Abstract
, df IRSO de Molina's only tragicomedia parab6lica dramatizes the two well-known biblical parables traditionally titled Prodigal Son and I I Rich Man and Lazarus. The first chronicles the life of the imprudent younger brother who takes his fortune and squanders it, but then repents Ov and returns to receive his father's forgiveness. The second contrasts the damnation to hell that awaits the avaricious rich man who refuses to help others and the salvation that comes to the poor in body and spirit. Although the two parables appear virtually side by side in the Gospel of Luke (15: 11-32, 16: 19-31), Tirso is the only dramatist who attempted to merge them into one coherent plot. He thereby created a triangular relationship among characters representing the totally contrary values of prodigality (Liberio), avarice (Nineucio), and impoverished virtue (Lazaro). Furthermore, Tirso's play has an unrelated love component in which Felicia, initially sought by all three men, marries first the rich man and then the prodigal son. Modern scholars have been mystified by these strange combinations and have tried to explain them, or at least to excuse the apparent lack of coherence among the parts, by suggesting that the play Tirso published in his Primera parte (1627) is a retouched version of a simpler drama with a more direct message. Their arguments thus fault the author rather than the reader for the play's
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