LA VENTURA CON EL NOMBRE

VentCN

Escena:  En Praga, en dos quintas o sitios reales de los soberanos de Bohemia, en una aldea y en sus cercanías.

REPARTO

I

Primislao, King of Bohemia, has been murdered, and his brother Adolfo has ascended to the throne.  Adolfo has Lotario and Uberto seized, claiming that they plotted the murder.  He also has his own wife Basilisa, detained, accusing her of being implicated in the crime as well.  He then tries to win the favor of his brother's widow, Sibila, who reacts negatively, preferring to go lead a quiet life in the country.

Meanwhile a group of shepherds in the nearby countryside are debating whether Balón and Clora should marry.  Her father, Corbín, wants her to marry Ventura, a studious fellow who reads a lot.  However, although she scorns Balón at first, she really wants to marry him, so her father gives his permission.  Ventura willingly gives Clara up, because he has plans to go away and make something more important of himself, as a soldier or a letrado.

Adolfo has ordered Otón to help him force Sibila to give in to him but Otón, overwhelmed by Adolfo's evil actions, kills him and throws his body, weighted down with heavy stones, into a river.  Having overheard the scene, Ventura is hidden from Otón's sight still observing and listening when Matías appears.  Otón tells Matías all that has happened -- that Adolfo killed his brother, Primislao, by going to his house at night and smothered him; that Adolfo plans to poison Basilisa and marry Sibila, and that he unjustly accused Lotario and Uberto of treason and murder.

Fleeing from her virtual imprisonment in Druma, Basilisa encounters Ventura, who looks exactly like Adolfo.  She, mistaking him for her husband, begins to speak to him.  At first he thinks she is crazy when she claims to be the queen, but he quickly analyzes the situation and pretends to be Adolfo, giving her forgiveness and speaking to her kindly.  When Otón, Lotario and Uberto approach, Ventura hides.  Upon hearing from Otón that Adolfo is dead, Basilisa offers to produce him and summons Ventura.  The latter starts to tell them who he really is, but they interrupt, paying homage to him, so he decides to continue the pretense.  Otón secretly thinks that Ventura is an imposter because he cannot believe that Adolfo is alive, since he weighted his body down so heavily.  At the same time he does not know how an imposter could know all that Ventura does (things which the latter overheard from Otón, of course.)  Ventura says that they are all forgiven.  For his part Lotario remarks that Otón's senses are not to be trusted; he has concluded that Otón imagined that he killed Adolfo.

II

Matías and Otón wonder if it is not the case that someone who looks like Adolfo is impersonating him, but they cannot imagine how he could know so many secrets from Adolfo's past.  They remain very suspicious.  Meanwhile Ventura tells Basilisa that they must marry again because their first marriage ended when he was killed by Otón, but he is now resuscitated.  She is frightened by what he says and flees the room.  After telling Otón that he will forgive him for murdering him, Ventura now wants to go to amuse himself in the country, Otón assumes that he means with Sibila.  Informed by Otón that he and Ventura are going to the country, Basilisa asks Matías to go there with her to spy.  When Otón and Ventura arrive Sibila is asleep in the garden.  Left alone with her, Ventura admires her and asks himself who she can be, but upon awakening she speaks her own name, thus answering his question.  Upon seeing him, she becomes angry, telling him that her father is coming from Sajonia with an army for revenge.  Ventura guesses that Otón led him to Sibila and then watched to see if he would recognize her in an effort to learn if he really is the King.  Basilisa and Matías have been observing the scene, too, and she is furious because Ventura is enamored of Sibila again and threatens to have her father come to avenge her.  Ventura threatens Otón accusing him of spying, and the latter flees.  The confused Ventura decides to return to his life as a peasant, since the life of the court is so full of deceit and flattery.

The peasants, in the meantime, have found Adolfo's body, but think it is Ventura, although they wonder where he got such fine clothes.  One theory is that he stole them, murdered their owner, and then in turn was murdered by friends of the latter.  Clora is very depressed over Ventura's "death," much to Balón's disgust.   When Ventura returns, the villagers run away, frightened because they think that he is a spirit.  Now Ventura is extremely sad, having no place where he can go.

III

Basilisa, angry with Otón for having killed her husband, has him imprisoned.  Balón comes to ask Basilisa to grant him a divorce because Clora cried so when she thought Ventura was dead.  He adds that now Ventura is back they are making him the mayor.  Upon hearing of Ventura, Basilisa becomes suspicious and questions Balón further.  He shows her the ring they took from the dead man, and she recognizes it as belonging to Adolfo.  After swearing him to secrecy about all of this, Basilisa goes to the village with Balón.

The new mayor, Ventura, plans with other villagers to erect a sepulcher for the dead man.  Basilisa finds Ventura and tells him that she knows he is really a shepherd.  When he claims to be Adolfo, she becomes confused again, because she cannot see how a shepherd could know so much about Adolfo's affairs, but yet Adolfo's ring was on the dead man, not on Ventura.

The Duque de Sajonia, Sibila's father, has attacked the kingdom, and the bohemios need a leader, so Ventura goes off to be their commander.  Lotario and Uberto quarrel about who will be king, and Matías suggests that they alternate, but then they argue about who will be first.  Otón returns.  After breaking out of prison he went to search the papers that had belonged to his father, a privado of King Sigismundo, the father of Primislao and Adolfo.  Among other things he found a paper saying that Sigismundo had a son named Ventura by a shepherdess, Virena.  Ventura, therefore, is the true heir to the throne.

Meanwhile, posing as Adolfo, Ventura has led the bohemios to victory over the sajones.  After the battle the nobles and the villagers are gathered together.  The Duque de Austria has asked to marry Sibila, to which Basilisa gives her consent.  Ventura explains that he is not Adolfo, who is dead, but a mere shepherd.  Otón, however, tells him that he is Sigismundo's son and the new King.  Upon hearing this Ventura asks Basilisa to be his wife, and rewards the villagers with land and the nobles with titles.  In the end it turns out that Ventura is indeed fortunate, as his name suggests.