Whereas previous scholarship has tended to focus either on the mythological or (only in a very few cases) the biblical strands of allusion in Cervantes's El celoso extremeño, this essay seeks to make an original contribution to the understanding of the text by considering them in their (very complex) relation to each other. The study is also, more broadly, of interest to scholars who seek to understand how early-modern Spanish writers and artists conceived of and negotiated the relationship between the `mental worlds' of pagan classical antiquity and Catholic orthodoxy.