Iberian Pastoral Characters
^crijrta ijumamsttca Directed by BRUNO M. DAMIANI The Catholic University of America ADVISORY BOARD SAMUEL G. ARMISTEAD University of California (Davis) JUAN BAUTISTA AVALLE-ARCE University of California (Santa Barbara) THEODORE BEARDSLEY The Hispanic Society of America
HANS FLASCHE Universitat Hamburg ROBERT J. DiPiETRo University of Delaware GIOVANNI FALLANI Musei Vaticani JOHN E. KELLER University of Kentucky
GIUSEPPE BELLINI Universita di Milano
RICHARD KINKADE University of Arizona
GIOVANNI MARIA BERTINI Universita di Torino
MYRON I. LICHTBLAU Syracuse University
HEINRICH BIHLER Universitat Gottingen
JUAN M. LOPE BLANCH Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico
HAROLD CANNON National Endowment for the Humanities
LELAND R. PHELPS Duke University
DANTE DELLA TERZA Harvard University
MARTIN DE RIQUER Real Academia Espanola
FREDERIC DELOFFRE Universite de ParisSorbonne
JOHN K. WALSH University of California (Berkeley)
Iberian Pastoral Characters Barbara Mujica
>crfpia Jtmnamstfca 30
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mujica, Barbara Louise. Iberian pastoral characters. (Scripta humanistica ; 30) 1. Pastoral fiction, Spanish—History and criticism. 2. Spanish fiction—Classical period, 1500-1700—History and criticism. 3. Ribeiro, Bernardim, 1482-1552. Menina e rnoca. 4. Characters and characteristics in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PQ6147.P3M84 1986 863'.3 ' 09321734 84-51568 ISBN 0-916379-17-5
© Barbara Mujica Library of Congress Number 84-05.1568 International Standard Book Number (I.S.B.N.) 6-916379-17-5 Washington, D.C. 1986 Printed in the United States of America Impreso en Estados Unidos
Table of Contents
Preface, by Frederick A. de Armas Introduction I. II. III. IV. V. VI.
The Italian Precedent: Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia
vii 1
11
Vague Beginnings: Bernardim Ribeiro's Menina e moga 43 Allegory and the Neoplatonic Ideal: Jorge de Montemayor's Siete libros de la Diana
111
Didactic Pastoral: Caspar Gil Polo's Diana enamorada
143
Cervantes' Blood-Spattered Arcadia\LaGalatea 171 Lope de Vega's Arcadia'. A Step Toward the Modern Novel
211
VII. The Decline of a Genre: Gabriel de Corral's Cintia de Aranjuez
249
Conclusion
259
For Mauro, Lillian, Mariana, and Mauro Eduardo
Preface Samuel Johnson, believing that the pastoral disallows originality, called it "easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting."1 Early critics of the Spanish pastoral novel also adopted an attitude of dismissal—they thought of it as an artificial and decorative genre that could only be associated with literary decadence. But the pastoral ideal could not remain in disfavor for long. Whether an artist evokes the Golden Age or Arcadia (two concepts that are the "two sides of the same coin")2 he is still returning to that basic psychological root which Renato Poggioli describes as "a double longing after innocence and happiness, to be recovered not through conversion or regeneration but merely through a retreat."3 This retreat from \hzpolis is also a withdrawal from the sufferings, frustrations, indeterminancies and contingencies of everyday life. Art projects this bucolic perfection creating a "paradox of natural art."4 However, it is unable to sustain the illusion. The enchanted natural realm is cursed since it has been made manifest by a writer whose inner tensions underlie his creation. It is thus not surprising that modern critics of the Spanish pastoral have moved away from notions of sameness and artificiality to discussions of socio-historical realities as well as cultural and individual differences. Americo Castro, Marcel Bataillon and Bruno Damiani are among those who have uncovered social structures and concerns in the genre. Mia Gerhardt separates European pastorals according to 1
Cited in Thomas E. Rosenmayer, The Green Cabinet (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 4. 2
Rosenmeyer, The Green Cabinet, p. 235.
3
Renato Poggioli, The Oaten Flute (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 1.
4
Elias L. Rivers, "The Pastoral Paradox of Natural Art," MLN, 77 (1962), 130-44.
vii
national cultures. Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce highlights the uniqueness of each Spanish text: Discussion ranges from the Platonic "realism" of La Diana to the autobiographical concerns of authors such as Galvez de Montalvo and Lope de Vega. Barbara Mujica continues this re-evaluation of the pastoral novel in Spain, tracing the steps by which the romance begun by Sannazaro's Arcadia slowly evolves into a form that resembles the modern novel. This evolution takes place through character development. The magician or wizard, for example, gives way to a wise person that does not alter outer "reality" but attempts to transform the self of the suffering lovers. As the form develops, characters move away from the allegorical mode and towards more concrete representations. The authorial voice no longer describes a setting where characters represent certain moods or ideas. Instead, personages are allowed to develop in a manner that may even highlight the tensions and paradoxes inherent in the ambience and the genre. To say that Barbara Mujica's book is about characterization in the pastoral as it evolves from romance to novel does not do justice to this sensitive and scholarly study. Mujica weaves into her analysis a number of themes and concerns which reflect her extensive knowledge of Renaissance culture. She is equally at home discussing Gnosticism and the Cabbala in Menina e moga or pinpointing feminist concerns. The Orphism of Sannazaro's Arcadia and the Neoplatonism of Montemayor's Diana are brought into the appraisal of the characters' motivation. For example, she clarifies the role of memory in Montemayor's Neoplatonic scheme by showing how characters, in remembering early erotic happiness, come closer to spiritual fulfillment since human love is a reflection of the divine. Yet, the harmonious relationship between creator and creature is seldom actualized. Discord often prevails. Rebellion, Mujica argues, is a key issue since characters struggle against the onslaughts of a world where viii
whimsical fortune seems to rule and where the erotic ideal often ends in victimization. Even in their passivity, certain characters are defiant, Mujica claims, but we must remember that this defiance is one extended towards society or fate, not towards the ideal imagined by the searching self. Mujica's book may stress rebellion, suffering and the emergence of a willful individual who ignores to his own peril the realities that surround him. But throughout these pages the author re-creates that longing for perfection that was central to the Renaissance psyche and that exists even in denial. Indeed, Barbara Mujica evokes for the modern reader and critic that elusive Golden Age through an approach to scholarship which is imbued with thoughtful moderation and critical balance, thus approaching the truth of Arcadia. Frederick A. de Armas
Louisiana State University
IX
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Introduction From the Garden of Eden to Marlboro Country, images of men and women living in communion with nature have permeated Western culture. The peaceful existence, free from the pressures of personal and civic responsibility, has never lost its allure. During the Renaissance, that highly visionary period in which educated men strove for perfection in every domain, the ideal society was represented as a Golden Age when people lived free of stress and in harmony with their natural surroundings. The earthly paradise depicted in literature and art was inspired by both classical and Biblical sources. As A. C. Spearing has pointed out, the locus amoenus is a Mediterranean landscape typical of Greece, Italy, or Palestine.1 It features spring-like warmth, bright sunlight, fruit trees, flowery meadows, songbirds, springs, brooks, and fountains. It is the ideal landscape of Homer, Theocritus and Virgil, as well as of the Garden of Eden and of the Song of Songs. The Golden Age was first prophesied by Virgil, in his Eclogue IV. Of the Spanish Renaissance writers, it is Cervantes who best describes the Golden Age. Don ^Medieval Dream Poetry (London: Cambridge University Press, 1976), p. 17. On the pastoral landscape, see also "Le milieu pastoral" in Luigi Monga, Le Genre Pastoral au XVle siecle, (Paris: Editions Universitaires, 1974), pp. 5-72. 1
Quijote, that undauntable Utopian intent on ridding the world of injustice, invokes the Golden Age as the incarnation of his ideal world in a gathering with some goatherds early in the first page of Cervantes' masterpiece: "Dichosa edad y siglos dichosos aquellos a quien los antiguos pusieron nombre de dorados, y no porque en ellos el oro, que en esta nuestra edad de hierro tanto se estima, se alcanzase en aquella venturosa sin fatiga alguna, sino porque entonces los que en ella vivian ignoraban estas dos palabras de tuyo y mto...Todo era paz entonces, todo amistad, todo concordia; aun no se habia atrevido la pesada reja del corvo arado a abrir ni visitar las entranas piadosas de nuestra primera madre, que ella, sin ser forzada, ofrecia, por todas partes de su fertil y espacioso seno, lo que pudiese hartar, sustentar y deleitar a los hijos que entonces la poseian. Entonces si que andaban las simples y hermosas zagalejas de valle en valle y de otero en otero en trenza y en cabello, sin mas vestidos de aquellos que eran menester para cubrir honestamente lo que la honestidad quiere y ha querido siempre que se cubra... Entonces se decoraban los concetos amorosos del alma simple y sencillamente del mesmo modo y manera que ella los concebia, sin buscar artificioso rodeo de palabras para encarecerlos. No habia la fraude, el engano ni la malicia mezcladose con verdad y llaneza. La justicia se estaba en sus propios terminos, sin que la osasen turbar ni ofender los del favor y los del interese, que tanto ahora la menoscaban, turban y persiguen... Las doncellas y la honestidad andaban, como tengo dicho, por dondequiera, sola y senora, sin temor que la ajena desenvokura y lascivo intento le menoscabasen, y su perdicion nacia de su gusto y propia voluntad.2
The Utopia Don Quijote envisions is free of deceit and artifice. It is a world of simplicity and freedom which Don Quijote compares repeatedly with the complex, corrupt, hypocritical world that he knows. The Golden Age dominated the European imagination 2
Don Quijote, ed. Martin de Riquer (New York: Las Americas, 1967). pp. 105-106.
2
from early in the Renaissance. When Columbus discovered the peaceful, naked Taino Indians on his first voyage to the New World, it was believed that he had perhaps stumbled onto a remnant of some Golden Age civilization.3 Before long the Europeans realized the true nature of Columbus' discoveries, and once again the Golden Age slipped beyond reach. Indeed, the most problematical characteristic of the Golden Age is its inaccessibility. In Cervantes, it is a projection into the distant past; in Virgil, it is a projection into the distant future. In the present, it exists only in men's minds. The locus amoenus is a mental landscape into which citizens weary of the demands ofthepo/is may retreat. It is a welcome illusion, conjured up deliberately through meditation and art. The visionary experience requires a physical and mental distancing from everyday reality. It requires a blocking out of the individual's immediate surroundings. Paradoxically, it depends on the very artifice it seeks to eliminate, for in order to achieve it, one must impose the discipline and order that art and meditation require. One must occult the dissonant sounds, the rough edges, the cruel inequities that are part, not only of civilized existence, but of nature itself. The role of art in the Renaissance is to purify the spirit, to assuage the passions. Through art, man strives for moderation, balance, beauty. Artifice becomes a positive concept. Rather than guile, craftiness, or deceitful ostentation, artifice is ingenuity, inventiveness, skill. It is through artifice that man the creator strives toward truth and harmony with nature. The locus amoenus of pastoral is an invented landscape in which the only inhabitants are shepherds and supernatural beings. The concept of the shepherd as a peace3
Samuel Eliot Morison, Christopher Columbus, Mariner (New York: Signet-New American Library, 1984), p. 50.
ful man—simple, yet nurturing, unassuming, yet skilled — comes, like the pastoral landscape itself, from both Biblical and classical sources. The image of Christ as a good shepherd who protects his flock and rescues the occasional wayward sheep recurs throughout Christian art. In classical writing, too, the shepherd is a frequent theme. In his Bucolics, Virgil, who spent ten years of his youth on a farm, first describes an imaginary Arcadia inhabited by shepherds and shepherdesses. Here, in the midst of rustic simplicity, peace and harmony reign. It is also Virgil who introduces the technique of referring to real persons in the guise of shepherds. From ancient times the locus amoenus is associated with love. It is in a garden that God created Eve for Adam. Often the concept of womanhood and the concept of nature are inseparable. Woman—fertile, nurturing, and physiologically cyclical—is man's link with the primal forces. In the Song of Songs, woman is described as an "enclosed garden" (4.12). In his idylls celebrating the simplicity of rustic life in Sicily, Theocritis introduced enduring amorous figures such as Daphnis, Lycidas, Corydon, and Amaryllis. Virgil's Eclogues II and VIII deal specifically with love themes. In the third century A.D., a Greek poet, probably Longus, wrote Daphnis and Chloe, a pastoral about a young boy and girl who are abandoned by their parents and raised by shepherds. Eventually they fall in love and marry each other after having been reunited with their respective families. Daphnis and Chloe had great influence in the Renaissance, and was a source for Robert Greene's Pandosto (1588) and Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale (1611). If eros is an important element in the classical pastoral, it is fundamental to the Utopian vision in the Renaissance. Spanish pastoral incorporates the Medieval concept of the ennobling force of love, the elevation of the beloved to a place of superiority above the lover, and the concept of love 4
as an unsatiable desire. Neoplatonism contributes the revelation of a spiritual union between man and God achieved through love; since the beloved's particular beauty is a reflection of superior, divine beauty, it is through the contemplation of the beloved that the lover transcends the ephemeral and visible. Montemayor's Diana ends with the vision of an erotic paradise in which gods and men share a common ground. Between 1559 and 1633 at least twenty-two pastoral romances were published in Spain. Best-sellers in their day, the pastoral romances often strike the modern reader as archaic and silly. The flute-playing shepherds, whose only preoccupation is love, seem incompatible with the values and objectives of twentieth century men and women. And yet, pastoral responds to a timeless, universal longing for simple solutions. Religion, political reform, medicine, drugs, technology have all promised Utopias attractive to different segments of modern Western society. And when those Utopias have failed, men and women have rejected them and turned back to the pastoral ideal. In the sixties and early seventies, thousands of young people retreated from a society they viewed as corrupt and injust. Spurning the artificial and the technological, they founded communes where they grew their own food, enjoyed love unencumbered by the convention of marriage, and sought communion with nature. Even in the pragmatic eighties, the Arcadian vision remains vital. In the recent movie Witness, a street-wise cop escapes into an earthly paradise in the Amish country of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Inspired by the charms of a young Amish widow for whom he longs and pines, just as Sireno does for Diana, he assimilates into the group, participating in domestic and agricultural chores. The land is fertile and generous. Photographed in warm, soothing shades, the countryside is as inviting as any literary Arcadia. 5
The film is replete with scenes of farmers working the fields, gathering for prayer, singing at fests. And who can forget the magnificent barnraising, in which rivalries are set aside and men work together for the common benefit! But like Sincere in Sannazaro's Arcadia, the cop is an exile from the polis. The pressures of the outside world cannot be cast aside indefinitely. Little by little, reality intrudes. Finally, it recaptures the hero's focus. Now this modern-day Sincere must come to terms with the fact that his experience has been nothing more than a temporary escape. Like Sincere, he must return to the real world, leaving the dream world behind. The perfect pastoral structure of Witness illustrates that even today, the vision of Arcadia is enticing. What is evident in Witness and in Renaissance pastoral as well, is the inevitable collapse of the Utopian vision. Unfailingly, outside forces or internal passions interfere and destroy the image of harmony. In no pastoral romance is the projection of perfection actually achieved and maintained. Arcadia is an illusion. It is necessarily so because humans are flawed, and their shortcomings will inevitably penetrate the dream worlds they construct. And yet, the pastoral experience is not a failure, for if imperfection is human, so is the striving for perfection. In this sense, pastoral responds to a basic need. A close examination of the evolution of pastoral from the early Spanish translations of Sannazaro's Arcadia to the later works reveals a process of maturation in the art of character development that contributes to the transformation of the genre from simple romance—a series of scenes depicting colorful events that appeal to the imagination and are tied loosely together by narrative—to a form that closely resembles the modern novel. As the genre develops, characters evolve from the allegorical to the concrete, from the decorative to the substantive. They cease to be peripheral, as in Sannazaro's Arcadia, and become central to
6
the romance. There is no direct trajectory from the symbolic to the realistic. The earliest examples of the genre include characters that reveal elements of psychological depth, while the very latest retain elements of allegory. Still, there is a distinct tendency toward the end of the century to create characters who are individuals functioning within a specific context and who react to particular circumstances. With its emphasis on free will and individual responsibility, the Counter Reformation represents a concept of life diametrically opposed to the protected, ordered world of the early pastoral romances. As the Counter Reformation exerts increasing influence on Spanish thought and letters, pastoral characters become less pawns of providence and more forgers of their own destinies. In its earliest manifestations, Renaissance pastoral depicts an enchanted realm governed by natural law. Conflicts are resolved by providence or magic. It is a world in which an omniscient wizard-father delivers his shepherd-sons from evil and unrest, and a comforting, bountiful earth-mother provides shelter and sustenance. In the early Renaissance, magic was considered a legitimate science. It was viewed as the means of harnessing the natural world for man's benefit. Harmony between man and nature required the exercise of magic, and therefore, the wizard figure was central to pastoral romance. Early pastoral depicts a world in which the individual has little control over his own destiny. The controversy over freedom of the will raged throughout the better portion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Reformation brought with it the belief that man was saved or damned by the will of God, regardless of his own deeds. Luther wrote in De servo arbitrio: ".. .neither in man nor in an angel, nor in any other created being, can such a thing as free will exist." Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, maintained: "inasmuch as the human will is fettered by sin and a slave, it 7
can achieve no manner of good; it is entirely devoid of this power of doing anything of a kind." In opposition to this doctrine of servo arbitrio, the Counter Reformation took a stand in defense of the doctrine of free will. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuit order, wrote in the appendix to his Spiritual Exercises: "We should not lay so much stress on the doctrine of grace as thereby to encourage the holding of that noxious doctrine which denies the existence of free will." The theologian Francisco Suarez takes the same unequivocal stand as Loyola in his Disputaciones metaflsicas: "Tpdo agente racional, y solo el, es capaz de libertad."4 It is inevitable, perhaps, that in Spanish pastoral, characters become increasingly responsible for their own destinies as the genre develops. By Cervantes' Galatea, the magical element has disappeared and free will is a major theme. With the exception of Lope's Dardanio, the wizard—prominent in most of the early pastoral romances — is either absent or replaced by a wiseman (or wisewoman) who relies on natural rather than supernatural remedies. As the emphasis shifts from the community to the individual, the vast arrays of characters that typify early works give way to a narrower focus. Like the modern novel, the later pastorals are dominated by a single protagonist—or, at least, a limited number of protagonists—whose adventures dominate the action and with whose emotional tribulations the reader identifies. Although not absent from the early pastoral romances, psychological complexity becomes more pronounced in the later ones. Lope's Anfriso is multidimensional in comparison with the characters of Montemayor and Gil Polo. In the following study I consider four major Spanish pastoral romances accessible to modern readers: 4
See Barbara Louise Mujica, Calderon's Characters: An Existential Point of View (Barcelona: Puvill, 1980), p. 23-
8
Montemayor's Los siete libros de la Diana, Gil Polo's Diana enamorada, Cervantes' Galatea and Lope's Arcadia. Each represents a different approach to pastoral. Together, they illustrate the development of specific novelistic techniques within the genre as well as the evolving philosophical climate of late sixteenth-century Spain. In addition, I have included a brief chapter on Corral's Cintia de Aranjuez, a late pastoral romance that exemplifies the decline of the genre. Two pastoral romances precede Montemayor's, both of which are also included in this study. Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia established the genre early in the sixteenth century and has been recognized from the time of its publication as the prototype. A Spanish translation of Sannazaro's work was the first pastoral romance to appear in Spain. Menina e moga, by the Portuguese writer Berdardim Ribeiro, has received scant attention from critics, especially in the English-speaking world. Published shortly before Los siete libros de la Diana, Menina e moga is a hybrid work with a strong pastoral component. A unique and in many ways baffling piece of literature, it is the first pastoral-type romance written by an Iberian. Menina e moga represents an intermediate step in the development of the pastoral romance. It provides examples of characters that respond to both the pastoral and sentimental traditions as well as to cabalistic beliefs that recent research has shown to have influenced the author. Iberian Pastoral Characters is the culmination of many years' work. Some of the material in the following chapters has appeared in the following publications: "Violence in the Pastoral Novel: From Sannazaro to Cervantes," Hispano-Italic Studies, 1, No. 1 (Fall 1976) pp. 39-55. "Antiutopian Elements in the Spanish Pastoral Novel," Kentucky Romance Quarterly, 26, No. 3 (1979), pp. 263-82.
9
"The Wizard in the Spanish Pastoral Novel," Homena/e a Humberto Pihera, ed. Enrique Ledesma and Wayne H. Finke (Madrid, Editorial Playor, 1979), pp. 179-85. "Lope's Arcadia: A Step Toward the Modern Novel," Hispanic Journal, 2, No. 2, (1981)pp. 27-49. "The Decline of a Genre: Gabriel Corral's Cintia de Aranjuez" Homenaje a J.M. Sola-Sole, ed. Victoriano Aguera and Nathaniel B. Smith, (Barcelona: Hispam, 1984), pp. 217-22. Damiani, Bruno and Barbara Mujica, Et in Arcadia Ego: Essays on Death in the Pastoral Novel (forthcoming).
It is my sincere hope that Iberian Pastoral Characters will contribute to a revaluation of the pastoral romance, and that a more thorough understanding of our fantasies of perfection will lead to a greater understanding of ourselves.
10
Chapter I The Italian Precedent: Jacopo Sannazaro's Arcadia Jacopo Sannazaro was the initiator of the pastoral idyll in prose and verse not only in his native Italy, but also in the rest of Europe. The earliest pastoral romance to appear in Spain was a translation from the Italian. Spanish editions of Sannazaro's Arcadia appeared in Toledo in 1547 and 1549, and later translations appeared in Madrid and Salamanca. With the publication of these early translations, a new type of romance was introduced on the Iberian Peninsula. Of course, there had long existed a pastoral current in Spanish poetry and didactic prose. The encounter between knight and shepherdess was the theme of the light-spirited Provencal pastourelles, and later, of the Galician-Portuguese pastorelas of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Medieval morality plays as well as Nativity and Easter dramas contained pastoral elements, and, by the end of the fifteenth century, independent pastoral plays, both secular and religious, were being performed. Early fifteenth-century playwrights, such as Juan del Encina, Lucas Fernandez, and Gil Vicente, wrote dramatic eclogues and pastoral autos. In addition, several novels of chivalry incorporated pastoral episodes. But it was Sannazaro's Arcadia that provided the principal model for the new Spanish literary genre, even though, As Rogelio Reyes Cano has pointed out, in Spain the pastoral romance took on a character all its own.1 ^La Arcadia de Sannazaro en Espana (Sevilla: 1973), 11
The date of composition of Sannazaro's Arcadia is not altogether clear. Current scholarship holds that the poet was born in 1456.2 As a young man, he spent some time at a country retreat near Salerno, and it is possible that during this period he wrote several of the eclogues he later incorporated into the romance. Ralph Nash argues that there is little convincing evidence that the work was written prior to 1482, the year that the poet returned to Naples, although it is possible that Arcadia began as a few independent eclogues that Sannazaro later wove together with prose passages once back in the metropolis.3 A draft of Arcadia through Eclogue X bears the date 1489, but the romance remained unpublished until 1502, when an unauthorized text appeared while Sannazaro was in voluntary exile in France with King Frederick. In 1504, upon the king's death and the poet's return to his homeland, a complete text, including Eclogues XI and XII, their accompanying prose, and an epilogue, were published. Sannazaro's pastoral romance was an immediate success, not only in Italy, but also abroad. The Neopolitan poet exerted an immeasurable influence on Spanish letters for more than a century, and, although the Spanish pastoral evolved along its own particular lines, Sannazaro's Arcadia was the starting point, or, as Amadeu Sole-Leris has put it, "the crystallizing factor" that consecrated the bucolic ideal and popularized the pastoral theme.4 Remarkably—from a modern perspective —the popularity of Arcadia was a source of displeasure to the poet, who distrusted the judgment of
2
Ralph Nash, "Introduction" tojacopo Sannazaro, Arcadia and Piscatorial Eclogues (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1966), p. 7. 3
Nash,p. 8.
*Tt>e Spanish Pastoral Novel (Boston: Twayne, 1980), p. 25.
12
the masses and strove to establish his worth through his less universally accessible Latin verse .5 Sannazaro was not particularly concerned with characterization. For one thing, he did not conceive of Arcadia in terms of characters or narrative, but, most probably, wrote the eclogues first and merely joined them together with prose interludes. For another, the essence of the Arcadian ideal is, precisely, community, not individuality. Sannazaro begins his idyll without any reference to characters at all, but rather, with a detailed description of the idealized landscape of Arcadia. This is a world in which man and nature are one, in which vegetation is humanized ["potrb ben io fra queste deserte piagge agli ascoltanti alberi...racontare le rozze Ecloghe." (p. 50)6 "Ne sono le dette piante si discortesi, che del tutto con le loro ombre vieteno i raggi del sole entrare nel dilettoso boschetto..." (p. 52] and in which humans are rendered anonymous. It is a world in which there is no distinction between natural and supernatural; Arcadia is inhabited by nymphs and gods as well as by shepherds and animals. It is, clearly and frankly, a fantasy world. In his Discorso sopra le Rime di Sannazaro, published in 1561, Francesco Sansovino clarified that Arcadia is a region in central Peloponnesus.7 However, as William J. Kennedy points out, although Sannazaro suggests that the pastures he describes are somewhere near Naples, Arcadia is not a specific geographical region, but an imaginary realm, a literary landscape.8 The narrative is in the first person singular, but the reader 5
Nash,p. 11.
6
Quotations are from Opere di lacopo Sannazaro, ed. Enrico Carrara (Torino: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese, 1952).
7
See William J. Kennedy, Jacopo Sannazaro and the Uses of Pastoral (Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 1983), pp. 114-115. s
jacopo Sannazaro, p. 115. On the absence of seasons in La Arcadia, see Monga, pp. 56-57.
13
is only vaguely aware of the narrator as a character. The shepherds themselves do not appear until past the prologue and well into the first chapter, and then only as incidental to the landscape. They are busy at their games, in harmony with nature and with each other, devoid of individuality. Only Ergasto sits alone, divorced from the general merriment, pining for a shepherdess. Moved to compassion, his friend Selvaggio comforts him, and the two sing together. Neither Selvaggio nor Ergasto is fully developed as a character, but their songs serve to introduce two themes essential to pastoral: violence and melancholy. In spite of the harmony and consonance of the initial description, Arcadia masks an underlying disorder that periodically threatens to surface.9 Unlike the Spaniards who follow him, Sannazaro does not introduce violence through evil characters. Evil exists not in the person of the villain, but as an omnipresent reality, an element common to both man and nature. In Selvaggio's song, two rams joust, while the hypocritical flock praises the winner and ridicules the loser; evil wolves lie waiting to attack innocent sheep abandoned to lazy dogs by unconcerned shepherds; Cupid throws unsuspecting victims into inner turmoil; Procne and Cecropia lament ancient acts of violence. These images reveal the psychological, social and political realities that intrude upon the poet's mental projection of perfection.10 In The Landscape of the Mind, Richard Cody points out that Plato and his Italian disciples, such as Polizano, who invented the pastoral play around 1480, conform to "a 9 See my article "Violence in the Pastoral Novel: From Sannazaro to Cervantes," HispanoItalic Studies, 1, No. 1 (Fall, 1976), 49-55. 10 The early sixteenth century was a period of political turmoil. Sannazaro had close ties with Frederick of Aragon, who was exiled to Anjou in 1501 as a result of the decision of France and Spain to divide his kingdom between them. Sannazaro, loyal to his king, disposed of a considerable amount of his property and voluntarily accompanied him into exile. It was not until Frederick died in 1504 that Sannazaro returned to Naples.
14
single mode of composition: a verbal art of landscape which is an allegory of the inner life."11 But the Ego is rarely tranquil. Summarizing Ficino's Orphic view as put forth in the Italian's commentary on the Symposium, Cody writes, "The human soul, being full of discord, needs the music of poetry to temper it, the Bacchic sacrifice to unify its parts, the Apolline vision to reveal the transcendent unity behind and before it, and the passion for beauty to unite it with God."12 Pastoral represents an attempt to withdraw from the chaos of the polls into the contemplative life. It is the search for an inner self in harmony with God and nature by means of the literary myth of the courtier as lover and poet.13 Vittorio Gajetti defines L'Arcadia as an attempted regression to the protected world of childhood in which the Mother—that is, Nature —provides total fulfillment ,14 The essence of pastoral is the undertaking, not the achievement. At the beginning of The Oaten Flute, Renato Poggioli writes, "The psychological root of the pastoral is a double longing after innocence and happiness to be recovered not through conversion or regeneration but merely through a retreat."15 But the retreat—or regression—is only attempted, never fully realized. The tension that permeates pastoral results from the poet's endeavor to maintain the projection of harmony in spite of the inevitable intrusion of the forces of discord that operate within the human psyche. Order vies with chaos, harmony, with discord. Anthony Cascardi defines the nature of this tension when he writes that pastoral "expresses at once man's desire to regain Eden, as well as his awareness that this can never be achieved. In much pastoral literature, the "(London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 24. lz
Cody,pp. 28-29.
13
Cody,p.5.
u
Epido in Arcadia (Naples: Guida Editori, 1977).
15
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 1.
15
artist conjures up an Earthly Paradise, but also leaves that Paradise behind, sometimes destroying it as he goes."16 The harmony depicted in the early passages of Arcadia is immediately undermined by the images of Selvaggio's song. As his name implies, Selvaggio represents the luxuriance and beauty of the natural world, but also its savagery. Ergasto's part of the eclogue is equally paradoxical. Ergasto sings a love lament that depicts him immersed in a state of erotic sublimation characterized by intensely pleasurable melancholy and sexual arousal. ("lo vidi prima 1'uno e poi 1'altro occhio, / fin al genocchio alzata al parer mio / in mezzo al rio si stave al caldo cielo..." p. 56) The sight of a young girl washing clothes in the river, her skirt hiked up to the knee, leaves Ergasto mesmerized and vanquished. Spying him, the girl wades into the river. He, wild with passion, lets out an anguished scream, causing her to come running to comfort him. The scene is patently erotic, the river symbolizing the life force (sex, procreation), the hot sky, the heat of Ergasto's desire.17 No sooner does Ergasto recover, than the girl runs away, leaving him to cry after her. The eclogue ends with the image of the weeping Ergasto calling out to the compassionate woods, river, mountains, and flocks. like the landscape that mirrors the poet's mind, the girl is a host of contradictions. Kind and cruel, repentent and unrelenting, compassionate and unpitying, seductive yet cold, she is as beautiful and perfect as the nature of which she is a part, and masks as many ambiguities. If she is anonymous, it is because she needs no name. She is not an individual character, but the enticement of eros. Distinguishing sex from eros, Rollo May writes, "Sex is a need, but eros is a desire...Eros seeks union with the other 16 "The Exit from Arcadia: Reevaluation of the Pastoral in Vkgil, Garcilaso and Gongora. JHP, 4No. 2 (Winter, 1980), 119-141.
"Compare with Garcilaso's imagery in Eclogue I, lines 116-126.
16
person in delight and passion, and the procreating of new dimensions of experience which broaden and deepen the being of both persons."18 Eros is uplifting, purifying. For Saint Augustine, it is the power that drives men toward God. For the Neoplatonists, it through erotic love that man approaches the divine. In Sannazaro, eros is the life-force, a bond between man and nature. What is essential is not the identity of Ergasto's shepherdess, but the myth of womanhood, the pull of desire, the possibility of physical and spiritual fulfillment. Ergasto's arousal reflects the hope and innocence of adolescence. The state of erotic sublimation in which the Arcadian shepherds typically find themselves represents a regression to the first passions of youth. Then, love, recently discovered, unincumbered by shame, logic, or social considerations, overwhelms and fills with promise. But adolescence—that hopeful age to which the pastoralist escapes—is also a time of turmoil. In his discussion of Virgil's Eighth Eclogue, Anthony J. Cascardi notes that Damon, spurned by Nysa, conjures up an imaginary world by invoking the power of song. Like Ergasto, he allows his thoughts of his loved one to provoke and torture him. As a result, "he is forced to see the natural world as one of disordered, uncontrolled passions... Damon's complaint alternates between a vision of the ideal world he hopes his song will give him and the disordered world he senses as real because of his plight in love."19 In pastoral, art both imposes order and reveals chaos, postulates perfection and exposes the imperfectness of all things human. Erotic harmony is the ideal, but the immediate reality of the characters is anguish, melancholy, unfulfilled desire. The pastoralist retreats into his inner self in an attempt to 18
LoveandB^7/(New York: Norton, 1969), p. 74. Cascardi,p. 123.
19
17
transcend the conflicts of the outside world—the "real" world; the harmonious landscape is the objectivization of his subjective longing—what Cody calls the "landscape of the mind." But the pastoralist's "other" world never disappears. Anxiety and discontent can be masked or transformed through art, but not eliminated. The dichotomy between the ideal and the real never dissolves. The pastoral world is not one of perfection, but of yearning for perfection. It is a world into which turmoil constantly intrudes. The overlapping realities of human existence are evident in the first eclogue, but the singers are not developed further. The paradoxical nature of love—the pleasure, the anguish —is the leitmotiv that recurs in the songs of so many undelineated shepherds that the reader perceives the singers' plaints as a lament on the general condition of man, rather than as responses to individual fictional situations. As Eduardo Saccone has indicated, Sannazaro's Arcadia is a series of lyrical abstractions divorced from the modifications that narrative imposes. The characteristics of the romance are "1'assenza di moto, e perb di tempo, e Finstaurazione di una condizione assoluta, dunque non psicologica, di uno spazio simbolico, dove i dadi son tratti per sempre, e ogni modificazione e esclusa a priori"20—precisely the opposite of what narrative development requires. Hence, neither lover nor loved-one are individuals. Ergasto appears twice more in the novel, once lamenting the death of Androgeo, once lamenting the death of his mother Massilia. No reference is made in either episode to his previous love affair. The cohesiveness of his character results from the fact that he is consistently melancholy and from certain parallels with Sincere-Sannazaro to be discussed later on. Yet, aside from the narrator, Ergasto is one of the few characters who
20
II "soggetto"delfurioso (Naples:LiguoriEditore, 1974), p. 19.
18
offer any cohesiveness at all.21 The next shepherds to appear are Montano and Uranio, who contribute a rustic element. Montano's motives for singing are not romantic, but practical: in the first place, he wishes to lessen the burden of the journey; in the second, he has been offered a prize for doing so. While Montano is concerned with material gain, Uranio is concerned with sleep, food, and wine. The rustic theme, prominent in several Spanish pastoral romances, recurs throughout the Italian prototype. The first part of the eclogue sung by Montano and Uranio is, like Selvaggio's song, full of references to political and social violence represented by frequent mention of wolves and thieves: Fuggite il ladro, o pecore e pastori, ch'egli e di fuori il lupo pien di'inganni, e mille danni fa per le contrade. (p. 61) Nessun si mostri paventoso al bosco; ch'io ben conosco i lupi: andiamo, andiamo: die s'un sol ramo mi trarrb da presso, nel faro spesso ritornare addietro. (p. 61) Ite, miei cani, ite, Melampo et Adro, cacciate el ladro con audaci gridi Nessun si fidi nell 'astute insidie de' falsi lupi che gli armenti furano; e cib n'awiene per le nostre invidie. (p. 62)
A reflection of the outside world, the wolves and thieves are an omnipresent menace to the well-being the flock, and therefore, to the tranquility of the Arcadian landscape. Vittorio Gajetti has suggested that the thieving wolf that 21 Melancoly was a Renaissance preoccupation and was one of the accepted variations of man. The melancholic was represented as profound, as, for example, in Michelangelo's statue of Lorenzo el magnifico, and sincere, as in Milton's IIpenseroso, probably written in the early 1630's. See Americo Castro, La realidadhistories de Espana (Mexico: Editorial Porrua, 1954), p. 453; Marcel Bataillon, "Melancolia renacentista o melancolia judia," in Estudios Hispanicos, Homenaje a Archer M. Huntington (Wellesley: 1952), pp. 39-50; and Mia Gerhardt, La Pastorale: essai tfanalyse litteraire (Assen: Vangorcum, 1950), p. 107.
19
hovers over the flock symbolizes the literary thieves who threatened Sannazaro.22 The image of the triumphant poet-shepherd, who protects his flock by frightening the villains away, recalls Sannazaro's triumph over plagiarists, imitators, and filchers. It is also probable that the wolves and thieves reflect the political adversaries who were responsible for Sannazaro's exile.23 The second part of the eclogue stresses the conventionality of pastoral love poetry. Montano acknowledges that the song corresponds to no personal sentiment, but rather is chosen from an existing repertoire: Or qual canterb io, che n'ho ben cento ? Quella feifiertormento? O quella che comincia: Alma mia bella? Dirb quell'altra forse: AhicrudaStella? (p. 63)24
The emphasis here is on form and style. Montano challenges Uranio to a singing contest, and the two show off their skill in a variety of metric forms. At line 57 they answer each other in responsorial tercets. At line 81 they undertake a barzelleta measure of five-line stanzas combining eleven and seven-syllable verses with the rhyme AbCcB, BcDdC. At line 101, they perform a madrigal measure, and then at line 133, they return to the terza rima of the very beginning
22
Gajetti,p. 59.
23
See Note 10. The mention of wolves is common in early pastoral work songs, in which the appearance of the wolf is represented as a natural danger faced by the flock, as in the following example: Cata el lobo do vajuanica, Juanilla. Cata el lobo do vajuanica, Juanilla.
From libra de musica para vihuela, intitulado Orpbenica lyra, compuesto por Miguel de Fuenllana, 1554, Libro VI, fol. 154v. Throughout L'Arcadia, wolves represent the political conniving that was going on in Naples. 24
Similar situations arise in earlier pastoral works. In Virgil's Eclogue III Damoetas challenges Menalcas to a singing match, but in the end Palaemon decides that both deserve the prize.
20
of the eclogue.25 The narrator, who invites Montano to sing and offers him a prized staff of knotty myrtle for his efforts, first calls attention to Montano's art, then, after the eclogue is finished, praises both Montano's introductions and Uranio's quick and confident responses. The shepherds' talent lies in their ability to revitalize existing forms. "Innovation is welcome," as Kennedy points out, "but it proceeds from the already extant. 'Originality' means returning to origins. "26 Montano and Uranio are distinguished only by their poetic aptitude and their rusticity. They are characters without a past, without goals, without emotions. However, like Selvaggio and Ergasto, they serve to broaden our understanding of the true nature of Arcadia: a conventionalized Utopia that reflects man's dream of harmony, beauty, and emotional sublimation, but that is nevertheless inseparable from those political, social and psychological realities with which man lives. Montano's song, with its metric variations and deliberate reminders of source, stresses the artificiality of Arcadia at the same time that it evokes hidden dangers lurking in the shadows. It is a microcosm of the pastoral world, in which art seeks—unsuccessfully—to eliminate evil. In Chapter III, the same concept is conveyed through the description of the paintings in the holy temple. Above the entrance, a series of scenes depicts mythological beings so distracted that they are oblivious to both the pleasures and the menaces that surround them. A ram, intent on an oaken garland, ignores a lush crop of grasses. Several nymphs, their gaze fixed upon him, remain unaware until almost too late of four approaching satyrs. Nameless representations of 25
Kcnnedy,p. 119.
26
Kennedy, p. 119. See also David Quint, Origin and Originality in Renaissance Literature: Versions of the Source (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983).
21
an erotic ideal, the nymphs play naked in the fields, arousing the desires of the satyrs, who clamor after them only to be disappointed when the nymphs leap into the river and swim away. But lust is not the only danger. The lush forest is carpeted with brambles and other injurious undergrowth that threaten the white bodies of the fleeing nymphs. The scene captures the essence of Arcadia: anonymous imaginary beings exuding sensuality arouse desires never to be satisfied, but rather, to be maintained in a state of intensely pleasurable sublimation. The sensuousness of the nymphs reflects the luxuriance of nature itself. They escape danger, not by following an intellectualized strategy, but by following their natural instincts. They are part of the artificial harmony of Arcadia, where menace hovers but is held in check. Another panel of the painting shows Apollo, intently watching two fighting bulls, unaware that Mercury, dressed as a shepherd, is stealing away his cows. The scenes are playful and amusing, yet disconcerting. The image of the inattentive individual, so lost in reverie that he is heedless of danger, is reminiscent of Sannazaro's political experiences. Although the chaos of the outside world constantly shows its face, it is not until the end of the romance that reality vanquishes the illusion. The success of pastoral depends on the poet's ability to hold the forces of confusion and disorder at bay. Throughout VArcadia, clashes among the shepherds are avoided, although conflict is depicted in the man-made art forms—in the poetry, paintings and drawings.27 For example, in a later episode, there is mention of a cup bearing the image of a god who is forcing a nymph 27
Paul Hie discusses the grotesque element evident in works of art in several pastoral novels in "Grotesque Elements in the Pastoral Novel," Homena/e a William L, Fichter (Madrid: Castalia, 1971), p. 319-28.
22
while she struggles to get loose, scratching his nose and pulling his beard. Art is an imperfect escape, for the shadow of discord cannot be eradicated. Yet, through art, the hard edges of reality can be softened, controlled, temporarily obscured. In the artificial world of Arcadia, conflict is avoided. The characters' different opinions and perspectives combine to form a harmonious whole, like the contrasting shades of a painting. For example, in the episode in which various shepherds pass judgment on Galicio's song, "Alcuni lodarono la giovenil voce piena de armonia inestimabile; altri il modo suavissimo e dolce, atto ad irretire qualunque animo stato fusse piu ad amore ribello: molti comendarono le rime leggiadre, e tra rustici pastori non usitate; e di quelli ancora vi furono, che con piu ammirazione estolsero la acutissima sagacita del suo awedimento..." (p. 77) There is no discord among the characters; all agree on the value of the song. The shepherdesses distinguish themselves as individuals even less than the shepherds. Not one of them speaks in the entire work. Rather than real characters, they are catalysts of erotic sublimation. They combine with the landscape to produce an atmosphere of luxuriant sensuality. Amaranta, for example, is described in terms that are refined, yet frankly sexual: ...li cui capelli erano da un sotilissimo velo coverti, di sotto al quale duo occhi vaghi e lucidissimi scintillavano, non altrimente che le chiare stelle sogliono nel sereno e limpido cielo fiammeggiare; il viso alquanto piu lunghetto che tondo, di bella forma con bianchezza non spiacevole, ma temperata, quasi al bruno dechinando, e da un vermiglio e grazioso colore accompagnato, reimpieva di vaghezza gli occhi che '1 miravano: le labra eran tali, che le matutine rose avanzavano; fra le quali, ogni volta che parlava o sorrideva, mostrava alcuna parte de' denti, di tanto strana e maraviglioso leggiadria, che a niuna altra cosa, che ad orientali perle gli avrei saputo assomigliare.
23
Quindi a la marmorea e delicata gola discendendo, vidi nel tenero petto le picciole e giovenili mammelle, che a guisa di duo rotondi pomi la sotilissima veste in fuori pingivano, per mezzo de le quali si discerneva una vietta bellissima, et oltra modo piacevole a riguardare, la quale perb che ne le secrete parti si terminava, di a quelle con piu efficiacia pensare mi fu cagione."(p-78)
The passage combines conventional Petrarchan erotic simile—eyes like stars, lips like roses, teeth like pearls, skin white as marble—with an explicit and unashamed expression of sexual desire. Unlike the Spanish pastoralists, Sannazaro depicts an unabashedly erotic paradise. It is an atmosphere of unbridled voluptuousness in which natural inclination is never condemned. Like Ergasto's clothes-washing shepherdess, Amaranta is a symbol of beauty, delight, and liberation, rather than an actual character. She is, like the other shepherdesses, a mythical representation. She is static; no story is associated with her. She is a personification of the Arcadian ideal, rather than a woman. In the description of Amaranta, attention is given to color, chromatics and form, rather than to any psychological attribute. Like a flower, she is a natural object that contributes to the harmony and luxuriance of the locus. She delights by her very existence. She arouses by her very insouciance. She is the call of eros. The scene in which Amaranta joins her friends reinforces the concept of harmony achieved through contrast. Each of Amaranta's companions decorates her own hair with flowers of a different hue, producing an array of shades that complement and enhance each other. The effect is chromatic harmony. There is contrast, but no clash. Together, the tones combine to form a perfect whole. Art imposes order on the chaotic, and thereby soothes the troubled psyche. Temporary and imperfect though its fruits may be, art provides relief. 24
The view of nature as composed of diverse complementary parts —the One in the Many—is essential to Orphism, which is at the heart of Renaissance pastoral. According to one legend, after Eurydice was snatched away from Orpheus, he became a recluse and devoted follower of Dionysus. The Thracian women, angered by his inattention, tore him to pieces. Another version says that Orpheus taught the men of Thrace to worship Apollo; in revenge Dionysus ordered the women to murder their husbands and to tear Orpheus into pieces. Even dismembered, Orpheus continued to sing, and thus personifies the concept of the unity of the whole achieved through its separate parts. Orphism, an ancient Greek cult based on doctrines found in poetry supposedly written by Orpheus, stressed the double aspect of man's nature—the divine, inherited from Dionysus, and the evil, inherited from Titan. Here, too, the concept of the One in the Many is fundamental. Zeus, according to the myth, proposed to make Dionysus Zagreus ruler of the universe. The Titans, enraged, dismembered the boy and devoured him. Athena saved his heart and gave it to Zeus, who swallowed it and from it produced a second Dionysus Zagreus. Zeus then destroyed the Titans with a lightning bolt. From the ashes of the Titans the human race sprang forth, part divine, part evil. The Orphics affirmed the divine origin of the soul, but held that it was through initiation into the mysteries contained in the poetry of Orpheus and the process of transmigration that the soul could be liberated from its evil element and could achieve eternal blessedness. Basic to the Orphic doctrine is the belief in the role of the music of poetry to temper the discordant soul. Orphism requires strict adherence to natural law—including agriculturalism and vegetarianism. Equally important is the view of Orpheus as the selfless lover. Music, nature worship, and love combined make possible purification of the soul 25
through erotic ascent from physical desire to desire for union with the first mind, where absolute beauty resides. Orphism serves as a kind of bridge between the pagan and the Christian. Music is the vehicle that makes possible man's union with the absolute. The canto or incantation is an instrument of magic, a link between this world and the other. The Otherworld envisioned by Orphism is the universal One. "The great virtue of Orpheus for a syncretizing Christian humanist," writes Cody, "is his having brought the Greek theology out of polytheism into montheism, and so saved for posterity the fabled wisdom of the gentiles—classical mythology. The heart of this mystery is thus how the many pagan gods are one. This discovery is reputed to have occurred after he visited Egypt and learned the doctrine of Moses... As a victim of dismemberment he personally embodies what syncretic rationalism always assumes, the One in the Many."28 As Cody points out, both Orphism and pastoralism are transmitted by the Platonists.29 The Orphic view dominates the first four chapters of Sannazaro's Arcadia. Art—both image and music — embodies the concept of the One in the Many. The singers combine notes, meters, rhymes and rhythms to produce a harmonious whole. The shepherdesses, like the flowers they wear, are merely the stitches in an intricate tapestry. Contrasting perspectives do not give rise to discord, but rather, to the creation of a whole. Man arrives at an appreciation of the One through the contemplation of the parts. As he withdraws into his inner self, he feels himself one with art and nature, and therefore, with the divine. It is now that he can begin his ascent toward the Absolute. 28
Cody,p.32.
29
Cody,p. 33.
