Soon after, at a town council meeting, the Commander tells Esteban (one of the town magistrates and Laurencia’s father) that his daughter needs a talking to-she refuses to submit to his desire in the way that many other women in the town have. After Frondoso departs, the Commander vows to get revenge on him. Laurencia is able to escape, and Frondoso walks away-but still clutching the bow so that the Commander can’t kill him with it. Seeing Laurencia, the Commander drops his bow and arrow and starts to force himself on her, but Frondoso emerges from his hiding place, picks up the bow, and points it at the Commander. Just then, the Commander comes down the path while hunting, and Frondoso hides in the trees. Frondoso is madly in love with Laurencia, but she hasn’t really thought about marriage and is annoyed that the whole town gossips about them. They ask for help in regaining control over their town, and the King sends two armies to recapture the city.īack in Fuente Ovejuna, Laurencia and Frondoso, a young villager, are talking in the woods. They explain that the Ciudad Real’s citizens are loyal to “the Catholic Kings” (meaning Isabel and Fernando), and though they tried to fight off the Master’s army, they were unsuccessful. As the crowd disperses, he instructs his servants, Flores and Ortuño, to grab Laurencia and Pascuala and lock them in a nearby stable so that they can be part of his spoils of war, but Laurencia and Pascuala fight the men off and run away.Īt Queen Isabel and King Fernando’s court, two aldermen from Ciudad Real arrive. The townspeople welcome the Commander home and give him lavish gifts for his success, and he thanks them for their love. Soon after this discussion, the Commander returns from his campaign against Ciudad Real-it was a bloody fight, but the Master and Commander prevailed. She notes that she hates men generally, because they all lie to women to get them into bed and then abandon them in the morning. The Commander pursues her relentlessly, but he has had sex with many of the women in town and quickly discards them afterward, and she doesn’t want this to happen to her. The young peasant Laurencia is telling her friend Pascuala how much she hates the Commander.

The play picks up some days later, in the small town of Fuente Ovejuna, where the Commander lives.

The Commander reminds the Master of his family’s loyalty to Alonso, and he convinces the Master to take an army to capture the key stronghold of Ciudad Real from Isabel and Fernando, claiming that this will allow the young Master to prove his worth in battle. Some are loyal to Henry’s daughter Juana and her husband, King Alonso of Portugal, while others are loyal to Henry’s sister Queen Isabel of Castile and her husband, King Fernando of Aragon. After the recent death of King Henry IV of Castile, there is a dispute over who should rule the kingdom of Castile. The play opens in 1476 in Spain, at a meeting between the 17-year-old Master of the Order of Calatrava, Rodrigo Téllez Girón, and his Commander, Fernán Gómez de Guzmán.

Master an dcommander