Las Hijas del Zebedee
What follows is the Jealous-Husband / Gift Bribery Scene (Translated with Stage Tone)
Characters:
Don Perico — the husband (comic jealousy, easily wounded)
Dolores — the wife (witty, poised, not fooled)
Chorus (offstage or nearby) — the social mirror that laughs at pretense
Context of the Scene
Don Perico fears that Porfirio (the over-perfumed gallant) is winning Dolores’s attention. He tries to reassert authority and buy reassurance through gifts — lace, jewelry, ribbons, perfumes — the usual currency of male self-importance.
Translation (with stage direction cues)
(Don Perico enters, carrying packages, smug but nervous.)
DON PERICO:Dolores… look what I’ve brought you. A little token, only to please you. A pair of earrings… (he opens the box) the finest from the shop on the plaza.
DOLORES: (pleasant, amused, not taking the bait) So lovely. And what occasion calls for such splendor?
DON PERICO: No occasion! Only my love! (beat) And perhaps… to remind you… well… to remind you that you are mine.
DOLORES: (smiles without surrender) If I am yours, I do not need reminding. If I am not… the earrings will not change it.
(Don Perico deflates slightly; the joke strikes him.)
DON PERICO: But this lace—surely you like lace? (It is too much lace—comically extravagant.) Everyone will admire you.
DOLORES: Everyone? Or one particular “everyone” you have in mind?
(Don Perico flusters; she has seen directly through him.)
DON PERICO: That *Porfirio*—! He struts, he preens, he— (his voice cracks between fear and bravado) Well! Let him see whom you belong to!
DOLORES: (soft, controlled) I belong to myself first. What comes after… depends on how I am treated.
(Don Perico stands there, holding all the unopened gifts. He looks foolish and very tender at once — the comic pathos.)
(Chorus laughs softly from offstage — not cruel, but knowing.)
Why This Played Strongly to Audiences
The woman keeps dignity, wit, and emotional control.
The husband is sympathetic but ridiculous — insecure in the wrong way.
The chorus confirms the shared societal knowledge:
You cannot buy affection.
Men who try are adorable fools.
This pattern is the core comedy engine of many zarzuelas — and it is the cultural mechanism that lets Porfirio become a type.
