out of the windows. Right there they caught them
and, without further delay, they cut their throats.

AREÚSA.- Oh my Pármeno! How much pain does his death cause me!

ELICIA.- Where will I go, that I lose mother, cloak and coat, lose friend and lose husband?
Celestina, how many faults you covered up for me with your good knowledge! You worked, I
lounged; you went out, I was locked up; you broken, me dressed; you entered the house like a
bee, I destroyed. Calisto and Melibea, cause of so many deaths, have a bad end for your loves.
May the delightful herbs turn into snakes for you, may the shady trees of the orchard dry up at
your sight and may their fragrant flowers turn black.

AREÚSA.- Shut up, sister. Catch your tears. Many things can be avenged, and this is one of
them.

—48→

ELICIA.- What I feel the most is to see Melibea proud of the blood spilled in her service.

AREUSA.- Areusa. If that's true, who better to take revenge on?

ELICIA.- I know, friend, a companion of Pármeno's, a horse groom, whose name is Sosia. I want
to get the whole secret out of him. This will be a good path for what you say.

AREÚSA.- Send me Sosia. I will flatter him and say a thousand flattery and offers, until he
leaves nothing in his body that has been done and remains to be done. Then I will make him
and his master give back the pleasure eaten. And you, Elicia, my soul, do not receive pity.
Come to my house, that sadness is a friend of the loneliness . With a new love you will forget
the old ones. I feel more sorry for your fatigue than for those who put it on you. Oh cousin,
cousin, how do I know, when I get mad, stir these plots, even though I'm a girl. From Calisto,
Centurio will avenge me.

ELICIA.- Thank you very much for what you tell me about my coming to your house, and God
help you and make me happy in your needs. I think it's time to go. God be with you, I'm
leaving.

Scene V

CALISTO wakes up and stretches, stretching out her arms, in his bed. TRISTAN, a servant,
sleeps at his feet.

CALISTO.- How well I slept! Oh lady and my love, Melibea! What do you think now? Are you
sleeping or are you awake? Do you think of me or someone else? Are you up or lying down?
Oh happy and blessed Calisto, if in truth the past has not been a dream! Dream it or not? I was
not alone. My servants accompanied me. They were two. I will call you to confirm my joy.
Tristanic! Youngsters! Tristanic! Get up from there!

—49→

TRISTAN.- (Standing up.) Sir, I'm up.

CALISTO.- Run, call me Sempronio and Pármeno.

TRISTAN.- Tristan. I'm coming, sir. (Exit TRISTAN.)

CALISTO.-

(Singing.)

Sleep and rest, sorry,

since now,

well your lady loves you

of your degree

Pleasure beats care

and do not see him,

because she has made you hers private

Melibea.

(TRISTAN returns.)

TRISTAN.- Sir, there is no waiter at home.

CALISTO.- Well, close the windows and let me sleep until it's time to eat.

Scene VI

TRISTÁN leaves and, at the door of the house, meets SOSIA, another servant of CALISTO, who
complains.

SOSIA.- What a great loss! What a bad day dawned! Unfortunate youngsters!
TRISTAN .- What happens? What are you complaining about? Why do you kill yourself? How
bad is this?

—50→

SOSIA.- Sempronio and Pármeno...

TRISTAN.- What do you say?

SOSIA.- Our companions, our brothers...

TRISTAN.- Are you drunk? What do you say about these boys?

SOSIA.- They are left with their throats cut in the square.

TRISTAN.- Oh our bad fortune, if it's true! Did you see them or did they tell you?

SOSIA.- They were already making no sense, but one, as he felt that I was looking at him with
great sadness, raised his hands to heaven as if he wanted to thank God and, as a sign of sad
farewell, lowered his head, implying that there was no to see me more until the day of the
great judgment.

TRISTÁN.- Well, you bring such clear signs of this cruel pain, let's go quickly with the sad news
to our master.

Scene VII

CALISTO with his two servants, SOSIA and TRISTÁN, arrive at MELIBEA's house.
SOSIA.- Pull up the stairs, Tristán, this is the best place.

TRISTAN.- Go up, sir. I will go with you.

CALISTO.- Stay, crazy people, I'll go in alone.

MELIBEA.- Oh my lord, don't jump so high, I'll die seeing it!

—51→

CALISTO.- Angelic image, precious pearl before which the world is ugly, my lady, my glory!
(Hugs her.) I have you in my hands and I don't believe it.

MELIBEA.- Enjoy the delights that I enjoy, which is to see you and come to your person, and do
not ask for or take what, once taken, is not in your power to return. Beware, sir, of damaging
what with all the treasures of the world cannot be restored.