26
But the union does not occur. The relief provided by art is superficial and temporary. Chapter 5 introduces an abrupt change of tone. Although the atmosphere of general harmony of the earlier chapters is maintained, the underlying tension and melancholy become more pronounced. Elegiac eclogues become increasingly frequent. The landscape becomes rugged, craggy. The old shepherd Opico leads his companions to a waterfall so terrible it fills the observer with fear. Shortly afterwards, the shepherds chance upon the funeral rites for Androgeo. Bruno Damiani notes that even though otium, the condition of idyllic peace and pleasure evoked in pastoral, shuns death, death is a major preoccupation in pastoral romances.30 Just as Nicolas Poussin's painting Et in Arcadia ego reminds us that even it Utopia, mortality is an inescapable reality, the funeral ceremony for Androgeo brings home the cold, penetrating immediacy of death. The rites are pagan and colorful. The mourning shepherds dance and chant, then pour milk, sanctified blood, wine, and flowers over Androgeo's tomb in an ancient ritual celebrating the return of the spirit to nature. Melancholy is diminished by the esthetic quality of the ceremony as well as by the belief in the permanence of the soul. The spirit of the deceased lives on in the woods: "Godi, godi, Androgeo, e se dopo la morte a le quiete anime e concesso il sentire, ascolta le parole nostre; e i solenni onori, i quali ora i tuoi bifolci ti rendono, ovunque felicemente dimori, benigno prendi et accetta. Certo io creggio che la tua graziosa anima vada ora attorno a queste selve volando, e veda e senta puntalmente cib, che per noi oggi in sua ricordazione si fa sovra la nova sepultura." (pp. 90-91) The rite stresses the unity of man and nature, mortality being an essential element in the natural cvcle of 30
"Et in Arcadia ego: Death in La Diana of Jorge de Montemayor," Rom. Forschungen, 4 (1983), 445-466. 27
birth, death, and renewal of which man is a part. Death, then, is a joyous return. Yet, the pain of death cannot be totally obscured. The survivors experience a profound sense of loss. Furthermore, Androgeo s death brings forward the fear of the unknown that haunts every human being: "La qua! cosa se e pur vera, or come pub egli essere, che a tanto chiamare non ne risponda? Deh tu solevi col dolce suono de la tua sampogna tutto il nostro bosco di dilettevole armonia far lieto: come ora in picciol luogo richiuso, tra freddi sassi sei constretto di giacere in eterno silenzio?" (p. 91) Death alters the psychological landscape. The fields are no longer lush, but sterile. "Oime che nel tuo dipartire si partirono inseme con teco da questi campi tutti li nostri Dii. E quante volte dopo avemo tarro pruova di seminare il candido frumento, tante in vece di quello avemo ricolto lo infelice loglio con le sterili avene per li sconsolati solchi, et in luogo di viole e d 'altri fiori sono usciti pruni con spine acutissime e velenose per le nostre campagne." (p. 91) Death is incompatible with Arcadia and yet, there can be no Arcadia without death, for death is intrinsic to life. The bucolic Arcadian paradise carries the seed of its own destruction. The relief it provides must necessarily be fleeting, for man cannot blot out indefinitely consciousness of his own mortality. The spectre of the inevitable end of life is represented here by the shining wheat with sterile stalks and by the violets with thorns and poisonous spines. The episode appears to encompass two conflicting views of death. On the one hand, death is normal and not to be feared; it is an essential element in the natural process of renewal. On the other, death is the end of the individual—in this case, Androgeo—and, therefore, ugly, painful, and fearsome. The apparent contradiction dissipates in view of the allegorical nature of Sannazaro's characters. Androgeo is not an individual, but a symbol of order, discipline, and 28
spiritual comfort that Vittorio Gajetti identifies specifically as the lost father.31 It is Androgeo who, playing on his sweet-sounding sampogna, made the nymphs sing, that is, who guaranteed the Arcadian harmony that is the metaphor for the psychological peace sought by the poet. The melancholy of the funeral rites is diminished by the anonymous nature of Androgeo; the scene does not elicit the sense of personal loss that a reader feels at the death of a character he has known. This is what permits us to view the scene from a philosophical perspective, to consider death as an inevitable—even beautiful—phenomenon that is part of the natural scheme. Our sense of sadness does not result from our feelings for Androgeo the man, but for the loss of innocence that the death of the father figure represents. The guide — "fidata guida nei dubbiosi casi" —who guaranteed justice among his shepherd children is the personification of the spiritual harmony of Arcadia. His death is the death of the poetic voice. "Senza la componente paterna che garantisce lo sponstamento in direzione spirituale di quella oralita che nasce, nutritivamente, dalla madre animale, il canto poetico non e piu possibile."32 The funeral is a pivotal scene after which the tone of the romance necessarily changes. The introduction of the death theme and the emergence of individual characters occur, significantly, at approximately the same point in the romance. It is immediately before the scene at Androgeo's tomb that the individual shepherds of Arcadia begin to take on more pronounced personalitites. Opico is clearly defined as the old man who relies on his experience and wisdom. His role is that of guide or teacher. He has gained special insight with regard to the true nature of the world, and this he imparts "Gajetti,p. 51. Gajetti,p. 51.
32
29
to his listeners when, together with Serrano, he sings a song in which he dwells upon the prevalence of envy, lack of faith between friends, depraved wills, malice, and greed that exist in Arcadia itself: 0 quanti intorno a queste selve nomeri pastori in vista buon, che tutti furano rastri zappe sampogne aratri e vomeri! (p. 106)
Both death and individuality are at variance with the pastoral ideal. With the emergence of individual characters, the illusion of harmony begins to dissipate. As the focus turns from the whole to the parts, the imperfection of human existence becomes increasingly evident. In Chapter 7, an autobiographical technique is introduced that contributes toward greater characterization. From the beginning, the story has been told in the first person. Now the other shepherds inquire about the identity of the narrator, and for the first time an individual character emerges. The narrator identifies himself as Sincere and also as Sannazaro. Unlike the characters who preceded him, he exists in a specific social context. A Neopolitan of noble background, he relates his family history, his birth, and the circumstances under which he left Naples to come to Arcadia. This is the first time a character defines his relationship with the outside world. It is at this point that the themes of circumstance, fortune, and fate are introduced—Renaissance /o/>oz that will be fundamental to the Spanish pastoral romances. With the description of the polls, the image of Arcadia crumbles. As Sincere speaks of his past, he becomes increasingly explicit regarding his present dissatisfaction. Recreating verbally the amorous pursuits of a happy adolescence, he becomes painfully aware of the 30
imperfection of his present situation: "lo non me sento gia mai da alcun di voi nominare Sannazaro, quantunque cognome a' miei predecesori onorevole stato sia, che, ricordandomi da lei essere stato per adietro chiamato Sincero, no me sia cagione di sospirare. Ne odo mai suono di sampogna alcuna, ne voce di qualunque pastore, che gli occhi miei non versino amare lacrime; tornandomi a la memoria i lieti tempi, nei quali io le mie rime e i versi allora fatti cantando, mi udla da lei sommamente comendare." (p. 113) Memory is the means by which Sincero develops a sense of self-awareness. In the meadow he contemplates the doves exchanging kisses and feels increasingly estranged from the Arcadian harmony. Through his evocation of past happiness, Sincero gains depth as a character, but he also destroys the illusion. Or rather, he reveals the illusion for what it is—an unattainable ideal. Sincero has escaped from the polis into Utopia, only to discover that Utopia is elsewhere. Even as he sits surrounded by compassionate shepherds and complacent sheep, he experiences a deep sense of alienation. He finds no solace in nature. Anguished, he projects another Arcadia—the golden age of an idealized, bygone youth in which love was requited and harmony prevailed. But that past—mythical to begin with—is unretrievable. No matter how close one comes, Arcadia will always be out of reach. Sincero's deep unhappiness in the midst of the bucolic paradise is the marrow of the poet's vision. Art cannot blot out indefinitely the turmoil that is intrinsic to the human condition. Where there are thinking, feeling human beings, there is no Arcadia. Since human existence is imperfect, any Utopian projection will be undermined by the jumble of factors that play at cross purposes within the psyche, leaving the individual in discomfort and yearning for some other, distant Arcadia. But only death guarantees release from care. Now, the 31
pleasurable self-torment that characterized the previous love episodes becomes a morbid obsession with death. "Dunque per ultimo rimedio, di piu non stare in vita deliberai; e pensando meco del modo, varie e strane condizioni di morte andai esaminando. E veramento o con laccio o con veleno o vero con la tagliente spada avrei finiti li miei tristi giorni..." (p. 110) Critics have attributed the oppressive melancholy that permeates much Spanish pastoral to the Jewish presence in Spain. Yet, it is already evident in Italian pastoral. The emergence of Sincero-Sannazaro as an individual is accompanied by a new perspectivism that also imbues other characters with increased depth. Sincere exists not only in time and space, but also in relation to others. For the first time in the romance, a shepherd offers a differing point of view. Carino, who has heard Sincero's story, tells a similar one. Carino was in love with a girl with whom he enjoyed a relationship free of the constraints imposed by social custom and modesty. But when he revealed his great passion for her, she became cold and disdainful. Like Sincero, Carino fell into a state of intense grief in which he sought death. He turned against his former friends, divorced himself from the Arcadian shepherds, and withdrew into solitude. Yet, the situation was rectified when his loved-one had a sudden change of heart. In contrast with Sincero's melancholy and despair, Carino offers hope and faith. Carino adds a new dimension to the romance, for he tells Sincero his story in order to comfort and assist him. This optimistic interlude is undermined by the appearance of the enamored Clonico, who is obsessed with the same morbidity as Sincero and Carino were. Now it is Eugenio who provides a contrasting point of view. Eugenic ridicules the lovers, arguing that they are responsible for their own suffering:
32
A quanti error gli amanti orbi non guantano! Con desio del morir la vita sprezzano; tanto a ciascun le sue sciocchezze aggratano. E pria mutan il pel, poi che s'avezzano, che muten volgia; tal che un dolce ridere, et un bel guardo piu che un gregge apprezzano. (p. 131)
Love has been depicted all along as a sickness leading to physical and emotional suffering and even to death. What is new is Eugenio's contention that the lovers are answerable for their own misfortune: che non s'acquista liberta per piangere; e tanto e miser 1'uom, quant'ei si reputa. (p. 133) Caccia i pensier che t'han gia posto assedio, e che ti fan di a notte andar fantastico; che al mondo mal non e senza rimedio. (p. 134)
Eugenic is a stock character from an established catalogue. Anteros, Eros's inseparable brother, incarnated desamor. Eugenio's appearance is significant because it devitalizes the idyll by mocking the notion of an erotic Utopia. Eugenio admonishes the shepherds to stop their pining and to think, rather, of practical matters. By stressing individual responsibility, he invalidates the image of a smoothly running Utopia in which order is imposed by nature or by an omniscient father figure. It is at this point that a conflict develops between the Arcadian dream-world—characterized by the poet-shepherds' sublimated suffering over unrealized desires—and the world of practical considerations. Eugenio intimates that the individual has control over his fantasies as well as over his actions. His song introduces the concept that men are not pawns of fate, as Sincere intimated when he said he was born "sotto infelice prodigio di comete, di terremoto, di pestilenzia, di sanguinose battaglie," (p. 109) but are free agents. This
33
is the beginning of a real contrast of perspectives that will characterize later pastoral romances produced in Spain. Clonico, too mad with love to heed Eugenio's words, wishes to be taken to a local wisewoman versed in the practice of magic. Opico suggests that he visit Enareto, the local wiseman, instead. The pilgrimage to the wizard provides this episode with narrative unity and the characters with a sense of purpose. The many observations and descriptions of magic deeds recounted by Opico are not gratuitous but have the function of preparing Clonico for his visit. The new characters introduced are persons they meet along the way. The structure of this segment will serve Montemayor as a model for his Diana. Opico becomes more clearly defined as we see him a second time in the role of wise old man, knowledgeable in practical and amorous affairs. Enareto, who does not actually appear until later, is introduced and given a distinct identity through Opico's elaborate description of his talents. Clonico is not the kind of monolithic character typical of the beginning of the romance, but rather, two dimensional. He is, on the one hand, a shepherd who pastures his flock, a good singer, and a generally admirable person when unperturbed by love. On the other hand, he is immoderate and reckless when love enters his heart. This episode, then, not only provides examples of conflicting perspectives presented by diverse characters, but also of ambiguities within the individual. It shows how the passions can agitate an individual and bring to the surface characteristics not otherwise evident. The meeting between Clonico and Enareto brings into prominence the role of magic in Arcadia. The magical element in pastoral is very ancient and goes back at least to Virgil's Eclogues,,33 In the Bucolics, the shepherds, in 33
Francisco Lopez Estrada, Los libros de pastores en la literatura espanola (Madrid: Gredos, 1974), p. 78.
34
communication with nature and receptive to its harmony and poetry, are moved to song. As Marie Desport34 and Francisco Lopez Estrada35 have both pointed out, the words canto and "incantation" share a common etimology, and there is confusion between the two terms in the context of early pastoral. Lopez Estrada shows that Alphesiboeus' words in Eclogue VIII are actually an encanto, a verse of which the purpose is to conjure up magical forces.36 The encanto is a means of communication between the individual and nature. The magic formula expresses this communication and the word comes to be considered the means by which the relationship is realized. In L'Arcadia, the wizard Enareto personifies the magical element, and one of his tools is, precisely, the word—that is, the chant or incantation. Enareto's power resides in his knowledge of the secrets of nature. He possesses much practical information about breeding and caring for animals. He understands the language of the birds, and the preparation of potions that enable others to understand it. He knows how to dry up entire rivers with the use of special herbs. He knows the powers of the plants that bring fortune in love and the incantations that ward off maritime storms, thunder, snow, rains, hail, and wind. He knows the rituals that enable one to see into the future, and understands the power of the hyena, whose various parts serve to guarantee the shots of hunters, protect individuals from hounds, and seduce women. He is a kind of pantheistic high priest of the forest who reflects the pre-Christian pagan atmosphere of the book.37 The rites that will enable Enareto to cure Clonico are long 3
*L'incantation virgilienne. Virgile et Orphee (Bordeaux, 1952), p. 93.
35
L6pez Estrada, p. 78.
36
L6pez Estrada, p. 80.
37
See Wayne Shumaker, The Occult Sciences in the Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press), p. 108.
35
and complex. They involve the manipulation of natural elements, magic numbers, and sacred words. They reflect a belief in the unity of man, nature and the gods. In addition to myriad other ceremonies, Enareto will lead Clonico to a secret place and will bathe him in the light of the full moon nine times in sacred waters. He will burn incense and sacrifice a lamb. Clonico, with one foot bare, will walk around an altar seven times. Then Enareto will call out the names of three hundred pagan gods. By performing such acts, Enareto will put all nature and the divinities that are found in nature at his command, thereby enabling himself to enlist their aid in resolving Clonico's problem. The story is left unconcluded. The wizard offers Clonico a choice: Enareto can work magic that will enable the lovesick shepherd to reject love completely or he can force Clonico's loved-one to love him in return in a kind of erotic vengeance. Interestingly, a solution based on forgiveness and mutual understanding is not one of the alternatives. Such a solution would be premised on the type of relationship that requires acceptance of the partner as an individual. But it is not an individual woman but passion itself that is the issue here. As in earlier episodes, the loved-one is anonymous, mythical. Clonico's derangement recalls the sweet erotic awakening of youth. It is the tempestuousness of the adolescent experiencing first love; the emotion, not the woman, matters. The reader never finds out what decision Clonico makes; the significance of the character lies in his erotic experience itself, not in its outcome. Just as Androgeo is a kind of archetypical earth father whose role it is to insure discipline, justice, and right thinking in the community of men, Enareto is a kind of archetypical spiritual father, whose role it is to help his sons attain happiness by putting at their disposal the forces of nature and the gods. He is, like a father, both fearsome and 36
comforting. He holds a solution to every problem, offering his charges a choice of courses of action, but always reserving authority and wisdom for himself. Just as Clonico is an adolescent lover, Enareto is a paternal figure conjured up from the enchanted, bygone days of early adolescence, when one is old enough to be taken seriously, yet young enough to have one's problems solved by someone else. The escape to Enareto is an escape from personal responsibility. It is a welcome, pleasurable abdication of the will, a sumptuous refuge for a man weary of thepo/is. It is significant that the reader never witnesses the resolution of Clonico's problems. Enareto, like Arcadia itself, represents a magical and superficial deliverance. But nowhere in the work—through Enareto or otherwise—is a solution actually realized. Clonico's pilgrimage is followed by the the games and competitions sponsored by Ergasto in honor of his dead mother, Massilia. If Androgeo and Ergasto represent different aspects of the archetypical father, Massilia is the archetypal mother.38 Associated always with the sacred, her tomb decorated with altars, Massilia is the earth mother whose fertility encompasses the mystical union of god, nature, and man. The approach to her tomb is filled with womb-like openings—a valley, a cavern, an underground river—as well as a lush forest and abandoned mountains. Gajetti sees a map of Massilia's body in the landscape, the journey to her tomb is, then, a symbolic act of incest, an Oedipal regression.39 Whether or not we accept this Freudian interpretation, it is clear that Massilia personifies growth and abundance. She is a maternal symbol of hope, of new life. Her tomb holds two shrines, one to Pan, the pastoral god of fertility, the other, a newly erected altar which will serve in Clonico's cure. Thus, Massilia is 38 39
Gajetti,p.79. Gajetti,p.79-
37
associated both with reproduction and with purification. Like Androgeo's, Massilia's death portends imminent disenchantment. Ergasto sings at her tomb: Poi che '1 soave stile e '1 dolce canto sperar non lice piu per questo bosco, ricominciate, o Muse, il vostro pianto. (p. 186)
Two important symbols, the tree and the ship, come into play in the description of Massilia's funeral rites. Both signal the impending departure of Sincero and the failure of Arcadia. A small pyramid pointing to the sky, "in forma d'un dritto e folto cipresso" evokes the image of the mythological Mount Parthenius and the real and geographical Mount Vesuvius, thereby becoming a link between dream and reality.40 Young and flourishing trees, newly planted by Ergasto in a symbolic rite of renewal, shade the pyramid. The tree, associated with protection and fecundity, is a traditional symbol of motherhood, but the cypress specifically is associated with death.41 Above the image of hope and regeneration looms an ominous shadow, a reminder that the illusion must end. Out of pity for Ergasto, other shepherds had enclosed the place with hedges of juniper, roses and myrtle, "Incontro a le quali con gonfiate vele veniva una nave fatta solamente de vimini e di fronde di viva edera, si naturalmente, che avresti detto: — Questa solca il tranquillo mare—per le sarte de la quale, ora nel temone, et ora ne la aha gabbia, andavano cantanti ucelli, vagandosi in similitudine di esperti e destrissimi naviganti." (p. 162) The image of the ship of 40
Gajetti,p.83.
41
Gajetti, p. 83; Sir Philip Sidney includes a list of symbolic trees in his Arcadia. See The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia, ed. with intro. and notes by Maurice Evans (New York and Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 195. Evans explains that several of Sidney's manuscripts contain notes explaining the symbolism: laurel: victory; myrrh: lamentation; olive: quietness; myrtle: love; willow: refusal; cypress: death; palm: happy marriage.
38
willows, like that of the trees, is a complex combination of affirmations of life and portents of death. The vegetation and birds evoke thoughts of rebirth and growth, but willows are associated with tears and crows with death. The ship itself augurs Sincere's imminent, dreamlike river journey back to Naples. The episode does little to define Ergasto as a character, but—although he is never developed in depth either psychologically or physically—his image as a lover and then as a mourner establishes him as a kind of Arcadian counterpart of Sincere. Ergasto is the youth who seeks fulfillment through ritualized love, then mourns his loss of innocence and poetic voice. His melancholy parallels Sincere's, and if his mourning seems governed more by convention, tradition and rite than by personal sorrow, it is because artifice is the essence of Arcadia. These later chapters, probably written at a different time from the rest of the book, are as bereft of characters as the early ones. Shallow and undefined, the shepherds are mere shadows that appear and disappear. Carino, Clonico, Selvaggio, Uranio all participate in this episode, but with no reference at all to their previous appearances. There prevails, here as elsewhere, an atmosphere of underlying tension that is never allowed to erupt. For example, a conflict arises when Carino stumbles in a race and either by accident or out of malice trips Logisto. Ofelia, who is in next place, claims the prize is his. The shepherds take sides among the three contenders. The harmony of Arcadia seems to be momentarily disrupted, but Ergasto resolves the problem by giving each of them a prize. There is another potential conflict in the wrestling match between Selvaggio and Uranio, but once again, discord is avoided when Ergasto agrees to reward both contenders. Throughout this episode, there is a sense of ferment, as conflicts come to the verge of eruption but are quickly 39
dissolved by the generosity of one or another of the shepherds. Ergasto emerges as the peacemaker, struggling to maintain harmony. Perhaps he is symbolic of the poet struggling to maintain the illusion of Arcadia amid outbreaks of discord. In the last chapter, the vision is at last shattered. The narrator, overcome by conflicts and sorrows, goes off by himself. The superficial peacefulness of Arcadia had been nothing more than a reverie into which the turmoil of the narrator's inner reality constantly intruded. Now, overcome by sleep, he dreams he is alone in a solitary place, surrounded by tombs, overwhelmed by fear, unable to flee. It is the dream, the exit from Arcadia, that provides the character with psychological depth, for it is the dream that reveals his inner reality. Everywhere he sees nymphs weeping. An oppressive, sinister atmosphere reflects, surely, the political situation that forced Sannazaro to flee from his native land as well as his agitation over thefts of his literary creations. Sincere yearns to find the Sebato River in order to return home. A nymph leads him to it, and he is amazed to see how rapidly he has left Arcadia. But Arcadia is only a projection of the mind, a desire, a longing for peace. Arcadia is a dream never fully realized and at last abandoned because the individual cannot divorce himself from the conflicts of human existence. In an instant Sireno-Sannazaro finds himself at an incalculable distance from the Utopia he sought. In the distance he perceives fire and a smell of sulphur, a reminder of the Hades that awaits him in his homeland and of his own mortality. Faced with the imminence of his return, Sireno yearns ardently for death, the ultimate escape: "...io mi trovai in tal punto si desideroso di morire, che di qualsivoglia maniera di morte mi sarei contentato." (p. 201) Yet, as he approaches the familiar city, he is surprised to hear shepherds singing. The 40
songs are not the same as those he heard in Arcadia, nor can they be compared with those. Still, they inspire in him a fleeting hope that the countryside around Naples contains more than barbaric violence. The last scene is one of total disenchantment. The song sung by Barcinio, Summonzio, and Meliseo is a morbid elegiac eclogue. Arcadia is gone. The epilogue that follows resounds of despair caused, ostensibly, by the loss of Sincero's loved-one. The tone is desconsolate and morbid: "...ogni cosa si perde; ogni speranza e mancata; ogni consolazione e morta." (p. 218) Reality has triumphed. Sincere-Sannazaro gains depth and credibility precisely as he distances himself from the atmosphere of idealized harmony. It is at the end of the romance, when the poet-narrator emerges as a man tortured by the monsters of his inner consciousness, that he becomes an authentic character with whom the reader can identify.
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Chapter II Vague Beginnings: Bernardim Ribeiro's
Menina e moga A strange and enigmatic work, Bernardim Ribeiro's Menina e Moga has been perceived from radically different perspectives by critics of diverse inclinations. For some, the work is simply a conventional sentimental romance with strong pastoral and chivalric components.1 Increasingly, however, there has been a tendency to stress the cryto-Judaic elements in the work, and to interpret it as a document of the Jewish resistence designed to incite to reconversion those Portuguese Jews who had adopted Christianity.2 Both views are somewhat problematical, the first, because it fails to explain many obscure portions of the text as well as the decidedly unsentimental tone of much of it, the second, because some of Ribeiro's characters seem simply not to fit convincingly into the cryto-Judaic mold. If Menina e moga is, in fact, either a sentimental romance or a cabalistic political instrument, why include it in a study of pastoral? Whatever else it may be, Menina e moga is a romance that develops, for the most part, in a bucolic setting. It incorporates many of the elements we associate 'See Antonio Salgado Junior, Menina e Mo fa e o Romance Sentimental no Renascimiento (Aveiro: Labor, 1940). See also Dicionario de Literatura. Direcao dejacinto Prado Coelho, 3a. edicao (Potto: Cia.Jose Aguilar Editora, 1973), II, 633-35. 2
This view is expressed by Helder Macedo in Do significado oculto de Menina e mofa (Lisbon: Moraes Editores, 1977). In his preface to Menina e moga, Aquilino Ribeiro suggests that Bernardim wrote his work with no preconceived notions and no specific objective, that the work "e produto de mao automatica, conduzida pelo subconsciente a maneira de tantas obras celebres e caoticas..." Obras completas de Bernardim Ribeiro, prefacio e notas de Aquilino Ribeiro e M. Marques Braga (Lisbon: Livraria Sa da Costa, Editora, 1959), I, x.
43
with pastoral—an idealized rustic landscape, pining lovers, erotic sublimation, hovering providence, liberation through love. The first such romance written by a native of the Iberian Peninsula, it includes allegorical and didactic elements that link it to the Spanish pastoral as well as to other genres and currents. Certainly, Menina e moga is more than a conventional pastoral romance, but the same may be said of several romances we readily classify as pastoral, among them Sidney's Arcadia and Cervantes' Galatea? In fact, all the major pastoral romances incorporate sentimental, Byzantine or chivalric elements and reflect diverse philosophical currents. In Menina e moga, not only readily recognizable Neo-platonic influences, but also Catarism, Sufiism, Cabalism and Illuminism come into play.4 To include Menina e moga in a study of the pastoral romance is not to deny the work's unique qualities, but simply to recognize that Bernardim Ribeiro's romance had a signficant a part in what was, in the early part of the sixteenth century, a new involvement on the part of Portuguese and Spanish writers with Italianate bucolic themes that they inevitably modified according to their own individual and cultural realities. Ultimately, this book, like all books, "ha-de ser do que vai escrito nele." (p. 2S)5 Every great work of art transcends generic classification, Menina e moga especially so, since it was conceived, apparently, as an instrument of consciousness-raising rather than as a purely literary endeavor. Published in Ferrara in 1554, with subsequent editions appearing in Evora in 1557 and Cologne in 1559, Ribeiro's romance precedes Montemayor's by four or five years. Michele Ricciardelli has seen the Portuguese work as the first 3
Evans, in intro. to Sidney, pp. 12-13.
4
Macedo, pp. 49-79. 5 All quotes are from Menina e moga, fixacao do texto, actualizcao e comentario explicative de Maria de Lourdes Saraiva (no city: Livros de Bolso-Europa-America, 1975).
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imitation of the genre initiated by Sannazaro and has stressed the similarities between Meninae mogaand Arcadia* Still, it is not certain that Bernardim Ribeiro deliberately modeled his romance after Sannazaro's or that he even knew the Italian work. Marcelino Menendez Pelayo asserted that there is none of Sannazaro's influence in Ribeiro's romance,7 while Francisco Lopez Estrada takes the more moderate view that it is probable that the Portuguese author, who is known to have been in Italy around 1522 when Arcadia was in vogue, read the Italian work and was at least vaguely influenced by it.8 Whatever familiarity Ribeiro may or may not have had with Sannazaro's Arcadia, he made an obvious attempt to establish a bucolic atmosphere in Menina e moga in spite of the generally chivalric nature of the action. This is not surprising, in view of the growing popularity of pastoral themes. As Amadeu Sole-Leris has pointed out, by midsixteenth century, pastoral episodes were beginning to appear in all kinds of literature.9 Two well-known examples are Antonio de Torquemada's miscellany Coloquios sattricos, published in 1553, which contains a miniature pastoral romance, and Antonio de Villegas' Inventario, published in 1565, but completed more than a decade earlier, which contains a romance that combines sentimental and pastoral elements. At first reading Menina e moga appears to be structured similarly to later pastoral romances. It consists of a series of stories of unrequited love that, except for the tale of Avalor and Arima, develop in a bucolic setting. 6
"Relazione tra Menina e mofa di B. Ribeiro e L'Arcadia di J. Sannazaro," Italica, 42 (1965), 371-379.
7
Origenes de la novela, II, in Obras completas, XIV, ed. Enrique Sanchez Reyes (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1961), p. 220.
*Los libros de pas tores, p. 375. *The Spanish Pastoral Novel (Boston: Twayne, 1980), p. 152.
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The work begins with a monologue by a young girl, the menina, who, separated from her family and from her lover, roams the hills alone and finally seeks refuge on the bank of a river. She is joined by an older woman, identified only as a dona do tempo antigo, whose son has apparently died, under what circumstances the reader is never told. Each woman recognizes in the other a suffering soul, but neither confides the secrets of her past to her companion. Instead, the menina and her new acquaintance pass the time with stories, the old woman relating a series of adventures she heard from her father about former inhabitants of the valley. The variety of these narratives reflects the range of genres from which Ribeiro draws. The title Menina e moga was not supplied by the author, but by editors. The choice is significant because they, more than we, were privy to the author's intentions. Their selection makes clear the primacy of the menina, a character who introduces the work and then nearly disappears. Nearly, but not completely. The infrequent but repeated interventions of the menina and the dona, who offer commentaries not so much on the behavior of the protagonists of the episodes but on the universal suffering of women, serve to maintain the menina as a central presence throughout the romance. It is the menina and her companion who introduce the dominant themes that are illustrated and elaborated on by the secondary protagonists. Perspectivism is evident in all Renaissance pastoral, with its endless variations on the theme of unrequited love. It is evident in Menina e moga, too, but with a difference. That difference is the nature of the allegory that the author employs. Unlike Sannazaro's work, Ribeiro's emphasizes character from the onset. While Arcadia begins with a description of the countryside, Menina e moga begins with the menina's lament, "Menina e moc,a me levaram de casa de minha mae 46
para muito longe." (p. 23) It is the menina who sets the plaintive, melancholy tone of the work. It is she who establishes the central theme: exile. The despondency of the young girl stems not only—in fact, not primarily—from her separation from her lover, but from her separation from her family (mae in the Ferrara edition, pae in the Evora edition). References to families ripped asunder abound in Menina e mo$a. The characters lament separation from their parents, sisters, brothers. The dona cries for her lost son. In a later episode, when Belisa dies, it is not just her death, but her death in exile, far from her family, that her lover Lamentor laments. Lamentor's anguish stems in large part from the fact that he was responsible for separating Belisa from her mother: "For mim deixastes vossa terra, por mim vossa mae." (p. 71) Much of Aonia's lament centers around her sense of alienation: "Triste de mim, donzela de pequeno tempo, desamparada en terra alheia, sem parente, sem ninguem e sem prazer." (p. 66) Belisa's daughter Arima is, likewise, a "filha estrangeira, em terra estranha." (p. 65) Later, Arima is torn from her father by the demands of the king. But separation from family is not the only dimension of exile present in Ribeiro's work. There is also an element of persecution. Belisa and Lamentor are victims of their neighbors' condemnation of their love. Bimarder, who courts Belisa's sister Aonia, is the victim of the domineering Aquelisia. The theme of exile is not particular to Menina e moga. Sannazaro, himself a voluntary political exile, made the protagonist of his romance an exile, as well. All pastoral protagonists are expatriates, for pastoral is, in essence, escape—or, at least, an attempt at escape. Exile is central to all Renaissance Utopian literature—chivalric as well as pastoral —for the core is always the quest. The nature of this quest is, A. Bartlett Giamatti writes of the epic, "to get home, to get back to those roots where one lives at harmony 47
with oneself."10 The pastoral protagonist is an exile—a voluntary exile—from the confusion and corruption of civilization. He seeks asylum in the meditative life, represented metaphorically by the bucolic landscape. For all the shifting and menacing that goes on in pastoral, order is possible. Tensions are neutralized. Danger is thwarted. The wolves are kept at bay. The escape of the aristocrat-poet to an artificial, idyllic setting is a projection of his desire to retreat from chaos to order. Giamatti says of the romance of chivalry that Virgil is the father of its visionary core.11 The same is true of pastoral. And the center of that visionary core is the sorcerer or wiseman—Enareto, Felicia, Polinesta— who creates harmony out of discord. That Bernardim's characters are all exiles of one type or another is clear from the text. What is not immediately clear is what kind of exiles and to what kind of Arcadia. From what kind of corruption are they escaping? Why was the menina taken from hearth and home? Why is Bimarder pursued by Aquelisia, whom he does not love? As in all early Renaissance romance, misfortune occurs without explicable cause, but in Menina e moga, fate is particularly malevolent. Destiny dictates; human beings are simply pawns: "havia de ser o que depois foi." (p. 23) A feeling of impotence and dejection permeates the work. Happiness is always transitory; comfort and security, provisional. No sooner does an individual ease into a state of well-being than some fluke of fortune throws his world into chaos. "Muito contente fui em aquela terra," begins the menina. "Mas cuitada de mim, que em breve espaco se mudou tudo aquilo que em longo tempo se buscava e para longo tempo se buscava!" (p. 23-24) What operates here is not a Petrarchan wheel of fortune that sometimes casts its riders ™ExiIe and Change in Renaissance Literature (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), p. 4. n
Giametti,p. 77.
48
up, sometimes, down. The abrupt changes in luck in Menina e moga are always for the worse: "das desaventuras ha mudanca para outras desaventuras, que do bem nao a havia para outro bem." (p.25) As a result of countless blows of fortune, the menina is heart-stricken and weary, burdened with a sense that happiness is deleterious, since it causes the sadness that will inevitably follow to seem that much more painful: "Grande desaventura foi a que me fez ser triste, ou, por aventura, a que me fez ser leda! Depois que eu vi tantas cousas trocadas por outras, e o prazer feito magoa maior, a tanta tristeza cheguei, que mais me pesava do bem que tive que do mal que tinha." (p. 24) As in Montemayor's Diana, the memory of past happiness is more painful than present suffering. But the Diana and Menina e moga are unmistakably different in tone. Montemayor's shepherds are given to the conventionalized woe that is both pleasurable and uplifting. They are products of courtly and Neoplatonic traditions that sublimate the anguish of unrequited love. Although far less merely ornamental than Sannazaro's anaglyphic rustics, Montemayor's characters are hardly heart-rending. Although highly original in terms of their variety and interaction, they are, in essence, cliches inherited from an established genre, and, as such, lack depth. Ribeiro's menina is far more moving. Her sorrow, her unrelenting pessimism, seem rooted in some unspeakable authentic experience. Enrique Moreno Baez points out that the major difference between the sentimental romance and the pastoral is that in the latter, the shepherds' pain is "un dolor gustoso, que se resuelve en musica y poesia," while in the former, "el amor es como un infierno en el que se consumen."12 Salgado 12 Jorge de Montemayor, Los siete libros de la Diana, ed. Enrique Moreno Baez (Madrid: EditoraNacional, 1976), p. xiv.
49
Junior and Lopez Estrada both stress the strong sentimental element in Menina e mofa,13 but the menina is much more than a sentimental heroine. While her anguish is not the dolor gustoso of the archetypic pastoral romance, neither is it the product of an all-consuming erotic passion. The absent lover is mentioned only passingly. He is never the focus of the meninds lamentations. The menina?, grief is less specific, more transcendental than that of the martyrs to Eros of the sentimental novels, for her despair is not the result of a failed love affair, but of broader experience that teaches that against fate man has no recourse. The menina is in forced exile, not voluntary retreat. In the bucolic surroundings she has chosen, she expects to find only relative contentment. "Escolhi para meu contenamento 'se em tristezas e cuidados ha i algum!...' vir-me viver a este monte." (p. 24) Experience has taught her that prolonged happiness is not possible: "porque grande erro fora, depois de tantos nojos quantos eu com estes meus olhos vi, aventurar-me ainda a esperar do mundo o descanso que ele nao deu a ninguem." (p. 24) The hills and mountains offer not an escape from suffering, but simply a place appropriate for suffering. She does not seek innocence and regeneration, but the annihilation of the last vestige of joy in order to avoid future rude awakenings. Whatever peace man can attain comes not from retreat to some psychological Arcadia, but through the liberation of death. That is why the menina will grieve "ate que venha o tempo que alguma pessoa estranha, de do de mim, com as suas maos cerre estes meus olhos, que nunca foram fartos de me mostrerem magoas." (p.33-34) In Menina e moga there is a mystical order revealed through the individual's contacts with the Otherworld—ghosts, apparitions and the 13 Salgado Junior, Menina e mofa e o Romance Sentimental; Lopez Estrada, Los libros de pastores. Lopez Estrada concludes, however, that "cuando la niebla sentimental se aclara, predomina el desarrollo lineal que cararteriza los libros de caballerias." p. 377.
50
like—but there is no projection of harmony on earth. There is no Felicia, and there is no search for one. In recent years, mounting evidence of Bernardim Ribeiro's Jewish origin and of Semitic influences in Menina e mo$a have made increasingly convincing the theory that the menina is an allegory of the expelled Portuguese Jews, cast abruptly and, surely to many of them, inexplicably out of their homeland ("Que causa fosse entao daquela minha levada... nao a soube." p. 23), persecuted by the Inquisition (as Bimarder is by Aquelisia), and condemned to wander homelessly and hopelessly through the world (as the menina roams the valley). Little is actually known of Bernardim Ribeiro. He was born in Alentejo during the latter part of the fifteenth century. He was a friend of Sa de Miranda and was one of the court poets included in the Cancioneiro Geral, compiled by Garcia de Resenda and published in 1516. Several theories explaining Ribeiro's apparent disappearance have circulated. One postulates a fall from grace at court. Others involve amorous scandals. All have been discredited by modern criticism.14 In 1931 Jose Teixeira Rego put forth the theory that Bernardim Ribeiro was actually Juda Abravanel, that is, Leon Hebreo, author of the Dialoghi d'amore. 15 Although this theory has been disproven, Rego's work is significant because it provided evidence substantiating the probability that Bernardim was an exiled Jew. Ribeiro's romance was first published in 1554 in the Italian city of Ferrara, by Abraao Usque, an important Jewish Portuguese jurist who settled in Italy after the expulsion. Significantly, Usque published exclusively books by Jewish authors, including important Jewish mystics, with the one exception of Jorge Manrique's Cop las, an abnomaly 14
Macedo,p. 11.
^Estudose Controversias, 2aserie (Porto: 1931).
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that does not alter the identity of Usque as a publisher of Jewish works. Jorge Manrique was nephew of Gomez Manrique, chief magistrate of Toledo and active in the protection of converses. He was son of Don Rodrigo Manrique, Gran Mestre of the Order of Santiago, and, more important still, he was brother of Don Alonso Manrique, Archbishop of Seville and Grand Inquisitor of Spain. Helder Macedo points out that for a man like Usque, so clearly involved with the survival of his race and culture, the good will of the Manriques was essential and certainly worth the publication of the Cop las.™ Other critics suggest the possibility that Bernardim Ribeiro was the nephew of Gracia Mendes, a powerful financier and protector of Jewish intellectuals, including Usques. If such a relationship did exist between Mendes and Ribeiro, it would be logical that Usques, who was indebted to the financier, publish Bernardim's book. It is curious that the second edition of Menina e moga was published in Cologne by Arnoldo Birckmann, who possessed a bookstore in Antwerp, where Gracia Mendes lived for some time and had financial interests.17 Not all critics subscribe to the theory that Bernardim Ribeiro was an exiled Jew. Carolina Michaelis, for example, has disregarded the "Jewish interpretation."18 However, Helder Macedo's extensive research on the possible cabalistic influences in Menina e moga do much to reinforce the hypothesis that Bernardim Ribeiro was an exiled Portuguese Jew. Macedo sees important clues in the dualism apparent in Menina e mo$a as well as in the primary role occupied by women.19 He points out similarities between the function of 16
Macedo,p.82.
17
'Menina, Intro., pp. 8-9. ^Bernardim Riveiro e Cristovao Falcao: Obras, ed. Carolina Michaelis de Vasconcelos (Coimbra: 1923), p. 44. 19
Macedo,p.49ff.
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women in Cathari, the dualistic heretical sect that flourished in Europe from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, and in Menina e moga. Cathari philosophy, which originated from a pre-Christian system of thought, postulated two opposing eternal principles, Good (Spirit) and Evil (Matter), in constant conflict with one another. In Menina e moga, according to Macedo, good and evil are similarly at odds. Cathari preached an asceticism whose goal was the liberation of the spirit from the evil prison of the body. In the Cathari sect, purification could be achieved through spiritual love of a woman. According to Macedo, the function of women is closer to the Cathari concept than it is to Neoplatonism, which is far less radical. Cathari taught that sex and procreation were evil. They repudiated authority, images, property, and sacrements, and they rejected the doctrines of the Incarnation and Resurrection. Although by the thirteenth century the Cathari became fragmented and finally, extinct, Macedo postulates that many Catharian ideas continued to exist in diverse forms. Macedo points out an uncanny similarity between the first line of the Portuguese romance and Hymn of the Pearl, the Gnostic apocryphal Gospel of Thomas that was a basic text for diverse gnostic sects of Jewish, Arabic, and Christian persuasion. The central theme is the exile of the soul. The Spirit or Messenger of God, is sent forth from his father's house to search for the pearl that is held prisoner in the depths of the sea. The pearl symbolizes the spirit, which is held prisoner by matter and is in need of liberation in order to rejoin the Father, man's spiritual source. The Messenger, an exile and foreigner, is at first fascinated by the material world that he newly discovers. He forgets his mission and lives happily in exile until, at last, he awakens from his stupor, completes his assigned task, and returns home .20 20
Macedo,pp. 52-53.
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Although Bernardim Ribeiro may not have known the Gospel of Thomas directly, the work, argues Macedo, serves as an archetypal model of Gnostic teaching and influenced the Sufi, an Islamic gnostic sect, and the Provencal troubadors. The Sufi produced love poetry of an allegorical nature that in many ways resembles Neoplatonism as well as Iranian Maniqueism.21 Both they and the troubadors transform human love into an allegory of divine love, and both present an essentially dualistic vision of the universe. More significant still are the contributions of Sufi and Cathari to Hispanic illuminism and cabalism. The Spanish Alumbrados developed from a Gnostic sect with roots extending back to the second century. They claimed to have received illumination (gnosis) directly from the Holy Spirit, independently of the Church. Because they believed themselves pure and therefore free from prohibitions, some Alumbrados indulged their passions without restraint. This and their many secret and ritualistic practices provoked opposition from ecclesiastical authorities. Like the Cathari and Sufi, the Alumbrados reserved a special place for women, whom they considered spiritually superior. Among many, there developed a Mariolatrous cult that taught that in order for an individual to enter into communication with the Virgin, all he had to do was contemplate the face of a beautiful and beloved woman. According to Macedo. "As semelhancas, das posicbes dos alumbrados com alguns dos elementos da gnose feminista central a obra de Bernardim Ribeiro sao evidentes."22 Significantly, the illuminist sects were especially popular among Portuguese and Spanish converses.2* Macedo's research on Spanish cabalism is particularly 21
Macedo,p. 55.
22
Macedo,p. 59.
23
Macedo, p. 60.
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illuminating. Cabala is a system of esoteric theosophy and theurgy developed by Jewish mystics. The word itself means "tradition" and denotes the continuity of Jewish thought from antiquity. Cabalism reached its peak in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and influenced many medieval and Renaissance Christian thinkers, among them, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94), founder of the Christian cabalistic school and chief exponent of Italian Neoplatonism. Cabala is based on a mystical method of interpreting Scripture that permitted certain initiates to penetrate sacred mysteries and foretell the future. The central doctrines are that all creation emanates from the Deity and that the soul exists from eternity. Cabala fused with other mystic and metaphysical currents, including Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, as cabalistic currents extended from the Middle East throughout Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, Provence and Germany. Centers of cabalistic thought developed in all these regions, and the teachings of Abraham ben David and his son Isaac the Blind were established as fundamental works. Cabala reached its greatest expression, however, in The Zohar (Book of Brightness), a work compiled in the thirteenth century by the Spanish Jew Moises de Leon. According to the system set forth in works by these and other authors, the relationship between God and man could be established and maintained through ten intermediary emanations, or Sefirot. These included Keter (highest thinking), Hokhmah (wisdom), Hesed (kindness), Hod (beauty). When all are joined together by Malkut (the kingship of God), then creation from earliest times to the end of days is continual. The mystical archetype of the Community of Israel is Shekhinah, the feminine emanation of God, the "daughter", and Macedo argues, the key to Menina e moga. 55
It is in the Sefer ha-Bahir, the principal book of the Provencal school, in which Shekhinah is identified specifically as the Jewish people. According to the legend, she is sent forth from the house of her father to wander distant lands, where her presence will eventually permit the redemption of man. In the light of Macedo's research, a connection between Cabala and Menina e moga is likely. It was precisely in Provence, that Cathari influence remained strongest. The confluence of Cabala, Cathari, Neoplatonism and other currents contributed to the creation of a character of the strength and emotional appeal of the menina. She, Belisa, Aonia and Arima are the first female protagonists of a Renaissance pastoral romance. The legend of Shekhinah elucidates not only the figure of the exiled menina, but also that of the dona. Central to cabalism is the concept of desdoblamiento, the division of the self, that is, the escape of the spiritual self from the material self represented by the escape of the daughter from the material world, to which she has been temporarily exiled, to the spiritual world of her Father, which is her home. All women are divided by their very functions—that of lover, wife, mother—all of which are essential to man's union with God. Shekhinah is a daughter when she obeys her Father's command to go forth into the world; she is a woman and mother in her function of Community of Israel. The dona is in essence a variant of the menina; she is the menina at an older age: "o encontro da Chequina consigo propria nas suas duas idades de noiva e de mae."24 The resignation and will-lessness of both characters is due to the fact that they reflect Shekhinah's submission to God. The essence of Hispanic cabalism—as of other mystic currents, as well—is the ultimate union of man's spirit with God. Such coalescence requires the total surrender of the will. 24
Macedo,p.83.
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Macedo's study goes a long way toward demonstrating that Menina e moga is not just a romance with chivalric, sentimental and pastoral elements, but a cabalistic allegory with political overtones, for, through the complex symbolism easily recognizable to the initiated, Bernardim could communicate with the persecuted Jewish minority. The menina, then, fulfills two allegoral functions. She is Shekhinah, expelled from her Father's house and doomed to wander until she is called back, and she is the Portuguese Jews, expelled from the land of their fathers. Her grief and longing seem authentic because she is the symbol of a tragedy that was real and immediate for the author. One of the ways in which Ribeiro conveys the meninds helplessness is through the repeated use of passive constructions. Like Sannazaro's and Montemayor's shepherds, the menina is surrounded by an external world that reflects her personal anguish, but unlike them, she does not inhabit that world by choice. Misfortune has forced her out of her natural environment. Throughout the menina's monologue, passives occur repeatedly: "me levaram de casa" (p. 23); "fui levada em parte onde me foram diante meus olhos apresentadas, em cousas alheias, todas as minhas angustias" (p. 25); "tudo me foi tirado no meu mal." (p. 27) Yet, in spite of her portrayal as a victim—one who is acted upon rather than acts—she expresses a sense of responsibility. If she suffers, it is because she is guilty; she has anguished so long that she expects the worst, and, expecting the worst, she acts in such a way as to cause herself grief: "Daqui me veio a mim parecer que esta mudanca em que me eu agora vejo, ja a eu entao comefava a buscar..." (p. 25); "sempre folguei de buscar meu dano." (p. 31) As an independent character, Ribeiro's menina reveals psychological subtlety, for she demonstrates that negative mindset foments misfortune. As an allegory of the Jewish people, she reflects not only the traditional guilt that is a 57
result of original sin, but the guilt of those Portuguese Jews who have brought about their own spiritual destruction through their conversion to Christianity. The true nature of the work, that of an occult document, is intimated by the menina herself, who is the ostensible author of the romance and who writes it only for her "amigo verdadeiro." (p. 27) It is a secret communication between the two, and, if it fails to reach him, it will be for her eyes alone. In her approach to writing, the menina is as pessimistic and fatalistic as in her approach to life. Since her days have been full of sorrow and events have a way of playing havoc with one's projects, she doubts that she will finish. If she does, she doubts that the romance will be read. Helder Macedo has seen numerous parallels between the meninds commentary and introductions to other mystic works.25 The concept of the book as a receptacle of a secret sacred message that can be comprehended only by initiates is fundamental to ancient Jewish thought. Ernst Robert Curtius points out that in Judaism, as in other Near Eastern cultures, "writing and the book have a sacred character."26 In fact, "writing itself is felt to be a mystery and the scribe is accorded particular dignity."27 Fundamental to Cabala is the belief that there are hidden messages, esoteric and mystical, in the Torah, in the Bible, and in Jewish law and custom that must be sought out. Numbers and letters have an inherent magical significance; when combined according to certain patterns, they convey divine truths. As Vincent Foster Hopper has demonstrated through ample documentation, number symbolism was not limited to Cabala, but was fundamental to medieval expression.28 25
Macedo,p. 51.
^European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages (New York: Harper and Row, 1963), p. 304. 27
Curtius,p.304.
^Medieval Number Symbolism (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1969), p. viii.
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However, particular to Cabala was the science of gematria, which consisted of assigning number values to all the letters of the alphabet in order to derive hidden meanings from Scripture. Hopper writes that, "The discovery of gematria was all but inevitable among the Jews, since the letters of the Hebrew alphabet were used as numerals, so that any given word actually was a number."29 The written word was considered to be a bridge between man and God, a means by which mystical union could be achieved. Although the ancient Greeks did not share the Semitic concept of the sacredness of the book, but, rather, disdained writing as an evil that could weaken the role of memory in the cultivation of the mind, in its religious end phase, pagan Antiquity did develop a concept of the evangelical significance of the written word.30 Thus, Homer's poems came to be viewed as sacred works. With the the spread of Christianity, the concept of the book as a sacred instrument grew in importance. As Curtius points out, "Christ is the only god whom antique art represents with a book-scroll."31 In the high Middle Ages, books and metaphors relating to writing abound. In Spain and Portugal, where the influence of medieval Latin poetry was particularly strong and where there was constant intermingling between Semitic and Christian intellectuals, the imagery relating to writing and books persists until the end of the Golden Age.32 The menina's identity as a book author sets her apart from conventional pastoral characters, who are typically portrayed as pseudo-rustic artists whose medium is poetry or song. The auctor is, however, a commonplace in the 29
Hopper,p. 62.
30
Curtius,p.308.
31
Curtius,p.310.
