nna Clarissa de
Pacheco. Fonseca's father has once rendered a great service to Don
Pantaleone Roiz de Pacheco, and in reward he destined his only child
Clarissa for Fonseca's {266} son. This promising young knight has a
letter of recommendation from his father. He is in perplexity as to
his behaviour towards such a young lady and Gaston offers to instruct
him therein. Ambrosio acts as bride, Gaston shows how she is to be
courted and Don Pinto gawkishly imitates his teacher's gestures. This
scene is most irresistibly comic. When wine and food are brought by
Ines and her servants, Don Pinto so entirely absorbs himself in
satisfying his hunger and thirst, that at last the wine gets the better
of him. He falls asleep and Gaston, thinking it an injury to a noble
lady to be wooed by such a clown, takes away old Fonseca's letter and
departs with Ambrosio. Don Pinto is carried into the house on a
grass-covered litter.

In the second act Don Pantaleone's servants are assembled in the
ancestral hall, where their master announces to them the approaching
arrival of Don Pinto, his daughter's future bridegroom. Donna
Clarissa, who already loves Don Gomez Freiros, a knight of wealth,
noble birth and bearing is in despair, as is also her lover, but Laura,
her pretty maid promises to find ways and means to avert the dreaded
marriage.

In the third act Laura and the servants are decorating the hall with
flowers. The majordomo sends them away, proclaiming Don Pinto's
arrival. All go except Laura, who hides behind a bosquet. Gaston,
entering with Ambrosio sees all those preparations with wonder.
Ambrosio detects Laura and according to his wont begins to court her.
{267} Gaston warns the damsel, and she entering into the joke mockingly
quits them. Gay Ambrosio is consoling himself in a charming song of
which the burden is girls' fickleness, when Don Gomez enters and
touches Gaston's kind heart by the description of his love for
Clarissa. Gaston tenders him Fonseca's letter, counselling Gomez to
play the part of Don Pinto, for Don Pantaleone has never seen either of
them. Gomez accepts the letter gratefully from the supposed Don Pinto
and presents it to Don Pantaleone, who has entered with his daughter
and his whole suite. Of course the father, struck by the knight's
noble bearing, gives his consent to the union with his daughter and
adds his benediction. But their joy is disturbed by the entrance of
the real Don Pinto, w