CALISTO.- Madam, if I have spent all my life to obtain this favor, how can I, when it is offered to
me, throw it away? Don't ask me for cowardice. Swimming through this fire of your desire all
my life, don't you want me to come to the sweet port to rest from my past work?

MELIBEA.- It remains, my lord, that it is proper to the good shepherd to shear his sheep and his
cattle, but not to destroy and harass them.

CALISTO.- Forgive, lady, my shameless hands, which never thought of touching your clothes
with their indignity and little merit and now hope to reach your gentle body and enjoy your
beautiful and delicate flesh.

MELIBEA.- (TO LUCRECIA, her maid, who is present.) Move over there, Lucrecia.

CALISTO.- Why, my lady? I am glad that there are such witnesses of my glory.

MELIBEA.- I don't want them because of my mistake.

CALISTO.- (Delicately undresses her.) Oh my love! The gates of heaven have been opened for
me and in my hands I feel the eternal happiness of the saints palpitate.

—52→

MELIBEA.- (Caressing him.) If I had known what you would have to do, I would not have
trusted your cruel conversation.

CALISTO.- The ethnic mountains of your chest, my life, burst into boiling lava and my lips never
tire of drinking the nectar that flows from them with the freshness of the spring.

MELIBEA.- Oh my life, oh my lord! How did you want me to lose my name and virgin's crown
for such a brief delight? My poor mother! O my honored father! How did I not first look at the
great mistake that followed from your entrance, the great danger that awaited me!

CALISTO.- Let's stay like this, eternally next to each other, fused and confused in a single being.

MELIBEA.- My lord, is this a dream? Can bliss confuse us in such a way? do we live? Have we
died? Is not this the promised glory?

CALISTO.- (Getting dressed) It already wants to dawn. It doesn't seem to me that we've been
here an hour and it's already three o'clock.

MELIBEA.- Lord, since you cannot deny my love, do not deny me your sight day and night.
Always be your coming to this secret place at the same time, that I will always wait for you
aware of the joy with which I stay. Go now with God, it is not yet dawn.

CALISTO.- Young men, put the ladder.

MELIBEA.- (Gets dressed.) Lord, I'm the one who enjoys, I'm the one who wins; you, sir, who
do me with your visit incomparable favor.

(A rumble of a fight is heard in the street.)

 —53→

SOSIA.- (Screaming.) So, rogues, ruffians, did you come to surprise those who don't fear you? I
swear that if you wait for me I will make you go as you deserve.

CALISTO.- Madam, Sosia is the one who shouts. Let me go defend him, so they don't kill him.
Give me my cape.

MELIBEA.- Lucrecia, come here quickly, Calisto has left at a sound. Let's throw his armor, they
stay here.

TRISTAN .- Stay, sir, don't go down, they've already left.

CALISTO.- (Falls down.) Good luck, Santa María! I am dead! Confession!

SOSIA.- Sir, sir! He is as dead as my grandfather! O great misfortune!

Scene VIII

LUCRECIA knocks on the door of PLEBERIO's room.

PLEBERIO.- (Looking at the door.) What do you want, Lucrecia?

LUCRECIA.- (Very agitated.) Sir, hurry up, if you want to see her alive, I don't know her
anymore because of how disfigured she is.

PLEBERIO.- Let's go quickly.

(They find MELIBEA in the tower, about to throw herself into the void.)

MELIBEA.- Oh pain!

PLEBERIO.- What pain can be greater than the one I have seeing you like this, my daughter?
Your mother has lost her mind hearing your bad —54→. She enlivens your heart and come
with me to visit her. Tell me, my soul, the cause of your feeling.

MELIBEA.- She perished without remedy!

PLEBERIO.- Beloved daughter, do not despair. If you tell me your evil, we will find a remedy,
that there is no lack of doctors or medicines or servants to seek your health.

MELIBEA.- She is not the same as the other evils. It is a fatal sore in the middle of the heart
that does not allow me to speak. Necessary is to get her out of it to cure her, that she is in the
most secret of him.

PLEBERIUM.- . My daughter Melibea, what are you doing alone? What do you want to tell me?
Do you want me to go up?

