• Overview
• Staging information
• Translations
• Sample translations
• Production history

Titles

English title: The Sibyl Cassandra
Notable variations on Spanish title: La sebila Casandra, La sibila Cassandra, Auto de la sibila Casandra, Auto de la sebila Casandra, Auto da sibila Cassandra
Date written: 1513
First publication date: 1562
First production date: 25 December 1513
Keywords: love > relationships, family > marriage, identity > gender, ideology > religion and faith
Genre and type: auto sacramental

Title information

Also known as 'Auto de la sibila Cassandra' with a double 'ss'

Pitch

‘I’ll never be married—for I prophesy that I will be the mother of the Messiah, and thus must remain a virgin!’ – Cassandra. This play has been called the first feminist Spanish play.

Synopsis

Cassandra, a prophetess dressed as a shepherdess, does not want a husband, convinced that she needs to remain a virgin for the sake of her destiny—to be the virgin mother of the Messiah. Her ardent suitor, Solomon, begs her to relent. Finding her firm in her resolve, and with many further reasons for her not desiring to be married (such as the loss of freedom for married women, the pains of jealousy and the stresses of raising children) Solomon seeks help. He brings Cassandra’s three prophetess-aunts and her three prophet-uncles to try to convince her to marry. Although they all present persuasive arguments accompanied by songs and dancing, even offering her gifts of jewellery, Cassandra is resolute. However, after a discovery-space appearance of the true Messiah and his mother (curtains are drawn to reveal an inner stage at the back of the acting area, where a Nativity tableaux is pre-set) the entire cast praises the lovely and infinitely humble Mary, and even Cassandra falls at her feet in adoration, ending the play with more singing and dancing.

Sources

The source for La sibila Casandra is a fifteenth-century Italian romance of chivalry, Guerino [or Guerrino] il meschino, by the Florentine Andrea da Barberino (1370-1431), available in Spanish translation from 1512 (McKendrick 1989: 22).

• McKendrick, Melveena. 1989. ‘Gil Vicente (1465?-1536?)’. In Theatre in Spain 1490-1700, pp. 19-26. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Critical response

Hart looks closely at the source novel (Guarino mezquino) and the departures taken by Vicente in his play La sibila Casandra, also connecting Casandra with the Queen of Sheba, as Goddard King had observed Sheba and Solomon were often pictured together in medieval art (Hart 1981: 12). Asensio examines the songs in Vicente’s plays, which helps to unlock the essence of the plays, as the keys to the plays’ themes tend to be stated pithily in the lyrics to the songs, and their structure allows lapses of time to occur (1955).The structural importance of the songs has also been studied by Révah (1959). Hart also studies the imagery of the rose in the play, as well as capturing the main theme of the work: ‘One important theme of the play can be summed up as the transformation of Casandra from one who wants only Mary’s status as the virgin who will bear a child to one who aspires to be like Mary in every possible way’ (1981: 39).

• Asensio, Eugenio. 1955. ‘The Songs of Gil Vicente’. In Inspiration and Poetry. London, MacMillan

• Hart, Thomas R. 1981. Gil Vicente: Casandra and Don Duardos. Critical Guides to Spanish Texts 29. London, Grant and Cutler with Tamesis

• Révah, I. S. 1959. ‘L’Auto de la Sibylle Cassandre de Gil Vicente’. Hispanic Review, 27, 167-93 (in French)

Editions

• First printing: Vicente, Gil. 1562. Copilaçam de todas las obras de Gil Vicente. Lisbon, Alvares

  [2^nd edition with inquisitorial cuts and censorship came out in 1586]

• Vicente, Gil. 1921. Auto de la sibila Casandra (conforme a la edición de 1562), ed. A. Giráldez. Madrid, Hernando

• Vicente, Gil. 1942. Auto da sibila Cassandra [note double “s”]. In Obras completas (6 volumes), ed. Manuel Marques Braga, vol. I, pp. 49-82. Lisbon, Livraria Sá da Costa

• Vicente, Gil. 1962. Auto de la sibila Casandra. In Obras dramáticas castellanas, ed. Thomas R. Hart, pp. 43-68. Madrid, Espasa-Calpe

• Vicente, Gil. 1966a. La sibila Casandra. In Don Duardos, autos y selección poética, ed. Mercedes Guillén, pp. 103-32. Temas de España: Ser y tiempo 42. Madrid, Taurus

• Vicente, Gil. 1966b. Auto da Sibila Cassandra. In Obras completas, ed. Reis Brasil, vol. I, pp. 103-67. Lisbon, Minerva

  Contains valuable ‘valor teatral’ section and notes.