32 See my discussion of book imagery in Calderon's La gran Cenobia in Calderon's Characters, p. 77.
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sentimental romance, in which the narrator is often cast as a biographer who commits the amorous sufferings of his protagonist to writing at the request of another party. Arnalte e Lucenda and Carcel de amor, both by Diego de San Pedro, as well as Triste Deleytacion provide examples of the author-narrator, who, as E. Michael Gerli has pointed out, "fashions himself as a writer—a shaper and not a mere teller of the tale; an involved entity who maintains a closeness to the characters and events."33 In Grimalte y Gradissa, by Juan de Flores, the narrator is the protagonist and autobiographer. In both the sentimental romance and in the pastoral, in which courtier-shepherds are usually tellers of their own tales, use of first person singular contributes a sense of involvement on the part of the narrator. Ribeiro clearly worked within the framework of established literary usage; the author-protagonist is both a Renaissance convention as well as an emblem of Jewish mysticism. In her role of author, the menina acquires a special significance in the romance. She is a bearer of hidden messages, not simply a narrator. In fact, it is not she, but the dona, who actually relates the episodes, for, in spite of the menina's announcement that she is writing her own story, she defies the reader's expectations by not telling it. Furthermore, her preamble is filled with false leads and vague references that are never clarified, possibly because Ribeiro died before finishing his romance, possibly because he desired to confuse the uninitiated reader. The menina not only acknowledges the disorganized nature of her prose, but makes a point of it. As if in anticipation of the reader's criticism of the complex and sometimes chaotic narrative, the menina explains that writing well requires tranquility ("escriver alguma cousa pede algo repouso" p. 28), but that she has been through too much to think clearly. Perhaps 33
Irate deleytacion: An Anonymous Fifteenth Century Castilian Romance, ed. E. Michael Gerli (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1982), p. xxiv.
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Ribeiro, writing under the strain of persecution and exile, was excusing himself for the erratic nature of his book, or perhaps, as Macedo suggests, there is an indication here that the reader must look beyond the obvious to comprehend the work. The menina's comment seems to indicate that content, not style is the important thing. "Ainda que quern me manda a mim olhar por culpas nem desculpas?" (p. 28) A book is what it relates, not how it relates it. Since life is chaotic and confusing, so will the book be: "Que o livro ha-de ser do que vai escrito nele. Das tristezas nao se pode contar nada ordenadamente, porque desordenadamente acontecem elas." (p. 28)These are words that must have had particular meaning to Portuguese Jews and converses who understood the allegory and saw in it a depiction of their own situation. They also may have served to tip off the reader regarding the true purpose of the book. The structure of the romance, with its long first-person preamble and its episodes in series, serves the dual purpose of imbuing the work with a sense of intimacy and also a sense of magnitude. Both are appropriate to a story that encompasses individual hardship as well as a calamity endured by an entire people. The sense of magnitude emanates from the dona, who suffers from a personal loss (the death of her son), but tells the stories of others. Ribeiro distances himself from the narrative by two degrees. First, he disclaims authorship by attributing the work to the menina; then, he removes it still further by claiming that the stories of Belisa, Aonia and Arima are not inventions of the menina at all but tales told to her by the dona, who in turn heard them in her father's house. This distancing constitutes an essential difference between Menina e moga and sentimental novels, as well as between the donas perspective and the menina's. The menina's preamble stresses her personal sense of loss. Although the dona comments on the material that she 61
relates, she stresses repeatedly that none of the characters are her own personal acquaintances. The stories took place in some distant past and are part of the lore of the valley. The result of this dilution of the dona's personal involvement in the narrative is to establish the material as inherited communal history. The dona's tales belong to "este vale." (p. 46) These are stories that define a community. The allegorical nature of the menina places her well within the framework of Renaissance convention. Both the sentimental and pastoral romances are allegorical. In pastoral, myth reflects a highly personal internal reality. The bucolic landscape, peaceful and protected from external menace, represents the good inner life achievable through meditation. Essential to Italianate pastoral is the Platonic concept of nature as a reflection of divine perfection. Man approaches God through his contemplation of nature, through sense and intellect. God reveals his love for man through the creation of natural beauty. "Eros is conceived of as a mutural desire of the intelligible for the sensual and the lower being for the higher, as transcendental yet immanent," writes Richard Cody.34 Thus, the symbolic mental landscape of pastoral seeks "to comprehend an erotic dualism of 'this-worldliness' and 'otherworldliness'."35 At the center of Neoplatonism is the concept of love as the nexus between man and God. "Everywhere in Platonic theory and pastoral mythology love brings forth the manifold beauty of things and yet leads back to the invisible unity of God."36 Love (spirit) is in constant opposition to chaos (matter). Through love contradictions and discords are eliminated. But love requires refinement, purification, art. At the same time, love is natural. But then, "the truest art is 34 35 36
Cody,p.7. Cody,p.8. Cody,p.9.
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to live naturally."37 At the image level, the problem of pastoralism is to reconcile this-worldliness and other-worldliness, to give divinity a natural presence. "The burden of the pastoral poet...is thus an enactment of the Socratic compromise between artifice and naturalness, transcendence and immanence."38 The tool of the pastoral poet is myth. Through myth he represents the triumph of harmony over discord, Eros over lust, spirit over chaos. With the exception of Philomela, Menina e moga draws little on the Greek myths. The menina is not a Diana or Galatea adapted from the ancient fables. And yet, she is a figure of mythological proportions. Her suffering is infinite, her submission, inimitable. like the dona, she is nameless. Menina and dona are girl and woman, all girls and women, mourning the loss of their lovers and their sons. They are personifications of the spiritual anguish of a people. They are two facets of Shekhinah, a myth in her own right. If Neoplatonic harmony is never achieved in Menina e moga, it is because the mystical union sought by the Jewish people and the author himself has not been achieved. The menina awaits death or her lover's return the way Shekhinah awaits to be called back to her Father. As in conventional pastoral, love renders liberation possible, for love is the nexus between God and man. The menina s perfect love, not only for her amigo, but also for her parents, offers the only conceivable assuagement of her unrelenting grief, the only antidote to the chaos that plagues her existence. Whether or not a reunion with her loved-ones is possible in this world is not clear; the romance is incomplete. But significantly, in Menina e moga, there is no Felicia, no Enareto. Achievement of happiness is never projected into the future, but always associated with a remote past in which 37
Cody,p. 12.
38
Cody,p. 12.
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the menina was not alone, but lived in the company of her parents and beloved. Like Cervantes' Marcela, the menina roams the valleys and the hills in solitude, sometimes perching on the highest point to look down at the landscape below. She seeks solitude, not, like Marcela, out of disdain for suitors, but because no outsider can comprehend her grief. As night falls and birds return to their nests, the menina feels estranged from the harmony of nature, in which every beast has its mate. The scene is one of peace and order within a community: "As doces aves, batendo as asas, andavam buscando umas as outras. Os pastores, tengendo as suas frautas e rodeados dos seus gados, comencavam de assomar japelas cumeadas." (p. 30) It is a tradicional pastoral image: shepherds surrounded by their flocks play upon rustic flutes as they return home at sundown. Traditional, too, is the image of the lonely lover, alienated by sadness caused by the absence of his loved-one. Significantly, it is dusk. The meninds frame of mind is symbolized by the struggle between the sun and the darkness, with the inevitable triumph of night. The scene attains a deeper meaning when considered within the context of the myth (Shekhinah condemned to roam the earth) and the historical reality (the expulsion of the Jews from Portugal). Like the traditional pastoral protagonist, the menina languishes in memories of a lost past, but unlike the prototype, she entertains no hope of eventual reunion. Garcilaso's first eclogue culminates in the image of the lover reunited with his dead Elissa in an erotic paradise. The menina's lamentation contains so such projection. Rather, it is permeated by a morbid sense of fatalism that leaves no room for hope. The tone is somber, not sweetly melancholic. While the shepherds of Italianate pastorals typically complain of the obstacles that fortune has placed between them and their loved-ones, here, the 64
emphasis is not on the desired union but on fate. The meninds past is represented by a conventionally bucolic landscape: the sun shines, harmony and good will reign among the shepherds; there is a promise of fulfillment. But suddenly, catastrophe strikes, forcing the menina to leave in search of a new home. As in conventional pastoral, the contrast between past happiness and present sorrow is a major theme. But the menina finds no solace in her memories. Strangely, she never defines the calamity that caused her to leave her valley or tells what befell her lover. The focus is on destiny, "o que tinha a ventura ja ordenado" (p. 30), rather than on particular events. Seeking refuge at the foot of a wooded mount, the menina trips and falls three or four times. So lost in sorrow that she pays no attention to the stumbles, she later realizes that they were warnings of future adversity. Confident that she has been through so much that she has nothing more to fear from fate, she learns that there is always room for more misfortune. Omens abound everywhere, but the individual, so immersed in his present reality, pays them no heed. The meninds negativism is, no doubt, imbued with a strong sense of Portuguese fado. But it is also a reflection of the historical moment. The expulsion of the Jews from Portugal took place in 1496, and persecution of judaizantes was commonplace. Nature reveals not the possibility of reconciliation between God and man, but the vulnerability of all living things. The river runs softly through cool pastures, and the menina seeks a quiet spot in the shade of a tree. But even this innocent move causes affliction, for here the menina witnesses a painful scene, causing her to feel condemned to bring about her own misfortune.. ."sempre folguei de buscar meu dano..." (p. 33) Even the sparkling waters cannot run peacefully, for an obstruction cruelly separates the current and sends it off in two different directions. The menina 65
concludes that pain is intrinsic to the natural scheme... "comencei a cuidar como nas cousas que nao tinham entendimento havia tambem fazerem-se umas as outras nojo." k-32). The image of the divided water pales beside the next omen. A nightingale singing a sweet and melodious song suddenly falls dead into the river. The nightingale is one of the rare classical mythological figures to appear in Menina e mo fa.39 A traditional symbol of the victim, the nightingale appears in Italianate pastoral as a symbol of the lovesick shepherd. In Menina e moga the image of Philomela does not evoke a sense of sorrowful gentleness, but of irrational and violent destiny. The menina is so taken aback by the untimeliness and absurdity of the bird's death that she dissolves into tears. She had been certain that previous blows of fortune had numbed her. Now, she is astonished at the intensity of her reaction. As Maria de Lourdes Saraiva points out, this is a key episode. Beginning with the description of the divided water, the parallel between the external world and the internal world of the menina becomes increasingly evident.40 The death of the nightingale conveys the sense of gratuitousness that permeates the romance. The image of the sweet-singing bird cut down without reason reflects the inexplicable change in fortune that caused the meninds departure from her valley and is mirrored in subsequent episodes: Belisa's death in childbirth; Abnia's unexpected betrothal and separation from Binmarder; the sudden revelation of Arima's secret and Avalor's apparent suicide. While conventional pastoral projects an Arcadia that 39 According to the myth, Philomela, the unfortunate daughter of Pandion, was raped by Tereus. Her victimizer had her tongue cut out in order to prevent her from telling of the wrongs she had suffered, but Philomela contrived to communicate them anyway. Finally, the gods transformed her into a nightingale in order to allow her to sing her sorrow all night through. w Menina,pp. 32-33.
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promises happiness, harmony, and beauty, Menina e moga depicts a valley of interminable disasters: "dos desastres que sobre este ribeiro acontecem vos espantais." (p. 37-38)41 The location of the valley is never specified. References to certain archeological ruins indicate that it may be in Italy, where Bernardim Ribeiro himself may have settled. In a 1940 essay, the critic Antonio Jose Saraiva wrote that Bernardim Ribeiro "nao foi um pintor."42 In comparison with the richly chromatic landscapes created by Sannazaro, Saraiva contends, Ribeiro's are stark and somber. Ribeiro's style, notes Saraiva, suffers from a dearth of adjectives, and those adjectives he uses produce melancholy images. While for Cambes' stars are nitidas, claras, lucidas, for Ribeiro, they are palidas e veladas. Jose G. Herculano de Carvalho defends Ribeiro, insisting that his vocabulary is appropriate for the situations he describes, and citing similar descriptions of the night in French and Latin literature.43 If Ribeiro uses relatively few adjectives, he also produces relatively few landscapes. Missing from Menina e moga are the lush Arcadian valleys, warm and florid, green and fertile, where love is the sole preoccupation. The atmosphere is neither sensual nor voluptuous. Conventionally bucolic, the meninds valley contains the requisite birds, trees, grass, flowers and streams, but also "espessas sombras" (p. 60) that provide a place to brood rather than merely pleasurable relief from the heat. Significantly, there are few people. The menina has chosen this valley precisely because she craves solitude. Here, there are no country dances, no gay rustic gatherings, only an occasional reference to shepherds returning home with their 41 Note the etimology of the word desastre: dis + astrum (star). The menina's use of the term emphasizes the sense of fatalism that charges the romance. 42
"Ensaio Sobre a Poesia de B. Ribeiro," Revista da faculdade de Letras, 1 (Lisbon, 1940-41), 61.
*3Critica filologica e compreensao poetica (Rio de Janeiro: MEC-Departamento de Assuntos Culturais, 1973), pp. 16-17.
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flocks. The most salient characteristic of the meninas valley is its emptiness. Once filled with people, now it is inhabited only by wild animals (p. 46), and so, even in exile, the meninais in danger. Wolves menace here, just as they do in Sannazaro's Arcadia. Yet, it was not always so. Once, in some pastoral Golden Age, the valley was peaceful, but fate, never content to let happiness reign, wrought inexplicable"and unforeseeable changes: "...a terra se muda como as cousas dela." (p. 46). If the people have suffered misfortune, so has the land. Earth and man together are subject to the inclinations of a destiny that plays its hand in unexpected ways: "Tudo anda trocado, que nao se entende; e assim nos vem tomar as magoas quando estamos mais desseguradas delas." (p. 47) There is, then, a fundamental difference between Sannazaro's bucolism and Ribeiro's. Sannazaro's Arcadia is a locus amoenus to which the wordly Renaissance gentleman, spent by political upheaval, could retire, at least psychologically. Rather than the slavish recreation of a classical model, it is a projection of a personal ideal. Although the real world constantly intrudes on Sannazaro's Arcadia, the bucolic paradise remains intact as an ideal. Arcadia is a projection of the author's fantasy, and, as Rollo May has pointed out, fantasy is not merely unreality but a projection of the will.44 From the Greek phantastikous, meaning "able to represent," "to make visible," fastasy is the language of volition. Sannazaro's Arcadia is an affirmation of the author's craving for mental tranquility. No two Arcadias are alike because no two poets are alike. In Menina e moga the emphasis is not on the locus amoenus, but on the deep personal anguish of the character. Conventional Arcadias hold forth the promise of joy. The landscape of Ribeiro's mind is morbid. Sannazaro's turmoil "Love and Will, v.Z&\.
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stemmed from political upheaval and court intrigue, the kind of menace represented by wolves at the edge of Arcadia. This is external intimidation from which a man can escape to the quiet refuge of the inner self. But for Ribeiro, there is no escape. The menina's grief accompanies her into exile and colors the bucolic landscape with somber hues. Yearning for death as the only possible release from misery, the menina is approached and comforted by the dona do tempo antigo who, because she has lived longer, has suffered even more. Although the menina insists that she has never seen the dona before, her new companion assures her that she has always been in the valley. Their exchange reiterates a familiar warning: An individual can become so immersed in his own reality that he becomes oblivious to his surroundings and misses signals of impending crisis. The point is significant from an historical perspective. For the Portuguese Jews of the late fifteenth century, signs of danger were everywhere. Dom Joao II allowed the Jews to leave Portugal, but burdened them with a hefty exit fee. Those who stayed were reduced to virtual slavery, although the king did make concessions to skilled artisans whose talents were useful to the country, discreetly encouraging them to stay. Upon assuming the throne in 1495, Dom Manuel freed the enslaved Jews. However, a year later, under pressure from Ferdinand and Isabella, whose daughter was heiress to the Spanish throne and an attractive match for the Portuguese king, he decreed that all Jews must accept baptism or leave the country within ten months. In the meantime, he ordered that all Jewish children under fourteen years old be taken from their parents and handed over to Christian families. This, in addition to mass forced baptisms, led some Jews to commit suicide. Those Jews who were baptized against their will were unable to emigrate, since now they were officially 69
Christians. The policy allowed Dom Manuel to prove himself acceptably ferocious in his anti-Jewish policies to his potential Spanish in-laws. At the same time, it kept vast numbers of Jews in Portugal, where they provided services essential to the well-being of the nation. Although the Portuguese anti-Jewish policies must have seemed irrational and unforeseeable to many Jews, the signs were there for those astute enough to see them. Intolerance was spreading from Spain, which had expelled the Jews in 1492. Dom Manuel, who had designs on the Spanish crown, was ready to yield to Spanish pressure. Early in the sixteenth century, religious tension was intensified by the Reformation. In 1536 the Portuguese Inquisition was established. Construed as a symbol of the Community of Israel, the menina must have had special significance to the Portuguese Jews in her role of the victim caught repeatedly unawares. The dona, however, does not represent a menace but a consolation. Companionship is an essential element in pastoral from the time of Virgil's eclogues. The two shepherds who meet to share their woes is a commonplace. The friend and confidant is also a stock character in the sentimental romance, but the two woman who meet unexpectedly and recognize in each other a fellow sufferer is particularly close to pastoral. In Montemayor's Diana, as well as in the works of his principal imitators, shepherds recognize in each other fellow martyrs to Eros. Several critics have seen in the meeting of the two women an image of exiled Jews who recognize in each other a common bond and cultural identity. Curiously, in Menina e moga the two women never tell their own stories, although they allude to them repeatedly. While in conventional pastoral the characters take pleasure
and find solace in sharing their woe, in Menina e mo$a, the characters convey a deep sense of privacy, even a fear of revealing personal secrets. The dona introduces dialog into the romance. With the introduction of a second character, Menina e moga begins to read more like a work of fiction and less like a memoire. The dialog is innovative and structurally sophisticated, with interventions and interruptions that provide animation and realism. Suspended sentences like the following provide variety: "—Maravilha e— comengou vir dizendo contra mim—ver donzela em ermo, depois que a grande minha desventura levou a todo o mundo o meu... E dai a pedaco, misturado ja con lagrimas, disse: "-...filho!"(p.35) The exchanges between the menina and her companion provide the protagonist with depth. It is through her conversations with the dona that the reader perceives her delicate manner, her sensitivity. The dialog is replete with niceties, compliments, and pauses dictated by decorum that define the menina as a lady. Oddly, the extreme courtesy demonstrated by both the menina and the dona rings sincere. Rather than mere social (or literary) convention, it is the consideration accorded to one person who has suffered to another. Although neither woman knows the circumstances that have caused the other's unhappiness, there is a sense of mutual commiseration that permeates their exchanges. Each tactfully avoids delving. Each respects the other's need for privacy. The menina and the dona are bound not only by personal loss, but by their womanhood. The strong feminine—even feminist—element that pervades the first part of Menina e moga is one of the romance's most salient characteristics. In
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Sannazaro's Arcadia the voice is masculine exclusively. In Menina e moga, it is almost exclusively feminine. While the strong feminine element in Menina e moga is certainly a reflection of the important spiritual role of women in Semitic mysticism and of the strength of Shekhinah as a symbol of Jewish unity, it must be noted that the moga enamorada as a poetic figure has roots deep in the Galician-Portuguese tradition. The cantigas d'amigo are, like the portrait of the menina that constitutes the first part of Ribeiro's romance, tableaux in which particular circumstances are overshadowed by the protagonist's emotions. There is no explicit context or narrative. The focus is on the desire of the amada to be reunited with her loved-one. The cantigas, as Eugenio Asencio points out, have their origins deep in oral literature and are undoubtedly related to the f'aryas.45 The jaryas, like the cantigas, express a longing of the amada for the amado.^ The pain of separation, the sorrow experienced by the amada due to her loved-one's absence, the fear that accident has befallen him, are all common themes. While the jaryas of Arabic origin are often frankly sensual, those of Jewish origin are more decorous, with an emphasis on emotional anguish rather than carnal desire. Like the meninds preamble, the jaryas are in the first person singular. Nearly always they have a female protagonist who, like the menina, confides her preoccupations to another woman—a mother, sister or K
Poeticay realidaden elcancioneropeninsular de laEdadMedia (Madrid: Gredos, 1970) 22ff. ^The farya—a. poetic product of the Moorish and Jewish presence in the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages —was the final strophe of a longer poem called a muwaschaha written in classical Arabic or Hebrew. The jarya was in romance, spoken Arabic, or Hebrew, and was either written by the composer of the longer poem or simply borrowed from oral tradition or from another muwaskaha. The earliest known jaryas connect to muwashahas that date from about the eleventh century, but many jaryas may be much older, having been transmitted orally from one generation to the other until they were at last incorporated into the more elevated poetic form. In about eighty percent of the jaryas, the poetic voice is that of a young woman.
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friend. The jarya-cantiga tradition reflects, in the words of Eugenio Asencio, "una etica y una poetica que interiorizan el amor."47 The phenomenon of the cancion de mujer\s> not unique to the Iberian Peninsula. Many societies have an ancient tradition of fraulider, but the Galician-Portuguese cantigas and their predecessors, the Sephardic jaryas, are uniquely melancholic. If Ribeiro's romance owes its bucolic backdrop to Sannazaro, it owes the figure of the menina at least partially to the Iberian Semitic lyric.48 Suffering as a common bond among women is the prevalent theme of the early segments of Menina e moga; the grief of one woman makes her sensitive to the sorrow of others. "Podeis dizer tudo," the old woman tells the girl, "que eu sou mulher como vbs." (p. 35) The dona recognizes her companion's state of mind simply by virtue of being a woman: "deveis ser triste." (p. 35) The 'menina and the dona suffer because they have experienced tragedy, but more to the point, they have experienced tragedy because they are women. While it is man's lot to venture forth and do battle, it is woman's to stay behind and mourn: "...Nao ha tristeza nos homens," comments the old lady. "So as mulheres sao tristes." (p. 41) Men lose themselves in activity, "andavam de un cabo para outro." (p. 41) It is not that men do not experience sadness, but that their grief is obliterated by action. If suffering is part of the human condition, then activity is a means of escape. But it not a means available to women. "As tristezas" seek out women precisely because women "nao 47
Asencio, p. 24. ^The menina's lament is hauntingly similar to that of the young jury a singer, who confides: ya mamma mio al-habibi bay-se no me tornade gar ke fareyo ya mamma in no mio 'ina' lesade
jOhmadre,miamigo se va y no vuelve! Dime que hare, madre si mi pena no afloja.
FromJ.M. Sola-Sole, Corpus depoesia mozarabe (Barcelona: Hispam, n.d.), p. 100.
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tinham para onde Ihes fugir." (p. 41) That is, sadness is the destiny of women not because they cause it but because it seeks them out. Throughout this section of the romance, the adjective coitadas is applied to women. Women are "poor things" because they bear all the burdens—not only their own, but also men's. When the fighting man returns to his women, he may be broken spiritually and physically by the hardships he has endured. It is then up to the women to absorb and heal the hurt. Once he is cured, the man will then return to his endeavors and the woman will be left to bear both her own anguish and that of her husband, brother, son or father: "Assim que padecemos dois males.. .urn que sofremos, e outro que se nao fez para nbs." (p. 41) Thus, women's suffering is eternal and unrelenting. The pain is always as intense as if it were new, for, as the dona points out, while the body may become accustomed to suffering, the spirit never does. It is woman's role to endure because she is strong, not weak. Society dictates specific roles for the sexes. It provides outlets for men that are unavailable to women: "...nao temos remedies para o mal, que os homens tern," (p. 41) It is precisely because they are unable to mask their inner feelings that women develop strength. The more one bears the more one is capable of bearing: "Que o pesar—onde ha este bem—ainda que nao aproveita para dele nos doermos, aproveita logo para se sofrer melhor." (p. 41) The dona is attracted to the menina because she recognizes in her a kindred spirit, a fellow sufferer: "tudo o que em vbs olho e cheio de tristeza, cousa a que eu sou ha mucho tempo conforme." (p. 36) Since misery attracts misery, the dona gravitates to those afflicted with misfortune, a habit that intensifies her own grief, for she suffers not only due to her own losses but due to those of others: "Coitada de mim... que para me magoar busco ainda desaventura alheias, como se as minhas nao 74
bastassem, que sao tantas, que muitas vezes nestes despovoados eii mesma me ando espantando de mim como as posso softer!" (p. 39) An intense sense of sorority, reminiscent of that of the jarya singers and their confidantes, is conveyed not only through words, but also gestures, as the old woman, sensitive to the young girl's sighs and silences, takes her hand—discreetly, in order not to embarrass her—and holds it to comfort and encourage her. The conflict between the real and the ideal becomes immediate and tangible in those scenes in which the old lady frets over her young companion, sensitive to the fact that the girl is too young to suffer so intensely, but painfully aware, too, that suffering is the inalterable destiny of women: "mas das cousas costumadas, quem se debe agravar?" (p. 44) Although each woman must bear her grief alone, she is nevertheless a member of a larger group that shares a common fate. In this sense, the menina and her companion reflect the situation of the exiled Portuguese Jews, each living a personal tragedy, each part of a larger group of sufferers. The sense of community is a source of consolation for the women, as it must have been for the Jews: "Muito me aprouve achar-vos tambem amiga da tristeza, porque nos consolaremos ambas, desconsoladas, que isto vai assim como quem e doente deumapegonha, e cura-se com outra." (p. 40) If suffering is a poison, then compassion for another woman's poison is an antidote. The choice of a feminine protagonist responds not only to the legend of Shekhinah and to the jarya tradition, but to the special spiritual role traditionally accorded to women in the Renaissance. Debates on the virtues and weaknesses of women are characteristic of the Italianate questioni and dialogs present in amatory prose of the period, and Neoplatonism epitomizes woman's role in man's spiritual redemption. Marian doctrine, too, contributes to 75
profeminine Renaissance thought. Mary's association with the Redemption and the concept of Mary as spiritual mother of all men and Mother of the Mystical Body coincide with currents of Jewish mysticism that accord a similar role to Shekhinah. In Catholic mysticism the anima or alma is associated with the feminine principal, especially as present in men.49 In Menina e mo$a, not only are sensitivity and spirituality viewed as intrinsic to women, but that aspect of men that is sensitive and spiritual is viewed as feminine as well. During her youth, points out the dona, when men were done with their fighting and could bear no more, "tornaram-se a nos, como a parte mas fraca." (p. 41) The words "como a parte mas fraca" are ambiguous. Parte can be interpreted either as "place" or as "part". Men find comfort and solace in the blandness and softness of women, but by turning to them in times of distress they also rediscover their own emotional "part." The feminism of Menina e moga reflects the spiritual and philosophical climate of Renaissance Portugal, in which a confluence of currents led to the cult of the feminine. Although courtly love undoubtedly played its part in the development of this climate, Ribeiro's attitude is not courtly. Throughout the narrative the dona distinguishes between authentic emotion and the kind of ritualistic distress flaunted by courtly lovers. In the criticism of courtly love implicit in much of the dona's commentary, there may be an occult message to Portuguese conversos feigning devotion to one mistress (the Church), while secretly serving another (Judaism), as well as a censure of a society that requires empty manifestations of an unfelt faith. The dona's disapproval of courtly love is clear from the beginning. When she was a girl, she tells the menina, she was moved by tales of sacrifices that knights made for their ladies. But soon 9
The alma is represented as a woman in the poetry of San Juan de la Cruz, for example.
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it became obvious to her that all the agonizing of knights was nothing more than artifice, that a handsomely armed knight, riding on the river bank on his gallant steed, "nao podia ir tao triste como uma delicada donzela." (p. 43) Courtly love, she concluded, was nothing more than a sham as far as men were concerned ("Mais maneira tern os cavaleiros para se mostrarem mais tristes do que sao..." (p. 43) At the same time, it forced women into the unnatural role of emotionless icons of male eroticism, unable to express their heartfelt passion. A man might pay court to a woman who returned his love but was obligated, by the rules of conduct, to conceal it. The knight had license to ride away from the supposed source of his anguish (the lady), in search of adventures, perhaps paying court to some other lady along the way, while the girl he left behind had no recourse but tears or death. Women, the old lady laments, are easily forgotten by men engaged in worldly pursuits. And whether knights triumph or die in battle, the women they leave behind suffer. Women, more than men, die in the adventures required by the code of chivalry, for their spirit and will to live are destroyed by the interminable absences. In both the Madrid and Evora versions of Menina e moga there is the implication —missing from the Ferrara version—that women abandoned by knights are driven to suicide.50 The sacrifices made by women, the dona concludes, are purer than those made by men, because a woman only dies of love for a single man while a knight is bound by the laws of chivalry to risk his life for any woman. Is there an allusion here to Shekhinah weeping for the unfaithful, the converses who abandoned her for a new object of devotion, or to the suicides that resulted from forced separations of parent from child, of individual from community, of believer from synagogue? One can only 50
* Menina, notes, p. 45.
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conjecture, but in view of historical data on the Jewish expulsion and Macedo's work on the cabalistic elements of Menina e mo$a, the hypothesis is a tempting one. like the menina's, the dona's monologue is fraught with unresolved difficulties. The story of her son's disappearance is never told. Her own circumstances are never clarified. Most notably, the tale of the dois amigos, which she mentions on several occasions, is never defined. Critics from different schools have identified the dois amigos as Bimarder and Avalor. The dona herself identifies Bimarder as one of them, but whether or not Avalor is the other is unclear. The dona specifies only that the dois amigos were loyal, idealistic knights who were murdered treacherously by knights less virtuous than they. The dona's narrative includes three male protagonists—Lamentor, Bimarder, and Avalor—no two of whom appear to be friends and none of whom is assassinated. Helder Macedo argues that within the context of the romance, amigo means lover and does not imply that the two men were necessarily each other's friends. He sees Lamentor as a kind of archetype or padrao, who, within the context of the Jewish exile, provides an example of a faithful Jew who achieves mystical union with God through woman's love, made possible by Belisa's death. The dois amigos are variations on the theme: Bimarder illustrates the faithful Jew who allows his sensual inclinations to prevent his spiritual salvation. He represents those Jews who, yielding to political pressure and the lure of material benefits, leave the fold and lose their way. Avalor, in contrast, illustrates the faithful Jew who resists material distractions to pursue the spiritual calling. Macedo postulates an ending to the romance, which Ribeiro never wrote, in which Bimarder would be reconciled with Abnia and reconverted.51 It is impossible to be certain of Ribeiro's intentions. It 51
Macedo,pp. 80-97.
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seems probable from the ending of the Ferrara edition that he planned to introduce new characters, but we cannot know whether any of these would have clarified the identities of the dois amigos. In view of the fact that friendship is a traditional theme of pastoral and of Renaissance writing in general, it is difficult to dismiss the possibility that Ribeiro might have produced a conventional "tale of two friends."52 The dona introduces a chivalric element into the romance that shifts the emphasis to action. The chivalric-pastoral episodes follow the same pattern as the menina's story: the love between a man and a woman is rendered impossible by some unforeseen obstacle imposed by fate. While the emphasis in the first part of the romance is on the menina's grief, here, the emphasis is on narrative. In the chivalric episodes, masculine characters become prominent. In the preamble, the menina hardly mentions her lover. He is more a catalyst than a character: his absence causes the sorrow that is itself the theme. The separation and not the loved-one is the focus. In the preamble, there is no reality apart from the characters' suffering. Circumstances are never clarified. In the chivalric episodes, however, the characters move within a context. The four chivalric episodes are related by the dona as examples of the misery that has always haunted the valley.53 Like the menina's, the dona's story begins with an exile. Lamentor and Belisa, accompanied by Belisa's younger sister Aonia, arrive in a valley de reinos estrangeiros, (p. 49) fleeing from the scandal of Belisa's pregnancy, which can no 5Z
See Juan Bautista Avalle Arce, "Una tradicion literaria: el cuento de los dos amigos," NRFH, 11(1957), 1-35.
53 The technique of introducing a narrative by relating it to the setting is an ancient one. In Phaedrus, Socrates and his disciple retire to the countryside near Athens, where Phaedrus, reminded of Boreas' rape of Oreithyia, which supposedly occurred nearby, asks a question that elicits a monolog by the master. See Cody, p. 71.
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longer be concealed. As in the prototype, Lamentor finds a bucolic paradise—bright spring day, trees in bloom, birds in song—only to be overtaken by an absurd and brutal fate. A knight who is guarding a bridge hurls a challenge that Lamentor is forced to accept, in spite of his inclinations and common sense. Although Lamentor is victorious, he feels sorry for the vanquished knight, recognizing that the young man acted in the name of love, which "nao vive em terra de razao." (p. 52) Things always being worse than they seem, Lamentor's challenger is not just grazed, but mortally wounded. Overcome with compassion, Lamentor tries to assist him, but the young man dies on the same litter that moments before carried the pregnant Belissa, his eyes on the castle of the lady in whose name he had protected the bridge—a lady who had never loved him. Obligation to a cruel and demanding mistress is a recurring theme in Menina e moga. The fact that the knight's death occurs eight days before the end of his assignment is significant. For both Christian and non-Christians, the number eight symbolized sanctity, regeneration, immortality, and eternal bliss. The knight's death is, in spite of its absurdity, a symbolic liberation from bondage.54 The episode illustrates the central idea of the romance: fortune is cruel and unjust; man is a pawn of fate. Lamentor comforts the dead man's squire, assuring him that vengeance will be taken, to which the servant responds, "para a morte nao ha a! vinganca." (p. 55) The squire's words ring with the quiet desperation of a man who realizes that there is no defense against destiny, no vengeance against death. The words reflect a sense of the absurd similar to that of much modern existential literature. The young knight dies a futile, heartbreaking death. like an existential antihero, he sacrifices his life for a cause, shedding his blood too soon to accomplish his mission. 54
On the meanings of-eight, see Hopper, p. 323.
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The pointlessness of his death is rendered all the more grievous by the appearance of his sister, who has come to help him celebrate the completion of his three-year guardianship of the bridge. Prepared for a joyous reunion, the girl is met by a brutal scene —the battered cadaver of her beloved brother. The girl's anguish is tinged with defiance. She wildly tears at her hair—a practice specifically prohibted in Portugal from the late fourteenth century55 —for no laws can govern expressions of pain. Her actions respond not to the demands of society but to a grief so profound that it can be manifested only through ancient rites whose origins are buried deep in custom. Equally touching is the scene in which the girl recollects her last meeting with her brother, then an enthusiastic youth just setting out on an arduous mission. Her deep sense of loss at his senseless, unjustifiable death resounds in her simple lament, "Irmao meu, que morte foi esta que assim vos levou tao asinha, que vos nao pude falar." (p. 57) What characterizes this and other moving episodes of Menina e moga is their utter simplicity. Adjectives, metaphors, hyperboles are all stripped away to reveal a raw emotion that is never diluted through the use of stylistic contrivances. In the romance, art typically distances the reader from the reality of death. Word-play reduces, even obviates the pain. As Maurice Evans points out in his discussion of Sidney's Arcadia, conceits serve to dehumanize the descriptions of death and to turn tragedy into something ornamental.56 The description of Parthenia's dead body provides an example: "...in her cheeks the whiteness striving by little and little to get upon the rosiness of them; her neck, a neck indeed of alabaster, displaying the wound, which with most dainty blood 5E
'Menina, notes, p. 57.
56
Sidney,p. 18.
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laboured to drown his own beauties, so as here was a river a purest red, there an island of perfectest white, each giving luster to the other."57
The emphasis here is on image, not feeling. The insistence on colors (white, rose, red) that compliment and enhance each other, the geographical metaphors (river, island), the suggestion of an alabaster statue all contribute to what Evans calls "the systematic transmutation of life into artifice,"58 that permits the reader to encounter death without becoming emotionally involved. In Sannazaro's Arcadia the finality of death is tempered by the concept of a self-renewing nature. The image of a happy Massilia taking pleasure in her son's song counteracts that of the weeping Ergasto. Ergasto's eclogue combines Christian and pagan ideas regarding the inevitability of death and the wisdom of accepting man's natural end not merely with resignation but with joy. Garcilaso mutes the pain of death-imposed separation in still another way. In the first eclogue the poet-lover overcomes death by projecting the image of a pagan paradise that is a recreation of the locus amoenus: Divina Elisa, pues agora el cielo con inmortales pies pisas y mides, y su mudanza ves, estando queda, por que de mi te olvidas y no pides que se apresure el tiempo en que este velo rompa del cuerpo y verme libre pueda, y en la tercera rueda, contigo mano a mano, busquemos otro llano, busquemos otros montes y otros rios, otros valles florido y sombrios
"Sidney, p. 528. 58
Sidney,p. 19.
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donde descanse y siempre pueda verte ante losojosmios, sin miedo y sobresalto de perderte ?59
Garcilaso's paradise is devoid of Christian context. It is what A.C. Spearing calls a "universal psychic archetype" common to all Western medieval and Renaissance visionary poetry.60 Garcilaso's paradise is an erotic Utopia in which lovers enjoy each other's company free of the fear of censure or separation. It is characteristic of pastoral to sublimate pain, transforming human suffering into an experience of sweet and terrible beauty. In the sentimental romance, the lover's death is tragic but predictable. He is a martyr to love, sacrificing his being to a god that renders him defenseless. In Menina e moga there is no such sublimation. The young knight's death is neither grand nor exemplary. The emphasis is not on his devotion but on the anguish of his squire and his sister, deprived of master and brother by an absurd destiny. If Sidney reveals "divine law in sensible form,"61 so does Ribeiro. But if for Sidney divine law is just and benevolent, for Ribeiro it is incomprehensible and seemingly malevolent. In tableaux after tableaux he portrays a destiny that is both capricious and indifferent to human suffering. The next stroke of misfortune is announced by a sign that does not go inadverted by the characters but is not adequately understood by them. Lamentor dreams that Belisa, unsure of his love, abandons him. Sensing that his dream is an indication of his lack of confidence, Lamentor feels guilty, although he does not grasp the full meaning of 59
Obras completas ed. Elias L. Rivers (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State University Press, 1964), p. 133. 60 Spearing,p. 17.
"Sidney, p. 23.
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the omen. A. C. Spearing, who has studied dreams and visions in European literature through the sixteenth century, shows that the somnium, or enigmatic dream that veils with ambiguity the information conveyed is common in both classical and Biblical writing, as is the visio, or prophetic vision.62 Lamentor's dream has elements of both. That night, Belisa goes into an early labor and dies in childbirth. One of the most poignant episodes of the romance, Belisa's death is rendered all the more touching by her concern for Lamentor. Methaphorically Everyman, Lamentor slumbers, lost in own private dreamworld. Belisa, tormented by pain, begs only that her loved-one be allowed to enjoy a few more moments of peace before awakening to the nightmare of her death. Once again, there is no attempt to distance the reader from the characters' anguish. Belisa's final words, "Chamem-no! Chamem-no!" (p. 64) are direct and simple, an expression of agony torn from a dying woman who can no longer shield her lover from the grief she must cause him. Here, it is the woman who protects the man, while he, helpless and distraught, faints away. Menina e moga is characterized not by the stylized suffering of conventional pastoral and sentimental protagonists, but by emotional authenticity. Throughout the book, the richness of detail in the descriptions of interpersonal relationships gives the characters depth. Ribeiro's protagonists display a concern for each other revealed in the gesture—a pause, a sigh, a squeezing of hands, even concern in the throes of death for a lover's sleep —that prevents them from becoming the mechanized creations of a fixed genre. There is a subtlety to these characters, a credibility that is communicated through minutiae. Aonia and Lamentor mourn and bury Belisa according to custom, a fact upon which Ribeiro insists 62
Spearing, p. 10.
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heavily. But it is not Abnia's conventional speech over the body of her dead sister that moves the reader, but Lamentor's expression of incredulousness upon learning of Belisa's unforeseen death ("Que cousa foi esta, senhora?" p. 64), and later, his expression of guilt at having taken her from her family to die alone in a strange land. (p. 71) Yet now, as after the death of the knight of the bridge, practical considerations intrude upon the characters' grief. The ama who had been attending Belisa reminds Lamentor that he must get on with the burial: "A sepultura e devida aos mortos: hao-se de fazer as cousas necessarias." (p. 70)No amount of tears will bring Belisa back, and so there is no sense in mourning endlessly. "Lembre-vos que tristeza e de todos," (p. 70) she tells him, and "temos a dor para sempre." (p. 70) Since pain is a constant companion, we cannot allow it to prevent us from going about our business. Every human being is a lamentor; Lamentor is, in this sense, no different from anyone else. The old woman's pragmatism seems jokingly unidealistic. Yet, what she preaches is strength, constancy, survival in the face of affliction. The fact that her message is reiterated repeatedly suggests that it encompasses a fundamental truth, one that Bernardim was perhaps striving to communicate to the exiled Portuguese Jews or to the converses. Lamentor at first disregards the ama's advice. As foretold in the dream, Belisa is gone and he is bereft. He identifies Belisa's will to go to heaven without him as the will of destiny, and riles against her broken promise to stay with him forever. But the ama, in a touching exchange, reminds him that life must go on. Lamentor has a baby to care for, a reason to live. If he truly loves Belisa, she tells him, he must let her go. This is the inevitable separation of spirit from matter, the return of the spirit to the Father. Man has no choice but to accept. After this scene, Lamentor all but disappears from the 85
romance. There is no sweet lamentation, no projection of a future reunion in an erotic heavenly locus amoenus. Helder Macedo argues that Belisa' death makes Lamentor's redemption possible. Yet, there is no clear indication that Lamentor has been redeemed. Rather, the focus here, as elsewhere, is on man's suffering on earth rather than on redemption in an afterlife. While Lamentor and Abnia grieve over Belisa, an anonymous knight appears. Pursuing an adventure imposed by a women to whom he is obligated by the requirements of chivalry, but to whom he feels no emotional attachment, the newcomer is drawn to Aonia. In a scene filled with psychological realism, Lamentor courteously, but firmly insists that the intruder leave. Instinctively, Lamentor knows that the stranger represents a menace and seeks to separate him from the family group. The impulsiveness of the young knight will, in fact, prove to be a menace to Aonia's purity and, consequently, to Lamentor's honor and integrity. Leaving the mourners, the stranger first tends to his horse. Ribeiro's preoccupation with details of this nature creates a kind of tug-of-war between the pragmatical and the philosophical, between the physical and the metaphysical. Even as he yearns for Aonia's beauty, the young knight must care for his steed. The scene synthesizes the conflict that characterizes the entire episode. According to both Neoplatonism and Jewish mysticism, woman is an allegory of perfect, Godly beauty. The horse is a traditional symbol of passion. Throughout his relationship with Aonia, the young knight will be torn between two dominant aspects of love: spiritual purification and desire. The knight's most immediate preoccupation is his allegiance to Aquelisia. Vigilent and jealous, she keeps constant tabs on him, relying on informants and even employing his squire as a spy. She is insatiable in her demands for demonstrations of devotion. Several critics have 86
suggested that Aquelisia is an allegory for the Church (ecclesia), to which Bimarder (the Jew) is bound by obligation rather than heartfelt devotion.63 The db/z^-narrator interrupts the episode to offer one of her infrequent commentaries on the action. Riling against the requirements of chivalry, she insists that obligations imposed on a lover are never repaid by heartfelt devotion. The message that love cannot be forced acquires a special significance when considered within the historical framework of the Portuguese Jews pressured by the Church to convert. The dona condemns the system that causes women who love sincerely (unlike Aquelisia) to suffer. Decorum requires women to display disdain. They are not only deprived of the opportunity to express their deepest feelings, but, paradoxically, risk alienating their suitors by demanding proofs of devotion that elicit mechanical compliance rather than inspiring true love. The reintroduction of the dona serves as a signal, an asterisk. A messenger of truth, it is she who reiterates the distinction between true love and empty rite. The young knight, now ready to recognize his love for Abnia, determines to abandon Aquelisia and manages to get rid of the squire. It is at this point that a second visionary episode occurs. A mysterious shadow warns him that he will never be free from persecution, even if he changes name and environment. The supernatural being appears at a critical moment. The knight is about to discard his old identity and embark on a new life. The vision is an oraculum, in which an authority figure —in this case, a spirit from the Otherworld—conveys essential information.64 The spirit's appearance is an indication of the transcendental nature of the knight's decision. He has opted to abandon K
Menina, notes, p. 74.
64
See Spearing, p. 10.
the hypocrisy of empty rites and follow his heart. But faith demands sacrifice. The road will be rugged. The voice from the Otherworld implies that the insurgent against the imposed order—be it the code of chivalry or the religious establishment—will never be free from persecution. More important still, although the young man may change his name and his allegiance, he will never be free of his passionate nature. It is this that will cause his downfall. The circumstances leading up to the naming of the knight are equally prophetic. A woodsman appears out of a burning forest and utters the words "Bin m'arder." The knight transposes some of the letters—an act that recalls the cabalistic preoccupation with extracting secret truths from holy texts through the systematic rearrangement of letters — and decides on the name Bimarder, which evokes not only his passion for Abnia, but, as Maria de Lourdes Saraiva suggests, the fires of the Inquisition ,65 Like prototypical pastoral and sentimental lovers, Bimarder pines for an unknown lady, whom fantasy, imagination and memory contrive to make into an obsession. Although Bimarder has barely seen Abnia, the psychological mechanism is in gear. The doce tristeza that characterizes Italianate pastoral becomes evident (p. 80). For the first time in the romance, malaise is specifically erotic and afflicts a male character. Disguised as a shepherd, Bimarder takes up residence in the valley where, sick with love, he venerates Abnia but keeps his distance. In spite of the similarities between Bimarder and his pastoral counterparts, the tone of the episode is far more similar to the sentimental romance than to pastoral, for, while Arcadia is governed by a benign providence, the locus of Bimarder's story is imbued with a sense of doom. A series of omens forecast disaster. An ominous shadow K
Menina, notes, p. 79-
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announces Bimarder's ruin. The knight's first impulse is to reach for his sword —just as Lamentor did at the moment of Belisa's death—but Bimarder realizes that his arms are worthless against the supernatural. To fight is an act of self-determination, an effort to take one's destiny into one's own hand; the sword is a symbol of strength and will. But against destiny, there is no defense. Moments later, Bimarder's horse is senselessly attacked by wolves, portending the bad end to which his passion will come. As elsewhere in the romance, danger lurks everywhere, sowing chaos, ravaging hope, wrecking plans. Confronted with his own impotence in the face of destiny, what can man do but resign himself? After the death of his horse, Bimarder is aided by some shepherds, whose appearance he interprets as a sign he is to become a shepherd, too. The pastor maior, whom Bimarder will serve, is a kind spiritual guide and wiseman whose observations serve to reiterate the central message of the romance. He is not a wizard in the tradition of Enareto, but a sage whose knowledge is the product of observation and experience. Amid descriptions of the peasants and their huts, the fundamental truth of human existence reverberates. The pastor maior conveys his wisdom in the guise of comments on the risks of grazing in open fields: "Assim como cria o bom, cria o mau." (p. 83) Since the bad grows with the good—the fox with the sheep, the wolf with the calf—there is no protection against danger. Peril is inherent to the natural scheme, for "nao ha os maus senao onde ha os bons, nem ha ladrbes senao onde ha que furtar." (p. 83) Saddest of all, man often unwittingly brings misfortune upon himself, as did Bimarder, who rode so lost in thought that he was unaware of the dangers to which he exposed his steed. Indeed, that grief we cause ourselves is the hardest to bear: "Podemos sofrer melhor o mal que nos faz outrem que 89
o que nbs otros fazemos a nos mesmos." (p. 84) The same pessimism expressed by the menina early in the romance echoes throughout the old shepherd's discourse. Clearly, life and not love is the theme of the romance. Tormented by nightmares and premonitions, Bimarder nevertheless opts to stay on in the valley as the old man's servant. His decision is temerarious. Dreams reveal divine truths, and Bimarder has disregarded the omens. In the locus amoenus, the distinction between this world and the other is blurred. Supernatural beings become accessible through dreams, and providence becomes tangible through signs. It is at this point that the landscape is most conventionally bucolic, and yet, the atmosophere is not pastoral at all. Rather than harmony, the protagonist senses foreboding. Everywhere there are omens that he must not stay. Yet, doggedly, he pursues his plan. He learns to play the flute with such expertise that he is known as "o pastor da frauta." (p. 86) With skill and artifice he imitates the rustic language of the shepherds. Being of noble blood and refined manner, he combines his courtly sensibility with country simplicity to produce exquisite expressions of his amorous frustration, singing songs so beautiful that they reduce both singer and listener to tears. Like the Italianate pastorals, the episode is filled with sighs and sweet yearning. Here, for the first time, the protagonist is a poet. Bimarder sings a vilancete, a lamentation that dwells on the lover's unhappiness, his estrangement from nature, his inability to find a refuge from grief, and the malevolence of fortune. The song is imbued with a deep existential anguish capsulized in the final line: "nao sei para que nasci." (p. 94) This is one of the few poetic interludes in Menina e moga, which, unlike Italian and Spanish pastoral romances, does not consist of a series of poems strung together by prose passages. The eclogue was a form that Bernardim Ribeiro mastered. He produced exquisite examples of bucolic
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poetry. Yet, he incorporated no idyllic verse into Menina e moga, a further indication that, in spite of their shepherdly accouterment, Bernardim's characters are not intrinsically pastoral. For the most part, Ribeiro's characters, like those of other sixteenth-century romances, do not evolve psychologically. Each tableaux reveals a temporal fragment, rather than an extended view of growth and development. The exception is Aonia. So inexperienced at the beginning of the episode that she lacks the skills to mourn Belisa properly and therefore looks to the sister of the knight of the bridge for a model, Aonia develops within the duration of the narrative from a state of childhood innocence to womanly cunning. Taken to be raised by the ama, the midwife who attended her sister, Aonia is oblivious to the joys and perils of love. When Bimarder first appears at the time of Belisa's death, Aonia hardly notices him. Much of the remainder of the episode focuses on Abnia's erotic awakening. The ama views Bimarder's presence in the valley with anxiety. His songs are too sweet, too entreating. She herself is deeply moved by them. With psychological precision Ribeiro describes the amds attempts to eradicate the lovesick shepherd—and the danger he represents to Aonia—from her consciousness. Sighing, blinking back tears, she busies herself with domestic tasks in order to block out his song. Suspicious that the newcomer is not a shepherd at all, she does her best to protect the girl. Anxiety mounts as the ill-fatedness of the affair is presaged in a somber passage in which Bimarder sees the shadow of his own death. But there is no protection against destiny. From the moment Aonia becomes aware of Bimarder's presence, her transformation from girl to woman begins. With great delicacy and perspicacity Ribeiro traces Aonia's Melibea-like
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metamorphosis, which begins with sleepless nights and restless days that the girl herself cannot explain. Her malaise becomes acute when she witnesses from her window a frightening scene in which Bimarder is attacked by a raging bull. Although Abnia is not in danger and Bimarder is saved by his own herd, the experience leaves the girl agitated. Maria de Lourdes Saraiva points out that the episode may have an occult significance. The word toura (Torah) designates the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Old Testament, especially sacred to the Jews. The bull became a sign associated with Jews, and several persons were denounced to the Inquisition on the grounds that they possessed touras, that is, figures of bulls (touros] that were supposedly symbols of their true faith.66 According to Saraiva, in the struggle against adversity, Bimarder is protected by his Torah, his faith. But, in the end, his inability to impose self-control pulls him down. Abnia, still unconscious of the cause of her discontent, is attracted, in spite of her careful upbringing and better judgment, to Bimarder. The ama's efforts to conceal the truth about the Bimarder's background, which she learns through gossip, fail, for Abnia overhears the story and finds that every bit of new information contributes to her fascination with the stranger. Giving rein to her imagination, which, in turn, stimulates her passion, she abandons her efforts to resist. Delighted, yet confused, she yields slowly, unable to grasp completely the significance of the changes that the handsome new shepherd is working on her psyche. Ribeiro's portrait of a young girl coming to terms with her own erotic feelings is one of the most sensitive to be found in a sixteenth-century romance. But the mad attraction between Bimarder and Abnia is essentially unhealthy. Abnia is the wrong solution for Bimarder, who has abandoned Aquelisia only to yield to K
Menina, notes, p. 98.
carnal passion. There has been ample foreshadowing of the ultimate failure of the affair. The sad solam that the ama sings to her charge, reiterates the familiar message: women are born to suffer. The song summarizes Abnia's life, beginning with the tragic circumstances of her birth ("Como vos criarei, vos, ftlha estrangiera em terra estranha!" p. 65) Dramatized by poignant images of the ama bathing the new-born in her own tears, the song stresses Aonia's rootlessness and makes evident her role as an extension or variation of the menina and of Belisa. Like them, she is an exile, "Nada em dor, em dor crescida." (p. 104) like them, she is beautiful—a treasure of grace—and in peril. And like them, she is doomed to unhappiness. From this point on, the atmosphere becomes increasingly heavy, ominous, pessimistic. The ama, well aware of the cause of Aonia's turmoil even before the girl herself is, expatiates on women's lot. Like the dona, she is the girl grown old. She is experience, wisdom, truth. Her monologue contains both a warning and a moral lesson. It is a condemnation of chivalresque idealism, which causes women to suffer more than men by forcing them to risk more by expressing their love. It is also a warning against hope, which is too often vain. The conflict here, as elsewhere in the romance, is between imposed compliance to a rigid standard of behavior and adherence to sincerely felt sentiments. A person must act out of honest conviction, asserts the ama, because if all goes right, he will be praised, but if not, he will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that he acted righteously. There is no Christian optimism in this message, no hope of justice from a benevolent Almightly, only a plea for moral integrity. In a world full of grief, concludes the ama, the best one can hope for is a sorrow that is bearable. If there is a message here intended for the exiled Jewish community, it is certainly readily accessible.
