Don Juan Tenorio

The second part of the play begins five years after the events of that night. A sculptor adds the finishing touches to a pantheon of statues. He is interrupted at his labors by a masked man who claims to have been away from Spain for several years, and who seeks to know the story behind the pantheon. The sculptor reveals that, on his deathbed, Don Diego Tenorio ordered his palace razed and a cemetery built for the victims of his wicked son, Don Juan. Warming to his theme, the sculptor displays to the stranger all of his statues, including that of Doña Inés, who died in her convent after Don Juan abandoned her. The masked man gives the sculptor a purse of gold to reward him for the beauty of his labors, then reveals himself as Don Juan and orders the sculptor to leave the grounds.

Kneeling before Doña Inés’s monument in the midsummer night, Don Juan recalls his lost love and near-redemption, and prays wistfully to her spirit to ask God’s mercy for him:

Oh Dona Ines, my life itself! If that voice I babble of is the last sigh, above, of your eternal farewell; if that voice from your very self reaches the farthest sky, and there is a God on high, with stars on either hand, tell him to gaze at Don Juan, by your tomb, and my weeping eyes (92).