[2] It is one of the author's three famous wife-murder plays, along with A secreto agravio, secreta venganza ("Secret Vengeance for Secret Insult") and El médico de su honra ("The Physician of His Honor"), where private revenge of an aggrieved husband, in this case a painter by the name of Juan Roca, ultimately becomes very public.
During the carnival, wanting to flee the noise and revelry, he tells his wife to dance with a masked man who turns out to be Don Álvaro, her former lover who was thought to have drowned.
During a fire, Don Álvaro abducts Serafina and although she never surrenders to his advances, she is believed to be guilty by Juan Roca, her husband, after he finds her.
[5] Its setting in Barcelona and the uses of the poetry of Juan Boscán has led some to see it as an homage to the Catalan poet.
[6] It has been translated into English several times, notably (and freely) by Edward FitzGerald and more recently by Alan K. G.