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The ama pleads with Aonia not to be her own enemy. In the struggle between man and adversity, the danger exists that the individual will take sides against himself. Aonia turns a deaf ear. Unable to sleep for days, she now blocks out the ama's message by dozing off. Too young and inexperienced to appreciate her guardian's wisdom, she slides deeper and deeper into confusion. like Calderon's Nina de Gomez Arias, "Ela era rnoga, e nunca se vira ainda noutra tal." (p. 109)67 Aonia's rejection of the ama's advice is a pivotal point. The ama has preached moral integrity, but Aonia has succumbed to lust. Just as the dona and menina represent woman at two different ages, so do the ama and Aonia. The ama, made wise through experience, is a mother figure unlike any in conventional sentimental or pastoral romances. A portrait of feminine domesticity, the ama bustles around her house, engaged in household chores. Her language is conversational, her attitude, homey. She is, perhaps, a projection of what the passionate Aonia is to become. Both Bimarder and Aonia smoulder with anticipation. He bears the anguish better than she because as a man, "poderia con ela." (p. 109) Aonia attempts to lose herself in household chores, but, in the end, it is she who surrenders to temptation and makes the first move. Just as woman is the bridge to salvation, she is the lure to perdition. The significance of the turn of events is marked by the intervention of the
Calderon's play La nina de Gomez Arias is based on a legend popular in the Golden Age and transmitted through a song: Senor Gomez Arias, dbleos de ml soy muchacha y nina, y nunca en tal me vi.
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climbs to the roof to see Aonia, falls and injures himself. The fall and Aonia's exclamation — "Muito pagonzinho, que me perdereis!" (p. 112)—are omens that announce the imminent failure of the affair. Both Bimarder and Aonia have fallen in a moral sense. Although their love has not yet been consummated, they have succumbed to the senses. Just as Aonia has disregarded the amds warnings, Bimarder has disregarded the signs: the shadows and dreams, the death image, the wolves' attack on his horse, the skirmish with the evil bull, Aonia's exclamation que me perdereis and finally, his own fall. As the ama foretold, the rashness of the lovers plays into the hands of destiny. Aonia overcomes her fear of her guardian enough to send her maid to seek out the recovering Bimarder. She then escapes from her house and flies to his side. From an inexperienced, confused adolescent, she has grown into a headstrong young woman. Ribeiro describes the meeting with great delicacy, tenderness, and psychological insight. Yet, every move the lovers make not only reveals their passion but portends the inevitable failure of their affair. Aonia sits on the edge of Bimarder's bed, a sign of bad luck.68 She tears the sleeve of her garment and with the fragment dries Bimarder's tears, a gesture that is also an omen, since a torn sleeve was associated with the funeral rite.69 More ominous still are the words of the
Menina, notes, p. 117.
^Menina, notes, p. 118.
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pursue her affair with Bimarder after the wedding. Displaying blatent disregard for the sanctity of marriage, Aonia doggedly plans to pursue pleasure. The ama warns that "se andassemos sobreaviso, ligeiramente entenderiamos tudo ou parte do que ha-de ser." (p. 121) but Abnia allows her egotism and sensuality to blind her. She considers neither her obligations to her future husband nor to Lamentor, whose honor she risks. Inevitably, her rash behavior leads to a catastrophe. Bimarder, assuming that Aonia is entering into matrimony with the intention of respecting her vows, disappears, never to be heard from again. It is the heedlessness of the characters—their inattention to all but their own emotions, their obliviousness to their surroundings —that leads to failure. Aonia's and Bimarder's recklessness plays into the hands of a malevolent fate. In her haste to secure her relationship with Bimarder through marriage to someone else, Aonia fails to inform her lover of her intentions and he fails to verify them. Lamentor, too, is partially to blame, for, anxious to separate Aonia from Bimarder in order to silence the local gossip, he marries off his sister-in-law without considering her inclinations. Ines, Aonia's maid, is also a tool of destiny, for it is she who advised Aonia to proceed with the marriage in order to continue seeing Bimarder. After Bimarder's disappearance, Ines leaves Aonia's service, knowing that before long the girl will be pining for her lost lover and blaming her maid for his departure. During the first days after the wedding, Ines reasons, married life is agreeable and new brides forget their past loves. But soon the novelty wears off, for routine breeds tedium and over-critical husbands become a burden. Ines advises Aonia to quit her crying, for tears will ruin her beauty, and to allow herself to deteriorate would be to offend Bimarder still further. She encourages her mistress
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not to lose hope, for she is certain that Bimarder will return unless he is unworthy of Aonia's devotion. Aonia, somewhat consoled, loses herself in the daily chores of married life and, before long, forgets Bimarder—an ironically anticlimactic conclusion to a passionate love affair. Helder Macedo suggests that Ribeiro meant to reunite and redeem Aonia and Bimarder later on in the romance. However, there is no evidence to support this view. The facility with which Aonia relegates Bimarder to oblivion indicates that her feelings for him have never been more than superficial. She blasphemously reduces matrimony to a facade that permits men and women to maintain social respectability while practicing adultery. Instead of exalting lovers' unfulfilled desires, Ribeiro depicts them as sacrilegious, shallow, and easily forgotten. If the erotic malaise that Ines predicts ever occurs, the reader is not witness to it. The sweet yearning, the restless longing, the ecstasy of pain and rapture that characterize conventional pastoral are missing. There is no need for a Felicia-figure to appear and reestablish an erotic Golden Age, for Aonia's problem is revolved, ironically, by housework. Banality is a fitting reward for her lack of spirituality and erotic idealism. The conclusion of the episode differs from the body of the text both in tone and style. While the early portions are characterized by psychological subtlety and detail, the final segments are coldly objective. The dona all but disappears, and the narrative voice becomes impersonal. Whereas the early descriptions convey compassion, in the concluding ones the author distances himself from his creations, leaving them to suffer the consequences of their mindless behavior. Menina e mo$a is traditionally divided into two parts. The first contains the menina's preamble, the tale of Lamentor and Belisa, and the tale of Aonia and Bimarder. The second contains the remainder of the book. The authorship of the
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second part has been questioned by several critics, among them Jose Pessanha and Teofilo Braga.70 Stylistically, the second part differs radically from the first. For one thing, it contains no bucolic element at all. The first scenes of the second part take place within a palace and the later ones, on a rocky coast. For another, the dona is nearly absent. Upon occasion, she does interject a comment, such as "E aqui passaram muitas cousas que me a mim nao lembram," (p. 138) but her presence is so diminished that whether the narrator who forgets the details is she or Ribeiro himself becomes evident only later on, when she notes, "Tudo isto eu ouvi falar muitas vezes a meu pai." (p. 145) The reference to the father clarifies that it is the menina's companion who is telling the tale. Another factor that obfuscates the identity of the narrator is the change in narrative quality. The second part of Menina e moga is fairy-tale-like and otherworldly, full of false leads and abrupt halts ("mas o nosso conto nao e agora este," p. 127). The voice is that of an anonymous "we" ("nosso mar," "nosso conto") who recounts a tale from the distant past told by an anonymous "they" ("contam que havia naquele tempo," p. 127). However, this fairy-tale quality is not maintained throughout. As the tale progresses, the narrative voice slips back to the first person singular. If the story of Abnia and Bimarder depicts surrender to temptation, the punishment for which is suggested by Bimarder's name, the story of Arima and Avalor depicts spiritual purification attained through adoration of woman. Several critics have pointed out that Arima is an anagram of Maria. Helder Macedo suggests that Ribeiro, in order to disguise the incendiary nature of his work, identified his last female protagonist with Mary. He points out the similar ®Menina, notes, pp. 125-126.
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functions of Shekhinah in Judaism and the Virgin in Hispanic Catholicism, suggesting that Jewish readers would easily be able to see through the camouflage.71 Acording to Macedo, Ribeiro disguised his description of a Jewish rite of purification in Christian terms in order to avoid reprisals. Macedo's interpretation is provocative, although not airtight. Other interpretations are possible. It is conceivable that the author of the last episodes of the Ferrera edition was in fact a converso or a Christian for whom Bimarder was a negative character, the unreconciled Jew persecuted by the Church and condemend by his own stubborn determination to adhere to a false and corrupting faith—represented by Aonia—while Avalor, the reconciled Jew, is saved through his attraction to the divine purity of the Virgin Mary. What is clear is that Bimarder and Avalor represent two different aspects of love—the sensual and spiritual—constantly compared and contrasted in religious writing as well as in countless Renaissance debates and treatises. Arima herself is a complex and enigmatic character. Conceived out of wedlock, she evokes the memory of original sin and the possibility of redemption. References to her are consistently ambiguous, rendering her credible both as a Neoplatonic idealization and as a divine spirit. She possesses "todas as perfeicbes" (p. 127) and destiny has "grandes haveres" reserved for her, although the reader is never told what they are. Lamentor sends her to court, where, he warns, she will find many pleasures, some verdadeiros and others fingidos. Although he does not elaborate on just what this means, his words imply a need for caution against the kind of temptation to which Bimarder and Aonia succumbed as well as a distinction between this world, replete with illusions, and the other. Like the first part of the romance, the second is Macedo, pp. 81-97.
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permeated by a sense of foreboding. Lamentor deplores destiny's cruel deceits and prays that if misfortune should befall his daughter, he die before she comes to grief. In spite of the obvious stylistic differences between the first and second parts of the Ferrara edition, the sense of fatefulness that pervades both is a strong unifying factor. Here, as earlier, characters are heavyhearted and resigned, not as a result of erotic malaise, but due to their impotence to forestall disaster. like the other women in Menina e moga, Arima is an outsider. The ama, who delivers her, labels her a "filha estrangeira em terra estranha" (p. 64) at the moment of her birth, and as Arima departs for the court, her father reminds her, "sois estrangeira nesta terra" (p. 129) Others will be watching her, he reminds her, always ready to criticize. Maria de Lourdes Saraiva suggests that there may be a relationship between Lamentor's caution to Arima and the Inquisition's practice of relying on denunciations based on picayune details that might be interpreted as indications of adherence to Jewish practices.72 Bryant Laurence Creel discounts any traces of crypto-Judaism but points out that intellectuals such as Ribeiro and Montemayor were often suspect at court, especially in countries removed from the centers of Renaissance creative activity.73 Whether as a result of Ribeiro's Jewishness or his intellect, the tone here, as earlier, betrays apprehensiveness and fear of persecution. Portions of Arima's story are, like earlier episodes, characterized by an intense feminism. Lamentor clearly fears for his offspring because she is a woman. It is he who takes over the dona's role of commentator on the feminine condition. Lamentor realizes that in the courtly milieu into which he is sending his daughter, women bear the brunt of 72
'Menina, notes, p. 12 9.
73
"Bernardim Ribeiro and the Tradition of Renaissance Pastoral," in Homenaje a D. W. McPheeters (Washington, D.C.: Scripta Humanitatis, 1985).
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suffering caused by ritualistic love practices, for they often mistake expressions of desire for signs of true tenderness. Lamentor explains that while desire may be a positive force in the conduct of men, causing them to perform great deeds in pursuit of an ideal, it affects women negatively, causing them untold grief. The distinction between true sentiment and false, perhaps between true faith and false, is, once again, the fundamental theme. Although Arima's identity is unclear, it is evident that, in contrast with the sensuous Aonia, Arima represents purity, perhaps even holiness. While Aonia defies her father, Arima is obedient. Through her submission to Lamentor, she defines herself as a spiritual vehicle, a child of the Father. Her parting reveals the touching relationship that exists between father and daughter. As an incarnation of filial love, Arima is reminiscent of the messenger of the Hymn of the Pearl, of the legend of Shekhinah, and of Jesus. Here, as elsewhere in the romance, the bond between parent and child is as much an operative force as the relationship between lover and loved-one. Frequently, parents in pastoral romances are obstacles, even rivals. Here, the father is a spiritual guide and protector. He is a loving guardian who, against his inclinations, sends his child forth to comply with the demands of destiny. Like Arima, Lamentor is both lifelike and larger-than-life. He is convincing in the contexts of both the tangible and the metaphysical. The touches of domesticity that occur throughout Menina e mofa contribute to the impression that Ribeiro's work takes place "num piano de naturalidade,"74 in contrast with other romances of the same period which take place in a "clima extravagante."75 Ribeiro's emphasis on household 74
Dicionario deliteratura, p. 634.
7S
Dicionario deliteratura, p. 634.
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detail serves as a cement, bonding father to daughter in an atmosphere of domestic familiarity. This and the psychological realism with which Ribeiro depicts Arima's parting contribute to the characters' credibility as individual human beings experiencing the drama of separation as well as to their allegorical function. The psychological element is another constant that binds the second part of the romance to the first. Avalor, like Bimarder's Abnia, falls in love without full cognizance of what is happening to him. Tormented by restless nights and a profound malaise, he debates with himself, struggling to clarify the nature of his feelings. In a dream he hears a voice, and realizes he must abandon the other woman to whom he is bound by obligation, and dedicate himself to Arima, whom he truly loves. Like Bimarder, he comes to terms with the fact that he must reject empty rituals in favor of heartfelt devotion, but unlike his predecessor, he distinguishes between love and desire. As in Bimarder's case, visions, dreams, and the intervention of supernatural beings announce the transcendental dimension of the lover's experience. The conflict between duty and love, between true faith and imposed ritual fit into both a Neoplatonic and a political framework. Arima—pure, aloof, unattainable—is a worthy Neoplatonic icon. But, Helder Macedo contends, she is actually much more. She is the instrument of Avalor's reconversion to Judaism. Throughout the episode, Arima's otherworldliness is stressed. Her enigmatic words, "para que estas guardado da Arima," (p. 135) warn Avalor of the impossibilty of their love, which, in spite of his intention to articulate his passion, goes forever undeclared. By failing to reduce his love to words—that is, by leaving it in the realm of the abstract—he maintains it on the very highest plane, not by choice, but due to Arima's evasiveness. Avalor's devotion to 102
Arima elevates him in spite of his own inclination toward the material. Torn between duty and love, Avalor determines to leave. But fate dictates otherwise: "esta sua determinacao saiu-lhe de outra maneira." (p. 138) The court is moving in its entirety to a better provisioned palace, and at the moment of departure Arima accuses Avalor of serving another woman. Unwilling to deceive her, he acknowledges the truth. Touched by Arima's willingness to forgive and by the very proximity of her person, Avalor loses sight of time and place. Having arrived at Arima's destination, he is surprised to see he has traveled much farther than he intended, since he had thought to accompany her only to the edge of the city in which she had previously been lodged. Arima disappears with the palace entourage, and Avalor finds that he is completely lost. Night falls, and, disoriented, he wanders through the blackness. The atmosphere is eerie, portentous, otherworldly. Avalor has been transformed. He has passed into a new spiritual dimension. According to Macedo, Avalor's devotion to Arima—in reality, to Shekhinah —has effected his reconversion to the true faith, making him an example of moral strength in the face of adversity. In Macedo's view, Avalor represents a plea to the Jewish community to resist conversion to Catholicism, to reject the temptation to succumb to comfort and to temporal pleasure that assimilation would afford. It is in this sense that Menina e moga can be construed as a document of insurrection. Avalor reappears at court dizzied by his experience. So abstracted that he loses his sense of etiquette as well as his sense of time, he arrives too early and barges in on the princess, who, accompanied by Arima and other attendants, is just preparing her table. A humorous scene—although perhaps not deliberately so—Avalor's arrival is a series of blunders and miscalculations. Every one of his attempts to 103
articulate his passion fails. A year later, Avalor is still hopeful, but reticent. Maria Lourdes Saraiva sees in Avalor's persistence an occult reference to the faith of the Jews in the coming of the Messiah,76 but it seems to depict, rather, an exceptional loyalty of knight to lady, a faith that, due to Arima's spiritual nature, elevates Avalor to a mystic plane in which union with God is possible: "Ihe eram dadas esperanc,as diferentes das que se costumavam ter" (p. 145). Whether or not that union is actually achieved is the most perplexing problem of the work. Avalor's relative happiness seems to be short-lived, for "nao ha mal que nao ache caminho por onde venha." (p. 146) The young knight's pining for Arima gives rise to gossip. An unidentified woman assures Avalor that Arima is not in love with anyone, but her words are ambiguous and disconcerting: "nao a senhoreia vontade nenhuma." (p. 151) Is Arima merely one more cold and distant lady on a pedestal or is she something more? Avalor's confidante seems to confirm Arima's supernatural quality, describing her as "tanto do outro mundo, que nao e para ninguem se namorar dela" (p. 151). The secrecy that surrounds Arima's inaccessibility places her apart. The key to the mystery is kept even from the reader, for Avalor's confidante whispers the secret in his ear, and we are never made privy to it. Whatever the explanation is, the knight is affected so profoundly that he leaves court. The fourth and last episode, which recounts Avalor's subsequent adventures, is chaotic and confusing. It is introduced through an ancient ballad—the third piece of poetry in the romance —which tells how Avalor disappeared in a boat. His end remains equivocal and obscure: Suspeitou-se que era morto, mas nao e para afirmar... (p. 155) 16
Menina, notes, p. 139; Macedo, pp. 81-97.
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Stylistically, the fourth episode introduces still more changes. While psychological subtlety characterizes much of the preceding material, here there is little. Instead, the text becomes confusedly descriptive. It is perhaps at this point that a new author picked up the thread, discarding entirely the narrative voice of the dona and relying on a previously existing ballad for the story line.77 The most salient characteristic of the fourth episode is the ambiguity that encompasses every detail. For example, Arima's whereabouts are never clarified. The ballad reports that "as aguas levam seu bem" (p. 153), but it is not clear whether Arima drowned or sailed to a new abode; perhaps the image was meant to signify a metaphorical crossing to the Otherworld. There are indications that sometime after Avalor's departure from the court, she abandoned the palace and entered a convent: "nasceu un aborrecimento a senhora Arima de uns modos que ai ha no paco, a desejar outra vida muito desviada, qual se foi inclinado muito." (p. 153) Always the respectful daughter, the child of the Father, Arima rejoins Lamentor and adopts a new life with his consent, but whether or not her return is to be understood as the return of the spirit to God remains shrouded in mystery. There is no transition between the third and fourth episodes. The final portion of the romance begins, unexpectedly, with Avalor's shipwreck. Drops of seawater are hurled toward the sky, "e da fore,a, ou reverberac.ao do ar, ou do que quer que foi, se faziam como candeias." (p. 156-57) The ambiguity of the passage and the mention of candles have suggested to some critics that at this moment Avalor dies. The next scene depicts Avalor clinging from a rock, then hurling himself into the sea with the words, "pois corpo e sem ventura, nao quero que tolha mais o caminho a "'M.enina, notes, pp. 125-126.
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alma." (p. 157) But has Avalor liberated his soul from the agony of mortal existence through suicide ? Helder Macedo argues that he has not, because at this point he is already dead.78 Yet, in view of the following passages, it seems more likely that the waters, pitying Avalor, reject him and spare his life: "por ventura houveram dele piedade...tambem moram nas aguas cousas que guardam religiao." (p. 157) Bryant Laurence Creel points out that the image of the rock swept by water is a symbol of emotional tension and frustration that appears in Ribeiro's other writing, notably Egloga I.79 It is likely that Avalor experiences an anguish so intense it leads to a suicidal depression. Sometime after Avalor is washed up onto the rocks, a spirit appears to him. Macedo suggests that Arima, now pure spirit, returns to earth to conduct Avalor into the Otherworld. Yet, there are indications that Avalor survives his ordeal: "Contando ele depois isto a um seu amigo grande, dizem que Ihe dizia que nunca tao contente se achara..." (p. 158) In order to recount the experience to a friend, Avalor would have had to live through it. The apparition is, rather, a "deleitosa imaginacao" (p. 158), a glimpse of heaven accorded to a lover at a critical moment. Avalor opens his eyes and hears a mysterious whisper, "e nao te acordas, Avalor, que o mar nao suporta nenhuma cousa morta?" (p. 159) According to Macedo, the sea, unable to tolerate the dead body, washes it to shore. That is, Avalor "nao conseguiu matar-se, porque ja estaba morto."80 More likely, Avalor, separated from Arima, feels himself to be spiritually dead, although he is physically alive. Doomed to roam the earth, he is both an errant 78
Macedo, pp. 99-116.
79
Creel, "Bernardim Ribeiro."
80
Quoted in Menina, notes, 158; See Macedo, p. 99ff.
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knight and a lost soul—or maybe even a wandering Jew. The appearance of a spectre does not necessarily indicate that Avalor has left this world. Apparitions abound in Menina e moga. Furthermore, the voice that Avalor hears is not identified precisely as that of a ghost, but simply as alguem who speaks to him in & fantasia, (p. 159) The spirit's words are enigmatic. Refusing to identify itself, the voice tells Avalor that he has a long way to go, "para mais longe vais do que cuidas," (p. 159) but whether on earth or in purgatory is not clear. Macedo argues that the spirit's declaration, "nao viver ser morto e," (p. 159) eradicates all doubt, but in view of the rhetoric of love, which constantly equates death with erotic longing, this fragment is ambiguous. The Renaissance lover "cannot live" without his loved-one, and yet, decorum dictates that his passion never be consummated. He is condemned to a metaphorical "death," an unmitigated, unsatiated yearning that causes him to wander, to search, to strive, while all the time conscious of the inaccessibility of his goal. Galician-Portuguese, Provencal and Catalan erotic poetry all portray the lover as a wanderer, and several of Garcilaso's early sonnets are constructed around the metaphor of love as a treacherous, interminable road. Avalor, devoted to a woman whose purity transcends the natural, dies metaphorically with his separation from Arima, but survives to experience the living death that is his struggle to be worthy of her. The spirit's parting words —"Triste de quern se nao pode enganar ja" (p. 160) confirm that Avalor is still on earth, for if he were dead and therefore beyond deceit, his state would befe/tz rather than triste. If Avalor mourns, it is because he has lost Arima; he is undeceived regarding her inaccessibility, like the prototypical Renaissance lover, he pines for a lady who is unattainable, a lady to whom he is sincerely devoted rather than one to whom he is obligated 107
by duty. But unlike the prototypical lady, Arima possesses a supernatural dimension that makes Avalor's devotion to her a spiritual affirmation. Arima represents more than a Neoplatonic idealization of woman; she is, like Mary, an intermediary. Throughout the book, the problem of spiritual transcendence is linked to human love. Avalor's conclusion that the spirit is a lover —"quern quer que ele era, namorado Ihe pareceu" (p. 160)—underscores the bond between human love and the divine, but in spite of his attempted suicide and his brush with the Otherworld, Avalor's feet remain on the earth. From this point until the end of the Ferrara edition, Avalor appears not as a soul in purgatory but as a conventional knight errant wandering over what is identified specifically as "terra firme" (p. 162). Responding to cries for help, he makes his way through a forest, where he finds a lady who has been bound and abandoned. Although Avalor is unarmed and unmounted, the lady recognizes him as a knight and a lover by his mournful, smitten air. Hopeful that he will take up her cause, she begins to tell him of her plight. The scene promises to be a connecting link between Menina e moga and conventional pastoral. Until this moment there has been almost no mention of mythological figures in Menina e mo$a, but the distressed lady describes herself as a servant of Diana, goddess of chastity. Like Montemayor's Diana, the lady betrays her vows, allowing herself to be seduced by a scoundrel who later abuses her. Just at the moment when the reader expects Avalor to take vengeance and an episode of high drama to begin, the knight counters the lady's story with one of his own. He begins narrating an adventure that befell his father many years before, only to end it abrubtly, mid-sentence, with the words :LAUSDEU. Bryant Laurence Creel argues that the truncated ending 108
was intentional. He points out that many other sixteenth-century romances end unresolved, with promises by the authors to continue the work at a later time. Such endings, he suggests, frustrate the critic by making it difficult to classify works as entertainment literature. The truncated ending, however, "served the purpose of hindering readers' tendency to dismiss a work by situating it in a neat system of classification, of frustrating the desire to dismiss a work by means of a conventional point of view." Creel sees the ending of Menina e moga as "an expression of the author's rebellion against the refuge of a neatly-ordered rationalism and against social convention" similar to that of nineteenth-century romantic writers.81 But Menina e moga does not fit into the same pattern as works such as Montemayor's Diana and Cervantes' Galatea, both of which end with promises of a continuation. Both Montemayor and Cervantes account for their main characters; both write within a framework that is readily recognizable as pastoral. Neither ends his romance in the middle of a sentence. Although Creel is certainly correct to point out that there are strong elements of stylistic and thematic rebellion in Menina e moga, the only logical explanation for the abrupt ending is that the author—or authors—left the work unfinished. Menina e moga represents an intermediate step in the development of pastoral. A hybrid romance that incorportates elements of several genres, it is a unique blend that captures a high degree of tension and psychological realism. At the point when Ribeiro writes, the pastoral romance has not yet been fully defined on the Iberian Penninsula. Ribeiro grapples with pastoral elements, but is perhaps too preoccupied with political realities to concentrate on genre. Furthermore, like most Renaissance 81
Creel, "Bernardim Ribeiro."
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writers, he was more concerned with his poetic than his prose style,82 and so was probably not particularly interested in creating a genetically cohesive work. Ribeiro's characters, like Sannazaro's, are allegorical — unidimentional shadows that represent aspects of flight from chaos and the striving for personal authenticity, themes that take on a special meaning in view of Ribeiro's probable Jewish origin.
82
Ribeiro e Marques Braga, p. x.
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Chapter III Allegory and the Neoplatonic Ideal: Jorge de Montemayor's Siete libros de la Diana The first pastoral romance written in Spanish is Montemayor's Siete libros de la Diana, published in 1559- La Diana differs significantly from its Italian and Portuguese predecessors in terms of character development. Unlike Sannazaro and Ribeiro, Montemayor attempted to create a novelistic world in which each character would function individually as a separate, recognizable entity and, at the same time, interrelate with other characters. In order to achieve this, Montemayor limited his characters to a mere few who are bound together by a common, clearly defined problem: unrequited love. In La Diana love functions as a catalyst that causes the characters to act and react. As each character describes his personal experiences with reference to this one constant, he or she acquires depth and credibility as an individual. Shadows that appear and disappear, Sannazaro's and Ribeiro's characters lack flesh and consistency. They are unidimensional. They both define themselves and relate to others in terms of one particular emotion or attitude. Clonico is lovesick; Ergasto is bereft; the menina is alienated; Aonia is passionate, Arima is pure. Often these characters emerge in individual episodes, only to fade out of the romance when the episode is over. In both L'Arcadia and Menina e moca, only the narrator is a constant. But Sincero-Sannazaro is anonymous during most of L'Arcadia,
Ill
identifying himself only towards the end of the book. The dona, clearly defined as the narrator of the episodes in Menina e moga, changes voice in the third, then completely disappears in the fourth. In VArcadia and Menina e moga, the focus is diffused. There is no specified central problem. While several of Sannazaro's shepherds suffer from unrequited love, this is not the only affliction that serves as a rallying point. The death of a parent, the menace of wolves, thievery among shepherds are all issues. Yet, for the most part, Sannazaro's characters exist rather than act. They are part of an atmosphere that is generally devoid of drama. like L 'Arcadia, Menina e moga lacks a clearly defined focal point. Often atmosphere overshadows character and action. Exile and alienation are themes that recur, yet sometimes blur in the enigmatic narrative line. In Montemayor's carefully structured work, the characters are not merely incidental to the ambience, but the focus of the romance. While Sannazaro's work begins with a description of the landscape, Montemayor's begins with Sireno's lament for the faithless Diana. Shortly afterward, Sireno is joined by Sylvano, also a victim of Diana's disdain. One by one, the remaining characters appear and tell those who have already been introduced of their unfortunate experiences. Sireno and Sylvano are first joined by Selvagia, one of several female characters to occupy principal roles in the romance. Selvagia's story introduces Ysmenia and Alanio, who, Selvagia explains, cruelly mocked her. The next day, the three meet again. While they are conversing, they witness an attack on three nymphs by three beasts. Disaster is avoided when Felismena unexpectedly appears and kills the savages. Once the immediate problem has been solved, the newcomer joins the group and tells of her own unhappy love for Don Felix. The nymphs, who, unlike those who 112
appear in Sannazaro's romance, function as real characters, with names and individual personalities, offer to take the lovers to the priestess Felicia. On the way, they meet Belisa, who tells of her ill-fated love for Arsileo and Arsenio. Now the entourage is complete.1 Victims of a common ill, the shepherds seek a common solution. The search for Felicia, reminiscent of Clonico's search for the wizard Enareto, provides a structural framework for the romance. Bruce W. War dropper has pointed out the symmetry of the work.2 Books I through III introduce the characters and their situations. The stories of Selvagia, Felismena and Belisa, each of which occupies one of the first three books, are all variations on the theme of unrequited love introduced in the original SirenoDiana-Silvano tale. The nymphs are also introduced in the first part of the romance; it is they who embark the shepherds on the quest for Felicia. Book IV is pivotal, for it is here that the encounter with Felicia takes place. Book IV is the core of both the action and the intellectual content. Felicia not only works magic to assure a happy resolution to the problems of the faithful lovers, but also presides over a series of discussions on the nature of love until the group disperses. Books V through VII describe how each character carries out Felicia's instructions. The novel ends with a multiple wedding at Felicia's palace and the promise of a sequel. Rather than a plot, the action consists of a series of story lines that converge at an axis, which is the pilgrimage to Felicia. The fact that the romance consists of confluent narratives eliminates the need for secondary, supporting 1 On the structure of the Diana, see Bruce W. Wardropper, "The Diana of Montemayor: Revaluation and Interpretation," Studies in Philology, 47 (1951), 126-144. See also Ruth El Saffar, "Structural and Thematic Discontinuity in Montemayor's Diana," MLN, 86 (1971) 182-198. 2
"TheDw»tf."
113
characters. Consequently, all the characters in Montemayor's Diana occupy the primary plane. With the exception of the nymphs, who fulfill decorative and structural functions, they are all main characters.3 As in Sannazaro's Arcadia, conflict between characters is avoided. Common suffering breeds feelings of harmony and cooperation, not of rivalry. For example, Sylvano and Sireno both love the same woman, yet there is no confrontation between them. Rather, they see themselves as partisans of a common cause: love. As the bonds of suffering develop into bonds of friendship, all the characters display an anxiousness to help and to encourage one another. Only the nymphs, who do not love and therefore endure no pain, remain marginal characters. The shepherds do, of course, debate. Discussions on such topics as the constancy of women and the possible cures for unrequited love contribute to the refined, intellectual atmosphere of the romance. Significantly, these debates never erupt into quarrels. Potential rifts are always avoided by some unexpected interruption. Although the characters function as individuals, they share a uniform view of life and love. Without exception, they see themselves as victims of irrational forces that are not subject to the human will and cannot be comprehended by the human intellect. Sylvano complains: Pues, <;quien es este Amor? Es unasciencia que no la alcanna estudio ni esperiencia. (p. 17)4
The same idea is expressed in the "Cancibn de Diana": <;c6mo as hallado razbn, pues no la ay en amor? (p. 84) 3
Enrique Moreno Baez, p. xvii.
4
Quotations are from Jorge de Montemayor, Los siete libros de la Diana, ed. Francisco Lopez Estrada (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1967).
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Felicia affirms that, "No es el amor de manera... que pueda el que lo tiene, tener respeto a la razon, ni la razon es parte para que un enamorado coracbn dexe el animo por do sus fieros destinos le guiaren." (p. 94) Love is totally elusive, totally beyond the control of the individual. It is not subject to human will, nor can it be grasped by reason nor second-guessed through experience. It cannot be summoned or voluntarily withdrawn: No es cosa Amor que aquel que no lo tiene hallara feria a do pueda comprallo ni cosa que, en llamandola, se viene, ni que le hallareis, yendo a buscallo. (p. 18)
Without exception, Montemayor's characters view themselves as pawns of destiny and fortune. Lovers are separated by all kinds of unexpected developments: social pressures (as in the case of Felismena and Felix); parental intervention (as in the cases of Felismena and Felix, Diana and Sireno); change of heart (Selvagia and Alanio); death (Belisa and Arsileo). Each character sees himself as impotent, trapped, victim of "la mudanga y variacion de los tiempos." (p. 10) As in the sentimental romance, love is viewed as a prison. The metaphorical circle of which each shepherd forms a link (Ysmenia loves Montano, Montano, Selvagia; Selvagia, Alanio; and Alanio, Ysmenia) reflects the view of love as a trap that ensnares the individual. Aware of their own inability to control or even to influence their love lives, the shepherds view themselves as will-less. Only one episode offers an exception, and it takes place outside the pastoral setting. Felismena, whose story is probably an adaptation of a novel by the Italian writer Matteo Bandello, seeks to remedy her situation. Felismena had been condemned by Venus to be unlucky in love. In her youth, she fell in love with Felix, but since his father did not approve of the union, he sent the boy to the court of Agusta 115
Cesarina. Disguised as a man, Felismena followed him, only to learn that he had fallen in love with another woman. Felismena then became his page in order to be near him, thereby placing herself in the painful situation of having to serve as messenger to his new love, Celia. Instead of remedying the situation, Felismena only complicated it, for Celia fell in love with her, and eventually died of passion. By exerting her will, Felismena did not resolve her problem. Her intervention only served to intensify her anguish. The unrequited love experienced by the shepherds causes them great pain, and it is precisely this pain that they value so highly. In their attitude toward the suffering caused by love, Montemayor's characters differ from the protagonists of sentimental novels, for whom love is cruel and ultimately destructive. Functioning within a Neoplatonic philosophical framework, Montemayor's characters view love as the greatest good. Sylvano sings of "los males sabrosissimos" of love. (p. 34) Selvagia emphasizes the value of suffering when she sings: guardeme Dios de olvidar mas que de ser olvidada. dque mas honra puede ser que morir del mal que muero ? (p. 58)
So great and pleasurable is the shepherds' suffering, that Montemayor refers to it as an occupation or craft: "oflcio de que teman gran esperiencia." (p. 59) The morbidity that characterizes the end of L 'Arcadia and most of Menina e mgca is missing here. While Sannazaro's Sincere and Ribeiro's menina experience an undefined and irremediable anguish, Montemayor's bask in a delicious, sensual yearning. Suffering—the kind of unfulfilled erotic sublimation that is experienced by Montemayor's shepherds—is a 116
purifying experience. Unlike Sannazaro's Sincere, Montemayor's characters do not want to die, they want to suffer: Mai que con muerte se cura muy cerca tiene el remedio. (p. 61)
They are melancholy without being morbid. Since their anguish is intensified by any obstacle that prevents love from being realized, they appreciate the obstacle. That is why Sireno sings: Olvidasteme, sehora, mucho mas os quiero agora, (p. 128)
The pleasure derived from this sweet erotic malaise explains, at least partially, the preoccupation with chastity and honor that obsesses Montemayor's characters. While feminine sexual virtue is a theme absent from Sannazaro's pagan Arcadia, it is a major consideration among Montemayor's characters. Sincero, for example, insists that he never desired any favors that might prejudice Diana's honor, (pp. 20-21) Chastity is one of the requisites to being admitted to the temple of Diana, where Felicia is priestess. The frankly erotic descriptions that recur throughout Sannazaro's romance are, for the most part, absent from Montemayor's, except, perhaps, for the initial description of Belisa. The sublimation of erotic desire requires that the individual refrain from yielding to the primitive call of sex. It is only after their suffering has been intensified to the maximum—that is, only after they have been adequately purified —that the shepherds can hope for gratification. The reward for those who have met the requirements is union with their loved-one within the sanctity of marriage. Felicia does not seek to impose vengeance on disdainful lovers, as 117
does Sannazaro's Enareto. She seeks, rather, to marry each suffering lover to his or her mate. The cult of erotic love encompasses certain contradictions. Love is both a source of joy and a source of pain, an incomparable good and a motive for violence. Felicia addresses these problems in a discussion based on Leon Hebreo's Dialoghi d'Amore. She is asked how love can be both reasonable and unreasonable. She answers that when one judges another as worthy of one's love, one uses reason. Love is uplifting, not illicit or dishonest, because it makes the lover generous and virtuous, for he is always willing to make sacrifices for his loved-one. On the other hand, love cannot be governed by reason, since the circumstances underlying its existence are always subject to changes that are beyond the lover's control. The characters gathered before Felicia are all witness to this irrational aspect of love, for all once enjoyed happy love relationships, only to have joy whisked away by some unforeseen circumstance. The ultimate obstacle to the realization of love is death. Yet, paradoxically, Montemayor's shepherds embrace death, even though they do not actually want to die, since by dying they would eliminate all chance of being reunited with their loved-ones. The paradox can be resolved only within the Neoplatonic intellectual framework of La Diana. Since love is a cause, to sacrifice one's life to love is martyrdom. To die of love is therefore an honor: <jQue mas honra puede ser que mork del mal que muero ? (p. 58)
To die of love is also the sweetest pleasure, for death is the ultimate surrender. Through death, man at last achieves union with the perfect Beauty that is God. Love arises from the contemplation of beauty; within the context of the romance, love and beauty are synonymous and equally 118
potent to "kill" the lover metaphorically—or even physically, as in the case of Celia. To be deprived of love is the worst fate that can befall the shepherd-poet. Death separates lovers physically, but it does not extinguish love, for love triumphs over death: que aunque se acaben las vidas no se pueden apartar dos almas que estan unidas (p. 86)
Montemayor's characters do not fear death, but long for it, both as a release from the tribulations of life and as an affirmation of virtue. Honor over death is a recurrent theme. About to be ravished by savages, the nymph Dorida asserts, "mas facilmente os dexaremos la vida en la mano que la honra." (p. 89) Yet, although the characters contemplate death as an antidote to the torment of unrequited love and face it bravely in the face of dishonor, it is not really physical death that they seek, but the pleasurable urgency caused by the awareness of the transcienceoflife. Although Montemayor's romance is replete with symbols of death, love is, above all, an affirmation of life. By dwelling on death, the shepherds intensify their pain, which heightens their awareness of their feelings —that is, of their sense of being alive. Recovering from a serious brush with death, Abraham Maslow wrote, "The confrontation with death... makes everything look so precious, so sacred, so beautiful that I feel more strongly than ever the impulse to love it, to embrace it, and to let myself be overwhelmed by it... Death, and its ever present possibility makes love, passionate love, more possible. I wonder if we could love passionately, if ecstasy would be possible at all, if we knew
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we'd never die."5 It is precisely the awareness of death that heightens the shepherds' sense of delight. Temporality is a major theme throughout the romance. As Diana sits preening before a mirror held by Sireno, she sees only the ephemerality of beauty. She becomes painfully conscious of her own mortality. The awareness that circumstances change unexpectedly is a source not only of hope but also of dread. Yet, it is precisely the dread of separation—including the final separation imposed by death —that makes the moments spent in the company of the loved-one so pleasurable. The love-death paradox is abundantly represented in both classical and Renaissance iconography. Cupid shoots poisoned arrows. Eros creates and also destroys. Death and delight, death and procreation—these opposing concepts are tightly intertwined. The ultimate goal of Montemayor's shepherds is union within the sanctity of marriage. This is the joy Felicia promises. Marriage and children are man's defenses against mortality. Love and death are inextricably interwoven in Montemayor's romance, as they are in all Renaissance amorous writing. But, as the psychoanalistphilosopher Rollo May makes clear, the play on amore and morte characteristic of Italian love rhetoric is more than mere literary convention; the inseparableness of love and death has its basis in deep-seated psychological realities. The capacity for surrender, for giving one's self up, is fundamental to both the individual's ability to love and to his ability to confront death .6 The concepts and contradictions that form the intellectual core of La Diana are not only elucidated by Felicia, but illustrated by the shepherds themselves. Rather than full-fledged fictional characters in the modern sense, Montemayor's characters are elements in a complex allegory of love. They are the visibilia that express the passions that 5
Quoted by Rollo May in Love and Will, p. 99.
6
Rollo May, Love and Will, p. 103.
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are tamed and sublimated through self-discipline, deprivation, and poetry.7 If they ultimately achieve the state of happiness promised by Felicia, it is because they have complied with the rules. They illustrate the steps the lover must follow to achieve erotic fulfillment. As such, they are concrete representations of the Neoplatonic ethic. Amadeu Sole-Leris observes that "Montemayor's purpose was to study human beings functioning purely as lovers, i.e., unhampered and undistracted by social, economic, and other considerations. By means of the experiment thus conducted under controlled conditions, he examined the operation of three key factors enumerated in the first sentence of Book I, 'Love, Fortune and Time,' and drew some conclusions of general validity about love and lovers. This means, of course, that he was deliberately dealing with types, rather than with individuals."8 Yet, each character does stand out as an individual, not only because he is the protagonist and narrator of his own particular story, but also because he has a self-awareness that derives from his consciousness of himself in time and space. In Sannazarc's Arcadia, Sincere is conspicuous precisely because he is the only character who specifies his background. In Montemayor's romance, nearly all the characters are situated in terms of location and origin. For example, Sincere sings his first song in "las montanas de Leon". Felismena is from Seville; she goes to Soldina, then to Coimbra. Furthermore, all of Montemayor's characters are acutely aware of time. This awareness is manifested by means of individual memories and hopes. The preoccupation with memory, already evident in Sannazaro's Sincero, is an obsession for Montemayor's characters. The faculty of 7
See C. F. Lewis, Allegory of Love (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 44-45.
*The Spanish Pastoral"Novel, pp. 35-36.
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memory becomes almost a character itself. Sireno personifies memory, addressing it directly: "Ay, memoria, memoria, destruidora de mi descanso." (p. 11) With the exception of Sylvano, each of Montemayor's major characters recalls some moment of intense happiness. The songs of the shepherds reflect a longing for an inaccessible past, a lost, care-free adolescence reminiscent of Sincero-Sannazaro's projection of his own youth. It is a golden age that can be restored only by the protective, maternal hand of Felicia. Spiritual mother, allegory of erotic happiness achieved in harmony with the natural reproductive forces of nature, Felicia, like Enareto, promises a return to the comfort of pre-adulthood. Fundamental to the shepherds' yearning for the past is the Neoplatonic concept that reality resides in archetypes and ideas present in the Primary Intellect, of which the objects and notions perceived by humans are merely reflections. Men know these archetypes and ideas before their souls are enclosed in bodies, but forget them amid the confusion of earthly existence. It is only by retiring from the polls and remembering, that men can once again perceive the truth.9 Retrospection is a means by which spiritual enlightenment may be achieved. Since human love is a reflection of divine love and, consequently, the perfect bridge between man and God, it is by remembering past moments of erotic happiness that man approaches spiritual fulfillment. As Bruno Damiani has shown, Montemayor's characters ever beckon to God, who is proclaimed by Asileo as the source of beauty.10 Memory, then, is the path toward the divine and perfect Beauty that is God. Retrospection, like chastity and charity, is a kind of spiritual exercise. Damiani asserts that the primary virtue illustrated in Montemayor's Diana is charity. In their compassion for one another, in their willingness to forgive their lovers for 9
Moreno Baez, p. xv.
^Jorge de Montemayor(Rome: Bulzoni, 1984), p. 229.
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rejecting them, in their treatment of rivals, Montemayor's shepherds prove their worthiness. Through charitable acts and attitudes, they define themselves not only as good lovers, but also as good Christians.11 Similarly, through retrospection, they define themselves not only as constant and loyal lovers, but also as seekers of spiritual truth. The Neoplatonic framework requires that erotic fulfillment go hand in hand with Christian salvation. The shepherds' stories are all projections into the past. Time is the major obstacle between each one and his individual happiness. In the context of Neoplatonism, time is what separates the individual from truth—from that distant moment in which his intellect was one with the Primary Intellect. Pilar Fernandez-Canadas de Greenwood demonstrates that love, fortune and time take on a reality of their own in pastoral: "Their purpose is to highlight the gap between the essences toward which all moves in this neo-Platonic search and the confusion and defective nature of the empirical experiences."12 Time, like unrequited love and changing fortune, is at the crux of the conflict between man's desire for perfection, that is, erotic fulfillment, and external forces. Impotent to retrocede into the past, the shepherds grasp at the future. Each lives solely on hope. Selvagia argues that time and fortune will eventually free them from their anguish. The shepherds not only conjure up images of their past happiness, but also cling to the possibility of future satisfaction. If memory creates an idealized past, then hope creates an idealized future, for hope is memory projected forward in time instead of backward. When Selvagia and Sylvano discuss the imaginable solutions to the problem of 11 Bruno Damiani, La Diana of Montemayor as Social and Religious Teaching (Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky, 1983), p. 56.
^Pastoral Poetics: The Uses of Conventions in Renaissance Pastoral Romances—Arcadia, La Diana, La Galatea, L'Astree (Madrid: Porrua-StudiaHumanitatis, n.d.), p. 110.
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unrequited love, they are expressing the hope that their problems will be resolved. But between the past and the future is the present. The shepeherds agonize in the realization that they are incapable of overcoming the obstacle of time. Happiness is not a present reality for any of Montemayor's characters. It is, rather, a possibility made vivid by means of the imagination. Imagination is essential to keeping love alive. The role of the imagination in love was a topic of profound interest to Renaissance humanists. In his treatise Tratado del alma, written in 1538, Luis Vives offers a careful analysis of the psychological process by which the imagination possesses the soul of the lover and causes the loved-one to return his love: "...el amante dibuja en sus entranas el rostro y la imagen del amado. For esta razon, el pecho del amante ha venido a convertirse en una suerte de espejo que reproduce la presencia del amado. Cuando el amado se contempla y reconoce en el pecho del amante, sientese obligado a amar a aquel dentro del cual se imagina que vive, asi como los ninos besan sus propias imagenes vistas en los espejos. Afuera de eso, el amante se hurta a si mismo y se entrega y esclaviza en poder del amado..,"13 But at the stage in which the shepherd-lovers find themselves, the process is not complete. The loved-ones have not recognized themselves and "kissed their image." The words imagination, imaginar, and their derivatives appear throughout the romance. Sylvano sings: Pero, despues, Sireno, ymanginandolo una pastora invocb hermosissima y ansi va a costa mia, en fin, passandolo (p. 31)
Later, Selvagia blames Alamo for imagining she could forget him. (p. 31) She wonders who could have imagined her past l3
Obrascomp!etas, trans. Lorenzo Riber (Madrid: Aguilar, 1948), p. 1253.
