LA MEJOR ESPIGADERA

MejEsp

REPARTO

I

Famine reigns in Palestine, and most people do not have enough to eat.  Some poor relatives of Elimelec, a very rich man, ask for food at his house, and Nohemí, his wife, gives it to them.  The situation is so bad that Jaleel and Zefara are even fighting over their baby, for Jaleel wants to eat him, and she won't let him.  Elimelec comes home with his sons, Masalón and Quelión, grabs the food from the poor and scolds Nohemí for wasting food on them.  Zefara curses him to the terrible fate of losing all his wealth and dying a poor beggar in a foreign land.

The judges have ordered that since he is the richest man in the land, Elimelec must share with the poor, but he refuses and takes his family to Moab.  The Israelites catch up with them, though, and kill Elimelec and capture Quelión.

In the meantime Rut appears.  She is to marry Timbreo, but she doesn't love him.  She falls asleep, and Masalón sees her and falls in love with her.  He overhears her saying in her sleep that she is the daughter of the King of Moab and that she is about to marry against her will.  She adds that she wants to marry a noble Israelite.  Masalón awakens her, and then pretends to be asleep.  She sees him and thereupon loves him.  He wakes and tells her that he is an Israelite.  She says she's grateful that he didn't molest her while she was asleep, but that she must go before Timbreo finds them.  She gives him a gold chain from her neck and tells him that one who loves truly will seek his beloved.

Nohemí comes and tells Masalón that the Israelites have killed his father and captured Quelión and that he must flee.  Before he can leave, however, the Israelites arrive with Quelión.  Nohemí, on her knees, pleads for her own life and for her sons.  The captain frees them, but takes her sons' clothing.  They are left destitute, and Masalón is sure that he has lost Rut now that he's poor.  Thus the curse of Zefara has come to pass.

II

Rut's father, the King of Moab, and Timbreo observe Rut's sadness and try to discover the cause for it.  Finally she tells them that while she was asleep a Hebrew stole the gold chain her mother gave her, and that because of this, she's sad and wants her chain back.  Her cousin, Orfá, guesses that she likes this man.  Rut does not know what to do nor why she feels the way she does.  Soon Masalón comes, poorly dressed.  He tells Rut he loves her and will do whatever she asks.  He says that he gave her gold chain to his mother and brother so that they could sell it to get money for food and clothing.  Orfá then takes him to change his clothes.

Rut tells her father the story a Hebrew captive girl told her of how Bohoz dreamed that the Israel to come rose from a rock.  The prophets told Bohoz his line would finally bring the Messiah and that the rock from which his descendents would come would be a Moab woman.  The girl told Rut that she must be the rock from which the Messiah is to come, since in the Hebrew language the name Rut means "rock."  For this reason Rut wants to marry an Israelite.  The King says that in order to marry her the Israelite would have to give up the Hebrew God and accept the religion and laws of Moab.

At this point Rut discloses Masalón, elegantly dressed.  The King, upon seeing Masalón, is struck by his nobility and beauty, and after Masalón promises to accept the ways of Moab the King gives Rut and Masalón permission to marry.

Nisiro brings in Nohemí and Quelión, whom he has taken as prisoners because Quelión has Rut's gold chain.  Masalón explains who they are and how they happen to have the chain.  He arranges for Orfá to marry Quelión, but Nohemí predicts that evil will come to her sons because they are rejecting their God in marrying Rut and Orfá. When Timbreo learns of Rut's coming marriage he becomes jealous and enraged and wants revenge.

III

Ten years have passed.  Rut's father has died and Timbreo has killed both Masalón and Quelión and he now rules as King.  He wants Rut to marry him, but she refuses.  Nohemí, who thinks her sons brought on their deaths by marrying outside their faith, has decided to return to Palestine.  Rut and Orfá want to go with her but she says they should stay in their own country.  Orfá agrees to stay, but Rut insists on accompanying Nohemí, saying that she will follow Nohemí wherever she goes and that Nohemí's country will be her country and Nohemí's God her God.

When they return to Palestine Nohemí's relatives spurn her, even though she had always been generous to them.  Rut becomes a reaper and follows the reapers of Bohoz.  One day Bohoz see Rut, learns who she is and remembers the prophecy that his descendents would come through a Moab woman.  Rut also sees Bohoz, who looks just like Masalón.  They fall in love.  Nohemí tells Rut that there's another relative of Masalón, closer in kinship than Bohoz, who should be Rut's husband, according to Jewish law.  Rut, however, insists that she want to marry Bohoz.

After the harvest feast, when all have eaten well, Bohoz falls asleep and Rut lies down at his feet and covers her head with his cape -- the Jewish symbol of a coming marriage.  He awakens.  They decide to marry after he asks permission of the closer relative of Masalón.  The play ends with the celebration of the wedding of Rut and Bohoz.  Their son will be Obed; his son, Jesé; his son, David; and so from this stock will eventually come Jesus, the Messiah.

(The subplot of Lisis and Gomor has been omitted.)