• Vicente, Gil. 1968. Auto de la sibila Casandra. In Obras dramáticas castellanas, 2nd edition, ed. Thomas R. Hart, pp. 43-68. Madrid, Espasa-Calpe

• Vicente, Gil. 1975. Obras dramáticas castellanas, 3rd edition, ed. Thomas R. Hart. Madrid, Espasa-Calpe

• Vicente, Gil. 1983. Auto de la sibila Casandra. In Teatro, ed. Thomas R. Hart, pp. 59-80. Temas de España 139. Madrid, Taurus

• Vicente, Gil. 1983b. Auto da sibila Cassandra [note double “s”]. In Copilaçam de todalas obras de Gil Vicente, ed. Maria Leonor Carvalhão Buescu, vol. I, pp. 47-71. Lisbon, Impresa Nacional, Casa de Moeda

• Vicente, Gil. 1996. Auto de la sebila [sic] Casandra. In Teatro castellano, ed. Manuel Calderón, pp. 81-111. Biblioteca clásica 26. Barcelona, Crítica

• Vicente, Gil. 2002. La sebila Casandra [sic]. In As obras de Gil Vicente, ed. José Camões, vol. I, pp. 51-74. Moeda, Centro de Estudos de Teatro, Impresa Nacional-Casa da Moeda

Useful readings and websites

• Asensio, Eugenio. 1955. ‘The Songs of Gil Vicente’. In Inspiration and Poetry. London, MacMillan

• Dixon, Victor. 2007. ‘Beyond the Canon’. In The Spanish Golden Age in English: Perspectives on Performance, see esp. pp. 128-29. London, Oberon

• Goddard King, Georgiana. 1921. The play of the sibyl Cassandra. Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr College; New York, Longmans, Green and Co.

  This is also available online here:

  http://www.archive.org/stream/playofsibylcassa00kingrich/playofsibylcassa00kingrich_djvu.txt

• Hart, Thomas R. 1958. ‘Gil Vicente's Auto de la Sibila Casandra’. Hispanic Review, 26.1, 35-51

• Hart, Thomas R. 1981. Gil Vicente: Casandra and Don Duardos. Critical Guides to Spanish Texts 29. London, Grant and Cutler with Tamesis

• Keats, Laurence. 1962. The Court Theatre of Gil Vicente. Lisbon, Livraria Escolar

• McKendrick, Melveena. 1974. Woman and Society in the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age: A Study of the mujer varonil. London, Cambridge University Press

  For La sibila Casandra, see pp. 45-51.

  For La fuerza de la costumbre, see pp. 98-102.

• McKendrick, Melveena. 1989. ‘Gil Vicente (1465?-1536?)’. In Theatre in Spain 1490-1700, pp. 19-26. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

  For La fuerza de la costumbre and Dido y Eneas see pp. 127-129.

• Potter, Robert. 2005. ‘La Sebila Casandra [sic]: Gil Vicente’s Postmodern Feminist Christmas Play’. European Medieval Drama, 9.9, 109-26.

  This is a very useful, accessible study of the play. It is available in full text online edition here: http://parnaseo.uv.es/Ars/webelx/Pon%C3%A8ncies%20pdf/Potter.pdf

• Révah, I. S. 1959. ‘L’Auto de la Sibylle Cassandre de Gil Vicente’. Hispanic Review, 27, 167-93 (in French)

  In French.

• Spitzer, Leo. 1959. ‘The Artistic Unity of Gil Vicente’s “Auto de la Sibila Casandra”’. Hispanic Review, 27, 56-77

• 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

• Tobar, María Luisa. 2003. ‘Gil Vicente’. In Historia del teatro español, ed. Javier Huerta Calvo, pp. 317-48. Madrid, Gredos (in Spanish)

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

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