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happiness would be changed into unhappiness. (p. 65) When the shepherds come across Belisa, she is given over to "tristes imaginaciones." When Felismena follows Felix to court, her imagination is filled with evocations of their past happiness, but soon, "se desengano la imaginacion," and she is forced to accept the fact that he has forgotten her. Throughout, "imaginacion" is contrasted with reality. The contrast between their imagined happiness and their present troubles is precisely what fills the shepherds with melancholy. Sylvano expresses the clash between the ideal and the real when he complains, "me vengo a imaginar muy querido de mi senora y sin abrir mano desta imaginacion, me estoy todo lo que puedo, pero despues que llego a la verdad de mi estado, quedo tan confuso que no se dezillo, porque sin yo querello, me viene a faltar la paciencia. Y pues la imaginacion no es cosa que se pueda sufrir, ved que haria la verdad." (p. 68) Mia Gerhardt has defined pastoral as the ensemble of works that depict "une certaine maniere de bergers."14 In so doing, she stresses the uniformity that exists among pastoral characters, regardless of the type of work in which they appear. Pilar Fernandez-Canadas de Greenwood, analyzing the conventions that form the structural edifice of pastoral, stresses that in spite of the inherited body of material he works with, the pastoralist is not merely an imitator. "A great author is always an interpreter (of experience, of behavior, of other texts) and as such, an active participant who may, indeed must, modify the material he works with.15 Far from being conventionalized automotans, Montemayor's characters are the means through which the author conveys complex psychological truths: A human being cannot live without projecting ideals. The u Essai d'analyse litteraire de la pastorale dans les litteratures italienne, espagnole et frangaise (Assen: Van Gorcum &Co., 1950), p. 21.
"^Pastoral'poetics, p. 26.
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imagination is essential to the human make-up because it is part of the process of creating goals. If the realization that our ideals are out of reach makes our lives insufferable, a life without imagination would be more unbearable still. The imagination is not a faculty by which falsehoods are created, but rather the one that permits the individual to express his profoundest fears and desires. The imagination makes manifest the authentic, not the inauthentic. It is the means by which the will projects images of what it wills. This definition is not a creation of modern psychologists, but of Renaissance humanists dedicated to an understanding of the soul.16 The imagination, understood as a projection of the human will, is precisely what gives the individual depth, purpose, motivation, hope. Amadeu Sole-Leris' assertion that Montemayor's Diana is a forerunner of the modern psychological novel is certainly valid.17 Montemayor understood not only the function of the imagination, but also the process by which imagination motivates human action. In the story of Felix and Felismena, the young man sends Felismena a letter, which she declines to open. With time, however, the gears of her imagination begin to mesh, her curiosity is aroused, and she finds a discreet way of reading the letter, thereby establishing a relationship between herself and Don Felix. Imagination is the impetus. Felismena first imagines—that is, projects an image—then moves toward the realization of that image. Imagination ignites the will, and the will moves the individual to act. The imagination, then, is a thrust into the future, a means by which the individual is motivated to attempt to mold his future. "Will and intentionality are intimately bound up with future," writes Rollo May.18 In English, the word "will" expresses both future time and 16
Vives,p. 1184; p. 1211.
17
The Spanish Pastoral Novel, p. 35.
w
Love and Will, p. 243.
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personal resolve. In the fictional present in which the shepherds find themselves at the beginning of the romance, however, the will is ineffective. Modern psychology has linked feelings of helplessness and depression. The inability to act, to construct a future, is now considered symptomatic of mental disease. Montemayor's shepherds are indeed "sick with love" in the sense that they are unable to act on the images projected by their imaginations. In his study of English and American pastoral literature, Harold E. Tolliver draws a distinction between idyllic passages and dramatic essence. Tolliver shows that the dynamism of pastoral depends precisely on strategic contrasts such as those that exist between nature and society, nature and art, idyllic nature and antipastoral nature.19 Indeed, contrast is the essence of pastoral romance. While the opinion continues to prevail that pastoral literature portrays an idyllic paradise far removed from the tribulations of everyday existence, nothing could be further from the truth.20 From the beginning, Renaissance pastoral reflects the endless tug-of-war between the bucolic ideal and those elements in man's life that make Utopia impossible. David Quint draws attenion to the numerous references to Naples in Sannazaro's Arcadia, pointing out that Naples is "the underside of Arcady." Blighted and out of joint, Naples represents the dark and tumultuous world from which Sincero-Sannazaro escapes and to which the shepherd Selvaggio is driven by love—and finally, to which Sincero-Sannazaro returns. The traffic between Naples and Arcadia underscores their interdependence. Arcadia exists only as a refuge from the polls to which the individual must eventually return and from which he can never completely ^Pastoral Forms and Attitudes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), pp. 1-19. 20
For example, Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce writes, "El pastor vive en el pasado idilico de la edad dorada, y, cuando no, trata de revivir en el presente dicha edad." La novela pastoril espanola (Madrid: Ediciones Istmo, 1974), p. 20.
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withdraw. Eclogue 10 highlights the opposition between the pastoral and the political by depicting a tainted Arcadia, necessarily infected with the same ills as thepo/ts because it is populated, not by rustics, but by city folk in disguise. Arcadia is artificial and impure because it was created by impure men. No wonder Sincere-Sannazaro finds little solace there. He himself is impure, and his imperfect Arcadia reflects his distressed state of mind. Similarly, Montemayor's Diana depicts an atmosphere of moroseness rather than spiritual peace. Happiness remains always in the realm of the imagination. The immediate world of Montemayor's shepherds is one of potential violence resulting from the eruption of the passions. Love, the engenderer of harmony, may also be the engenderer of turmoil and strife. None of the shepherds is happy. Each is frustrated and besieged by doubt. The bond of friendship created among the shepherds by their common suffering is superficial. Each lover sees himself as essentially alone: "Mas todo consuelo es escusado, quando los males son sin remedio." (p. 162) The shepherds illustrate that although love binds, it also alienates. There is no real communication between individuals in the depths of human misery. The friendship among the shepherds is maintained as long as all are equally distant from the coveted goal of erotic satisfaction, but rivalry and jealousy are always potentialities, and frequently erupt, especially in those cases in which one suitor views another as approching his objective. If love is irrational, so is its offshoot, jealousy. In Montemayor's Diana, examples of rivalry and jealousy abound. In Sireno's very first song, jealousy is an issue. Later, a rivalry develops between Ysmenia and Selvagia. In the story of Belisa, a fierce rivalry between father and son results in the death of the latter. Delio, Diana's husband, is notoriously jealous. Jealousy is a distortion of the possessive aspect of love. In 128
Book VI, Filemon accuses Arsileo's friend Amarilida of being in love with Arsileo. The young man comments, dPiensas tu, Amarilida, que para los celos son menester certidumbres? Pues enganaste, que las sospechas son las principales causas de tenellos." (p. 264) Love, in Los siete libros de la Diana, is a two-faced Janus. Alongside the idealized view of human love as an uplifting force emerges an equally powerful view of the human emotions as potentially debasing. As often as not violent, brutal, irrational, they, as much as any external circumstances, obstruct the realization of the erotic ideal. In fact, sex itself is an obstacle. The sublimation of desire depends precisely on the repression of primitive sexual instincts. Yet, the possibility of their eruption is always present. This is evident in the episode in which three savages attack three nymphs.21 The beasts appear unexpectedly, taking the nymphs by surprise. Miraculously, Felismena appears and rescues the nymphs, but the solution is, at best, contrived. Nymphs are traditional symbols of sexual purity; savages, of the bestial, passionate, primitve, ugly aspect of man. Nymphs and savages appear in western literature from classical times, becoming sporadic in the Spanish Middle Ages, and regaining prominence in the Renaissance. The savage has been portrayed in diverse ways—as victim and victimizer, as noble and dispicable—at different periods, by different authors.22 In Los siete libros de la Diana, the savage represents the dark, disturbing 21
See Alan D. Deyermond, "El hombre salvaje en la novela sentimental," Actas del Segundo Congreso International de Hispanistas (Ninegen: 1967), pp. 265-72. An expanded version of the same article appears in Fi/o/ogfa, 10 (1964), 97-111. See also Elijha K. Kane, "The Personal Appearance of Juan Ruiz," MLN, 45 (1930), 103-8. 22
See the following studies by Jose Antonio Madrigal: "El 'ome mui feo': <jPrimera aparicibn de la figura del salvaje en la iconografia espanola?" in Medieval, Renaissance, and folklore Studies in Honor of John Esten Keller, ed. Joseph R. Jones (Newark: Juan de la Cuesta, 1980), pp. 67-76; "La transmutacion de Leonido: Un ensayo sobre la figura del hombre salvaje," CH, 4, No. 1 (1982), 51-61; "La transmutacion de Aquiles: De salvaje a heroe," Hispanofila, 77 (1983), 15-26.
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forces that lurk within the passionate breast, unchecked by the restraints that civilization imposes. The savage is instinct, as opposed to reason; immediate gratification, as opposed to prolonged self-denial; sex, as opposed to eros. Some critics have been baffled by the appearance of savages in the bower.23 Yet, the hombre salvaje is an essential element in Montemayor's Neoplatonic allegory. In La Diana, there remains the constant possibility that the erotic will succumb to the purely sexual. Felicia makes this clear in a discussion in which she distinguishes between sexuality and eros: the former is a debasing force whose strength disppears with gratification; the latter is an uplifting force that is stimulated by gratification. The two, while not necessarily mutually exclusive, are easily confused with one another. In Sannazaro's Arcadia and Ribeiro's Menina e moga the outside world is present in the form of animals of prey. Political and social realities are constant intruders. In Montemayor's romance, the menaces more frequently emerge from within the individual. Unrestrained desire is only one deviation from the ideal of erotic purity. Another is sexual perversity. There are a surprising number of cases of sexual ambivalence or even homosexuality in Montemayor's novel. Selvagia and Ysmenia develop a frankly lesbian attraction toward one another that cannot be explained in terms of the Renaissance Neoplatonic idealization of beauty. Selvagia recognizes the relationship as unnatural: "<jC6mo puede ser, pastora, que siendo vos tan hermosa, os enamoreis de otra que tanto le falta para serlo, y mas, siendo muger como vos?" (p. 43) To 23
Several critics have analyzed this episode, but none has seen it as part of the constant underlying violence that pervades the novel. Avalle-Arce says that this is "el unico detalle feo en la Diana" and concludes that Montemayor included it in order to provide contrast. La novela pastoril, p. 75. Paul Hie interprets the episode as part of the grotesque tradition. "Grotesque Elements," pp. 325-26.
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complicate matters further, Ysmenia is described as "un poco varonil." Halfway through the episode, she claims to be a man, then, once again claims to be a woman in love with Alanio, who, except for his sex, is identical to her. Although the situation is normalized when Selvagia falls in love with Alanio, the depiction of an unhealthy relationship between two women remains a perplexing possibility in the pastoral setting.24 Likewise, the story of Felismena is filled with sexual ambivalence, although in this case its manifestations are far more conventional.25 Endowed with military talents that should have been reserved for her brother, Felismena is aggressive, willful, and unlucky at love. Dressed as a man, she becomes the object of the passion of Celia, who then dies of love for her. The opposite-sex disguise is a device inherited from classical literature. Hercules, for the love of Omphale, wore women's clothes and joined the women at spinning. Renaissance shepherds frequently disguise themselves in clothes of members of the opposite sex. In Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, Pyrocles dresses as an Amazon and calls himself Zelmane in order to be near Philoclea. Appropriately, his emblem is a picture of Hercules with the motto "Never more valient," an assertion that Pyrocles is no less a man for his feminine garments. Dressed as Zelmane, he enraptures not only Philoclea, but also her father. Pyrocles reveals his true identity to the girl before the affair gets out of hand, and the lighthearted tone is maintained. In Montemayor's Diana, however, there is a more serious 24
Melveena KcKendrick discusses various types of female non-conformists in her Woman and Society in the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age: A Study of the fAujer Varonil (London: Cambridge University Press, 1974). However, the kind of mutual attraction that exists between Ysmenia and Selvagia goes beyond any of the literary commonplaces discussed by McKendrick. See also Bruce W. Wardropper, "The Diana of Montemayor." 25 The "bella cazadora" is one of the traditional literary types discussed by McKendrick in Woman and'Society, pp. 242-60.
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problem of sexual ambivalence. While in Sidney's work cross-dressing is an amusing device used to complicate the plot, in Montemayor's, it has serious moral implications. In Sidney's romance, Pyrocles' manhood is constantly reaffirmed. In one episode, for example, he saves Philoclea from a dangerous beast, thereby meriting praise for his prowess and strength. In Montemayor's romance, problems of sexual identity lead to serious misunderstandings and even death. The unnaturalness of sexual attraction between members of the same sex is repeatedly brought to the reader's attention ,26 Throughout Los siete libros de la Diana, evil results from uncontrolled passions that erupt through the superficial restraint epitomized by the pastoral love ideal. This view of evil is rather different from the ones developed in previous Renaissance pastoral romances. Both Sannazaro and Ribeiro present evil as part of the natural scheme. In both VArcadia and Menina e mo$a, man suffers evil in the same way as the rest of nature. Neither Sannazaro nor Ribeiro provide examples of evil characters. In L'Arcadia, evil is present in the form of wolves symbolic of social and political evils, but nevertheless represented by natural predators. Similarly, in Menina e moga, evil takes the form of beasts that are among the commonplaces of pastoral life, such as wolves and bulls, or of invisible, unspecified forces. In Montemayor's Diana, 26
Disguising oneself as a member of the opposite sex is a device inherited from classical literature. Hercules, for the love of Omphale, wore women's clothes and joined the women at spinning. Inspired by the Greek model, Pyrocles, in Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, dresses as an Amazon and calls himself Zelmane, in order to be near Philoclea. Appropriately, his emblem is a picture of Hercules bordered by the motto "Never more valiant," an indication that his disguise in no way compromises his manhood. Dressed as Zelmane, Pyrocles ignites not only the love of Philoclea, but also that of her father. However, Pyrocles reveals his true identity to the girl before the affair gets out of hand. In Montemayor's Diana, sexual ambivalence is far more problematical. While in Sidney's romance, cross-dressing is an amusing device used to complicate the plot, in Montemayor's, it has serious moral implications. In Sidney's work, Pyrocles' manhood is constantly reasserted. In one episode, for example, he saves Philoclea from a dangerous beast. In Montemayor's, incorrectly perceived sexual identity leads to liaisons that are frankly disconcerting.
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on the other hand, evil is embodied by evil characters who define themselves as such through their deeds. For example, Delio and the magician Alfeo are unequivocably negative characters whose failure to practice self-restraint leads to the suffering of others. In contrast, Felicia represents fulfillment achieved through self-restraint. Felicia is central to Montemayor's Diana. While Enareto is a secondary character who appears in only one episode of Sannazaro's Arcadia, Felicia is the crux of both the structure and content of Montemayor's work. The Temple of Diana, of which Felicia is the priestess, is symbolic of an aggressive, militant kind of chastity. In mythology, Diana is the huntress queen who, in the company of her nymphs, is surprised while bathing by Aetaeton. So modest is the queen that even though her nymphs hide her body with their own, she reaches for her arrows to slay the intruder. Unable to obtain them, she throws water on Aetaeton, turning him into a stag who is then torn to bits by his own dogs. The Temple of Diana evokes other associations as well. In his meticulous study The Golden Bough, Sir James George Frazer describes brutal rites connected with the keeping of the sacred grove and sanctuary of Diana in the area of Aricia (now La Riccia).27 A candidate to the priesthood of Diana could ascend to power only after slaying the present priest, and would remain in office only until he himself were slain. According to one legend, any stranger who approached was to be sacrified on the altar of Diana. Diana Nemorensis, or Diana of the Wood, was associated with fertility as well as with sacrifice. She blessed men and women with offspring and granted expectant mothers an easy delivery. According to legend, Diana shared her grove with two 7
(NewYork:Macmillan, 1963), p. 1.
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lesser divinities, Egeria and Virbius, who, like the queen, were linked with chastity and reproduction. Egeria was associated with clear water, and therefore, with fertility. Like Diana, she was able to grant easy births. She may also have been able to heal the sick. Because the Roman Vestals fetched water from the spring of Egeria in Rome, she is also associated with virginity. Virbius, according to legend, was the chaste Greek youth Hippolytus, rescued from his father's wrath by Diana and brought to live in her woods, where he spent his time chasing wild beasts in the company of the virgin huntress Artemis. Bruno Damiani suggests that the perceptive sixteenth-century reader identified Felicia's temple with that of the so-called goddess Diana Tifalina, protectress of conjugal fidelity. Diana Tifalina was associated with sylvan life as well as with the moon, and in Montemayor's romance, Diana is identified repeatedly with the moon and the lunar deity. Damiani notes that among the Greeks the lunar goddess was worshipped as Artemis, the pure and spotless one ,28 It is significant that Sannazaro's Enareto lives in the temple of Pan, the ugly merry goat-deity who is the god of fertility and who is constantly involved in amorous affairs, while Montemayor's Felicia lives surrounded by virgin nymphs in the temple of Diana, the virgin forest goddess. From many sources, then, Diana derives her image of a stern and demanding goddess who requires strict adherence to the principles of faith and chastity in return for the promise of fertility and abundance. Felicia's palace is typical of a Renaissance chateau. Jean Subirats has identified it as the Chateau Tenebreux at Binche, where certain festivals were held by order of the regent Mary of Hungary in August, 1549. Montemayor ^Montemayor's Diana, Music, and the Visual Arts, (Madison: The Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, 1983), p. 68.
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himself affirms that Los siete libros de la Diana was conceived as a roman a clef. Subirats identifies Felicia as Mary of Hungary and the nymphs as ladies of the Spanish court.29 More significant than the historical identities of the participants, however, is the artifice that permeates Felicia's domain. A monument to the imagination, the palace is elaborately decorated with paintings, statues, and objets d'art. The entrance is a checkerboard of black marble and alabaster, with a marble fountain balanced on four bronze lions in the center. In the fountain, four white marble nymphs hold Roman-style glasses with lion's faces from whose mouths water spouts. The columns of the palace are adorned with golden spires and bases. The statues at the entrance are likewise dressed in gold. The interior and the gardens are sculptured marvels. The palace represents the zenith of high Renaissance artistic sensitivity. The marble facade with its golden columns, the sculpted figures of emperors and Roman matrons, the arched windows, cedar doors and silver locks—the entire estate is a monument to man's creativity and to artistic discipline. It is not in nature that Montemayor's characters find peace —not even in the stylized bucolic landscape—but in the frankly artificial and luxurious atmosphere into which Felicia introduces them. If art is freedom, it is also rigor. It is the molding of emotion and idea into form through intellectual discipline. Striving for his ideal, which is beauty, the artist imposes strict formal constraints on the flood of feelings that inspire him, molding his work of art—whether his medium is the word or image—according to established norms. Renaissance art stressed form over orginality. That is, Renaissance culture judged individual creativity not by the artist's ability to break with preestablished norms, but by his 29
"La Diana de Montcmayor, roman a clef," in Etudes iberiques et Latino-americaines (Paris: Publication de la Faculte des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Poitiers, 1967), p. 114.
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ability to perfect them, inventing a work whose intrinsic merit made it inimitable .30 Like the artist, Montemayor's shepherds strive for an ideal the achievement of which requires both faith and restraint. The facade of Felicia's palace is emblazoned with these words: Quien entra, mire bien como a bivido y el don de castidad, si le a guardado y la que quiere bien o lo a querido mire si a causa de otro se a mudado. Y si la fe primera no a perdido y aquel primer amor a conservado entrar puede en el templo de Diana cuya virtud y gracia es sobrehumana. (p. 165)
Art and love are inseparable, for both reflect the aspiration of the noble heart to beauty. But beauty can be attained only through a methodical system of conduct. Orpheus, who sits near a silver fountain at the center of Felicia's inner court, embodies this concept. Orpheus, who lost Eurydice because of his inability to control his desire to look at her, is also the divine poet whose music calms not only the passions, but the very beasts and rocks. In one legend, the Thracian singer used music to relieve the suffering of Eurydice and to bring her back to life. Orpheus represents the psychological assuagement that can be achieved only by art and the purification that can be achieved only by self-denial. Those who love faithfully and chastely are rewarded by Felicia, whose sole tool is Water of Happiness. Now, the mid-sixteenth century reader undoubtedly believed in the effectiveness of magic potions. In the Middle Ages Spain was a center of the occult sciences, and the study of black and white magic was considered a legitimate intellectual 30
Quint,pp. 1-8.
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activity. Schools of magic allegedly existed in Toledo and Salamanca, although Samuel M. Waxman, who studied the subject extensively, concludes that their existence was probably only legendary.31 By the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, belief in witchcraft had diminished and had been largely replaced by a more causalistic—or, prescientific — type of magic. Nature was seen as a conglomeration of blind or occult forces. These forces were believed to be irrational and in constant motion. This accounted for the changing nature of fortune. It was thought that these forces could be understood through experience and experimentation, and could be harnessed by a magician versed in their properties. Many scholars view the study of magic as an early manifestation of the scientific spirit of the Renaissance that responded to man's desire for an empirical knowledge of nature. Magic, in this context, consists of the manipulation of natural forces through experimentation with compounds, potions, plants, parts of animals, incantations, and other means. Enareto reflects this concept of magic. Felicia clearly does not. She is not an experimental pseudo-scientist, but a super-nymph or fairy queen who depends totally on philters. Felicia belongs to the world of the fantastic and the literary. The perfect self-control that she requires exists only in the realm of the idea. She derives her magic from literature, not from the manipulation of natural forces. Throughout La Diana, passions flare up and threaten to consume lovers and loved-ones alike. It is Felicia's magic that restores order. That is, the only solution is a purely literary one. It is probable that even those intellectual readers who believed in experimental or pre-scientific magic did not believe in Felicia's agua encantada, but, rather, saw Felicia 31
"Chapters on Magic in Spanish Literature," RH, 38 (1916), 21-463.
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as merely an artistic creation. By the mid-sixteenth century, there was already heated debate over the validity of magic. The Council of Trent condemned the belief in astrology, supernatural beings other than those accepted by the Church, and some forms of magic. It is significant that Cervantes objected specifically to the character Felicia and to the agua encantada in Montemayor's Diana,32 and that all the sequels to the novel either eliminate or greatly reduce the element of magic. Felicia's significance becomes clear only when considered within the Neoplatonic framework of the romance. Throughout the book, love is a religion requiring rites and sacrifices. If self-denial purifies man and thereby brings him closer to God, then Felicia's palace is a kind of erotic heaven in which each believer achieves his just reward. Key to the understanding of the role of Felicia's palace is the figure of Orpheus, the poetic child of Apollo, often depicted as God the Father in Renaissance art.33 Within the context of Neoplatonic imagery, Orpheus can be construed as a Christ figure whose presence makes possible the redemption and salvation of the faithful. Bruno Damiani points out that during the sixteenth century, the Christianization of Orpheus was vigorously promoted, and that within the context of Montemayor's romance, Orpheus performs a Christ-like function, "by serving as an inspirational force to the weary pilgrims, and as the messenger and 'angel' of Felicia that paves the way for the imminent and miraculous
32
In the evaluation of Don Quijote's library, the priest says, "...Soy de parecer que no se queme, sino que se le quite todo aquello que trata de la sabia Felicia y de la agua encantada..." Don Quijote, I, p. 73. 33 Christian allegorical interpretation of classical pagan gods was common in the Renaissance. Juan Perez de Moya's Philosophia secreta, published in 1585, 1599, 1611, 1628, and again in 1673, is an encyclopedia of pagan-Christian correspondences. The Jesuit Father Baltasar de Victoria also included such Christian interpretations in his Teatro de los Dioses de la gentilidad, which appeared in 1620.
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intervention."34 Felicia, then, is a God figure who controls love and fortune and can, through her intervention, redeem the fallen and reward the faithful. Felicia's aguas encantadas are analagous to holy water, which, through the rite of baptism, makes possible man's salvation.35 It is the encounter with Felicia that completes the Neoplatonic allegory: union with God achieved through human love. Felicia represents a highly intellectualized order that never manages to occult the imperfection inherent in human existence. The Utopian harmony she imposes masks only perfunctorily the loneliness, violence, primitive sexuality, and perversion that permeate Montemayor's romance. Felicia's solutions to man's predicaments are totally outside the realm of human experience—except, of course, imagined experience. Even after Felicia's intervention, deficiencies remain. Selvagia and Sylvano are made to fall in love with each other—a dubious solution, since they were not lovers originally. Sireno is cured of his love, an unhappy development for a young man who believed love to be an incomparable good. Both Sireno and Sylvano are supposedly made to forget Diana, yet they speak and sing of her when they meet, thereby igniting Selvagia's difficultly controlled jealousy. Utopian harmony seems hardly to be restored at all. Felismena's story also has a less than perfect ending: The young woman unexpectedly saves Don Felix from several barbarous assailants—another unnatural reversal of sex roles, since the damsel does not ordinarily save the gentleman from peril —and he then feels obligated to marry her. Belisa is reunited with Arsileo in an extraordinarily contrived manner: it turns out that Arsileo is not dead at all, but that he, his father, and Belisa were the unwitting victims of an evil necromancer. Consciously or 34
L» Diana of Montemayor as Social and Religious Teaching, (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983), p. 93.
35
Damiani, La Diana as Social and Religious Teaching, 103.
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unconsciously, Montemayor implies that the problems of human existence can be resolved in art, but not in life. Felicia is a purely allegorical figure, and allegory is representation, not reality. Considering the point that Montemayor makes of contrasting the imagined and the real, it is clear that in essence, Los siete libros de la Diana is an antiutopian work. The message that Montemayor communicates is that in real life, there are no catch-all solutions. The problematical nature of Diana contributes to this interpretation of the romance. The character for whom the seven books are named does not appear until Book V. That there is an intrinsic difference between Diana and the rest of the characters is evident from the way each is introduced. With the excpetion of Sireno and Sylvano, each presents himself in much the same way that Sannazaro's Sincere does: through an autobiographical sketch in which he tells of an unhappy love. Sometimes the characters address inanimate objects—a lock of hair, a letter, a portrait —rather than other shepherds or nymphs. Sireno speaks to his own memory. All the characters confide in nature, an omnipresent witness to man's woes. By and large, the shepherds tell their own stories, through dialogue or monologue. Diana is introduced, in contrast, not by what she says about herself, but by what others say about her. Through a technique somewhat reminiscent of the one Sannazaro uses to introduce Enareto, Montemayor familiarizes the reader with Diana well before she actually appears. Shepherds' comments, Diana's letters and song, all are faithfully repeated by the nymphs. Diana's presence permeates the valley. Yet, Diana is the one character who deviates from the
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pastoral ideal.36 She is the one character who is prohibited from entering the temple of the goddess who bears her name, for she is the only one of the group who has disobeyed the rules of loyalty and chastity. Married by her father against her will to Delio, Diana owes fidelity to a loathsome husband, rather than to Sireno, whom she loves. While the other pastoral characters have freed themselves from familial and social obligations and live in a world in which love is the sole preoccupation, Diana has succumbed to outside pressures. She is pessimistic and desperate. There is no solution for her in the never-never land of pastoral harmony. She is the link with the real world, in which parental will and jealous husbands are factors to be be coped with. Diana is a constant reminder that the pastoral dream is merely a figment of the imagination that corresponds to man's yearning for peace and order. Significantly, Diana does not end with an image of Utopian happiness but with another love story, this one a reversal of Diana's. The problems of human existence have not been resolved. The passions have not been permanently assuaged, but erupt again and again, endlessly, in new contexts that are merely variants of those previously described. In the fields near Coimbra, two Portuguese girls, Armia and Duarda, discuss the disloyalty of Danteo, who, like Diana, was married against his will by his father. Just as Sireno blames Diana, Duarda blames Danteo for having accepted the marriage: "No trates... de sus palabras, trata de sus obras que por ellas se ha de juzgar el pensamiento del que las haze." (p. 290) Furthermore, she blames Armia for having lost him in the first place: "Deixame gozar de mina libertade e nao esperes que comigo poderas ganar o que por culpa tua perdeste." (p. 292) The individual, she suggests, is not merely a victim of the circumstances, but master of his 36
See T. Anthony Perry, "Ideal Love and Human Reality in Montemayor's La Diana," PMLA, March, 1969, 227-34.
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own will, capable of controlling his acts and forging his destiny. She, free from love and happy to be so, mocks the attitude of shepherds who view themselves as impotent to alter their fate. She is disdainful of the pleasurable suffering, the unreachable ideal. Felismena intervenes and makes peace between the two girls, but the question remains unresolved. Los siete libros de la Diana ends on an uneasy note. Will is a human reality. To deny the will is hypocritical and wrong. The pastoral characters, Montemayor himself seems to imply, are merely participants in an elaborate game. The perfect harmony represented by Felicia is never attained because the realities of human existence—will, passion, social pressure, parental intervention —never cease to be factors in human existence.
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Chapter IV Didactic Pastoral: Caspar Gil Polo's Diana enamorada Montemayor died before writing the promised sequel to Los siete libros de la Diana. The success of Spain's first pastoral romance prompted several continuations by other authors, however. In 1563, Alonso Perez's Segundaparte de la Diana de Jorge de Montemayor appeared in Valencia. A year later, Caspar Gil Polo's Diana enamorada appeared in the same city.1 In 1627 Jeronimo de Tejeda published La Diana de Montemayor. Nuevamente compuesto por Hieronymo de Texeda Casstellano, Interprete de Lenguas, residente en la villa de Pans, do se da fin a las Historias de la Primera y Segunda Parte. Alonso Perez's work has been much maligned by critics, although Florian Smieja's recent study has done something to vindicate Montemayor's imitator.2 Tejeda's sequel consists largely of plagiarisms from Gil Polo.3 Of the three continuations, only Gil Polo's Diana enamorada has survived and retained interest for the modern reader. In spite of Menendez Pelayo's affirmation that Diana enamorada was nothing but a pretext to group together, "entre elegantes y clasicas prosas," Gil Polo's poetry4 and 'See Avalle-Arce, La novelet pastoril, pp. 116 and Rafael Ferreres, "Prologo" to Diana enamorada, by Caspar Gil Polo, (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1962), p. xxviii. 2 "La sehora no es para la hoguera: El caso de La Segunda Parte de La Diana de Alonso Perez," Actas del Sexto Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas (Toronto: University of Toronto, 1980), pp. 715-718. 3
A\alle-Atce,Lanove/apastori/,p. 129.
*Ortgenes de la novela, II in Obrascompletas, XIV, pp. 293-
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Rafael Ferreres' suggestion that "Gil Polo no introduce ninguna novedad en la novela pastoril,"5 Montemayor's most successful imitator alters radically the nature of the pastoral romance. While Gil Polo deals with essentially the same themes as Montemayor—time, change, circumstance, chance, emotion — , he emphasizes to a much greater degree than his predecessor the roles of will and reason. How the individual, endowed as he is with free will and reason, can cope with the unpredictable nature of life is the major theme of the book. Montemayor's characters are essentially passive. With few exceptions, they do not act, but are acted upon. The final resolution of their predicaments is left in the hands of an outsider, Felicia, who takes responsibility for their destinies. The structure of the romance emphasizes this passiveness. As A. Prieto shows in Morfo/ogta de la novela, whatever action the characters do participate in takes place before the romance actually begins.6 During the fictional present, the shepherds narrate the events that have produced their current situations. Thus, the romance consists primarily of exposition and resolution. Unlike Montemayor's characters, Gil Polo's shepherds are active framers of their own destinies. Both David Darst and Antonio Sole-Leris have noted the dynamic nature of Gil Polo's characters. Darst demonstrates that in Diana enamorada, the characters develop through experience, ultimately achieving a state of Neoplatonic perfection.7 Although the role of Neoplatonism in Diana enamorada is arguable and will be discussed later on in this chapter, it is certainly true that Gil Polo's characters evolve, achieving a self-knowledge never acquired by Montemayor's. Sole-Leris explains that, in contrast with Montemayor's creations, 5
Prologo, p.xxix.
6
(Barcelona, 1975), Ch.3. 7 "Renaissance Platonism and the Spanish Pastoral Novel," Hispania, 52 (1969), 387.
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which are psychologically static, Gil Polo's characters undergo a process of psychological development in which they go from the blind confusion of maligno amor to the happiness of benigno amor* Noel Valis writes of Gil Polo's characters, "their reason for being does not reveal a condition of stasis but one of energy."9 She points out the frequency of the use of active verbs, as well as of adverbs and adjectives such as con grande priessa, that attest to the characters' vigor. Rather than victims, Gil Polo's characters are free agents who are always moving, always actively seeking the solution to their woes. Nature and Felicia do not provide a comforting protective shield. Valis shows that in Diana enamorada "the forest... provides... peace, but it is a provisional refuge which, once broken, reveals the perturbed state of the characters."10 Both physically and psychologically, Gil Polo's shepherds constantly move in and out of the forest-retreat. As in Los siete libros de la Diana, structure reinforces characterization. In Gil Polo's work, the shepherds' stories unfold within the framework of the romance itself, imbuing the characters with a sense of mobility and "becoming." Diana enamorada is moral propaganda. The author asserts his didactic purposes repeatedly. Gil Polo's characters exemplify varying approaches—some commendable, others reprehensible—to the problems of human existence. From this perspective, they are more psychological archetypes than the kind of "real people" produced by modern fiction. But, although they are essentially allegorical, the ability to grow and change likens them to modern characters. Gil Polo depicts people in transition. Among other factors, the mutable nature of his characters as well as their sense of self-determination has prompted Mary Lee Cozad to classify ""The Theory of the Two Dianas: A Contrast, "BHS, 36 (1959), 65-76. 9
"Time and Space in Gil Polo's Diana enamorada" Hispanofila, 26, No. 1 (Sept. 1982), 9-19.
10
"Time and Space."
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Diana enamorada as a proto-novel, rather than as a romance.11 In Los siete libros de la Diana, it is precisely the impurity of Diana—the inexorable link with reality—that is the major impediment to the realization of perfect harmony. Unlike Montemayor, Gil Polo does not introduce Diana at the end of the romance, but brings her into focus from the beginning, for to resolve the problem of Diana is to resolve the conflict between the turbulence of human reality and the Utopian ideal. In contrast with Montemayor's Diana, Gil Polo's accepts responsibility for the predicament that she is in. Rather than a victim of gratuitous changes in circumstance, she is a factor in a cause-effect relationship. Diana must now endure Sireno's coolness quite simply because she was unfaithful to him. If she is overcome with feelings of guilt, it is because she recognizes her own role in bringing about her present unhappiness: iAy, que el mal que ha consumido la alma, que apenas sostengo, nasce del passado olvido, y la culpa que he tenido causo lapena que tengo! (p. 18)12
Although Montemayor resolves the problem of Sireno's unrequited love for Diana through the use of a magic potion, Gil Polo substitutes a rational explanation for Diana's dilemma: her indifference toward Sireno and her acceptance of the marriage to Delio imposed by her father provoked Sireno's present coolness. At the end of Los siete n "The Diana enamorada as Proto-Novel," paper presented at the annual convention of the Modern Language Association, December, 1979, San Francisco. I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Cozad for allowing me to examine a copy of her paper. 12 All quotations are from Caspar Gil Polo, Diana enamorada, ed. Rafael Ferreres (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1962).
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libros de la Diana, Montemayor raises the question of individual responsibility. Gil Polo takes up the thread and confronts the issue head-on. Two words that appear repeatedly throughout Diana enamorada are vengar and venganza. Vengeance is a response to an injury, a punishment for a wrong. It is an effect provoked by a cause. Sireno's indifference is a reaction to Diana's infidelity, and is construed, precisely, as a venganza. While Diana takes responsibility for her situation, she nevertheless feels overwhelmed by it. She perceives herself as a victim of her own emotions, of an uncontrollable desire that she cannot satisfy, both because she owes fidelity to Delio and because Sireno has fallen out of love with her. But if Diana shares a sense of impotence with Montemayor's characters due to her inability to restrain her emotions, she does not share the pleasure they take in the protracted postponement of gratification. She resembles Sannazaro's love-lorn shepherds rather than Montemayor's in that she sees love as a sickness to be remedied only by death. She is desperate and morbid. Her songs reveal not only an intensification of the themes of time and oblivion, but an obsession with suffering, sickness, and mortality. Hers is not the sweet, pleasurable yearning of Montemayor's characters, but a violent, torturesome anguish. Words such as tormento, pena, congoxa, peligroso, desmayo, desseada muerte, agonia fill her monologues and her songs. This view of the individual as a suffering victim of his own emotions is challenged by Alcida, whose view of the malady of love is that "con voluntad libre y razbn desapassionada, se le puede dar suficiente remedio." (p. 20) Unlike Montemayor's characters, Gil Polo's do not represent a common outlook or attitude. Alcida's point of view is radically different from Diana's. The women's discussion constitutes a dialectic in which a perspective that is essentially Neoplatonic (although it stresses pain far more 147
than spiritual regeneration) is pitted against one that purports to be entirely rationalist. Alcida argues that the individual is not the victim of his emotions at all, but master of his own destiny, which he controls through the exercise of free will and reason. Those who suffer do so by their own consent: "Este es el engaho... de los que se hazen esclavos del Amor que, en comencalle a servir, son tan suyos, que ni quieren ser libres, ni les paresce possible tener libertad." (p. 21) From Alcida's point of view, the individual who regards himself as a victim of his sentiments is, in effect, abdicating responsibility for his acts. To surrender to one's emotions is an act of the will, just as to control one's emotions is. The stance that the individual takes with respect to his own feelings constitutes a choice. Alcida bases her views on personal experience. She, too, was in love, but managed to free herself from love's grip: "Tu mal bien se que es amar... en la cual enfermedad yo tengo grande experiencia. He sido muchos anos captiva, y agora me veo libre, anduve ciega, y agora atino al camino de la verdad; passe en el mar de amor peligrosas agonias y tormentas, y agora estoy gozando del seguro y sosegado puerto, y aunque mas grande sea tu pena, jera tan grande la mia!" (p. 21) Like Diana, Alcida views love as a sickness, but one that results from the relinquishment of the will and that can be cured through the domination of the will by reason. She argues that Diana's "voluntaria dolencia" es unhealthy, that virtue lies in self-realization achieved through resolution and action, not in suffering. Alcida and Diana represent two extremes. For the former, love is the greatest good: "Cualquier consuelo—dixo Diana—me sera agradable, por venir de tu mano, con que no sea quitar el amor de mi coragon, porque no saldra de alii sin llevar consigo a pedagos mis entrahas. Y aunque pudiesse, no quedaria sin el, por no dexar de querer al que siendo olvidado, tomo de mi crueldad tan presta y sobrada 148
venganga." (p. 22) Diana's views love as an ever-unsatiated and increasing desire that ennobles the lover. She has elevated suffering to a cult of which the vengeful Sireno is the central figure. Her focus is on the unrelenting torture caused by love, rather than on purification in a Christian sense. At this point in the romance, Diana is more reminiscent of the protagonists of sentimental novels than of Montemayor's pastoral. For Alcida, those who resist love are "fuertes y constantes," while for Diana, they are "crueles, duros, asperos y rebeldes... pues pretenden contradezir a su naturaleza y resistir a la invencible fuerc.a de Cupido." (p. 23) Both women have only partially understood human nature, exaggerating one aspect of it and disregarding the others. For Diana, emotion cannot and should not be controlled, for it is an essential part of human reality. But the individual must surrender to love not only because there is no other choice, but because love is a virtue the cultivation of which nourishes the spirit. That is why she grasps onto the precious memories that refurbish her love for Sireno and give her life meaning: "...he procurado que no se me olvidassen (las canciones), por lo que me importa tener en la memoria las cosas de Sireno." (p. 23) Although memory is "bitter," it is essential because it keeps open the wound that gives meaning to the lover's life. While Diana sees man as a pawn of love, Alcida believes that man can control his destiny through the proper use of will and reason. She completely disregards the role of emotion, dismissing it as false, useless, unhealthy, and unimportant. Convinced of her ability to control her own course, she is arrogantly self-assured. Her experience has taught her that men are unfaithful. She possesses, she believes, the intellectual certitude necessary to opt for a life without love. For Alcida, the love songs of the suffering shepherds are 149
nothing more than formulae, cliches, "maneras de hablar." (p. 24) Love is a product of the imagination: "Y si sienten passiones los enamorados, provienen de su mesma voluntad, y no del amor; el cual no es sino una cosa imaginada por los hombres." (p. 24) She quotes Aurelio's sonnet, which expresses the idea that love is merely an invention of poets. She believes that to attribute power to love is to deny the existence of free will: "Porque dezir que el Amor es fuerte, es dezir que nuestra voluntad es floxa." (p. 26) Through jest and mockery, she systematically destroys all the linguistic conventions of love. Alcida sees love as a game, with its own lexicon and its own rules, over which the individual has complete control. By reducing love to mere poetry, Alcida throws into question the validity of pastoral. Although every reader knows that pastoral depends on a body of literary conventions, the pastoral author asks the reader to suspend belief, to succumb for a while to the allure of the illusion, to embrace the promise of natural harmony. Alcida's insistence on the poetic—and thereby, to her mind, false—nature of love undermines the premise of pastoral. Alcida is totally aware of the conventionality of the song that she sings with Diana, imitating freely the eclogues of Garcilaso and the Beatus tile of Horace: Aqui de los bullicios y tempesta de las soberbias cortes apartados, los cor agones viven reposados en sosegada paz y alegre fiesta, a vezes recostados al sombrio a par del no, do dan las aves cantos suaves, las tiernas flores finos olores, y siempre con un orden soberano se rfe el prado, el bosque, el monte, el llano. (p. 33)
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What is striking about this image of idealized harmony is that it contrasts so vividly with the atmosphere of the romance. Gil Polo depicts a valley beset with grief, violence, vengeance, and malice, not a locus amoenus where "los coragones viven reposados." The contrast here is between the psychological landscape and the exterior one. Noel Valis has pointed out that Nature in Diana enamorada is always the same.13 It is a constant, a dream-like, idealized landscape through which the characters move, but in which they cannot grow roots—physical or psychological. This gives them a sense of impermanence, even as they seek to anchor themselves in a solid, permanent relationship with their mates. Throughout the work, the distinction between the poetic ideal represented by the perfect landscape and the reality experienced by the characters is kept alive. Periodically, Tauriso and Bernardo appear to sing in Neoplatonic terms the praises of the lovely Diana and the value of pure and unrequited love, only to be interrupted by some violent incident or another. In one episode, the discrepancy between the ideal and the real is intensified by the appearance of Delio, who, fearing that Diana has betrayed him, comes looking for her, "buscando adrede ocasiones para sus acostumbrados celos." (p. 35) Delio is not the victim of jealousy, but an agent of it. He actively seeks reasons to be jealous. Marriage to Delio is a fitting punishment for Diana's infidelity to Sireno, since life with her husband is unmitigated torture. Unwilling to leave well enough alone, Delio complicates his marriage by his excessive suspiciousness and his womanizing. Alcida enjoins him to enjoy his good fortune, but Delio responds by making advances at her. The episode is interrupted when Alcida hears another shepherd's song, and suddenly escapes, "como si de una cruel y hambrienta tigre fuera 13
"Time and Space."
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perseguida." (p. 38) The constant evocation of violent images and the repeated references to savage animals reinforce the sense of violence and turmoil that permeates Diana enamorada. Alcida's view that man is the sole creator of his circumstances and therefore completely responsible for his destiny is contradicted by Marcelio, the shepherd whose song caused Alcida's precipitous exit. Marcelio tells a Byzantine tale that shows that Alcida herself has been a victim of events. Alcida is not a shepherdess at all, but a native of Solina in Vandalia, where she lived in the home of her protective father, Eugerio. In Solina, Marcelio courted Alcida and won her hand in spite of numerous obstacles. The happiness of the young couple seemed assured until fortune intervened. On their way to Lisbon, Marcelio, Alcida, Eugerio, Alcida's sister Clenarda, and her brother Polydoro were overtaken by a storm. The narrative takes place completely outside the pastoral setting. In the world beyond the bucolic landscape, nature is not a complacent witness, but often an enemy. The contest between nature and the human will intensifies as the group tries to sustain itself in the face of worsening circumstances. The travelers are forced to separate, Eugerio and Polydoro going off by themselves and Marcelio staying with the two girls. In addition to nature and evil fortune, human factors now aggravate the situation. Bartofano, the ship's pilot, is captivated by Clenarda and intent on taking advantage of her. Through trickery, he separates the girls from Marcelio, whom he leaves on the island, hands and feet bound. Alcida believes Marcelio has abandoned her for her sister, and swears never to fall in love with another man. A dry, sandy beach, not a green meadow, is witness to Alcida's consternation. She composes a sonnet renouncing love, which Marcelio finds. He follows her, making his way to 152
Italy, where he learns that Alcida has become a shepherdess. Becoming a shepherd himself, Marcelio traces her to the valley she presently inhabits. In spite of Alcida's insistence on the efficacy of the human will, her present situation has been determined largely by circumstances beyond her control: adverse fortune, natural surroundings, the malice of others. Alcida herself is unaware of the role chance has played in her story. Although she harps on self-determination, Alcida has not yet understood the true nature of freedom: the capacity to make choices in situations that are not of one's choosing. Man does not determine his circumstances; he determines his reactions to them. Instead of facing the challenge, Alcida simply withdraws from the outside world, seeking refuge in the safe, artificial world of pastoral. But withdrawal, like action, represents a choice. By fleeing Marcelio instead of facing him, Alcida abdicates responsibility for what happens to her. She becomes a pawn of fate. She allows circumstance to dictate her destiny. Alcida's attitude toward love is the result of experience, but experience based on misinterpreted appearances. Instead of questioning the evidence, she jumps to conclusions and closes her mind. Like Calderon's honor characters, whom she closely resembles in terms of philosophical posture, Alcida forms an unfounded premise and responds accordingly, thereby destroying her chances for happiness.14 She sacrifices her relationship with Marcelio to her need for intellectual certitude. Once she forms an opinion, she never subjects it to scrutiny, never doubts its validity. Alcida represents rationalism run amuck. A firm believer in cause-effect relationships, she assumes that her present desamor is the result of Marcelio's abandonment, but refuses to examine the accuracy of her 14
See Mujica, Calderon's Characters.
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evidence. What she believes to be a cause is not a cause at all, but merely an unexamined premise. Alcida is a strong-willed character who is excessively sure of herself. Judging from appearances, she misjudges Marcelio and foresakes men. Within the inflexible framework that she constructs for herself, her reaction is reasonable. She attempts to avoid further tragedy and suffering by turning away from life. Like Sannazaro's Sincere, the prototypical courtier-shepherd, she seeks the artifical harmony of the pastoral setting as an escape from personal misfortune. Yet, for all her faith in reason, Alcida is wrong. Her intellectual certainty is based on a faulty foundation. She has judged only by appearances, and appearances are deceiving. Marcelio has not abandoned her at all; both she and he have been the victims of unexpected developments. Alcida's way of coping with her unhappiness is simply to shackle the emotions and to attempt to live by reason alone. like Calderbn's honor-obsessed noblemen, Alcida accepts a system, then succumbs to its demands. Just as they assume that any indication of infidelity on the part of their wives must result in a murder, Alcida assumes that an indication of Marcelio's inconstancy must result in her own renouncement of love. Neither the honor figures nor Alcida examine the system or doubt its validity. Neither they nor she realize that they may be basing their conclusions on circumstantial evidence. Marcelio, in constrast, does not reduce life to a system. He understands that human existence is an unending conflict between will and circumstance. He sees that although man does have free will and does control his destiny to a certain extent, there are obstacles to be reckoned with: fortune, health, weather, the malice and unbridled passions of others, etc. Unlike Alcida, Marcelio accepts the changing nature of affairs. He perceives change not as a reason for 154
despair, but as a reason for hope, for circumstances can shift for the better just as they once shifted for the worse. More mature in outlook than Alcida, Marcelio does not abandon love because of an unfavorable turn of events. He makes no attempt to stiffle his feelings. He accepts love as a reality, even though emotions have their source in the imagination. He recognizes that projections of the imagination have their own validity, for they motivate us and influence our actions.15 Marcelio incarnates a combination of reason and emotion coupled with an understanding of the mutability of fortune that Gil Polo conceives as an ideal. In this sense, Marcelio is a kind of pastoral moral hero—the first of his kind in the genre. Gil Polo begins the fourth book of Diana enamorada with an admonition and a word of praise for Marcelio: "lo que toca al hombre prudente es no vivir confiado en la possession de los bienes ni desesperado en el sufrimiento de los males; antes vivir con tanta prudencia que se passen los deleites como cosa que no ha de durar, y los tormentos como cosa que puede ser fenescida. De semej antes hombres tiene Dios particular cuidado, como del triste y congoxado Marcelio." (p. 173) Throughout the romance, Marcelio incarnates the principles of moderation and self-control. In a discussion of jealousy in which Diana defends the notion that man is the victim of his emotions, Marcelio argues that the individual possesses the power to control his reactions. The lover who restrains his jealous impulses displays greater confidence in himself and his loved-one than the one who does not, and therefore demonstrates greater love: "muestra en ello el valor, fuerga y quilate de su deseo, pues esta limpio y sin la escoria de freneticas 15 See Francisco Suarez, Disputaciones metafisicas, VIII, 389-453. This idea is best explained in modern philosophy by Arthur Schopenhauer in his The World as Will and Representation, trans. E.F.J. Payne (New York: Dover Publications, 1958).