MELIBEA.- My father, don't make an effort to go upstairs, because you'll get in the way of what
I want to tell you. Hurt you will be briefly with the death of your only daughter. My end has
come. Arrived is my rest and your passion, my relief and your pain, my time and the time of
your loneliness. You will not need, honorable father, instruments to placate my pain, but bells
to bury me. If you listen to me without tears, you will know the cause of my forced and joyful
departure. Do not interrupt me with tears or words, because if you do, you will be more
ashamed for not knowing why I killed myself than painful for seeing me dead. Do not ask me or
answer anything, but what I want to tell you. Listen, father, my last words and if you receive
them as I expect, don't blame me. Well you see and hear the sad and painful feeling that
makes the whole city, the clamor of bells, the howling of the people, the howling of the dogs,
the great noise of weapons. I have been the cause of all this. I have covered with mourning
and jargon most of the cavalry citizen. I have left many servants without a master and I have
taken rations and alms from the poor and shameful. I have been —55→ the occasion for the
dead to have today the company of the most finished man who was born in grace. I have
removed from the living the paragon of his kindness, his gallant inventions, his embroideries
and finery, his speech, his walk, his courtesy and his virtue. I have been the cause that the
earth timelessly enjoys the noblest body and the freshest youth that had been created in our
era. As you will be scared of my crimes, I want to clarify the facts for you. Some time ago a
gentleman named Calisto, whom you knew well, grieved for my love. You also met his parents
and his clear lineage, his virtues and his kindness, which were manifest to all. So much was his
pain of love and so little place to talk to me, that he discovered his passion to an astute and
sagacious woman they called Celestina. She this one took my secret love from her chest. He
revealed to her what she hid from my dear mother, and thus arranged our love affairs.
Defeated of her love, tell her entry into your house. She broke down the walls of your garden
with scales, she broke my purpose and I lost my virginity. He came this past night and, as the
walls were high, the night dark, the ladder thin, the servants unskilled and he was hurrying
down when he heard a noise, he did not see the steps well, he put his foot in the void and fell.
From his sad fall, his most hidden brains were scattered over the stones and walls. The fairies
cut his strings, they cut off his life without confession, they cut off my hope, they cut off my
glory, they cut off my company. What cruelty would it be, my father, if he died falling from a
cliff, for me to live in pain? His death invites mine. Invite me and it's orced to be lent , without
delay. Say hello to my face and beloved mother: long know from you the sad reason why I die.
I have great pleasure in not seeing her now! Take, my father, the gifts of your old age, that in
long long days sorrows are suffered. She receives the earnest of your ancient senescence.
Great pain I carry from me, greater from you and even greater from my old mother. God be
with you and with her. To him I offer my soul. Put you in collection this body that goes down
there. (He throws himself off the tower.)

—56→

Scene IX

PLEBERIO enters his room crying and carrying MELIBEA's lifeless body in his arms.

ALISA.- What is this, Mr. Pleberio? Why are you yelling so loud? Tell me the cause of your
complaints. Why do you curse your honorable old age? Why do you pull out your gray hair?
Why do you hurt your face? What has happened to Melibea? For God's sake, tell me, because
if she hurts, I don't want to go on living.

(PLEBERIO carefully deposits MELIBEA's body on the ground. ALISA throws herself on top of
him crying.)
PLEBERIUM.- Pleberium. Alas, noble woman! Our joy in a well. Our good everything has been
lost. We don't want to live anymore! So that? Look here at the one you gave birth to and I
fathered, torn to pieces. Oh my daughter and my good everything! Cruelty would be that I live
on you. My sixty years were more worthy of burial than your twenty. Oh my gray hairs, exits to
know the pain! The earth would enjoy them better than your blond hair. Woman! Get up and,
if you have any life left, spend it with me in sad moans. Now I will lose with you, my
unfortunate daughter, the fears that terrified me every day. Your death alone makes me safe
from suspicion. What will I do when I enter your chamber and find it empty? What will I do
when you don't answer me, if I call you? Who can cover the lack that you make me, the
emptiness that you leave me? No one lost what I have lost today. Who forced my daughter to
die, if not the strong force of love? Oh love, love, I did not think you had the strength or power
to kill those who are subject to you! My youth was wounded for you and through your embers
I passed. How did you release me then, to collect the pay of my elopement in my old age? I
thought I was free from your arms. I did not think that you would take on the children the
revenge of the parents. —57→ Who gave you so much power? Who gave you a name that
does not suit you? Sweet name they gave you, but bitter deeds executed. Blessed are those
you didn't know or didn't care about. Enemy of all reason, to those who serve you least you
give greater gifts. Enemy of friends, friend of enemies, why do you rule haphazardly? I
complain about the world. Oh my good companion, oh my torn daughter! Why didn't you have
pity on your dear and beloved mother? Why were you so cruel to your old father? Why did you
leave me, when I had to leave you? Why did you leave me sorry? Why did you leave me sad
and alone in hac lachrymarum valle?

PLEBERIO and ALISA, embracing each other, kneel on the ground next to the body of her
daughter, while he slowly falls.