The Siege of Numantia

Cervantes · c. 1585 CE · Play · Spanish · Renaissance

Scipio rings the Celtiberian town with a ditch rather than fight it, and the besieged send out a champion, raise a corpse to ask it what is coming, and find every road shut. Allegorical figures of Spain, the river Duero, War, Hunger and Fame come on between the acts to say what a provincial siege will mean for the empire that grows out of it. Written for the public stage before Lope remade Spanish drama, it was played in besieged Zaragoza against Napoleon and again in besieged Madrid in 1937.

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