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sospechas." (p. 83) Gil Polo is above all a moralist. The emphasis on moral rectitude and sobriety that permeates Diana enamorada imbues the work with a tone that is radically different from the one that characterizes Montemayor's romance. In spite of the structural similarities between Los siete libros de la Diana and Diana enamorada, Gil Polo's outlook is only superficially Neoplatonic. Love is depicted neither as the greatest good nor as a saving force. Moderation, rather than passion, is at the center of Gil Polo's system. When left unrestrained and allowed to possess totally the minds and spirits of men and women—as it does in Montemayor's romance — , love is a "pernicious disease." Love is not in itself evil, but must be tempered by reason in order to achieve a beneficial effect. Unlike Montemayor's, Gil Polo's characters do not indulge in "sweet" suffering, for Gil Polo does not view the agony of sublimated desire as in itself "sweet." Marcelio, with his sober approach to love, represents a moral ideal. Because each embodies a different approach to life and love, Marcelio, Diana, and Alcida possess a uniqueness that does not typify earlier pastoral characters. Their consistency endows them with individuality. At the same time, it robs them of a certain degree of psychological complexity. While it is true that Gil Polo's characters change and mature during the time frame of the romance, they do not introspect, vacillate, or shift positions. Rather, they all move, from their different starting points, toward a predetermined goal. Since each represents a specific attitude in Gil Polo's pastoral novela de tests, none emcompasses the equivocal intricacy we associate with the protagonists of modern novels. As Amadeu Sole-Leris points out, "The same theoretical postulates that impel him (Gil Polo) away from the ambiguities of Montemayor's world prevent him from giving his characters sufficiently complex 156
motivations."16 Still, Sole-Leris goes on, Gil Polo attempts a realistic presentation of the problems of existence based on "a common-sense view of human nature. In so doing, he makes his own contribution toward the nurturing of the mental climate in which the modern novel was to develop."17 In this sense, Gil Polo's romance represents a significant step in the evolution of the novel in Spain. The very consistency that characterizes Gil Polo's shepherds makes the mutual understanding portrayed in Los siete libros de la Diana impossible. Unlike Montemayor's characters, who are open and communicative—at least, as long as the goal of erotic satisfaction remains beyond the reach of all — , Gil Polo's tend to be reticent. Diana is reluctant to discuss her quandary with Marcelio. When she senses that he is near, she stops singing in order to avoid explanations. Likewise, Alcida, so defiantly disdainful of love, fails to explain the reasons for her negative attitude; her story is told by Marcelio. Alcida and Marcelio are original characters to whom Gil Polo assigns precise didactic roles. In addition to Diana and Sireno, many others of Montemayor's shepherds appear in Diana enamorada, although Gil Polo imbues them with passions and obsessions that distinguish them from their original versions and endows them with personalities all their own. Often their irrationality and impetuousness are their most salient characteristics. Sylvano, Selvagia, Alanio, Montano, and Ismenia all appear in Diana enamorada, but in Gil Polo's romance, the rife among them is accentuated. In Diana enamorada, for exmaple, Ismenia falls in love with Montano, who is a mortal enemy of Alanio. In Los siete libros de la Diana, Alanio and Montano were not mortal enemies at all. In 16
The Spanish Pastoral Novel, p. 54.
^The Spanish Pastoral Novel, p. 55.
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Montemayor's romance, the story of Belisa is the tale of a love triangle in which father and son desire the same woman. But what originally seems to be a violent rivalry between the two men is nullified by the intervention of a wizard who, at the end of the romance, takes the blame for the apparent assasination of one by the other. In Diana enamorada, a love triangle is formed when Montano's father, Fileno, falls in love with Ismenia. But in Gil Polo's work, the magical buffer is missing. The rivalry is real and it is to be taken seriously. In Diana enamorada, Montano courts Ismenia and marries her, thereby infuriating his father. Felisarda, who is in love with Montano, takes vengeance by marrying Fileno and tricking her son-in-law into attempting to murder his father in his sleep. Tragedy is narrowly avoided when Fileno awakens, recognizes his son, and begs for mercy. Montano stops in his tracks, and shortly afterward disappears from the town. As in the story of Marcelio and Alcida, the action takes place outside the pastoral setting, far from the atmosphere of peaceful harmony evoked in much of Gil Polo's poetry. The story of Ismenia and Montano is replete with economic preoccupations, questions of inheritance and disinheritance, hatred and pettiness. Marriage is not an idealized state of idyllic bliss but a tool. Felisarda is not a virgin shepherdess, but a hag. The very banality of the story parallels grotesquely the idealized perfection of conventional pastoral. As the several episodes of Diana enamorada develop, the line between the real and the ideal becomes ever more clearly defined. The unhappiness of the characters is not the result of ill fortune, but of jealousy and passion. Throughout the story of Ismenia and Montano, the lovers are frequently described as "mad." These characters possess reason, but fail to exercise it. Unlike in the story of Montemayor's Belisa, tragedy is 158
avoided by luck, not by magic. Throughout his romance, Gil Polo steadfastly downplays the role of magic, a clear reflection of the philosophical climate of the late sixteenth century. Although Pope Innocent VIII had issued a bull against witches in 1484, it was not until nearly a hundred years later that the practice of magic was condemned by the Council of Trent (1545-63). Gil Polo is careful to attribute his characters' narrow escapes to fortune, whose role in human endeavors is meticulously defined by Church fathers.18 On their way to Felicia's, Diana and her companions are joined first by Polydoro and Clenarda, then by the other participants in the romance. One by one, these characters tell of seemingly miraculous happenings in which tragedy is narrowly avoided. After floating aimlessly for five days, Eurgerio and Polydoro were saved by some sailors. Shortly afterwards, they were reunited unexpectedly with Clenarda, whom they found in a hut, in the company of a fisherman's wife and daughters. Together, they set out in search of Felicia, in whose company Eugerio is now staying. Although he allows his characters some miraculously narrow escapes, Gil Polo leaves the reader with the uncomfortable feeling that chance is an unreliable ally. The happy ending rings false. The sense of artificiality that characterizes the conclusion of Diana enamorada is clearly deliberate on the part of the author, whose purpose is to emphasize the roles of will and reason and to attack the kind of passivity demonstrated by conventional pastoral characters. On their way to the Temple of Diana, Clenarda reproduces a song she heard the River Turia singing. The song, a great part of which consists of a progression of historical arid mythological happenings, is filled with 18
On fortune, see Suarez, III, 447-448.
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violence and bloodshed, a reminder that in real life, tragedy is not always so easily avoided. The Canto has attracted considerable critical attention. Menendez y Pelayo believed it to have been inspired by Orpheus' song at Felicia's palace in Montemayor's romance.19Joseph G. Fucilla has seen in the Canto del Turia an expression of Gil Polo's dedication to Valencia and an imitation of Sannazaro's tribute to Naples.20 Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce, who sees little of Sannazaro's influence in Diana enamorada, argues that the Canto has its origins in the long tradition of Laudes Hispaniae inherited by Gil Polo. He points out that the use of names of popular songs was practiced in Spain at least since the time of the Marques de Santillana.21 Frederick A. de Armas relates the description of the Turia to the river-god motif in classical literature.22 He points out that river gods were frequently associated with caves, which were considered centers for the occult arts as well as for other types of study. Significantly, the Turia emerges from a "profundissima cueva." (p. 144) Furthermore, his appearance and behavior are those of a river god. De Armas believes that the placement of the Canto de Turia in Book III, precisely at the center of the romance, may have been intentional. In his opinion, the episode serves as an axis, just as the encounter with Felicia does in Montemayor's romance. It is at the axis that the characters' perceptions change and that knowledge becomes possible. Since Gil Polo's work culminates in the arrival at Felicia's palace at the end of the romance, the author actually creates two axes: "At the physical center of the w
Ongenes dela'novela, p. 297.
20
"Gil Polo y Sannazaro," in Relaciones Hispanoitalianas, RFE, anejo 59 (Madrid, 1963), pp. 68-69. 2l Lanove/apaston/,pp. 118-119. 22 "Caves of Fame and Wisdom in the Spanish Pastoral Novel," Studies in Philology, 82, No. 3 (Summer, 1985), 332-358.
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novel, he places a cave where a song reveals a historical future. The temple or second axis appears at the end, when the 'sacred' must intervene to order the chaotic relative and bring about a resolution."23 The inclusion of the patriotic Canto, which at first seems out of place in the bucolic atmosphere, reflects clearly Gil Polo's purposes. The Canto begins with examples of valient, passionate warriors, struck down in bloody encounters: De cuya ilustre cepa veo nascido aquel varon de pecho adamantine, por valerosoas armas conoscido, Cesar romano y Duque valentine valiente coracon, nunca vencido, al cual le aguarda un hado tan malino que aquel raro valor y animo fuerte tendra fin con sangrienta y cruda muerte. (p. 146)
The examples of great, but impetuous warriors reinforce the message that impassioned men are vulnerable to the quirks of fortune. Gil Polo advises the listener to heed, rather, the examples of moderation and prudence provided by Renaissance intellectuals such as Luis Vives, Honorato Juan, Pedro Juan Nunez —men whose approach to life parallels his own: Mas no mireis la gente embravescida con el furor del iracundo Matte: mirad la luz que aqui vereis nascida, luz de saber, prudencia, genio y arte; tanto en el mundo todo esclarescida, que ilustrara la mas escura parte: Vives, que vivira, mientras al suelo lumbre ha de dar el gran sehor de Delo. (p. 146-147)
Although the Canto is replete with examples of both 23
"Caves,"p. 347.
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military heroes and poets, Gil Polo's emphasis on the positive effects of "luz de saber, prudencia, genio y arte" makes clear the author's orientation. The Canto teaches the lesson the shepherds must learn if they are to reform. In this sense, it prepares the way for the resolution. As the group continues its journey, it is met by a nymph, Arethea—the only nymph of even minor importance in the romance, aside from those in the allegorical performances in Book V—who tells of Alcida's arrival at the Temple of Diana and of Sireno's presence there. As a result of Felicia's convincing explanation of Marcelio's actions, Alcida cautiously abandons her negative attitude toward love. Felicia praises this guarded optimism, and Alcida becomes a new model of prudence. Ismenia is now reunited with Montano. Through an extraordinary coincidence it turns out that Marcelio is the brother of Montemayor's Felismena, who is also present. Sireno, still estranged from Diana, sings a passionate condemnation of love, while Arsileo sings an equally passionate defense of love. The singers, representing different perspectives, elucidate love's ambiguous nature. Love is joy and misery, happiness and suffering, depending on ever-changing circumstances and on the individual's ability to cope with them. Love is reprehensible only when it dominates the individual to the point that he becomes unreasonable. As Alcida explains in her initial meeting with Diana, "entre los dos estremos de amar y aborrescer esta el medio, el cual tu debes elegir... porque en el consiste la virtud, y donde ella esta, quedan los coracones contra el Amor fuertes y constantes." (pp. 22-23) That is, a sensible, moderate attitude toward love protects the individual from passion's grip. This, Alcida has always understood. Her error lay in her insistence on intellectual certainty, her willingness to jump to conclusions based on false evidence, and her disdain for the role of emotion, not 162
in her belief in the power of reason to obliterate the ravages of desire. In the midst of a discussion of the nature of love, the group learns of Delio's death. Overcome with passion, Delio meets his end in a scene more reminiscent of Carcelde amor than of conventional pastoral. Faced with this extraordinarily fortunate turn of events, Diana does not waste her time mourning. Delio had been the one irredeemable character in the romance. Selfish, unfaithful, impetuous, jealous, he is the true antagonist, diametrically opposed to Marcelio in every way. While other characters had been mistaken in their understanding of one or another aspect of love, Delio embodies all that is antierotic. Sireno, realizing that Diana is free, renounces his previous stance against love and the two are at last united. The remaining characters now display the discretion, courtesy, and self-control proper to ladies and gentlemen who function in society. They are not and never have been true shepherds, but now that the ideal has become a reality, they respect the decorum that their role demands. Gil Polo's erotic Utopia is a well-ordered society in which love enlivens the spirit, but reason reigns supreme. While both Los siete libros de la Diana and Diana enamorada are structured around a pilgrimage to Felicia, Gil Polo's high priestess is more a moralist than a wizard. It is she who synthesizes the message of the romance, rebuking the characters for behaving irrationally and holding them responsible for their own unhappiness. The characters could have avoided the predicaments that caused them to seek her out if they had behaved more jucidiously: "Pero una cosa quiero advertir, que vuestros passados tormentos a licion para quedar avisados de vivir con mas cordura por escusar los inconvientes en que tantos ahos os habeis hallado. Y aunque en los remedies que yo a todos os di mostre claramente mi saber y publique mi nombre, tuviera por 163
mejor que vosotros hubiessedes vivido con tanta discrecibn que no tuvierades necessidad de mis favores." (p. 258) Felicia makes it clear that man is not the pawn of his passions, and that love is no excuse for intemperate behavior: "Diranme los amadores que no esta en su mano dexar de ser vencidos de Cupido y andar hechos sus esclavos. A mi me parece que quien le sirve, se le obliga y somete de propia voluntad." (p. 259-60) Man possesses free will and reason, and is capable of controlling his instincts. However, man will never be free of his inclinations. Felicia makes it clear that Alcida was wrong to disregard the emotions, for sentiment is an element essential to the human personality. But the emotions must be controlled by reason. Happiness can be achieved, not through magic, but through the proper integration or reason, will, and emotion. The extent to which Felicia uses magic to achieve her ends has been the subject of much debate. Avalle-Arce points out that in Montemayor's romance, in which love predominates over reason, the only possible solution to the characters' amorous predicaments is supernatural: Felicia's agua encantada. But Gil Polo's work, in which reason prevails, calls for a different type of wizard. Felicia's tool is not agua encantada, but the natural inclination of the characters and the quirks of fortune.24 The course of events that follows the shepherds' meeting at the Temple of Diana responds to the inner logic of the characters. Sireno falls in love with Diana, not because he has been given a potion, but because she has been freed from the bonds of marriage by Delio's death. It is Diana's availability, not Felicia's philter, that is the determining factor. Felicia's art consists of the power of suggestion (la palabra) and the use of
24
See Avalle-Arce, La novela pastoril, p. 118,p. 138.
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medicines (poderosas yerbas) that guide Sireno in the direction of his natural inclination. Felicia works within the realm of reason: "Aqui esta tu amador antiguo, Syreno, cuyo coracon por arte mia, y por razon que a ello le obliga, esta tan blando y mudado de la passada rebeldia como es menester para que sea contento de casarse contigo." (p. 121) Likewise, Montano and Alcida find solutions because "habian conoscido su error" (p. 202) and consequently have sought a remedy. Felicia does not force the will of her charges. Rather, she provides guidance. Felicia is Gil Polo's voice. Her advice is the moral of the story. Through her he conveys that even though there are no wizards in the real world, there is a way to achieve happiness: The will and the emotions must be reined by reason; reason must never be made subservient to the will. At the same time, reason must not become a tyrant that shackles sentiment. The lack of moderation and discretion of the shepherds nearly destroyed them. The extremes represented by Diana and Alcida must be avoided. Love is a virtue, provided it does not become an obsession or degenerate into a perversion, such as adultery or bestial sexuality. The spiritual impotence of love-sick shepherds is nothing more than "desenfrenado apetito," and sexual appetite can prevail over reason if left unchecked, breeding melancholy, suffering, jealousy and violence. The key to happiness lies not with Felicia, but with the individual. As a reminder, perhaps, that Felicia is not a catch-all solution, several minor characters are left ungratified. Narciso, Miliseo, Turiano, and Elvinia are all left with hope, but without any real satisfaction. Furthermore, Gil Polo cites several examples of tragic affairs, condemned to failure by the lovers' rashness: "<|A quien no espanta el triste sucesso de los amores de Pyramo y Tisbe? <
desdicha de la deshonesta Mirrha?" (p. 259) Gil Polo stresses that it is the poet's role to teach: "Los cuales casos fueron por los poetas, como maestros de la humana vida, figurados para atemorizar los hombres con tan desventurados acontescimientos..." (p. 259) It is for didactic reasons that the author created characters whose function it is to illustrate the pitfalls of love as well as a healthy approach to life. The author reinforces the instructive element by including two allegorical performances in the festivities in Book V. The first depicts a stag hunt in which the white stag symbolizes the human heart. Assailed by nymphs who represent human inclinations, the heart must seek to protect itself, fleeing if necessary. The other allegory depicts a water joust between two opposing squadrons symbolizing virtuous love, characterized by reasonableness and self-control, and unhealthy love, characterized by wanton carnality and unrestrained desire. The soldiers of the first squadron are attired in gay colors, for healthy love leads to joy and fulfillment, while those of the second are dressed in mournful ones, since insatiable sensual craving can only lead to sorrow. The triumph of the first squadron over the second is the victory of virtue over evil in the hearts of the shepherds, and constitutes an edifying lesson for the reader. There can be no doubt that Gil Polo's rigorous moral stance alters both the tone and function of pastoral. In her discussion of the novelistic aspects of Diana enamorada, Mary Lee Cozad asks: Why should these traits (reason, character development, etc.), quite different from those of previous pastoral fiction, appear specifically in this pastoral work of the latter half of the sixteenth century?"25 Cozad demonstrates that, "An important influence on the nature 25
"The Diana enamorada as Proto-Novel."
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of beliefs about the universe which inform the modern novel, one which explains the revolution in motivational structure which occurred in sixteenth-century prose fiction, may be found in the pre-rationalist thought, some of it Neoplatonic, of fifteenth- and sixteenth century Italian humanism, and particularly in its beliefs about free will, cause and effect and the dynamic nature of character."26 Basing her argument on Ernst Cassirer's El individuo y el cosmos en la filosofia del Renacimiento, Cozad traces the development of rationalist ideas in Italian humanism and shows how the newly forming concept of man influenced sixteenth-century fiction. Some of her more pertinent points are these: Humanism began to lay the foundation for a greater emphasis on free will and on man's ability to influence his destiny as early as the beginning of the fifteenth century. Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459) stressed man's ability, which increased with age, to use his intellectual and moral powers as well as his will to conquer the hostile powers of the heavens. Lorenzo Valla, in his De libero arbitrio, began the controversy on free will, but it was the Neoplatonist Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) who defended most energetically the notion that the individual's destiny is not controlled by exterior forces but by forces that move him from within. Especially important is Pico's stand against astrology and his belief in mathematical causality. Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), essentially a determinist, believed man to be free within the limits dictated by the stars, and Pietro Pomponazzi, also a determinist, ascribed to the individual almost total liberty with respect to his ethical and practical judgment. The essential point, emphasizes Mary Lee Cozad, is the "transformation of psychology from a static view of human nature to a more dynamic representation."27 There is a 26
"The Diana enamorada as Proto-Novel."
27
' The Diana enamorada as Proto -Novel.''
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growing tendency among the fifteenthand sixteenth-century Italian humanists to depict man as "the ever-changing and developing result of his own actions."28 There is also a tendency to replace the occult with a system of cause and effect based on observable physical phenomena. The new attitudes reflected in the writings of these Italian thinkers are precisely those conveyed by Gil Polo. The growing emphasis placed on free will by the Counter Reformation must also have influenced Gil Polo. Drawing heavily on works such as Saint Augustine's On Free Choice of the Will, Catholic intellectuals defended the concept of libre albedrio against the doctrines of predestination advanced by Luther and Calvin. Gil Polo's stern moralistic stance reflects in several ways the direction that Spain was taking in the late sixteenth century. The early 1500's had been characterized by an openness that encouraged an influx of ideas from all parts of Europe, particularly from Italy and the Netherlands. A tolerant humanist movement developed in Spain, producing thinkers such as Luis Vives, Juan and Alonso Valdes, the Greek scholar Juan de Vergara, and Miguel de Eguia, the printer of Erasmus's works at Alcala. Gil Polo's admiration for humanists such as Vives is explicitly expressed in the Canto de Turia, and his views on the interplay of will, reason, the emotions and the senses are similar to many of those expressed by Vives (who lived much of his life in England and Belgium) in his De anima et vita (Tratado del alma). With regard to his stand on the unreliabiity of information conveyed by the senses and on the difficulty of interpreting evidence, illustrated by Alcida, Gil Polo may have been influenced by skeptical currents originating in France.29 28
"The Dianaenamorada as Proto-Novel."
29
On the skeptic revival, see Richard H. Pop kin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes, (Assen, Netherlands: Van Gorcum, I960).
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While Gil Polo's work has undisputable roots in European humanism, his strong ethical commitment, his unrelenting emphasis on in responsibility of the individual, his downplay of magic, and his sometimes sermonic tone characterize much of the literature of the post-humanist period. Conservative Catholic theologians saw the humanistic trend as a threat. They perceived Erasmus as an ally of the Lutherans and Illuminists, since he, like the reformist sects, stressed the role of contemplation and personal spiritual activity over ritual and ceremony.30 Although there was nothing heretical about the teachings of humanists such as Vives and Erasmus, who had adherents among the Church and political hierarchy, many clerics perceived the investigative nature of humanistic intellectual activity as dangerous. Friars, who dominated the Inquisition, objected to Erasmas' stand against religious orders and many Spaniards asssociated humanism with the alien influence of Charles V. The intermingling of Jews and Arabs in Spanish society had long made Spaniards touchy about matters of orthodoxy, and the growing influence of unconventional sects contributed to Spaniards' fear of spiritual contamination. By the second half of the sixteenth century, traditionalists were clearly winning the struggle against outside influence. The period immediately preceding 1563, the closing year of the Council of Trent and the year before the publication of Diana enamorada, was decisive in establishing the dogmatic bleakness that characterizes certain aspects of the Counter Reformation in Spain. The increasing power of stern Church figures such as Hernando de Valdes and Melchor Cano, the militancy of supporters of the Reformation, and the discovery of communities in Seville and Valladolid deemed to be Protestant in spite of their limited contact with 30
See J. H. Elliot, Imperial Spain, (New York: New American Library-Mentor, 1966), p. 212.
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Geneva, contributed to the reactionary stand of the conservative elements and to the violence of the Inquisition. Book censorship was one immediate result of the growing fanaticism. During the period from 1545 to 1559, Indices were published banning great numbers of books, among them Erasmus' Enchiridion. While it is difficult to judge to what extent the bans on foreign books actually halted the influx of new ideas into Spain, there can be no doubt that the increasingly stringent dogmatism of the mid-sixteenth century affected the intellectual community. Gil Polo's disciplined, rationalist approach to love is much more in tune with the conservatism of the period than is Montemayor's unharnessed emotionalism, which Gil Polo clearly condemns. His consistent emphasis on free will is in keeping with the Church's condemnation of the doctrine of predestination. Furthermore, the reduced role of magic in Diana enamorada reflects the stand taken by the Council of Trent against superstition. Although not all of the successors to Gil Polo are as firm as he in their no-nonsense attitude to love, the rationalist tendency and an increased emphasis on free will are evident in two subsequent pastoral romances: Cervantes' Galatea and Lope de Vega's Arcadia.
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Chapter V Cervantes' Blood-Spattered Arcadia: La Galatea Published in 1585, La Galatea is Cervantes' first long work and initiates the extensive literary career that culminates in Don Quijote. It is within the context of Cervantes' entire literary production, rather than within the pastoral framework exclusively, that the significance of La Galatea can best be understood. Cervantes' fascination with pastoral transcended La Galatea and penetrated his entire literary outlook. As Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce has written, "El tema pastoril... no constituye un ensayo juvenil abandonado en epocas de madurez, sino que se inserta con tenacidad en la medula de casi todas sus obras."1 Avalle-Arce, Americo Castro, Mia Gerhardt, and Dominick Finello, among others, have called attention to the pastoral element in Don Quijote, pointing out some of the diverse ways in which Cervantes uses pastoral to pit the real against the ideal.2 Until the end of his life, Cervantes remained fascinated with pastoral, promising on his deathbed to complete La Galatea. Yet, it was perhaps not so much with the pastoral genre itself as with the interplay of will, reason, emotion, l
Lanovelapastoril, p. 229.
2
Avalle-Arce, La novela pastoril, pp. 229-263; Americo Castro, El pensamiento de Cervantes, (Barcelona: Noguer, 1972); Mia Gerhardt, Don Qutxotte, La Vie et les livres, (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitg. Mij, 1955); Dominick Finello, "Cervantes y lo pastoril a nueva luz," Anales cervantinos, 15 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1977) 211222; See also John A. Moore, "The pastoral in the Quixote or nuestro gozo en el pozo," Romance Notes, 13, No. 3(1972), 1-4.
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and circumstance relative to a constant—love—that Cervantes was obsessed. In the restricted world of pastoral, the multiple factors of human existence can be explored under a literary microscope. At the same time, the genre imposes limitations. In La Galatea Cervantes routinely breaks with the norms of pastoral, incorporating non-pastoral elements such as social and financial considerations. La Galatea bursts the seams of convention, precisely because Cervantes used an established genre to explore beyond the limits of that genre. James R. Stamm writes, "Desde las primeras paginas cogemos laimpresion de que algo nuevo esta pasando, que el ambito hermeticamente sellado del mundo pastoril se abre, estalla por presiones internas jamas sentidas en las novelas anteriores del genero."3 Even so, pastoral does not lend itself to a scrutiny of the human condition as extensive as the one on which Cervantes embarks in his later novels. It is in this sense as much as in any other that La Galatea is incomplete. That Cervantes was aware of his failure to accomplish his objective in La Galatea is clear from the priest's comment on the author of the work in Don Quijote: "propone algo, y no concluye nada." (I, p. 75) "La Galatea continued to fascinate Cervantes throughout his life not because of the pastoral genre," writes Ruth El Saffar, "but because it shows, with astounding self-consistency, that love and marriage are the impetus and goal of every human life, and that they cannot be adequately examined in an atmosphere that restricts experience and isolates human beings. La Galatea is the beginning of a series of novels on this subject."4 The fundamental problems of human
3
"La Galatea y el concepto de genero: Un acercamiento," in Cervantes: Su obra y su mundo, ed. Manuel Criado de Val (Madrid: Edi-6, 1981), pp. 337-343. *"La Galatea: The Integrity of the Unintegrated Text," in Cervantes: Su obra y su mundo" ed. Manuel Criado de Val (Madrid: Edi-6, 1981), pp. 345-353. 172
existence that Cervantes explores in La Galatea are central to his later novels. Like the romances of chivalry, the pastoral romances project a Utopia in which, through magic or providence, virtue eventually triumphs over evil and a semblance of order is imposed on the chaotic reality of human existence. Wrongs are righted and justice prevails. That the perfection envisioned by pastoral authors is never fully achieved does not diminish the value of pastoral. That the solutions are contrived does not vitiate the projection. And yet, the inevitable failure of the Utopian vision was precisely what fascinated Cervantes. While in Montemayor's romance, the endeavor—the adjustment of personal behavior to the requirements of Neoplatonic love—is the focus, in La Galatea, both the endeavor and its human consequences are equally important. Like Don Quijote, the characters in Cervantes' pastoral romance strive for an ideal. For Don Quijote, the ideal is a Utopian world in which knights errant protect the helpless, assure the triumph of justice, restore order, and punish perpetrators of evil. For the shepherds in La Galatea, it is an erotic vision characterized by the Neoplatonic concepts of beauty and virtue. like conventional pastoral characters, the shepherds in La Galatea view their ideal as attainable, but unlike their predecessors, they, like Don Quijote, seek to achieve their goal through concrete acts of the will. The consequences are the same for both the would-be knight errant and for the shepherds. They clash with obstacles that bring into focus the objective realities they consistently overlook. In Cervantes' hands, the image of an attainable Utopia crumbles, and yet, the visionary core of pastoral remains intact. Ultimately, it is the struggle, not the realization of the dream, that matters. Both knight errantry and pastoral engender Utopian visions that function as psychological realities. In La Galatea, as in 173
Don Quijote, the Utopian dream not only motivates the actions of the protagonists, but also provides them with a sense of purpose. Each of the shepherds attempts to achieve his ideal in a different way. Personality, willfulness, passions, outside obstacles are all factors that come into play. Through his characters, Cervantes illustrates that every human reality encompasses infinite possibilities. Erastro synthesizes this idea when he compares the many cares of the lover to a broken mirror: No se ven tantos rostros figurados en roto espejo, o hecho por tal arte, que si uno en el se mira, retratados se ve una multitud en cada parte, cuantos nacen ciudados y cuidados de un cuidado cruel que no se parte del alma mia, a su rigor vencida, hasta apartarse junto con la vida. (I, p. 25-26)5
The more one looks at a broken mirror, the more images one sees. Yet all are reflections of the same reality. Similarly, the more Ergasto examines his principal care—Galatea's indifference—, the more troubles he perceives. Every human reality is subject to infinite variations. How one interprets a particular situation depends on one's perspective—on which fragment of the broken mirror one focuses. The perspectivism fundamental to Don Quijote is equally fundamental to La Galatea. Cervantes realizes the fragmentation of reality structurally by exploiting the episodic nature of the conventional pastoral romance, which he modifies along the lines of the Byzantine novel, interlacing love stories that are begun, interrupted, continued, and later concluded or left dangling. At first reading, the work seems unstructured. There is no pilgrimage 5
Quotations are from La Galatea, 2 vol., prologo y notas dejuan Bautista Avalle-Arce (Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1961).
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to Felicia, no obvious axis, no conclusion. The romance seems to be a series of endless contradictions; characters praise love, then change heart, swear fidelity only to give up their loved ones, respond to rejection with violence, attempted suicide, or withdrawal. For the most part, characters are underdeveloped; they appear and disappear, sometimes reappearing in subsequent episodes, sometimes not. But then, it is precisely this kaleidoscopic view of reality that is the essence of La Galatea. Ruth El Saffar writes, "...the instinct for the vital over the formal truly marks Cervantes' genius."6 La Galatea seems to be an example of pastoral run away with itself. And yet, it is a work more vibrant, vivid, and psychologically authentic than any of its predecessors. Starting with a prototypical couple, Elicio and Galatea, Cervantes weaves a complex tale that incorporates seemingly infinte variations on the theme of unsatisfied erotic passion. Elicio dreams of union with the disdainful Galatea, who remains steadfastly indifferent to his entreaties. All the characters subsequently introduced are variants of Elicio and Galatea. All the episodes elaborate this same predicament. Certainly, there is nothing original about the situational design. The lover confronted with an obstacle to the realization of his passion is the basis of all Spanish pastoral romance. What distinguishes Cervantes' characters is their willingness to seek actively a solution to their dilemmas. Each of the characters exercises his or her will. One of the words that occurs most frequently throughout the romance is voluntad. In order to win Galatea's favor, Elicio courts her "con muchos servicios". (I, p. 17) like Don Quijote, he projects a goal for which he consciously strives. But the force of Elicio's will is evident not only in his efforts to win Galatea's favor, but in his refusal to interpret correctly the significance of her aloofness. Galatea repays 6
"LaGatatea,"p. 346.
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Elicio's services with cold courtesy, for she recognizes that "seria demasiada ingratitud no pagarle con algun honesto favor sus honestos pensamientos." (I, p. 17) Elicio, however, perceives Galatea's civility as encouragement: "Imaginabase Elicio que, pues Galatea no desdehaba sus servicios, que tendrian buen succeso sus deseos." (I, p. 17) Elicio, like Don Quijote, allows his imagination to reign over common sense. Like the hidalgo from La Mancha or the townspeople in El retablo de las maravillas, he interprets objective reality in accordance with his desires. Just as Don Quijote sees a castle instead of an inn because castles, not inns, are a part of his perception of the world and his role in it, Elicio sees cause for hope in Galatea's condescension. That is, he distorts evidence to conform with his goal. In his discussion of engano in La Galatea, John T. Cull ennumerates several techniques—including masks or disguises, voyeurism, and sensorial error—that Cervantes uses in La Galatea and other works to convey the interplay between perception and substance.7 But in La Galatea the most significant factor in the distortion of objective reality is the human will. If Elicio does not abandon hope, it is because he is not willing to do so. "no podia, ni debia, ni queria olvidar a Galatea." (I, p. 17) This coincidence of will and inclination recalls Don Quijote's explanation of his decision to go forth once again in search of adventure at the beginning the SegundaParte. "...naci, segun me inclino a las armas, debajo de la influencia del planeta Marte; asi que casi me es forzoso seguir por su camino, y por el tengo de k a pesar de todo el mundo, y sera en balde cansaros en persuadirme a que no quiera yo lo que los cielos quieren, la fortuna ordena y la razon pide, y, sobre todo, mi voluntad desea... (II, p. 581)" 7
"Cervantes y el engano de las apariencias," Andes Cervantinos, 19 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1981) 69-92.
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Neither Don Quijote nor Elicio discount the role of destiny. Natural inclination cannot be controlled by the will, but neither does it obviate the will. By asserting that to forget Galatea was something that Elicio "no podia, ni debia, ni queria", Cervantes makes it clear that the shepherd's devotion is voluntary. Unlike Montemayor's shepherds, who see themselves as pawns of destiny, Cervantes' characters are collaborators with destiny. Like Gil Polo's, Cervantes' characters illustrate diverse approaches to the same problem, but Cervantes' purposes are not blatently didactic and his characters are not easily qualified as admirable or wrong. Furthermore, they are not monolithic, but complex, changeable, and often self-contradictory. Rather than proper or improper approaches to life, they exemplify the intricacy of the human psyche. If Cervantes' romance seems at times chaotic and confused, it is precisely because the work reflects that complex, vital weave of factors that influence an individual's choices. The first variant of the prototype is the triangle Elicio-Erastro-Galatea. The triangle is a commonplace in pastoral romance, and may lead either to intense rivalry or to a sense of camaraderie. Elicio and Erastro closely resemble Montemayor's Sylvano and Sireno in that their love for the same woman does is not an obstacle to their friendship. Still, there is an essential difference between Montemayor's friendly rivals and Cervantes'. While Sylvano and Sireno are practically indistinguishable from one another, Elicio and Erastro have distinct personalities and characteristics. Elicio is subtle, elegant, refined; Erastro is crude and simple. Through them, Cervantes illustrates the universality of love as a motivating force. In La Galatea, ideals are not reserved for the well-born. As in Don Quijote, the most humble man has his dream and his goal. If Sancho Panza seeks his island to govern, so, too, does Erastro seek his Galatea to love. 177
Furthermore, just as Don Quijote and Sancho develop and change with the circumstances, so do Elicio and Erastro. Erastro becomes more refined, thereby demonstrating the Neoplatonic concept of the elevating quality of love. From the very beginning, love gives Erastro a voice and sensibility: "...aunque rustico, era, como verdadero enamorado, en las cosas del amor tan discreto, que cuando en ellas hablaba, parecia que el mismo amor se las mostraba y por su lengua proferia." (1, p. 21) Elicio, on the other hand, becomes violent and rebellious at the end of the romance, when Galatea's freedom is endangered. In both cases, love is presented in an essentially positive light, although with ambiguities. In Erastro's case, it is a force of spiritual melioration. In Elicio's, it is a source of moral strength and virility, qualities which, carried to an extreme, may lead to irrational violence. Unlike Montemayor's, Cervantes' characters cannot be defined by a single characteristic or situation. And unlike Gil Polo's, they do not change their attitudes in accordance with a simple principle of cause and effect. Rather, they are intricate and sometimes unpredictable. Each encompasses myriad possibilities. Love itself is depicted as infinitely complex, capable of elevating an individual, as in the case of Erastro, or of provoking rebellion, as in the case of his rival. Because of the obvious differences between them, Elicio and Erastro do not view themselves as equals. The Utopian egalitarianism that characterizes earlier pastorals all but disappears in La Galatea. Elicio is acutely aware of his own superiority, and because of this, "tema lastima y envidia a Erastro: lastima, en ver que al fin amaba, y en parte donde era imposible coger el fruto de sus deseos; envidia, por parecerle que quiza no era tal su entendimiento que diese lugar al alma a que sintiese los desdenes o favores de Galatea..." (I, p. 21) Elicio's attitude reveals considerable psychological complexity. On the one hand, he is content to 178
have Ergasto as his rival because he is certain that Ergasto stands no chance with Galatea. On the other, he envies his friend, because he believes him to be too stupid to feel the sting of Galatea's mocking rejection. Rather than a model courtier-lover, Elicio is a young man with a side that is petty and arrogant. Cervantes' shepherds are much closer to the complex, flesh and blood characters found in modern fiction than to the purely allegorical figures that populate early pastoral. As depicted at the beginning of the romance, Elicio is an essentially dependent character. He does not understand the nature of his freedom; he reacts rather than acts. Although he is strong-willed in his adherence to love's demands, his reactions are governed by external factors. He rejoices or despairs depending on Galatea's treatment of him. Galatea is the determining factor in his life. He serves her, but does not act independently. Because he feels his well-being to depend on Galatea, and knows her movements to be beyond his control, he feels helpless. According to El Saffar, it is by listening to the experiences of others that Elicio becomes conscious of "factors in himself that will free him from his present immobility."8 Throughout the romance, the dynamism of the interpolated stories of the essentially non-pastoral characters contrasts strikingly with the stasis of those who are psychologically trapped in the locus amoenus. Just as Elicio is shadowed by Ergasto, who functions, according to El Saffar, as his alter-ego, Galatea is shadowed by Horisa.9 Subsequent to the introduction of the primary pair, the men listen to the tales of other male characters, while the women listen to the tales of other females. Unlike in Montemayor's romance, men and women are never ''"La Galatea,"p. 348. '"LaGa/atea^'p. 348-49.
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integrated. These interpolated stories, carefully linked to one another, as Kenneth P. Allen has demonstrated,10 reflect the problems of the primary pair, Elicio-Ergasto/GalateaFlorisa. El Saffar shows that these stories are typically built around a quaternity—for example, Teolinda-Leonarda/ Artandro-Galercio —in which the two characters of the same sex are actually two aspects (ego and alter-ago) of one being.11 In her opinion, it is the inability of the characters of the interpolated stories to integrate the conscious and the unconscious that prevents them from realizing their desires. From a structural point of view, the romance is built around "an elaborate self-reflecting pattern of fours, evenly divided in male and female pairs,"12 that provides multiple variants of the initial group. The view of reality that Cervantes realizes by means of this technique is far more fragmented than if he had limited himself to pairs of characters. As friends and rivals for Galatea's affection, Elicio and Ergasto illustrate a potentially problematical relationship. It is precisely the consequences of trust ill placed that Cervantes elucidates in the first interpolated tale. If love is viewed as an undisputed good in the primary situation, love's ability to inflame the basest passions is the message of the story of Lisandro and Leonida. The obstacles that separate the lover from his loved-one are envy and a political schism between their two families. Lisandro establishes contact with Leonida through Silvia, who is loved by Crisalvo, Leonida's brother. Lisandro-Crisalvo, with its complementary pair Leonida-Silvia, constitutes a variant of the prototype. Carino, a relative of Silvia's, is a decisive factor in bringing about disaster. Carino was once an enemy of 10 "Cervantes' Galatea and the Discorso intorno al comporre del romanzi of Gkaldi Cinthio," RHM 39 (1976-1977), 52-59. u
"La Galatea,"p. 349.
12
"La Galatea" p. 352-53.
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Crisalvo's and of lisandro's brother. Now, he pretends to befriend the aspiring lovers, Lisandro and Crisalvo. He misleads the latter into believing that Silvia cares for Lisandro. Lisandro and Leonida decide to marry in a distant village without their parents' knowledge. Carino agrees to take Leonida to the village and tells Crisalvo that it is Silvia that he is going to take to be married to Lisandro. The misguided Crisalvo kills his sister, mistaking her for Silvia. Lisandro, in vengeance, kills Crisalvo and then Carino. As demonstrated in previous chapters, violence is avoided in earlier pastoral romances, although sometimes narrowly and in contrived manners. Magic, luck, or providence provides a buffer between the real world and the imaginary world envisioned by the author. In La Galatea, the buffer is absent. Unrestrained emotion erupts at every turn. In previous pastoral romances, violence is a possibility, a potentiality. In La Galatea, it is a fact. The horrible murders contrast shockingly with the pastoral ideal.13 In La Galatea, the outside world intrudes, not only metaphorically, in the form of wolves that menace the flock, but concretely, in the form of characters who are unable or unwilling to curb their destructive passions, men and women so intent on achieving their ideals that they are blind to the self-evident.14 Both Lisandro and Crisalvo propose solutions that are dubious. Lisandro resorts to deceit: he plans to marry in secret, defying the wishes of both his and his beloved's family. Crisalvo resorts to violence: he attempts to take vengeance on Silvia for her supposed disdain. Both, blinded by their desires, confide in a false friend. Common sense should warn them that Carino is untrustworthy, but the young men overlook the obvious. Like other Cervantine characters, they distort reality in accordance with their own 13 See my article, "Antiutopian Elements in the Spanish Pastoral Novel," KRQ, 26, No. 3 (1979), pp. 263-82.. 14
See Chapter I, Note 23.
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ideals and illusions. Crisalvo and Lisandro see in Carino the confidant and complice they need in order to realize their projects. It is inevitable that an individual guided only by his own perspective eventually collide with objective reality. In this case, the two lovers, blinded by passion, clash with the malice of the equally passionate Carino. The story of Teolinda and Artidoro is equally problematical. Teolinda, who once disdained love but is now enamored, is a variant of Galatea; she is a Galatea who has changed her mind. like all pastoral lovers, she encounters obstacles in her pursuit of the erotic ideal. Both bad luck and social norms contribute to her failure. While the pastoral ideal is a love that is open and guiltless, Teolinda's is imbued with a sense of impropriety. Montemayor's shepherds are obsessed with chastity, but they are nevertheless candid with regard to their feelings. The atmosphere in which Teolinda's story takes place, however, requires secrecy. Like the protagonists of Golden Age honor plays, Teolinda is obsessed with decorum. Throughout La Galatea, the atmosphere is charged with tensions created by the dictates of society, which diminishes the sense of the bucolic. In the interpolated stories, the pastoral element is minimal. Alexander Parker writes, "all the different stories could, with little modification, have appeared in a further collection of Cervantine Exemplary Novels"^ La Galatea depicts a world in which the realities of the polls not only intrude, but dominate. Teolinda functions by the very rules that pastoral is supposed to transcend. Teolinda begins her story with a villancico that states the themes:
l5
The Philosophy of Love in Spanish Literature, (Edinburgh. The Edinburgh University Press, 1985), pp. 117-118.
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En los estados de amor, nadie llega a ser perfecto, sino el honesto y el secreto. (p. 92)
While the necessity of honestidad had never been challenged in Spanish pastoral, an honest and chaste love had never required secrecy. On the contrary, feminine beauty had always been a subject for song. But in Teolinda's world, such openness is reprehensible. While love itself is seen as good, provided that it is subject to moderation and reason, a lovers' relationship is not to be publicized. Amar humana beldad suele ser reprehendido, si tal amor no es medido con razon y honestidad; y amor de tal calidad luego le alcanza, en efecto, el que es honesto y secreto. (p.92)
It is this obsession with secrecy that ultimately leads to the separation of the lovers. In reality, there is no concrete obstacle to Teolinda's and Artidoro's love for one another. The young man is willing to ask for Teolinda's hand, and she is convinced that her father will accept her suitor's petition. What Artidoro does not know is that Teolinda has a sister, Leonarda, who is almost identical to her. Through a trick of fortune, Artidoro mistakes Leonarda, who is even more obsessed with honor and secrecy than her sister, for Teolinda. Leonarda's conformity to a rigid social code of conduct makes her inflexible and narrow-minded. "Menos piadosa que advertida" (I, p. 94), she is slow to show leniency or benefit of the doubt, but quick to condemn. In addition, she is envious of her sister's new-found happiness. While she is tending Teolinda's sheep, Leonarda meets 183
Artidoro who, confusing her with her sister, treats her with great familiarity. Leonarda's description of the meeting is filled with accusations: "No se, hermana mia, lo que piense de tu honestidad, ni menos se si calle lo que no puedo dejar de decirte, por ver si me das alguna disculpa de la culpa que imagino que tienes; y aunque yo, como hermana menor, estaba obligada a hablarte con mas respecto, debes perdonarme, porque en lo que hoy he visto hallaras la disculpa de lo que te dijere." (p. 95,1)
Leonarda's insistence on culpa and disculpa serves to cast an unhealthy shadow over her sister's relationship with Artidoro. Her implication that her sister has behaved unchastely ("No se... lo que piense de tu honestidad...") provides her with an excuse to treat the young man rudely. She insinuates that Teolinda's reponses to Artidoro have been improper, and chides her sister for her supposed indecency: "respond! de la suerte que su atrevimiento merecia, y cual a mi me parecio que estabades vos, hermana, obligada a responder a quien con tanta libertad os hablara." (p. 96) Although she realizes that Artidoro has mistaken her for Teolinda, Leonarda never sets him straight, preferring to throw a wrench into the smooth-running love affair. The social code that requires secrecy and that imbues with culpability a normal, healthy relationship between two young people, serves as a tool for a jealous girl seeking to undermine her sister's success. Cervantes speaks out time and again against social conventions that hinder the realization of young love based on natural inclination. Here, he depicts an obsession with secrecy that becomes a henchman of malice. Love is never the primary force behind a maniacal preoccupation with honor. Leonarda is clearly not concerned with her sister's feelings, just as Calderon's men of honor are not concerned with the well-being of their wives. These characters are driven by their egotism and 184
willfulness. They put their social image before all other considerations, using honor as an excuse to punish those whom they—for one reason or another—perceive as a threat. In Cervantes' world, every reality is subject to diverse interpretations. An object that is a simple basin to one man is a valuable helmet to another. An old man on a rickety horse may be the incarnation of an ideal to one person and a ridiculous fool to another. And every perspective is valid to the observer. In La Galatea, woman herself is equivocal and many-faceted, subject to myriad views. Lopez Estrada has pointed out that while Neoplatonic imagery permeates La Galatea, so do allusions to the envious, unreliable nature of women. Alongside epithets such as angel, luz, and santa are melindrosa, mudable antojadiza, and fragil subjeto (en que) no se halla todas vezes el conocimiento que se deue.™ If Teolinda is the Undo dios that her name implies, then her identical sister embodies the leonine qualities implied by the name Leonarda. The two girls, easily confused with one another, represent different aspects of woman—all real, all valid, each salient from a particular point of view. In this sense Teolinda and Leonarda are one unintegrated character that illustrates the ambiguities of woman and points to the potentially devastating effects of woman-worship. The love between Artidoro and Teolinda is never realized, for, believing himself rejected, the young man leaves the village. The story concludes much later, when Leonarda tricks Artidoro into marrying her. But a union founded on a deceit cannot succeed. The marriage is an unhappy one. Harmony and joy remain unattainable illusions. Although Cervantes inherited the Renaissance view that 16 La Galatea de Cervantes (La Laguna de Tenerife: Universidad de la Laguna-Secretariado de Publicaciones, 1948), pp. 46-47.
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human love is natural and that all works of nature are inherently good, he repeatedly presents situations in which the purity of love is perverted by uncontrolled passions, exaggerated adherence to social conventions, or material concerns. Throughout the romance, the ideal remains intact. As Alexander A. Parker has written, Cervantes' view is that "one must not reject the good for fear of abusing it."17 Again and again, Cervantes' characters struggle to achieve erotic fulfillment through acceptable means, namely, a happy marriage. But like Don Quijote, they are thwarted by obstacles beyond their control or, at times, of their own making. The goal remains a worthy one. Yet, the imperfection of human existence assures that Utopia remain out of reach. Perfect love transcends the corporeal, but heterosexual human love depends on the pull of the senses. Physical beauty awakens the senses and ignites the passions, which drag man down, making him susceptible to hatred, jealousy, vengeance. The complex nature of love is the topic of innumerable Reanaissance treatises; the debate on love is, by the late sixteenth century, a convention that characterizes most pastoral romances, not only in Spain, but elsewhere.18 Cervantes elucidates his philosophy of love in Lenio's debates with Elicio and Tirsi. Lenio is a desamorado, a stock pastoral character, reminiscent of numerous other desamorados, among them Teolinda, before she fell in love with Artidoro, and Alcida, in Gil Polo's Diana enamorada. like Alcida, Lenio views love an an illusion, a projection the imagination. Lenio first pits his views against those of Elicio, who maintains that although love may depend on the imagination, it is, as much as any tangible reality, a factor in human behavior. Lenio, like Alcida before him, disdains 11
The Philosophy of Love, p. 117.
18
See, for example, Sidney, Book II, Ch. 29.
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the emotions, attaching primary importance to reason. He boasts that his approach to life is "scientific": "La que Elicio tiene es opinion... que la mia no es sino ciencia averiguada..." (1, p. 84) The debate is continued elsewhere, and the participants are not limited to two. The perspectivism evoked by the image of the broken mirror early in the the romance comes into play as the debaters express their various and contradicting opinions. In a debate with Tirsi, Lenio presents an argument against love based on logic: Love is the desire to attain perfect beauty in the Neoplatonic sense. There are two kinds of beauty, worldly and spiritual. Spiritual beauty consists of the love of virtue and of knowledge, and is good. But worldly love is sparked by physical beauty and is deleterious. Love for corporeal beauty glorifies the temporal and mortal, and is therefore merely desire. (II, p. 45) From desire, reasons Lenio, springs passion. And when man does not satisfy his passion, as is usually the case, he resorts to violence, which results in incalculable misery. But even when lovers do find gratification, the outcome is negative, for, driven by desire, they abandon reason and lose all sense of moderation. Oblivious to everything that is unrelated to their love, they are neglectful and irresponsible. Finally, they become obsessed with suspicion and controlled by jealousy. (II, pp. 49-50) Like Gil Polo's Alcida, Lenio is naif because he underestimates the power of the emotions. He assumes that passion is easily conquered by reason, that one can control one's inclinations simply by wanting to do so. Ironically, Lenio later falls madly in love, not—as in the case of Alcida—as the result of any change in circumstance, but because he is, like all men and women, a complex being in which passion and reason both play an undeniable role. Like other characters in La Galatea, Lenio had thought to mold reality in accordance with certain preconceived 187
notions. He had chosen not to love, like Lisandro and Crisalvo, he had tried to force reality. Lisandro had opted to realize his objective through deceit and Crisalvo had resorted to violence. Although the circumstances are different in each case, all three young men attempt to impose their wills, and all three meet with failure. Lisandro and Crisalvo run up against fortune and the malice of others. Lenio falls victim to his own passions. As in other Cervantine works, the characters in La Galatea attempt constantly to shape the world according to their own desires and illusions, only to clash head-on with the myriad realities that comprise human experience. Lenio, like his companions, must face the truth that escapes him until he himself becomes enamored: reality is not so malleable that it can be molded at will. In his answer to Lenio's attack on love, Tirsi reiterates the tenets of Neoplatonism. He argues that love and desire are not the same, but that love engenders desire. Love, he maintains, can be honest, useful, or delectable. Love of God is honest; love of worldly goods is useful; erotic love is delectable. Furthermore, love elevates and purifies the soul, for love of womanly beauty guides the soul toward the perfect Beauty, which is God, since individual human beauty is a reflection of divine beauty. While Lenio denies the passions, Tirsi extoles them, yet recognizes that they must be controlled and directed properly. Tirsi assumes man's ability to restrain his appetite. His description of love excludes unbridled lust, which he views as alien to love. He overlooks the possessiveness and sense of vulnerability that often accompany affection. Tirsi is as naif as Lenio, for his view is totally Utopian. A conventional Neoplatonist, he conceives of love as a purely edifying, elevating experience. And yet, there is no example of a perfect love relationship in La Galatea. Lenio and Tirsi view love from diametrically opposed 188
perspectives. Both are partially right, but both are partially wrong. To view amorous inclination as a debasing force is to overlook the spiritual aspects of love; to view it as a totally purifying force is to understate the readily observable destructive aspects of passion, which, although extraneous to the Neoplatonic scheme, nevertheless come into play in human relationships. The type of perspectivism or fragmentation of reality illustrated by Lenio and Tirsi is, as has been demonstrated, already discernible in works by Sannazaro and Gil Polo. In La Galatea, it acquires a special significance in view of Cervantes' antiutopianism. In the shepherds' perspectivism and in the constant clashes between individual will and uncontrollable realities that characterize every episode of La Galatea lie the seeds of Don Quijote. The Neoplatonic arguments and juxtaposed examples of emotion run awry run in counterpoint throughout La Galatea, the examples of unrestrained passion ultimately eroding—although never destroying—the visionary core. In a thought-provoking analysis of the pastoral episodes in Don Quijote, Javier Herrero writes. "It is my contention that Cervantes' pastoral episodes in the Quijote aim to attack a view of love which seems to him to be characteristic both of the versions of Arcadia that Renaissance art had produced, and of the books of Chivalry, which he saw as partaking of the same corrupted and corrupting sentimental tradition. Such passion, for Cervantes, is diabolical. The god of love who reigns over Arcadia is a cruel tyrant who leads his followers to unbearable torments, to despair and, finally, to death and damnation. Under the smiling appearance of a pastoral paradise hide the burning flames of Hell."19 In La Galatea this negative view of sentimental love is not yet as clearly articulated as it will be in Don Quijote, Yet, the 19
"Arcadia's Inferno: Cervantes' Attack on Pastoral," BHS, 55 (1978) 289-299. (Quote on p. 289.)
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seeds are clearly there. In none of the literary Arcadias that we have examined are the characters actually happy. But rather than allowing his characters to languish passively in an Arcadian hell where they burn with desire, Cervantes imbues them with free will, allowing them to act on their passion. By creating characters that consciously strive to realize their goals, he permits the violence inherent in all pastoral to be carried to its utmost extreme. Cervantes undermines conventional pastoral by presenting multiple, contradictory concepts of love rather a monolithic sentimental or Neoplatonic focus. Cervantes' shepherds tend to view love as their destiny, but, unlike for Montemayor's characters, it is not a destiny to be passively accepted, but, rather, to be actively realized or denied. While Montemayor's shepherds are will-less, Cervantes' are willful. They use the same words to refer to love Calderon's characters will use, half a century later, to refer to honor: "jOh rigoroso hado!", "infelice hado", "inexorable estrella", "fuerza injusta", "fatal estrella", "implacables hados". Like honor in seventeenth-century Spanish drama, love is a constant, an absolute that provokes varying types of behavior. It is a catalyst that allows the author to explore diverse aspects of the human psyche. Love is the motivating force, the goal that sometimes incites the protagonists to heroic stances and sometimes, to perfidious acts of treachery. Love appeals to reason or renders lovers irrational, purifies the spirit or clouds the mind. But whatever the shepherds' reactions to what they believe to be their fate, none attains the ideal: a perfectly harmonious union with the loved-one. Obstacles inevitably appear. The atmosphere of La Galatea is that of a shattered Utopia. A sense of tragedy permeates the romance. The combination of prose and verse contributes to the interplay of ideal and real. Songs sung whenever a character appears or returns constitute the divisions that mark the 190
progress of the narrative.20 The poetic interludes express either desamor or a refined image of idealized love. The moments of intense sublimation are often followed by violent scenes that constrast dramatically with the projections of harmony. For example, Elicio's and Erastro's songs are followed by the terrible description of the deaths of Leonida and Crisalvo. The songs of Tirsi, Damon, Elicio, and Silerio are followed by another abrupt change of ambiance. Silerio, who has just joined the group, begins a new story, shifting the scene to Jerez, where Timbrio and he have had a run-in with the law. Close friends, the two young men display an extraordinary willingness to make sacrifices for each other.21 The contrast between the bucolic, elegant, refined tableaux and the scenes of violence that characterize Silerio's story intensify Cervantes' perspectivism and emphasize the power of passion. Perfection remains always beyond reach precisely because passion is inherent to love, and passion leads to turmoil. Here, as in other episodes, Cervantes shows that both violent passion and refined idealism are part of the human spkit, in spite of their apparent incompatibility. Friendship is a major Renaissance theme. Cervantes portrays several pairs of friends in La Galatea. The depiction of one human reality from several angles and with diverse variants is precisely the hallmark of Cervantes' perspectivism. Timbrio and Silerio do not display the same inequality as Elicio and Ergasto, nor do they handle their rivalry in the same way. Fleeing from the law, Timbrio and Silerio escape to Naples, where Timbrio falls in love with Nisida. Silerio falls in love with the same woman, but 20
See Parker, The Philosophy of Love, p. 117.
21
The story of the "two friends" has its origins in medieval and Renaissance Spanish and Italian literature. For a detailed discussion of the subject, see Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce, "El cuento de los dos amigos," in Nuevos deslindescervantinos (Barcelona: Ariel, 1975).
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decides to sacrifice his love to friendship and to woo her for Timbrio. Just when a satisfactory conclusion appears possible, a misunderstanding occurs, and all the characters are separated. When at last they are reunited by a new trick of fortune, Timbrio courts Nisida and Silerio settles for Blanca, her younger sister. This is one of the few episodes that ends relatively well. Ruth El Saffar suggests that this is because the two male characters—ego and alter-ego—have managed to achieve the kind of integration between the conscious and the unconscious that is lacking in other pairs.22 Self-restraint and sacrifice do make possible a partial solution. Yet the problem is not really solved. One friend wins the prize; the other loses it. Amity has required self-denial and one of the two friends has had to settle for second best. Perfection remains an unattainable ideal. In the story of Mireno and Silveria, the obstacle is money. Poverty prevents Mireno from realizing his love for Silveria, whose father has destined her to marry Daranio, a wealthy man. Cervantes not only allows social and economic realities to intrude into the world of pastoral, but engages in overt social criticism. The tale serves to condemn meddling, authoritarian parents who put their own purposes before their children's well-being. Here, as elsewhere, passion undermines the ideal. In this episode, however, it is not lust but avarice that interferes with the attainment of happiness. The greed of Silveria's parents blinds them. They abuse filial obligation, converting it into a tool to manipulate their daughter. Mireno is unable to combat their opposition successfully. Silveria accedes to her parents' demands, rebuffing the man she loves and marrying another. Elicio suggests to Mireno that he continue to love Silveria after her marriage, a solution compatible with the Neoplatonic scheme. But if Montemayor's Sylvano and Sireno are content to adore Diana after her father gives her
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to Delio, Mireno is unwilling to admire Silveria at a distance. It is a refined, yet consummated love he craves. He is not content to suffer the pains of separation forever, nor does he speak of erotic anguish as a purifying experience. He does not seek death, but life: harmony and happiness through marriage and procreation. Episodes like this one show that in spite of its Neoplatonic trappings, La Galatea does not express the outlook of the Neoplatonists, but that of the Christian humanists, such as Erasmus, who stress the joy and fulfillment of conjugal love.23 Mireno lives in the real world, in which interminable clashes of will assure that harmony is never achieved. Like others of Cervantes' pastoral characters, he actively pursues his goal, only to collide with external forces. The unhappy Mireno laments the lack of constancy of women. He cannot help loving his lost Silveria, yet he rejects the Neoplatonic solution, for a life of passive longing for a lost cause provides no satisfaction. It is not some distant erotic paradise that he craves, but happiness in the here and now. More than any previous pastoral characters, Cervantes' shepherds are flesh and blood men and women who seek tangible, rather than poetic solutions to their problems. The focus of their amorous endeavors is marriage and family, not pleasurable yearning. But in the material world, where money, greed, and parental authority are factors, Utopia is unattainable. Mireno's predicament is left unresolved. The next situations shift to the theoretical. Presented in the form of a debate, the problem is to determine what is worse, to endure the death of a loved-one (Orompo-Listea), to be consumed by jealousy (Orfenio-Eandra), to be separated from one's loved-one (Crisio-Claraura), or to be 23
For an excellent summary of Erasmus' views on the dignity of marriage, see Alban Forcione's Cervantes and the Humanist Vision: A Study of Four Exemplary Novels, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), pp. 96-113. Forcione demonstrates that Cervantes shared Erasmus' attitudes toward marriage and that Erasmus' colloquy on courtship is at that center of Cervantes' exemplary novel La Gitanilla.
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disdained (Marsilio-Belisa). Jennifer Lowe relates this segment to the Italian questioni and believes that the first half of La Galatea is structured around a series of unstated cuestiones de amor.2/^ Kenneth P. Allen suggest that the basic unit of structure is the queja de amor, and that the romance is built around four specific complaints identified by the key words muerte, desden, ausencia, and celos—the themes of the contest in which Orompo, Orfenio, Crisio, and Marsilio participate. Both because of its location in the center of the work and the nature of the topics, Allen sees the contest as the crux of the romance.25 The dilemmas of the lovers are those that characterize Spanish pastoral from the Eclogues of Garcilaso, but Cervantes' approach is unconventional. Orompo, whose lovedone is dead, is faced with a permanent loss of hope. The ideal he sought can be realized only on earth. Unlike in Garcilaso's third Eclogue, there is no projection here of an erotic paradise to be reached after death. Furthermore, Orompo neither resigns himself to his loss nor expresses a willingness to profit spiritually from his experience. He does not find suffering sweet. Rather, his words reveal furor: Salid de lo hondo del pecho cuitado, palabras sangrientas, con muerte mezcladas; y si los sospkos os tienen atadas, abrid y romped el siniestro costado. El aire os impide, que esta ya inflamado del fiero veneno de vuestros accentos; salid, y siquiera os lleven los vientos, que todo mi bien tambien me nan llevado. (I, p. 205) 24
"The cuestion de amorsuid the Structure of Cervantes' Galatea, BHS, 43 (1966), 98-108.
25
"Cervantes' Galatea"; On the structure of La Galatea, see Joaquin Casalduero, "La Galatea" in Suma Cervantina, ed. Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce and E.G. Riley (London: Tamesis, 1972), pp. 27-46. Casalduero points out that while Montemayor's romance contains seven books and therefore has a center, Cervantes' contains only six, and therefore, does not. See also Joaquin Casalduero, "Cervantes rechaza la pastoril y no acepta la picaresca," BHS, 61 (1984) 283-285.
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What Orompo expresses is not the pleasurable agony of longing, but a pain so profound that it surges up from the very gut of the lover. These are palabras sangrientas—not sones dukes—that inflame and poison the air. The shepherd-poet seeks death as a welcome relief: De mi que te busco, te escondes y ausentas, y quieres y trabas razones y cuentas con el que mas teme tus males tamahos. (I, p. 206)
But the focus here is not on death as alleviation from pain, but on the injustice of death, which struck down a beautiful woman in the flower of youth. Death is depicted as cold and authoritarian. The finality of death throws Orompo into a state of despair, for, unlike his companions, he cannot hope for a change of circumstances that will bring his lover back. There is no Christian optimism in his attitude: Ni espero en fortuna, ni espero en el hado ni espero en el tiempo, ni espero en el cielo, ni tengo de quien espere consuelo, ni es bien que se espere en mal tan sobrado. (I, p. 207)
Crisio, separated geographically from his loved-one, compares absence with death. His verses, like Orompo's, are filled with violent images. Separation is tormento, dura pena, furor violento, violento... rigor. Like Orompo, he expresses no sense of resignation, but laments that his canto lastimero cannot give his audience pleasure. Marsilio, who suffers from desden, complains that his inability to bend Belisa's will is cause for grief that cannot be equalled. He sees her inflexibility as a cruel fate: Mi duro amargo hado, mi inexorable estrella, mi voluntad, que todo lo consiente, me tienencondenado. (I, p. 209)
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Like Cervantes' other shepherds, Marsilio is willful; it is precisely his own will, which consents to his love and actively seeks satisfaction, that combines with Belisa's disdain to condemn him. The jealous Orfenio, like the honor heroes of Golden Age theater whom he resembles, is overwhelmed by his circumstances. Unable to cope with his obsession, he surrenders to passions that cause him to destroy not only himself, but also the woman he loves, thereby annihilating by his own hand every possibility of realizing the happiness he so desperately seeks. The question is answered unequivocably. The lover who suffers most is the one crazed with jealousy. Orompo, Crisio, and Marsilio all endure pain, but it is Orfenio whose situation is the most desperate. Crisio is the least unfortunate, for he can hope to be reunited with his loved-one, while Orompo must live with no hope. Marsilio, although disdained, is elevated by love. But Orfenio neither enjoys love nor entertains hope. He is dominated by uncontrolled passions. He is a victim of his own imagination, which torments him incessantly. He invents justifications for his mindless rantings. He destroys harmony and prevents peace. But it does not follow that the one who suffers the most loves the most. Orfenio's violent jealousy is a manifestation of his selfishness, not his love, for, dominated by a desire to possess, the jealous lover torments his loved-one, accusing her incessantly and thereby alienating her. Cervantes depicts jealousy as an incurable illness, for the antidote is inadmissible to the patient: "...con las disculpas que le dan, piensa que le enganan. Y no habiendo para la enfermedad de los celos otra medicina que las disculpas, y no queriendo el enfermo celoso admitirlas, siguese que esta enfermedad es sin remedio, y que a todas las demas debe entreponerse. Y asi, es mi parecer que Orflnio es el
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mas penado, pero no el mas enamorado, porque no son los celos sehales de mucho amor, sino de mucha curiosidad impertinente; y si son sehales de amor, es como la calentura en el hombre enfermo, que el tenerla es sehal de tener vida, pero vida enferma y mal dispuesta, y asi el enamorado celoso tiene amor, mas es amor enfermo y mal acondicionado." (I, p. 230)
As in Don Quijote, the author characterizes jealousy as "impertinent curiosity" that drives the obsessed lover to test his relationship until he destroys it. Rather than striving to please his loved-one, the jealous lover looks for reasons to accuse her. He thrusts temptation before her, then finds motives to criticize her reaction. Such behavior is bound not only to displease her, but to provoke the very situation that the jealous lover fears. If such a lover is duped by his wife, Cervantes implies, he has only himself to blame.26 In comparison with the jealous lover, Cervantes depicts the good lover as generous and solicitous. While he may be cautious, he must exercise self-control, rather than yield to rage when suspicion ranckles. "Teme y tema el buen enamorado las mudanzas de los tiempos, de las nuevas ocasiones que en su daho podrian ofrecerse, de que con brevedad no se acabe el dichoso estado que goza, y este temor ha de ser tan secreto que no le saiga a la lengua para deckle, ni aun a los ojos para significarle; y hace tan contraries efectos este temor del que los celos hacen en los pechos enamorados, que cria en ellos nuevos deseos de acrecentar mas el amor, si pudiesen, de procurar con tal solicitud que los ojos de su amada no vean en ellos cosa que no sea digna de alabada." (I, p. 231)
Such behavior will reinforce the bond between lovers, causing the loved-one to cleave to the man whose gentleness she appreciates. 26
Cer Cervantes treats the same theme in Persiles, Book III, Chapter XIX.
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The debate provides an excellent vehicle for Cervantes' perspectivism. Through it, the author demonstrates the complexity of love. In the case of Crisio, love fosters hope, while in the case of Orompo, it causes hopelessness. It refines and elevates in the case of Marsilio; it debases and destroys in the case of Orfenio. The obstacles that separate the individual from his ideal are also infinitely variable. Of the four mentioned here, two are material and two psychological. The material obstacles are geographical (separation) and biological (death). The two psychological obstacles depend on the emotion of another (disdain) and on one's own passion (jealousy). The poetic interlude, situated at the heart of the romance, undermines pastoral in two ways. First, the conclusion of the debate challenges the notion that a lover is necessarily elevated by suffering, since the jealous lover, who is, precisely, he who suffers most, is tainted rather than purified by his passion. Second, as Mary Gaylord Randel points out, the debate throws into question the very efficacy of poetry to communicate sentiment.27 Pastoral is not so much about love as about the expression of love. One objective of pastoral is to articulate profound sentiments in refined language. Yet, another objective is to achieve the natural. Herein lies a contradiction. Can authentic, natural feelings be expressed in eloquent language? Orfenio rejects eloquence in favor of truthfulness. "The indictment of refined speech," writes Randel, "—whether through distrust of its excess expressive capacity or through the agonizing realization of its insufficiency—is nothing less than an indictment of pastoral as a whole."28 Ultimately, the 27
"The Language of Limits and the Limits of Language: The Crisis of Poetry in La Galatea," MLN, 97 (1982), 254-271- See also Alban Fordone, "Language: Divine or Diabolical Gift," in Cervantes and the Mystery of Lawlessness (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 187-236. 28
"The Language of Limits," p. 259-
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debate is decided more on the poetic merits of the arguments than on the facts. And yet, poetic speech cannot be counted on to express profound sentiment. The problem of language, like every other human reality that Cervantes explores in La Galatea, is multifaceted and contradictory. Cervantes utilizes the numerous conventions common to Renaissance love literature not to create a Utopian model, but to show the complexities of the mind. If he works within the pastoral mold at all, it is to press the genre to the limits, using it as a vehicle to explore the infinite variables that weave the fabric of human existence. The story of Rosaura and Grisaldo serves to illustrate further the dangers of unbridled egotism and needless delving. The pretentious young Rosaura, certain of Grisaldo's love, yet wanting to put it to the test, pretends to favor Artandro. Grisaldo, believing himself disdained, yields to his father's desire that he marry Leopersia. Rosaura recognizes her error, and asks her lover's forgiveness. The young man decides to oppose his father and marry her. It seems that for once an individual has managed to defy the obstacles and to achieve happiness through the exercise of his will. But "ninguno de los humanos se escapa de los golpes de la invariable fortuna." (II, p. 44) An opposing will thwarts Grisaldo's realization of a personal Utopia. Artandro kidnaps Rosaura. The diverse reactions to the situation illustrate still once again Cervantes' perspectivism. Each observer expresses a different point of view. Elicio describes the kidnapping as a perfidious treason. Others argue that Artandro was justified, since Rosaura had promised to marry him. Galatea exonerates him at least partially, since his decision was inspired by love. Erastro, the least refined of the group, views the kidnapping as an act of great valor. Through discussions such as this one, Cervantes demonstrates that any act may be perceived as condemnable or commendable. 199
like Don Quijote, each of Cervantes' shepherds views the world in accordance with his own notions and values. What this discussion illustrates is not the justifiability (or lack thereof) of Artandro's deed, but the intricate interplay of passion and reason that determines not only our acts but our perception of the behavior of others. Man neither performs nor judges by reason alone. Cervantes does not condemn the passions, but illustrates how they function in diverse situations. He shows that the passions form an integral part of the human personality, and, while they must not be allowed to dominate the will, neither can they be disregarded. The passions influence both heroic and perfidious acts. Grisaldo, like his rival Artandro, is a willful, passionate young man. He had thought to make his own future. But he is a victim of bad fortune, Rosaura's impertinent curiosity, his father's authority, his own initial willingness to succumb to that authority, and Artandro's cunning. The lovers are separated, and the situation is left unresolved. In the fourth book of La Galatea, Lauso, introduced in Book III, illustrates life's interminable fluctuations.29 Since the only constant is change, Cervantes' characters are never permanently immobile. Lauso is the opposite of Lenio, who passes to an amorous state from a state of desamor. Disillusioned by love, Lauso first concludes from experience that love is temporal and, consequently, a deceit. He observes that fortune, who smiles and frowns unpredictably, can convert love, like all other worldly pleasures, into unhappiness. Just as Lenio learned 29
There have been several attempts to interpret La Galatea as a roman a c/
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from experience, so does Lauso. Here again, Cervantes illustrates through different characters that all human reality is multifaceted. Experience can cause both hope and despair. Experience causes the shepherd-lovers to revise their attitudes toward love repeatedly. And yet, experience provides no absolute solutions. In spite of their ample experience in love and their extensive philosophizing on the subject, no character articulates one, universally valid approach. Lauso finds a solution that at least seems to be adequate for him; he is highly satisfied with his state ofdesamor. Yet, he rejects the negativism of the fourth book for optimism and hope when he falls in love once again in the fifth. Lauso recognizes that passion cannot be made subservient to the will. He cannot simply decide not to experience love. The discovery of the limitations of the will is not a cause for woe. On the contrary, Lauso recognizes that his new state of mind is as worthy as his former one. The same Lauso who condemned the art and artifice of love now sings: Alzo la vista a la mas noble parte que puede imaginar el pensamiento, donde miro el valor, admiro el arte que suspende el mas alto entendimiento. (II, p. 124)
Yet, shortly afterward, Lauso announces that once again he is "libre y senor de mi voluntad." (II, p. 150) He has (once again) learned his lesson and (once again) abandoned love. Tirsi warns him that the situation may change, but Lauso is certain of his ability to control his will. It is typical of Cervantes' characters that they never really learn from experience. Just as Don Quijote, after experimenting with his armor and finding it to be unworthy of battle, discards the experiments and not the plate, Lauso disregards the lesson he might have learned regarding the mutability of circumstance. like Don Quijote, 201
he rejects the evidence and imposes his own views on objective reality. The extremes to which passion can drive obsessed lovers is brought home by the story of Galercio and Gelasia, one of the most disconcerting episodes in La Galatea. Galercio, who had been in love formerly with Leonarda, falls in love with Gelasia, a hard-hearted girl, as glacial as her name implies. Unable to sway her, the desperate young man tries to commit suicide. This violent act of self-destruction occurs just after the appearance of Caliope, who eulogizes Spain's great poets while the shepherds sing of the glories and pains of love. The idealization of love expressed in the poetic interlude contrasts dramatically with Galercio's attempted suicide. Characters in previous pastoral romances compare the pains of love with death or yearn for death as a release from the anguish caused by unrequited love, but in those works death has a poetic function. Even in Sannazaro's Arcadia and Gil Polo's Diana enamorada, in which some characters are truly morbid and even threaten suicide, no shepherd actually tries to kill himself. But mLa Galatea, Cervantes carries the possibilities to thek logical extreme.30 The metaphor becomes a reality, poetic language becomes literal. "To die of love" signifies a tangible loss of life. Galercio quite literally risks "dying for Gelasia." Galercio's attempted suicide exemplifies more than any other episode the underlying violence that permeates all of Cervantes' romance. When passion controls the will, turmoil 30 In Don Quijote, the shepherd Crisostomo, who is spurned by Marcela, carries these implications even further. For a discussion of the significance of Crisostomo's suicide, see Javier Herrero, "Arcadia's Inferno." On death in La Galatea, see the following articles by Bruno M. Damiani: "Symbolism in Cervantes' Galatea" Romanistisches Jahrbuch, 34 (1983), 287-307; "The Rhetoric of Death in La Galatea," in La Galatea de Cervantes: Cuatrocientos anos Jespues, ed. Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce (Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta, 1985); "Death in Cervantes Galatea, Cervantes, 4 (1984) 53-78; " 'Amor' as a God of Death: Love-Death Symbiosis in Cervantes' Galatea" in Studies in Honor of William C. McCreary, ed. R. Fiore, E. Hesse, J. Keller, and A. Madrigal (University of Nebraska: Society of Spanish and Spanish American Studies, 1985).
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ensues, and yet, as Cervantes demonstrates over and over again, heterosexual love cannot be divorced from passion. Unlike in earlier pastoral romances, in La Galatea, the extremes to which passion can drive an individual are not avoided through the intervention of a benevolent providence or by magic. In La Galatea, there are no facile solutions. Violence erupts at every turn. Cervantes' pastoral characters live in the real world of human emotions. Once the buffers provided by literary convention are removed, death looms imminent. La Galatea is a first step towards Don Quijote, in which characters collide repeatedly with objective reality. Denuding the literary landscape of sortilege, Cervantes allows human passion to run its course. Without the protection normally afforded by romance—be it chivalric or pastoral — , characters rush headlong into situations that leave them battered, even dead. In Don Quijote, in which Cervantes abandons all adherence to the limitations of genre, there are no heroes who emerge unscathed from the experiences of life. The shepherd Crisostomo, spurned by Marcela, actually does commit suicide. Javier Herrero views this episode as one of Cervantes' strongest condemnations of courtly love.31 Suicide fascinated Cervantes. Seen as a sublime affirmation of the collective will, suicide is an act of heroism in El Cerco de Numancia. Seen as a manifestation of despair, it is an act of cowardice. In El rufian dichoso, the priest admonishes: En dos pecados se ha visto, que Judas quiso extremarse, y fue el mayor ahorcarse que el haber vendido a Cristo. (1924-1927)32
31
"Arcadia's Inferno."
32
El'rufian dichoso, ed. Edward Nagy (New York: Las Americas, 1968), p. 72.
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In Cervantes' poetic world, there are no absolutes. Every reality is viewed from diverse perspectives. Every reality is subject to interpretation. In the cases of both Galercio and Grisostomo, suicide is the tragic consequence—possible or real—of the relinquishment of common sense to the demands of an idealized love. It is a variant of the original prototype in which the self-destructive potential of such a love is galvanized and allowed or nearly allowed to run its full course. Another variant of the original prototype corresponds to a favorite Cervantine theme: the December-May love affair, broached in the story of Arsindo, enamored of Maurisa, Galercio's younger sister. The obstacle here is biological. Although Cervantes mocks the lack of vigor of the older lover in El celoso extremeno and El vie jo celoso, in La Galatea, he neither praises nor reproaches. Cervantes' vie')''os enamorados are at the same time silly and pathetic, idealistic and egotistical. Cervantes expresses a compassionate attitude toward human folly throughout his work. In El amante liberal, for example, he does not ridicule the old Turk who falls in love with Leonisa, although the situation could easily provide material for a farce. At the end of the story the sad old Turk, bereft of his beloved Halima, elicits pity, not ridicule. The fact that Cervantes fails to condemn completely a man who in an act of passion shows himself to be capable of killing his wife and kidnapping a young woman, reveals the author's extraordinary comprehension of the complexities of the human soul. In La Galatea, the story of Arsindo and Maurisa is not developed, but merely suggests one more variation on the theme of obstacle-ridden love. Toward the end of the fifth book, Galatea herself once again becomes the central figure. Throughout the romance, Galatea stands as a symbol of the unattainable ideal. Like Montemayor's Diana, she is, during most of the 204
work, more a presence than an actor. Her spirit permeates the romance, providing both unity and a sense of purpose. Like Diana, she acquires flesh when a parent intervenes to change her civil state, and thereby her symbolic nature with regard to the other characters in the book. Her new circumstances trigger a reaction, converting Galatea into a renitent force. Familial obligations and social norms oppose Galatea's desire to be free. When her father insists that she marry a Portuguese gentleman against her will, Galatea, in desperation, writes to Elicio, who organizes a rebellion against Aurelio, Galatea's father. Depicted from the beginning as refined and self-controlled—a paragon of Renaissance virtue — , Elicio now has recourse to violence. Circumstances have altered the young man's outlook. Unlike Montemayor's Sylvano and Sireno, he is not content to yield before the obstacle or to accept what he perceives as an act of injustice. like other Cervantine characters, he is willful and self-determined. If in the early pages of the romance he displayed passive characteristics, now, with Galatea in danger, other aspects of his personality come into focus. He actively pursues his ideal, rebelling openly against the social order that gives a father the right to marry his daughter to whomever he chooses, like Don Quijote, Elicio strives to impose a new, more equitable order, in accordance with his own world view. The episode is left unconcluded. Cervantes never finished La Galatea, in spite of repeated promises to do so. A careful examination of the work as a whole will shed some light on why. La Galatea makes a full circle, starting and ending with the same prototypical couple. Unintegrated at the beginning, both Elicio and Galatea have managed, by the final pages, to achieve a certain completeness. The active and the passive, the conscious and the unconscious have 205
fused to create whole characters who are finally aware of their ability to exercise their wills. Galatea and Elicio, by opposing Aurelio, have embarked on the same journey out of the mental landscape of Arcadia that the characters of the interpolated stories have already begun. They have freed themselves of the immobility that characterizes the devotees of pastoral love. What will be the outcome? The possibilities, as Cervantes has shown through the interpolated stories, are endless. The open-ended nature of La Galatea is intrinsic to the very nature of the work. like Don Quijote, La Galatea is an indagation into the problem of the individual in search of his personal ideal. Each pastoral character strives toward an ideal of erotic harmony, and each elects a different course of action. Some wait, some have recourse to deceit, some choose to reject love. But none finds a completely satisfactory solution. And still, the goal never loses its allure. Even when one solution proves ineffective, the individual tries another, or else, simply rejects his negative experience as invalid. Each pastoral character reacts according to his particular circumstances and all are capable of change. In this sense, each character is potentially any other character. All the shepherds confront different obstacles, but all tell the same story, not only from different points of view, but also from different points in time. The shepherd who is lovelorn and optimistic may later become a desamorado; the disillusioned shepherd may regain his hope; the hopeful shepherd may become disillusioned, desperate, even violent or suicidal. The role of lover—like all of life's situations—encompasses infinite possibilities, infinite subroles. Cervantes does not completely develop any of his pastoral characters, but as a totality, his shepherds portray the complexities of the human mind and heart more 206
accurately than those of any previous pastoral romance. While they are not full-fledged novelistic characters, neither are they mere allegories. Existing, as they do, in a fixed context, they are subject to one principal catalyst — love—and therefore lack the psychological depth of modern fictional creations. Yet, they embody many of the paradoxes of the human personality. Their independence and sense of self-determination endow them with credibility. Yet, in La Galatea, it is still the idea, not the character, that matters. More than any one character, two main concepts dominate La Galatea: the power of eros as a motivating force and the unattainability of the erotic ideal. If Cervantes failed to finish La Galatea, it is because life offers no definitive solutions. As Joaquin Casalduero has pointed out, Cervantes rejected the fixed mold established by Montemayor, creating a work characterized by structural and contextual disorder, a work without an axis and without a clearly-defined focus.33 Already, in La Galatea, Cervantes depicts life in all its magnificent chaos. The prototype and most of the interpolated stories, as well, are left unconcluded because life is flux. Growth and change are intrinsic to the human condition. The story of a man's life concludes only when his life concludes. Once again, it is to Don Quijote that we must look for a clearer articulation of Cervantes' views. Toward the end of the work, the knight of La Mancha and his squire meet an illustrious group of gentlemen and gentlewomen who are playing at being shepherds, "formando entre todos una nueva y pastoril Arcadia." (II, p. 958) Living in a world of their own invention, they spend the day acting out Garcilaso's eclogues and indulging in social niceties, secure that "en este sitio no ha de entrar la pesadumbre ni la 33
"La Galatea."
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melancolia." (II, p. 959) These noblemen-shepherds retire from the real world to a mythical world of perfection that they deliberately contrive for their own pleasure. Predictably, the atmosphere is suddenly disrupted by an argument between Sancho and Don Quijote, followed by a misadventure in which these two are overrun by a herd of bulls. The Arcadia fingida is a key episode, for it summarizes Cervantes' antiutopian views. In real life, emotions, conflicting objectives, social conventions, chance happenings, biological factors, even meterological conditions present obstacles to the realization of perfect harmony. As the individual strives for his ideal, he must necessarily contend with adverse circumstances. And yet, it is the striving that gives form and sense to his existence. The image of Elicio, transformed at the end of the romance into an energetic young rebel, is dynamic and exciting. The fact that perfection is out of reach does not make the struggle less worthwhile. By the end of the novel, Don Quijote has come to realize that the world is not as he had imagined it, that he is not a knight errant, and that his attempt to establish Utopia has failed. As in La Galatea, the pastoral interludes in Don Quijote all conclude imperfectly. Grisostomo dies. Dorotea marries Don Fernando, but with the knowledge that he has already betrayed her for another woman. Anselmo and Eugenio are separated from Leandra. Basilio marries Quiteria, but against the wishes of her family. Nowhere in these episodes is perfection achieved, for perfection is not within the realm of human possibility. In this sense, every Arcadia is "fingida o contrahecha." (II, p. 963) La Galatea, too, offers a vision of a never-achieved Utopia. Occasionally, as in earlier pastoral novels, there is a note of rural realism—an outdoor feast with country wines 208
and cheeses. Occasionally, a shepherd shows an interest in his flocks. At times the language is direct and simple. In one passage reminiscent of Antonio de Guevara, Timbrio compares healthy life in the country with the corruption of the court. Still, in spite of these bucolic details, the locus amoenus of La Galatea is that Qi&fingida Arcadia. In life, there are no absolute solutions. That is, perhaps, why Cervantes wrote a lifetime without ever finishing L# Galatea.
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Chapter VI Lope de Vega's Arcadia: A Step Toward the Modern Novel Lope de Vega's Aradia, published in 1598, represents a significant step toward the development of modern novelistic techniques in a pastoral setting. Unlike earlier pastoral novels, La Arcadia does not consist of a number of loosely interwoven love stories, but instead revolves around a sole pair of lovers, Anfriso and Belisarda. In earlier Spanish pastoral romances, each of the principal characters comes foward and tells his own story. This multiplot structure is reminiscent of Byzantine narrative, in which a series of separate stories is bound together by one or several narrators who tells them for the amusement or instruction of another person. Lope does not break completely with the multiplot structure, but rather manipulates it so that the reader's attention is focused throughout on one primary set of characters. The secondary characters—the numerous shepherds and shepherdesses and the mythological character Alasto, whose tale is presented as a separate, interposed fiction—shadow Anfriso and Belisarda.1 Their tales have to do with the same issues as that of the primary characters: free will, the responsibility of the individual, imagination, jealousy, false or misguided friends. Yet, these stories are 1 Rafael Osuna counts nearly a hundred minor characters. He views this amassment negatively, commenting that "tanto nombre despersonificado forma un laberinto onomastico que oculta los de importancia." La Arcadia de Lope de Vega, (Madrid: Anejos del Boletin de la Real AcademiaEspanola, 1972), XXXVI, 237-38.
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never fully developed.2 They are mentioned in passing, almost as though they were illustrations of the points being made in the primary plot. This simplified structure enables Lope to develop a small number of characters in greater depth than had been done previously in a pastoral romance.3 Like Sannazaro's Arcadia and Montemayor's Diana, Lope's work is a roman a clef. The author invites the reader to guess the identity of his characters when he writes, "Y que pudo dar una Vega tan esteril que no fuesen pastores rudos? Que asi lo pareceran a quien los imaginare mios, sin penetrar el alma de sus duenos." (p. 56)4 Modern critics have gone to great lengths to demonstrate that the protagonist Anfriso is the pastoral representation of Don Antonio Alvarez de Toledo, fifth Duke of Alba. Rafael Osuna5, Alda Croce6, Joaquin de Entrambasaguas7, Karl Vossler8, and Alan Trueblood9 have all insisted, to a greater or lesser degree, on the connection between the Duke and Anfriso, although Osuna argues that the plot of Lope's Arcadia is nearly all invention and not biography. Osuna establishes that the tone of desengano and the somber mood of the latter part of the narrative reflect the sentiments of Lope himself, who had, prior to writing La Arcadia, , suffered several adversities.10 2
This is precisely one of the criticisms that Osuna makes of Lope's Arcadia. See "La originalidad de Lope," in La Arcadia, pp. 230-43. 3
Osuna argues that by reducing the number of characters, Lope deprives his work of dynamism. La Arcadia, p. 2 3 Off. Quotations are from La Arcadia, ed. Edwin S. Morby (Madrid: Castalia, 1975). ^La Arcadia, pp. 43-77. 6
La Dorotea de Lope de Vega. Studio critico seguito dalla traduzione delle parti principali dell'opera (Bari: 1940), p. 61 7
VidadeLopecte Vega (Madrid: 1936), p. 123.
8
Lope de Vegay su tiempo, tr. R. de la Serna (Madrid: Revista de Occidente 1940), p. 39.
9
"The case for an early Dorotea: A Reexamination," PMLA, 71 (1956), 755-98.
10
See "Lope, usurpador del papel de Anfriso," in La Arcadia, pp. 65-77. Osuna lists several other critics who concur with him on this point.
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Yet, the strength of Lope's characters lies precisely in their convincingness as characters, as artistic creations totally divorced from the human beings who inspired them. As Edwin S. Morby has pointed out, the more the reader tries to identify Anfriso with his principal models, Don Antonio Alvarez de Toledo and Lope himself, the more inconsistent he seems because he corresponds imperfectly to both. On the other hand, considered as an independent creation, Anfriso is a quite convincing character.11 Anfriso is a complex creation. He is playful and serious, violent and tender, trusting and suspicious, lucid and gullible at different times during the book. Unlike earlier pastoral characters, who tend to be one-dimensional, he develops and evolves with the action. In this sense, Anfriso is really the first pastoral protagonist.12 Another factor that likens Lope's Arcadia to the modern novel is the introduction of a narrator who remains divorced from the action. Other pastoral romances, for example Sannazaro's Arcadia and Ribeiro's Menina e moga, have characters who are narrators, but these characters tell their own stories as well as those of others, introducing an autobiographical element. The autobiographical technique was a natural development from Virgil's Eclogues, which are formally dialogs, but in which each character recites individually and in which there is little communication among characters, and from the dialogs, debates, and questioni of Renaissance literature. Once established by Sannazaro in his Arcadia, the technique was imitated by Montemayor, Gil Polo, and subsequent authors of pastoral romances. The autobiographical technique has significant limitations, however. For one thing, it requires that at the n
"lnttoduccibn," La Arcadia, p. 20. See Osuna, "Laoriginalidad."
lz
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time the story is actually told the principal action have already taken place. Although, as discussed in Chapter 3, Gil Polo manages to modify this structure somewhat, pastoral romances previous to Lope's typically open in the middle of the action, with the character lamenting some event that occurred in the past, of which he or she is now suffering the consequences while hoping for a solution in the future. Lope abandons the autobiographical technique in favor of the creation of a narrator, Belardo, identified as Lope himself. As Belardo tells the story of Anfriso and Belisarda, the action unfolds chronologically, giving it a dramatic intensity missing from previous pastoral works. Like the autobiographical technique, the story-telling technique has its roots in early fiction. But although Lope retains the story-telling elements through the use of expressions such as "Old...," "Escuchad...," "No penseis...," Belardo reiterates throughout the book that he is a foreigner and remains always a marginal character. Occasionally he even slips from his role of story-teller and becomes a writer, interjecting such verbs as "Escribo..." in the narration. The distance Lope establishes between the narrator and the characters gives his Aracdia a unique element of objectivity. In the early Italian pastoral novel, the human characters often seemed to be no more than accidents in the landscape. Like Sannazaro, Lope describes in detail the Peloponesian countryside and the lush fertility of Arcadia, and like his Italian predecessor, he frequently uses terms related to painting. The landscape is "un agradable lienzo de artificiosa pintura" (p. 64) or "pintadas alhombras" (p. 65) brilliant with color: "bianco narciso listado de oro" (p. 65), "rosa encarnada" (p. 65), "rojo amaranta" and "morada viola" (p. 66); "la blanca tela del alba, resplandeciente con purpura, carmesi y azul finisimo matizaban las nubes diversos panos..." (p. 71) In the descriptions of the pastoral 214
gatherings, Lope nearly always mentions the colors of the clothes of each shepherd, emphasizing their symbolic significance. Like Sannazaro, he compares the shepherdesses' dresses to flowers in a garden, harmonious to the eye despite the variety of shades (p. 360). Often girls carry bouquets.13 Lope's Arcadia is lush, fertile, sensuous. It teems with life and color. As in earlier pastoral novels, nature is a major participant in the joys and agonies of the characters, but Lope's luxuriant Arcadia more closely resembles the landscape of Gongora's Polifemo than that of earlier Spanish pastoral novels. In spite of the ample descriptions of landscape, Lope's focus is on character development and action rather than on bucolic mood. He qualifies the descriptions of the locus amoenus as a mere convention: "es obligacion del que comienza alguna (historia) la descripcion del lugar donde sucede." (p. 67) But from the very beginning the reader is aware of the presence of human inhabitants, for the bark of every tree has been carved with the messages of the lovers. Lope eliminates much of the farfetchedness of earlier pastoral novels. Belardo tells the reader that there will be no relations of the adventures of Alexander or the tragedies of Pompey. There will be no tales of shipwrecks in far-off lands. Unlike earlier Spanish pastorals, Lope's Arcadia contains no Byzantine element. The voyages, mistaken identities, and similar complications that characterize earlier Spanish pastorals are absent from Lope's. Except for Anfriso's brief encounter with Dardanio in Italy, the action of the novel takes place almost entirely in Menalo and "Compare: "Alcune portavano ghirlande di ligustri con fiori gialli, e tali vermigli interposte: altre avevano mescolati i gigli bianchi e i purpurini con alquante frondi verdissime di arangi per messo; quella andava stelata di rose, quell'altra biancheggiava di gelsomini; tal che ogniuna per se e tutte insieme piu a divini spkiti, che ad umane creature assomigliavano..." Opere dilacopo Sannazaro, p. 79.
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Cilene. The locational unity is another factor that contributes to the sense of modernity of Lope's novel. The plot of Lope's Arcadia is a familiar one. Anfriso and Belisarda are in love with each other, but Belisarda's father favors a rival suitor, Salicio, whom she eventually marries. Anfriso then visits a wise woman, who makes him forget Belisarda. Although Belisarda's situation is superficially identical to Diana's, Lope's characters are highly innovative in the sense that they are more self-determined than any previous pastoral characters. Montemayor's shepherds typically see themselves as victims of fate. In Los siete libros de la Diana love is described as a force that ensnares and subjugates the individual. Although Gil Polo and Cervantes both reject the view that man is a pawn of destiny, Diana enamorada and La Galatea are replete with accidents, mistaken identities, storms, shipwrecks, and other phenomena that cause the characters to act and react. In Lope's Arcadia, in contrast, the roles of chance and circumstance are minimized. The characters are responsible for their own destinies. The development of the plot depends solely on the decisions and actions of the individual characters. The first meeting between Belisarda and Anfriso is delightful; it is full of jesting and teasing, lovers' quarrels and sweet reconciliations. The melancholy and morbidity typical of earlier pastorals is missing almost entirely. Instead, there is an air of optimism, a joyousness, a playfulness, uncharacteristic of the genre. That this atmosphere of joviality is shattered is due to the negligence of the characters rather than to any outside force. Yet, even in the midst of the merriment, the psychological mechanism that will cause the decisive rift between the lovers is functioning. That mechanism is the imagination. As Belisarda waits for Anfriso, she falls asleep and dreams that he has betrayed her with another woman. The 216
dream is so vivid that it causes her extreme anguish: jOh triste imaginacion, para el mal siempre despierta! <>Quien dira, viendoos tan cierta, que los suehos suenos son? (p. 73)1
In earlier pastoral works, characters use their imaginations to project happier situations than the one they are presently experiencing, then suffer with the realisation that their imagined happiness is merely illusory. Lope's characters repeatedly use their imaginations to distort reality for the worse, thereby anticipating tragedy and causing themselves grief. Very early in Lope's novel, Belisarda throws herself into despair when she thinks of what life would be like with Salicio: "Perdia el entendimiento Belisarda en la imaginacion de su desdicha..." (p. 69) Before Anfriso's arrival Belisarda experiences his imagined infidelity as acutely as if it were reality. Yet, there is no confusion between appearance and reality here. Belisarda is aware she has been dreaming, but such is the power of the imagination that even when an individual is lucid concerning its workings, he may still be influenced by imagined experience. Not all imagined experience is negative. As Anfriso approaches the site of his tryst with Belisarda, he imagines—that is, reproduces in his mind—her beauty, which elicits a feeling of elation. Anfriso knows that the image does not correspond perfectly to reality. When he sees Belisarda he comments that her beauty surpasses even his mental picture of her. like Belisarda, Anfriso is aware of the inadequacy of imagined experience. 14
As Morby points out, the origin of this verse, on which Calderon may have based La vida es sueno, is a popular rondelet: "Sonaba yo que tenia / alegre mi corazon; / mas a la fe, madre mia, / que los suenos, suenos son." p. 73.
Belisarda chides Anfriso for his supposed infidelity and insists she has seen him in the arms of another woman. The episode introduces the theme of the unreliability of the senses, topical in Golden Age literature. The skeptics held that the information conveyed by the senses is uncertain because it is impossible for the individual to distinguish between what he has seen and what he has dreamed and because the senses inevitably distort what they perceive.15 Lope does not adopt this extreme skeptical stand. Rather, he shows that sensory experience can be imagined, and when it is, it can mislead the individual. But unlike his near contempory, Calderon, Lope stresses repeatedly the reliability of sensory experience. In some cases, the senses reveal the imagination to be in error; in others, they corroborate the projections of the imagination. In the episode mentioned above, Anfriso first imagines Belisarda, then sees that his imagination has not betrayed him: "...el alma, que de sola imaginacion se sustentaba, hizo lugar a la verdad y ocuparonse los sentidos de gustos presentes como antes lo estaban de glorias imaginadas." (p.74) It is sense perception that enables Anfriso to experience the natural harmony of nature. Throughout La Arcadia there is a feeling of the underlying consonance of nature, which is achieved when each animate being is in its rightful place.16 The perfection of the human body and the consonance of body and mind are a reflection of a more universal social perfection which is attained when each creature seeks union with a mate for which it feels a natural affinity. Belisarda and Anfriso love each other and they therefore belong together. This particular episode ends happily, for Belisarda 15 On the skeptic revival in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, see Popkin, The History of Scepticism. 15
This image of an ordered universe as a reflection of divine order is essential to Neoplatonic thought. See Chapter IV of my book Calderon's Characters.
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undeceives Anfriso and the natural order is restored when the two lovers reaffirm their affection for one other. Still, the incident anticipates the denouement. In order for the natural order to be restored, the spell cast by the imagination must be broken. Harmony and happiness can be achieved only through desengano. At the end of the novel it is precisely because Anfriso remains enganado that his relationship with Belisarda is destroyed. This early episode is one of the happiest and most delightful in the romance. The jesting, humor, and playfulness make it nearly unique in the genre. The dialog is rapid and concise. The repartees are witty. Belisarda taunts Anfriso by concocting a quarrel that will make reconciliation all the sweeter. She is lucid, coquettish, and coy. She is far more realistic and accessible than any former pastoral heroine. Unlike Diana and Galatea, she is not a goddess on a pedestal, but a woman in love who delights in her suitor's attentions. The lovers are interrupted by Galafrbn and Leriano, whose eclogues reflect the Neoplatonic tradition and also foreshadow the development of the plot. For the most part, their songs reflect conventional themes: unrequited love, the lack of constancy of women, the mutability of the human condition. However, the emphasis on the jealousy that results when overzealous lovers allow their imaginations free rein reflects the major theme of the novel. Galafron and Leriano are—like Sincere and Sylvano m La Diana and the Diana enamorada and like Ergasto and Elicio in La Galatea—the victims of the heroine's disdain. But because Galafrbn and Leriano do not see themselves as victims of fate, they depart from their prototypes in several ways. Galafron and Leriano are negative characters who scheme and calculate in an attempt to bend Belisarda's will. Unlike the rejected suitors of earlier pastorals, they are not content to suffer the heroine's disdain 219
or the purifying anguish of unrequited love. Rather, they attempt to discredit Anfriso in Belisarda's eyes. For example, in one particular scene described by Leriano, Galafron taunts Anfriso with his own superior horsemanship. Leriano and Galafron actively advance the action by creating situations that will separate the lovers and make jealousy and mistrust more likely to erupt between them. Furthermore, they are much more lucid than their predecessors regarding the object of their affections. Although they sing of a woman with a heart of stone and a breast of snow (p. 80), they know that these are merely cliches, and that Belisarda is indeed capable of love, since she loves Anfriso: "De tal manera hemos cantado agora lo que lloramos cada dia, como si Belisarda fuera mas dura a los efectos de amor que aquel marmol que para ejemplo de ingratas arde en el infierno, sabiendo el uno y el otro lo contrario." (p. 82) There is, in other words, a recognition on the part of the characters that pastoral love poetry, with its formulas and cliches, does not correspond to the realities of human emotion. As Rafael Osuna has pointed out, Lope rejects Neoplatonism and describes the psychological process of love: "describe la patologia del amor, no su filosofla; su 'caso' amoroso lo presenta in vivo, mientras que los demas lo hacen in vitro."11 Although Belisarda's role in the novel of which she is the heroine is similar to Diana's and Galatea's, her admirers describe her in surprisingly prosaic terms. What is more, unlike Diana and Galatea, Belisarda develops as a character. Lope portrays her as a woman struggling to realize herself in what she sees as her natural feminine role of Anfriso's wife.18 17
La Arcadia, p. 236.
18
As Melveena McKendrick has pointed out, Lope's view is that wife and mother are the natural and acceptable feminine roles. McKendrick quotes from La boba para los otros y discreta para si \.o prove that it is Lope's contention that the only things women need to know are how to have and raise children:
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Leriano and Galafron are equally lucid with respect to themselves. They are capable of evaluating their own merits and defects. Galafron at first justifies Belisarda's choice of suitor by imagining himself to be inferior to Anfriso, but upon examining his own qualities he concludes that he is every bit as worthy as his rival. Leriano, on the other hand, knows himself to be unattractive. Lope's shepherds possess elements of introspectiveness and self-awareness uncharacteristic of earlier pastoral characters. While criticizing Belisarda's indifference to their feelings, the rejected lovers nevertheless recognize her good taste in selecting Anfriso: "Buena eleccion ha tenido...,. negarselo seria decir que este rio esta parado y que estos arboles tienen las raices en el aire..." (p. 84) This level-headed honesty gives Lope's creations a down-to-earth quality absent in earlier pastoral romances. The second book of Lope's Arcadia opens six days later, when Anfriso comes to say good-by to Belisarda. His parents have decided to send him away to Mount Liceo. This development is not gratuitous, but the result of Galafron's scheming. Galafron has told them that Anfriso's courtship of Belisarda is the scandal of the valley, and that Anfriso plans to murder Leriano. Anfriso prepares to leave with Silvio, a shepherd unlike the gentle lovers of earlier pastorals, for he is strong and feared: "temido no solo de los hombres, pero de los jabalies, ososy leones." (p. 135) As Anfriso and Belisarda bid each other farewell and pledge fidelity, there is no suggestion of the value of separation. In earlier pastoral romances, it was precisely the inaccessibility of the loved-one that contributed to the purification and eventual reward of the lover. In contrast, Lo que han de saber es solo parir y criar sus hijos: (Act II, Acad. N. XI, 498a) See Woman and Society, p. 225 and passim.
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here it is separation that activates the imagination, which in turn destroys the mutual confidence of the lovers. As Anfriso takes leave of Belisarda, his imagination is already projecting scenes of gloom. There is another important difference between Anfriso's attitude and that of his predecessors. In earlier pastorals, unfortunate lovers dwell on their past happiness and present unhappiness. The melancholy that pervades these works is the result of the shepherds' awareness of the ephemeral nature of happiness. Anfriso and Belisarda, on the other hand, start off happy. It is when they imagine their future misery that they become unhappy. Although Anfriso tells Belisarda that "en presencia de tu gloria (mi alma) no puede penar," he is already in the grips of "la imaginacion del mal por venir." (p. 136) He is certain his own imagination will bring him unhappy thoughts in the future: "yo pienso andar huyendo de ml mismo, sin querer saber de mi lo que a mi pesar me dira la imaginacion tantas veces." (p. 139) He is planning to be desperate and miserable: "Yo vivire, finalmente, como si muriese, y morire como quien sin ti no puede vivir, ni cantare cosa alegre, ni gustare de la que no fuere triste." (p. 139) It is Anfriso's lack of faith in the future that brings about his misfortune. By anticipating adversity and failing to trust Belisarda, he creates an atmosphere in which love cannot flourish. Belisarda, too, sees calamity as inevitable, not because she feels condemned by fate, but because she knows that Anfriso is given to imprudent behavior. She had warned him to avoid Leriano: "mas debieras quejarte de ti mismo por no haberme creido a mi, que mil veces te aconseje que te guardases de el y de todo el valle, haciendo cuenta que el te deseaba destruir y que cada pastor era otro como el." (p- 137) In Lope's Arcadia, a wise lover views every other man as a potential rival. In earlier pastorals, there was a 222
spirit of companionship and cooperation among men and women suffering from a common dissatisfaction.19 In Lope's Arcadia, however, rivalries and jealousy exist openly. Often the characters do not even observe common courtesy with one another. They frequently take pleasure in mocking each other. This friction often produces humor, an element missing from earlier pastorals. At times, however, it produces great unhappiness and even violence.20 Anfriso foolishly sought Leriano's friendship, only to spark his envy. Belisarda's philosophy is practical and prudent. She believes a judicious individual trusts no one, although she admits Anfriso's naivete is one of his endearing qualities. Belisarda's attitude reflects the changing values of European ethics as expounded by such thinkers as Machiavelli, Castiglione, and Gracian.21 Belisarda rejects the idea that Anfriso's parents are to blame for the lovers' dilemma. She believes they are doing what they believe to be best for Anfriso. In Lope's novel the idea is reiterated repeatedly that one is responsible for one's own destiny, and that to blame others for one's misfortune is an act of self-delusion and an abdication of one's free will. Belisarda swears loyalty to Anfriso and trusts her "enamorada imagination" to bring her happy memories of her lover, (p. 138) Yet, it is precisely the imagination that intrudes into their last few happy moments together and ignites still another petty quarrel. Belisarda begins to talk of the behavior of men, and Anfriso becomes angry at her for 19 This spirit of companionship is easily transformed into rivalry, however. See Chapter IV and also my article, "Antiutopian Elements." 20 Although there are few outbreaks of actual violence in Lope's Arcadia, several of the characters contemplate murder. Leriano admits that he has been on the verge of killing Anfriso, and that he has lain awake nights with his weapons at his side. Belisarda says on one occasion that she wishes Salicio would die so that she could marry Anfriso. In the story of Alasto, the giant is finally murdered. For a discussion of the underlying violence in the pastoral novel, see my article "Violence in the Pastoral Novel." 21
These writers all stress the importance of political prudence rather than morality.
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comparing him with others. She is, he maintains, judging him as she imagines him to be rather than as he is: "d'por que me tratas tan mal que presumas de mi lo que de los mas ingratos imaginas?" (p. 139) Soon after Anfriso's departure, Belisarda accompanies her father on a trip. As in earlier pastoral works, nature reflects the unhappiness of the characters. The trees and flowers of the Menalo Valley share Belisarda's gloom as she leaves the place where she has known happiness. Belisarda despairs: "me voy... con tanta desesperacion y deseo de morir..." (p. 190) Her thoughts are of death: "voy siguiendo a quien desde el dia que naci me va llevando a morir asida de los cabellos, como cordero de sacrificio..." (p. 190) She leaves "agora a morir a tierra ajena..." (p. 190) But unlike in earlier pastorals, the memory of past happiness does not intensify suffering, but relieves it. As she reproduces in her mind particular events that brought her happiness, she again rejoices in the knowledge that Anfriso loves her: "alegrole la memoria de aquel bien." (p. 190) Unlike earlier pastoral characters, Lope's shepherds see no virtue in suffering. Rather than reveling in their melancholy, they seek ways to dissipate it. Galafron and Leriano recognize their guilt in creating a situation that has brought about Belisarda's unhappiness and failed to satisfy their amorous ambitions. But like Belisarda, they reject melancholy and try to forget the past: "ni andemos a traer casos preteritos." (p. 200) A letter that Anfriso writes to Belisarda relfects the same rejection of melancholy. Anfriso begins with a traditional Renaissance love metaphor that equates love and death: que aim que mas el desearos me lleve a morir, mas quiero por miraros ver que muero que vivir y no mkaros. (p. 190-191)
But immediately afterwards he rejects this attitude. Imagination becomes a source of happiness. Merely thinking of Belisarda relieves his anguish: Y aunque no estoy satisfecho de que este os puede igualar basta para imaginar que habeis entrado en mi pecho: que con esto presumi que mi esperanza diria que no esta lejos de mia quien vive dentro de mi. Y puesto que aquestos son enganos del pensamiento, todo lo que no es tormento es dulce imaginacion. (p. 192)
Although Anfriso occasionally voices traditional Renaissance cliches regarding the value of suffering and the purifying nature of pain, he reiterates the idea expressed by Belisarda that the memory of the loved-one dispels unhappiness. Y mas cuando la memoria de vuestra mano me acude, que no hay pena que no mude en esperanza de gloria, (p. 193)
Anfriso recognizes that separation breeds mistrust and jealousy, but he vows to struggle against evil thoughts. He feels certain that the memory of Belisarda will impose moderation. Anfriso's letter ends on a positive note; he is hopeful they will be reunited. The first two books of Arcadia are optimistic in tone and outlook, although there are numerous implications that Anfriso's suspiciousness will eventually undermine his relationship with Belisarda. In the third book this presentiment becomes a reality, and the tone becomes 225
increasingly pessimistic. The shift is neither abrupt nor illogical, but the natural outcome of Anfriso's failure to suppress and control his tendency to expect the worst. The third book opens with a series of sextinas sung by Anfriso that, although replete with conventional pastoral love rhetoric, are optimistic in tone. The message is: Mas bien podia, con mudarse el cielo mudar esas fortunas en alegres. (p. 203)
Anfriso rejects unhappy thoughts, but the poem ends on a disquieting note, with the affirmation that happy thoughts cannot dispel sad memories and that relief from suffering comes only with death. Anfriso recognizes that memories can both trouble and console: "jAy, divino regalo de pensamientos tristes, memoria, consuelo mio!, y jay tambien verdugo de mi alma, memoria, tormento mio!" (p. 104) Like love itself, memory is complex and ambivalent. It is how the individual reacts to his memories—not the phenomenon of memory itself—that determines their effect. The same is true of imagination. Anfriso realizes that imagination can bring to mind evil thoughts, and that he must banish these thoughts or else fall victim to them: "jA que tristes imaginaciones me han traido injustos miedos del dano que por ventura no merezco, y que presto han venido a ser sospechas, y que cerca estan de hallar credito conmigo! jTriste de mi cuando me venzan!" (p. 205) But while he is lucid concerning the dangers of giving free rein to his imagination, he nevertheless indulges in a lengthy monologue in which he allows himself to consider all the possible misfortunes that might befall him: "<
function of the imagination is to project an image in the mind just as the function of painting is to project an image onto a canvass. In either case, whether the mental projection of an individual or the physical projection of an artist, an image is a representation, different from the reality that it reproduces. Anfriso is able to distinguish image from reality. He knows that the projected image, whether mental or physical, is inferior to the reality that inspired it. He laments that the image—in this case, the portrait—cannot bring him the happiness that only Belisarda can provide. He recognizes that an image can elicit an authentic reaction :22 aun pintada podeis tenerme fuera de mi. (pp. 209-210)
But, at the same time, he recognizes that the individual is capable of distinguishing reality from fantasy and that it is his duty to do so. Lope's Anfriso reflects the thinking of Counter Reformation philosophers, such as Francisco Suarez, who insisted that the individual must base his moral decisions on conscience rather than on false evidence conjured up by the imagination. According to these thinkers, the salvation of the individual depends on his acts. In order to act in a morally responsible manner, the individual must recognize and discard "entes de razbn," that is, beings, images, values that are merely creations of the mind.23 It is precisely because he fails to do this that Anfriso loses Belisarda. At first Anfriso finds the strength to reject negative "imaginaciones," but once he learns that Olimpio, a new rival, is trying to court her, he begins to doubt her fidelity. 22
The effect that images of all kinds can have on the mind, will, and consequently, acts of an individual was discussed at length by Francisco Suarez in his Disputaciones metafisicas. See Disputacion LIV, Vol. VI, 399. 23
Suarez, pp. 287-453.
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He tries to visit her, but his attempt to speak with her is thwarted. By the time he leaves the valley, his confidence has been destroyed and he is in a negative frame of mind, "determinado a morir de tristeza ..." (p. 221) This change in outlook is reflected in both the landscape and Anfriso's costume. He exchanges his shepherd's clothes for those of a pilgrim, for he has become disoriented. He has strayed from the road to erotic fulfillment and must seek the right direction. The landscape changes from bucolic to rocky and uninviting. Anfriso's anguish and confusion are symbolized by the jagged, tortuous rocks.24 It is here that he loses his way — "errb el camino que llevaba" —(p. 221) in the middle of a storm. The mistaken path in the midst of atmospheric turbulence is symbolic of the new and mistaken attitude Anfriso adopts in a state of despair. It is in the craggy mountains of Italy that Anfriso meets Dardanio, the magician. Dardanio is casually reminiscent of Sannazaro's Enareto, in that he possesses great knowledge of the natural world. But while Sannazaro's wizard was a neutral character, Dardanio is most certainly a negative one. Anfriso unburdens himself to the sorcerer, admitting that, desolate over his separation from Belisarda, he sought to become a soldier in the wars in Italy and thereby to seek death. As in Sannazaro's Arcadia, psychological alienation is accompanied by physical removal from the bucolic landscape. But while Sannazaro's Sincere had always felt estranged from Arcadian happiness, Afriso had not. Now, distraught and alone, he joins the outside world of political turmoil. In Sannazaro's work, there are references to the 24
Using the landscape to reflect the psychological state of the protagonist was a common dramatic technique during the Golden Age. At the beginning of Calderon's La vida es sueno, the craggy mountainside reflects Rosaura's confusion and Segismundo's beastiality. The figure of the wild man who lives in the woods or mountains occurs in European literature from the Middle Ages. See Edward J. Dudley and Maximillian E. Novak, The Wild Man: An Image in Western Thought from the Renaissance to Romanticism (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973). For additional bibliography, see Chapter III, Notes 21 and 22.
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political situation of the period, but these are deliberately obscure. In Lope's, political references are more specific. Furthermore, Dardario's quarters are decorated with portraits and statues of great warriors, as well as with verses praising their merits. Anfriso's encounter with Dardanio signifies his psychological transformation from a state of relative harmony to a state of conflict. In order to allow Anfriso to spy on Belisarda, Dardanio flies him through the air to Cilene. No sooner does he arrive than he is overcome with suspicion and doubt. He sees evidence of Belisarda's infidelity everywhere. It seems to him that Belisarda is dressed too attractively for a woman who is awaiting an absent lover. His imagination runs amuck as he invents reasons to explain her attire. As he watches, he hears Belisarda singing, and her song constitutes a warning: Todo lo que sembro trabajo humano rinde su fruto al fin (p. 252)
Anfriso's senseless conjectures will cause his ruin. As Belisarda sings, Olimpio approaches. He tries to ignite her imagination with suggestions that Anfriso has been disloyal to her, but she remains constant: "Desesperarme a mi con imaginaciones de celos es decirme que vuelan por las nubes los bueyes perezosos..." (p. 255) Unlike Anfriso, Belisarda rejects false "imaginaciones" that cause suspicion. Olimpio is amazed at her steadfastness. Unable to sway her, he leaves, asking only for a black ribbon to keep. This she gives him reluctantly, attaching no romantic significance to it. Anfriso witnesses the scene and misinterprets it. He assumes that Belisarda has given Olimpio the ribbon as a token of her love. But appearances are deceiving. Anfriso sees what he is predisposed to see. The young man's reaction is irrational and violent. Filled 229
with anger and grief over the apparent betrayal of the woman he loves and the man he regarded as his friend, he threatens to murder them both. But Dardanio sweeps him away before he can act. This episode is the most problematical of the novel. The appearance of a magician endowed with supernatural powers seems to be totally alien in a work which, in the pastoral genre, is unique in its realistic portrayal of characters. It is especially disconcerting in view of Lope's disavowal of magic at the end of the romance. Critics have offered no adequate explanation. Edwin S. Morby suggests that Anfriso's flight with Dardanio and the metamorphosis of the two characters "traicionan perversamente" the otherwise purely realistic nature of the romance.25 Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce insists that magic is an "experiencia vital" in Lope's Arcadia and explains that Dardanio and Polinesta represent two characteristics —the magical and the learned—that are combined into the figure of the wizard in earlier pastoral romances.26 Similarly, Frederick A. de Armas asserts that, "Magic.. .is a key ingredient in Lope's La Arcadia"21 Rafael Osuna suggests that Lope was forced to insert the episode "para aligerar lo que hubiera sido un plumbeo argurnento."28 In Osuna's opinion, by reducing the number of characters in the romance so drastically, Lope diminishes the episodic possibilities of the plot, and must therefore compensate by the inclusion of some attentiongripping supernatural interlude. The origins of Dardanio have been researched by Frederick A. de Armas, who argues that the source for Lope's magician is not Enarato, as Rafael Osuna contends, 25
"Introduction,"p. 20.
26
Lanove/apastori/,p. 163. 27 "Lope de Vega and the Hermetic Tradition: The Case of Dardanio in La Arcadia" Revisft canadiense de estudios hispanicos, 7, No. 3 (Primavera 1983), 345-362. Quote on p. 349. 2S
la Arcadia, p. 234.
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but Dardanus, son of Zeus and Electra, founder of Dardania and ancestor to the kings of Troy.29 Around 1460, a monk named Leonardo da Pistoia brought to Florence a Greek manuscript of what later became known as the Corpus Hermeticum, a document that would have a profound influence on Renaissance Europe. Cosimo de' Medici had the manucript translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino at the end of 1462 or the beginning of 1463, and the new version was published, along with a prefatory "Argument," in 1471. The work became exceedingly popular. Sixteen other editions were published before the end of the sixteenth century, not counting those in which it was bound with other writings.30 De Armas argues that Lope was familiar with Ficino's translation of the Corpus Hermeticum and other Hermetic writings, which contained material on both spiritual magic—compatible with orthodox Christianity—and demonic magic.31 Furthermore, Lope was probably acquainted with works of Jacques Gohory, also known as Leo Suavius, who wrote on black magic and accused Ficino of timidity in his treatment of the subject.32 The Dardanus legend is mentioned as early as in Homer's Iliad, and is retold by a number of classical authors as well as by Piero Valeriano Bolzani, the Renaissance classical scholar. According to classical versions of the legend, Dardanus lived in Arcadia. When he married Crisa, she brought him two gifts from the goddess Pallas—the palladium or statue of the goddess and images of the great gods — , which Dardanus placed in a cave. De Armas observes several links between Dardanus and Lope's Dardanio: Both are connected to Arcadia; both seem to be priests of Pallas (although Dardanio is never defined specifically as such); 29
"Lope de Vega and the Hermetic Tradition."
30
Shumaker, The Occult Sciences, p. 201.
31
"Lope de Vega and the Hermetic Tradition."
32
De Armas, "Lope de Vega and the Hermetic Tradition.
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both are associated with wisdom, since Pallas is the goddess of science; both are associated with a cave in which ancient culture is preserved for posterity. De Armas assigns special significance to the cave, which he believes functions as a temple. In Book II, the "templo de la silvestre diosa" (p. 149) is named after Pales, but, argues De Armas, is actually dedicated to Pallas, since the paintings inside commemorate the battle between Aragnes and Pallas. De Armas sees the cave as an essential link between Dardanio and Hermetic tradition, for Lope's cave is to keep Dardanio's books for future generations, just as the Corpus Hermeticum had preserved the wisdom of the ancients for the men of the Renaissance. If this connection is somewhat conjuctural and tenuous, more demonstrable are the similarities between Dardanio's magical science and that of the Hermetica. Lope's magician draws figures in the sand of the cave, apparently casting a horoscope. Astrology, De Armas points out, is a key to the Corpus Hermeticum. Furthermore, Dardanio invokes the souls of daemons through the use of certain herbs and stones appropriate for that purpose, an art explored briefly by Ficino in his commentary on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans. The entire procedure employed by Dardanio appears to be closely related to Hermetic concepts as put forth by Ficino. Certainly, there may have been other sources for the magical interlude as well. While it seems probable that Dardanio was inspired by Dardanus, Lope's failure to identify his magician as a priest of Pallas or as keeper of her temple makes it difficult to assume a direct link between the Greek myth and its Spanish counterpart. More problematical still is the assumption that Dardanio's books represent the Corpus Hermeticum and that his rites derive from this work. While the importance of the Corpus Hermeticum cannot be underestimated, by the late 232
sixteenth century, astrological treatises were proliferating throughout Europe.33 Astrologers sought material in many sources, among them, the numerological mysticism derived from Pythagoras. Yet, even if we assume that Dardanio is an adaptation of Dardanus, his presence remains enigmatic. Lope adapted and molded his characters according to his purposes. While De Armas' study helps to establish that Dardanio was more than likely meant to be understood as a real magician, the significance of the Dardanio episode within the context of the romance is open to interpretation. If Dardanio is taken to be a real magician capable of conjuring up the Devil, then Anfriso's failure to be reunited with Belisarda is the logical consequence of his association with him. The practice of Black Magic was, of course, condemned by the Church, and any individual involved in the occult was to be punished. The lover who has recourse to a magician is topical in Spanish literature and dates at least back to the Celestina. Lope himself used the theme in his play Elcaballero de Olmedo. Nearly all the other major pastoral romances contain magicians of some sort, although the lovers are normally rewarded rather than punished for associating with them. There are several reasons why Dardanio cannot be understood as a Celestina figure. In the first place, he is not a go-between. He does not promise to reunite Anfriso with Belisarda. He does not deal principally in affairs of the heart. He does not, therefore, fit into the Celestina tradition. A second hypothesis is that Anfriso dreamed the whole experience,34 an explanation suggested by the end of the 33
Shumaker, The Occult Sciences, 8.
34
See my article, "The Wizard in the Spanish Pastoral Novel," Homena/e a Humberto Pinera, ed. Ledesma, Enrique and Wayne H. Fink (Madrid: Editorial Playor, 1979), from which this discussion of Dardanio has been adapted.
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episode. After witnessing the scene between Belisarda and Olimpio, Anfriso wants to react, but cannot. He is unable to "desasirse, arrojarse, moverse ni formar palabra," (p. 257). The state of suspension in which an individual sees but cannot act is sleep. Anfriso is unable to control his body. It seems that he is not completely conscious. The verb imaginar and its derivatives are used repeatedly in this episode. When Anfriso leaves the scene of the supposed betrayal, he is beset with "diversas imaginaciones." (p. 258) He returns to his homeland "imaginado de vengarse injustamente de Belisarda." (p. 259) He is then distressed because "su imagination le oprimia el cuello sin legitima causa." (p. 259) Yet these linguistic clues are equivocal. In the seventeenth century imaginar'was often used as a synonym fotpensar.35 Toward the end of the romance, Frondoso categorically rejects Anfriso' story, arguing that it was all a dream and that Anfriso's imagination has got the better of him: Mira, Anfriso que es sueno; que muchas cosas suelen imaginar los amantes que con la suspension del alma creen que las han visto. El credito de los suenos es causa de estar los sentidos exteriores ligados, porque el comun no puede hacer su oficio, que es desengahar a un hombre de que no son verdaderas aquellas imaginaciones; que lo que se imagina muchas veces nos suspende como verdad estando despiertos, hasta que nos muestran los ojos el engafio patente (y) huyen, aquellas falsas mentkas y sombras de la fantasia, (pp. 320-21)
Although Anfriso protests that he was not dreaming, it is clear that Lope wanted to offer this explanation as a possibility. And yet, this interpretation is not fully satisfactory. At the end of the Dardanio episode, "Olimpio y Belisarda se 35
Covarrubias gives pensar as a definition for imaginar.
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admiraron del subito remolino del viento y de voces que sin dueno resonaban en el bosque." (p. 257) If the whole experience were merely a fantasy, how could two characters other than the supposed dreamer witness these bizarre phenomena? Perhaps Lope wished to suggest several possibilities: reality, dream, magic. Perhaps the implication is that an individual in a state of anxiety is no longer capable of distinguishing among the three. Whether the episode is imagined or experienced, Anfriso is responsible for his subsequent actions. His unwillingness to forgive Belisarda for her supposed betrayal and his decision to take vengeance on her are what destroys the lovers' relationship. Anfriso—and not fate, destiny, or even Dardanio—is responsible for the tragic denouement. Of course, Anfriso's enemies, who sow malicious gossip about Belisarda, and his friend Silvio, who encourages him to punish her by feigning affection for another woman, contribute to Anfriso's decision. But ultimately, Anfriso is accountable for his acts. Neither his friend nor his enemies force his will. As Alexander A. Parker points out in his highly acclaimed article, "Toward a Definition of Calderonian Tragedy,"36 the essence of Golden Age tragedy—and in particular Calderon's—is that the characters are both perpetuators and victims of the honor code. Although Dr. Parker refers exclusively to the drama, a similar situation exists in Lope's pastoral romance. The obsession with love breeds suspicion and jealousy. Leriano says in a series of redondillas at the beginning of the work that jealousy has love for a father and envy for a mother. This view of jealousy as the offspring of love is reiterated throughout the romance. It is inevitable, according to this view, that a person who experiences intense and exalted love 36
BHS, 39(1962), 222-37.
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be subject to the destructive force of jealousy. In this sense, Anfriso is a victim. On the other hand, Anfriso possesses free will and is able to suppress his jealousy. He realizes the dangers of suspiciousness and mentions on several occasions the necessity for casting aside doubt. Belisarda herself warns him early in the novel that true love is founded on flexibility and forgiveness. By failing to look beyond appearances and to give Belisarda the benefit of the doubt, he creates a rift between himself and her that makes it possible for others to sow discord. In this sense, he is responsible for his own misfortune. While Galafron and Leriano, Anfriso's declared enemies, and Olimpio, his former feigned friend, wish to harm Anfriso, Silvio has honorable intentions. When Anfriso simulates gaity, Silvio easily guesses that his heart is in fact heavy. A true friend sees beyond appearances. But even true friends can mislead. In the end, each individual must take responsibility for his own decisions. Convinced that Belisarda has betrayed him, Anfriso knows that the wisest course of action is to be patient. Time will either cause him to forget her or will clear up the misunderstanding. But Anfriso is too impetuous to wait for "las perezosas medicinas del tiempo." (p. 261) Instead, he seeks a rapid solution that will punish Belisarda and put his own mind at ease. Here and elsewhere, Anfriso is extremely lucid concerning the workings of the imagination. He understands its power to sway the will ,37 and believes that if he focuses his imagination on another woman, at least he will have succeeded in taking vengeance on Belisarda. Neither Anfriso nor Silvio consider the possibility that Belisarda may be innocent. Furthermore, they do not show the slightest remorse for the psychological damage they may 37
Recall that the role of imagination in love was discussed by Juan Luis Vives in De anima et vita, written in 1538. See Tratado del alma, pp. 1147-1319 and especially pp. 1257-68.
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cause Anarda, the woman for whom affection is feigned, nor do they display compassion for Enareto, her suitor, whose suffering is so profound that "enternecia las piedras, cuanto mas los pechos de los hombres." (p. 308) Thirst for vengeance has made Anfriso blind and selfish. In this sense, he is similar to the men of honor of the Golden Age theater. With Machiavellian precision, he and Silvio choose a victim and establish a procedure for making her fall in love with Anfriso. By the beginning of the fourth book of Arcadia Anfriso is caught up in his own deceit. Silvio suspects that Anfriso's misgivings about Belisarda are unjustified, but neither he nor Anfriso attempt to clarify the misunderstanding. When Belisarda returns to the Menalo Valley, she learns of Anfriso's supposed change of heart. She is still in love with him, but, aware that the situation has become a public scandal and that she has been dishonored, she resolves to pretend to have forgotten him. A social element is present in Lope's Arcadia that is absent from most pastoral prose. Belisarda feels obligated to feign indifference in order to protect herself from public derision. Yet, in her heart she remains loyal to Anfriso. She is not overcome with mindless jealousy when she hears of his apparent affection for Anarda. Rather, she is hurt that he has believed the rumors about her own supposed infidelity and that he has abandoned her for another as a result. Frondoso assures Belisarda that Anfriso is not really in love with Anarda, but is acting out of jealousy, an explanation that Belisarda accepts. Unlike Anfriso, she does not jump to conclusions or give up hope. Like many of Lope's later dramatic heroines, she is morally superior to her lover. Unlike Gil Polo's Alcida, Belisarda does not become disenchanted with love. Significantly, there are no desamorados in Lope's novel until the very end. All the characters retain their faith in love, even when they believe 237
themselves to have been wronged. If Belisarda does not reject love, neither does she lament and mourn like the characters in earlier pastorals. There is an element of pride in Belisarda's reaction. She is convinced that crying hurts only the one who has been wronged, not the wrong-doer. She is determined to display self-control and not to reveal her true sentiments. Here again, Lope's characters shun melancholy. The few lover's laments in the novel are mere exercises in poetry. Belisarda attaches no value to suffering the pains of unrequited love: "cesen lagrimas mal empleadas, desesperaciones injustas, lastimas necias, quejas inutiles, flaquezas sin consideracion, pensamientos desesperados y desmayos mal agradecidos." (p. 316) Although Belisarda is a victim of Anfriso's false judgment, she is also partially responsible for the tragedy that ensues. If Anfriso is excessively suspicious, Belisarda is excessively proud. It is pride, not destiny or luck, that causes her to make the decision that renders reconciliation impossible. Like Belisarda, Anfriso is stubborn and willful. When Frondoso tells him of Belisarda's profound unhappiness, Anfriso is moved to tears. But, acting out of pride, he suppresses his true sentiments. Refusing to admit he has made a mistake, he continues doggedly along his chosen course of self-destruction. Frondoso, Anfriso's friend, guesses that Anfriso's harsh words do not reflect his true feelings and says so. He argues that Anfriso has no proof of Belisarda's infidelity and that the episode with Dardanio does not constitute evidence. But Anfriso has a closed mind. He refuses to consider the possibility of Belisarda's innocence, and instead evokes a poem written by Olimpio to the infamous black ribbon. Examined carefully, the poem is actually proof that Belisarda has rebuffed Olimpio, for in it he complains of her coldness and of his hopelessness. However, Anfriso 238
considers its very existence as proof of the veracity of his claims.38 Anfriso's closed mind makes reconciliation impossible. He avoids contact with Belisarda and refuses to discuss the situation with her. Under such circumstances, it is inevitable that the rift between them lead to a permanent separation. Anfriso toys with the feelings of everyone. His courtship of Anarda has the qualities of a game, as he pursues and teases her incessantly. But the light-hearted, playful atmosphere of the first two books of the romance is not achieved here, for the feigned gaity masks bitterness and contention. Anarda, heady with pride, forgets Enareto and devotes herself to her new conquest. In the meantime, Belisarda, described as an example of constancy and resolve, is overcome with sorrow. Olimpio at first sees Anfriso's apparent change of heart as cause for new-found hope, but at last he too plunges into despair. His song is reminiscent of Sincere's lament at the end of Sannazaro's Arcadia?* ya la esperanza es muerta... Aqui se acaba todo, aqui perece (p. 331)
The situation is senseless. Belardo, who rarely intervenes in the first person, now elucidates the moral: "Pero no se que estrellas del cielo influyen algunas veces calidad en los amantes, que sin saber las causas ni darse satisfaciones de las imaginadas ofensas, no cesan de agraviarse ni de procurar cada uno el dano del otro." (p. 328) Anfriso, as a result of his lack of confidence in himself to inspire fidelity and in Belisarda's strength of character, has allowed himself to be misguided by preconceived notions that rob him of all 38
Anfriso arrives at a false conclusion because he starts from a false premise: the preconceived notion that Belisarda has been unfaithful. On the ability and duty of the individual to reject false evidence, see Suarez, Disputaciones metafisicas, II, 194-98. 39 "...ogni cosa si perde; ogni speranza e mancata; ogni consolazione e morta," Arcadia, Opere,p. 218.
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flexibility. Consequently, he inflicts pain on himself, on his loved-one, and on others, setting into motion a series of reactions and counter-reactions that leave all the characters dissatisfied. Lope's work is, above all, a superb treatise on the psychology of jealousy. The only solution can be desengano, a theme mentioned throughout the romance and now thrust into the reader's consciousness through Olimpio'ssong. (p. 329-33). The atmosphere has become tense and unfriendly. Anarda and Belisarda bicker and quarrel, insulting each other openly, without regard for decorum or courtesy. Now, once again, Anfriso becomes momentarily morbid and reminiscent of earlier pastoral characters: Muerte, ven, que ya te aguardo porque de la vida huyendo yo se el descanso que gano y se el tormento que pierdo. (p. 338)
But even in extreme situations, Lope's characters resist moroseness. Anfriso's song is out of keeping with his personality, and the other shepherds urge him not to dwell on morbid subjects. Frondoso argues that his behavior is unworthy of him: "Tente..., y repara que desdice mucho de tu nobleza esa amorosa descompostura, tan indigna de tu valor y sangre que creo que estos arboles estan corridos y estas fuentes con verguenza..." (p. 336) As Anfriso's behavior becomes increasingly violent and desperate, his companions attempt to restrain him. Rather than understanding, they show contempt for his conduct. Galafron reprimands him: "Tu eras el ejemplo de este valle, la cordura, el respeto, la honra, la opinion y el dechado en que todos poman los ojos." (p. 342) Jealousy, not love has transformed Anfriso into a madman similar to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Sannazaro's Clbnico. But, unlike 240
earlier pastoral characters, Lope's shepherds do not dismiss antisocial behavior as the inevitable result of passion, but condemn it, urging Anfriso to exercise self-control. Lope's attitude is that of the Counter Reformer and the humanist. He insists on moderation and the individual's ultimate responsibility for his own behavior. Cardenio, the buffoon, tries to divert Anfriso's attention by singing a humorous song condemning love. Although comical, Cardenio's song contains pertinent truths about the psychology of love: love is war and constantly gives rise to confusion; elements of deceit and concupiscence underlie much of romantic love; unrestrained imagination breeds jealousy; finally, love in excess or for its own sake—without regard for the object of affection—is destructive. Anfriso, in his infatuation with love itself and in his obsession with his feelings of hurt pride, fails to show real love for Belisarda. True love is proven by trust, constancy, openness, forgiveness, and flexibility—precisely the qualities that Anfriso does not display. Yet, Anfriso does not at this point abandon the ideal of love, but rather defends it as the world's greatest good. He basks in his role of wronged lover, while his companions chide him in an effort to snap him out of his melancholy. While the other shepherds are not deceived by Anfriso's feigned love for Anarda, they see no point in resorting to trickery or indulging in melancholy. They suggest he seek a solution, not in feigned love, but within himself. In the meantime, Belisarda has fallen into a state of despair. She determines to take vengeance on Anfriso in order to prove to him that she has never loved Olimpio. In an ultimate act of self-destruction, she determines to marry Salicio, the suitor abhored by her but favored by her parents. In Lope's Arcadia, the final tragedy is the result of the actions of the characters and Belisarda must bear her part of the responsibility. Although her parents have encouraged 241
her to marry Salicio, they have not forced her. It is Belisarda's pride, her desire for vengeance, her despair, that cause her to deal the final blow to her relationship with Anfriso. She makes her decision to marry of her own free will. Lope laments for Belisarda: "jTriste de ti, mujer precipitada y furiosa!, que al fin Anfriso, aunque queda mal, queda solo y capaz de remedio, pero tu, para siempre cautiva, y por vengarte del mayor amigo, en poder del mayor enemigo." (p. 355) Belisarda's decision has been rash and decisive. Like Anfriso, she is both a victim and an agent, for although Anfriso's attitude drives her to despair, the final decision to marry is her own. Still, Lope's sympathies are clearly with Belisarda. Anfriso is the perpetrator of the misunderstanding, while Belisarda is the sufferer of his deceit. Belisarda sees her marriage to Salicio as her sole means of achieving exoneration. If hers is an act of pride, it is also an act of love. She sacrifices herself in order to prove her innocence. Anfriso, on the other hand, acts purely out of selfishness and stubbornness. For Belisarda, the decision is final and devastating. For Anfriso, on the other hand, there are still possible solutions. The lovers' parting is one of the most moving episodes to be found in a pastoral romance. Belisarda and Anfriso, who have not spoken since their meeting in Cilene, at last confront each other. Belisarda, still deeply in love with Anfriso, swears her friendship, even to the point of helping him realize his love for Anarda. Anfriso is slower to admit the affection he still feels for Belisarda, but at last the clarifications are made and the lovers realize they have been responsible for their own and each other's suffering. Although the story of Belisarda and Anfriso is similar to that of Diana and Sireno, the outcome is different. Anfriso is more reminiscent of Cervantes' pastoral characters than of Montemayor's or Gil Polo's. Like Mireno, in La Galatea, Anfriso is not content to suffer and to lament for a woman 242
whom he knows he can never marry. He recognizes that the situation is helpless and, unlike Sireno, he sees no value in entertaining the illusion that he and Belisarda may someday be reunited. Anfriso's attitude is realistic, not idealistic. Anfriso seeks a practical solution to his problem through the wise woman Polinesta. Unlike Enareto in Sannazaro's Arcadia and Felicia in Los siete libros de la Diana and Diana enamorada, Polinesta is not a sorceress, but a teacher. She does not cure by magic but by distraction. She does not resort to magic potions, for she knows that the only way to make Anfriso forget Belisarda is to make him want to forget her. She recognizes that "violentar tu libre albedno...es imposible." (p. 359) Just as Anfriso is responsible for his own misfortune, so must he be responsible for his cure. Others may help and guide him, but he alone controls his will.40 Polinesta introduces Anfriso to the seven liberal arts and recommends he seek distraction through study. The fifth book of the Arcadia has been severely criticized by scholars who object to the long and pedantic descriptions of the arts and sciences, most of which Lope copied or adapted from existing treatises. Edwin S. Morby has pointed out that Lope saw his novel as an organ of instruction, and included the discussions of the seven liberal arts in order to elevate the work from a mere diversion.41 A more valid criticism of the fifth book stems from the complete change in the characters' attitude toward love. Until now, even those characters who suffered the pains of love defended it. Now, in his zeal to forget Belisarda, Anfriso turns against love. He allows Polinesta to convince him that time will cure his melancholy and that a busy mind 40
For a definition of the will from the perspective of the foremost theologian of the Counter Reformation, see Suarez, Disputaciones, II, p. 194ff. 41 "Introduction," 18. Osuna stresses that a taste for the erudite is a characteristic of the period. La Arcadia, p. 237.
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is an antidote to the frivolities of love. She argues that love is merely the passtime of the rich and indolent:42 "El haberlo sido, Anfriso, por tu alto nacimiento y descansadas riquezas, fue causa de que amases." (p. 392) She categorically rejects the idea that memory is a source of consolation or that suffering leads to purification: "esto de lamentarse los amantes de la memoria, mas debe de ser costumbre que sentimiento." (p. 3 92) Anfriso at first amuses himself with El libro de suertes, a guide to predicting the future. But lest the game be taken seriously and either the characters or the reader conclude that man is a pawn of destiny, Lope warns that "el libro era para solo juego y entretenimiento..." (p. 402) and Polinesta reiterates that "no habia mas verdad en semej antes ciencias que la voluntad del cielo y las culpas o virtudes de los hombres..." (p. 404) Only true dedication to learning is a worthwhile distraction from the pains of love. Maria Goyri de Menendez Pidal has argued that Anfriso's rejection of love at the end of Book V is unconvincing.43 Yet, Belardo's final words suggest that the story is not meant to be construed as a condemnation of love but to offer a practical solution to the problem of the individual striving for an unattainable goal. This is, after all, the essential theme of all the major pastorals. Sannazaro's ends on a pessimistic note, with the acknowledgment of Sincero that happiness is illusory. Montemayor's is equally pessimistic, for it suggests that happiness can be achieved only through magic. Gil Polo, like Lope, stresses the role of free will, but his characters are all the victims of luck, circumstance, and 42
Lope's stance here is remarkably proletarian and, as such, different from that of early pastoralists, such as Montemayor, whose outlook was indisputably elitist. On social class in the pastoral romance, see William Empson, Some Versions of Pastoral (New York: New Directions, 1968) and Harold E. Toliver, Pastoral Forms and Attitudes, pp. 14-19. Although Empson and Toliver both refer to the English pastoral novel, their observations are relevant to a discussion of Spanish works. 43
"LaCeliadeLope,"DeZo/>£dfe Vega (Zaragoza, 1953), 103-174.
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the evil intentions of others. Cervantes leaves the problem without a solution. Lope's Arcadia, in spite of the separation of the lovers, is perhaps the most optimistic of these pastoral works, for it is the only one that clearly affirms the principle of self-determination. Belardo ends the novel with these words: "El (bien) que yo tenia perdi, mas porque no le merecia gozar que porque no le supe conocer; pero consuelome con que voy seguro de mayor desdicha." (p. 452) Anfriso, too, lost his good fortune not because he did not recognize it, but because he abused it and behaved unworthily. More than a condemnation of love, Lope's Arcadia is a condemnation of Anfriso's behavior. Belardo's words suggest that Polinesta's negative view of love as a product of idleness is not necessarily Lope's. Love is not evil or valueless, but when love fails, there is no sense in deluding oneself into believing in miraculous remedies or in indulging in self-pity, self-deprecation, or guilt. Lope's conclusion is not pessimistic, but realistic and humanistic. Arcadia was Lope's first major work and precedes his dramas. Yet, the work already reveals the hand of the playwright. Lope's most salient contribution to the development of the pastoral novel is the creation of true protagonists. Never before had the genre produced such natural characters, devoid of exaggerated courtesy and artificial rusticity. Never before had there been pastoral characters who laughed and joked, played and teased, quarreled and made up. And never before had there been pastoral characters who developed and matured. In short, never before had there been pastoral characters so recognizably human. And these characters are remarkably similar to those Lope will eventually place on the stage. Lope's shepherds behave very much like characters in a play. Unlike in earlier pastoral novels, in the Arcadia the story does not develop through narratives of characters who 245
relate past events, but rather unfolds step by step from the beginning of the story to the end. The emphasis is on the action. The message is conveyed not through sermons or comments by the author, but through the action itself. The scenes in Lope's romance are constructed like scenes of a play. In the pastoral romances that precede Lope's, each new character joins those who have already been introduced, until the scene sometimes becomes confusingly cluttered. In Lope's romance, characters are introduced and removed through a series of theatrical-type manoeuvres. For example, at the end of the first meeting between Anfriso and Belisarda, the lovers hear Galafron and Leriano singing. As an imaginary spotlight seems to focus on the two new characters, Belisarda and Anfriso hide, commenting that they must take their sheep to some more secure place. In theatrical terms, they exit. Shortly afterwards, Isbella and several other characters enter, at which time Leriano and Galafron decide to take their goats further up the river. This technique allows Lope to manipulate the reader's attention much as a playwright manipulates the spectator's. The dramatic quality of Lope's novel is also enhanced by the focus on two sole lovers instead of on a whole array of characters whose stories are interwoven.44 Lope's shepherds closely resemble stock dramatic characters such as the hero, the heroine, the antagonists, and the buffoon. The minor characters are very much like "extras," who fill out the scene, adding color and liveliness, but never acquire personalities of their own. One particularly innovative type of character that appears in the Arcadia is the gracioso, who, like the buffoons in some Golden Age plays, adds an element of humor while mocking the values and conduct of the protagonists. Cardenio, the gracioso in Lope's Arcadia, has in common 44
Osuna argues to the contrary in "La Originalidad."
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with his theatrical counterparts the qualities of lucidity and frankness. His chiding and teasing of Anfriso and the minor lovers often borders on slapstick, but his comments on the psychology of love elucidate the main themes of the romance. More than a desamorado of the type that appears in earlier pastoral romances, Cardenio offers a constant comic counterpoint to the traditional Neoplatonic perspective of the other shepherds.45 Comic relief is an element unique to Lope's novel. Humor is interjected not only through Cardenio, but also through the antics of the minor characters. At one point, for example, Alcino makes a snide remark about the lack of virgins in the valley. At another, he falls asleep during a discussion of jealousy. The pastoral gatherings in Lope's work are different from those in other pastoral romances. The atmosphere is relaxed and playful. The heavy intellectualizing typical of the shepherds' gatherings in earlier pastoral romances is diminished by this element of humor. Like a play and unlike previous pastoral romances, Lope's Arcadia is replete with dialog. Earlier pastorals are constructed around long monologs, with a minimum of dialog. In Lope's novel, the reduction of the number of characters and the presence of an outside narrator make it possible for the author to develop the action around the dialog. Whether or not the prose pastoral creations of Montemayor, Gil Polo, Cervantes, and their imitators are truly novels or romances is debatable. According to Edwin Muir, a romance contains a sequence of happenings that evokes the reader's anticipation, apprehension, fear, and the like, but no structured plot. It delights by arousing the reader's emotions and allaying them, but since its purpose is to delight, it must eventually end happily.46 45
Osuna mentions the affinity of Cardenio and his dramatic counterpart. La Arcadia, p. 239. ^The Structure of the Novel, (London: The Hogarth Press, 1946), p. 19.
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All of the pastorals previous to Lope's contain such a sequence of events, but in the case of Montemayor's and Gil Polo's Dianas, at least, there is a readily discernable structure.47 With regard to the denouement, it has been demonstrated in previous chapters that none of the major pastorals really ends happily. The Italian prototype, Sannazaro's Arcadia, concludes on a somber note. The pastoral portion of Rebeiro's Menina e moga is uniformly somber. In the case of Montemayor's and Gil Polo's Dianas, the happy ending is superimposed artificially by the appearance of Felicia, and Gil Polo states explicitly that the characters have behaved rashly and that only a contrived fictional ending can save them. Cervantes' La Galatea does not end at all. These works do have structural features in common with the romance, but they seem to be intermediate forms that defy exact classification. They typically have undeveloped characters, minimal dialog, and multiplot structures. Lope's Arcadia, on the other hand, is clearly closer to the novel than to the romance. It has characters who possess independent personalities and who develop in accordance with their own individual tendencies rather than in accordance with a preconceived protoypic mold. It has a structured plot that unravels around the actions of the characters and the dialog. Lope's Arcadia is without a doubt one of the most innovative works of the genre.48
47
See Bruce W. Wardropper, "The Diana of Montemayor." ^Lope does, however, retain numerous traditional elements. Osuna, who does not find Lope's Arcadia to be particularly original, discusses them in "La Originalidad."
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Chapter VII The Decline of A Genre: Gabriel de Corral's Cintia de Aranjuez The few critics who have examined Gabriel de Corral's Cintia de Aranjuez have been quick to point out that the novel contains few pastoral elements. Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce notes that with the appearance of La Cintia, "la novela pastoril queda.. .relegada a la categoria de un mero e intrascendente juguete literario cuyo validez, si alguna tiene, hay que buscarla en las posesias escritas con anterioridad, y no en la prosa, que aqui es lo circunstancial."1 Jose Siles Artes remarks that "lo unico que pertenece genuinamente al genero son las posesias y canciones,"2 and Amadeu Sole-Leris adds that by the time La Cintia was published, in 1628, "the pastoral element has run the full course from philosophical ideal to conventional entertainment."3 La Cintia, of course, is not a pastoral novel in the traditional sense. Unlike conventional pastoral heroines, Cintia is not the daughter of a wealthy peasant, but rather is a noblewoman. She does not live in rustic simplicity, but in a palace. Corral makes no attempt to reproduce a genuinely rural atmosphere. Cintia's estate is described as a "fingida Arcadia" and her attendants as "fmgidas pastoras." While earlier pastoral novels were populated with characters who obviously had the refinement of courtiers, the reader was l
La novela pastoril, p. 199.
2
El arte de la novela pastoril (Valencia: Albatros, 1972), p. 166.
*The Spanish Pastoral Novel, p. 134.
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nevertheless asked to accept the premise that they were functioning in an authentic pastoral context. Early pastoral novels were replete with descriptions of bucolic landscapes, complacent sheep and rustic huts. The shepherds played zamponas and ate cheese and other simple foods. Even characters such as Sannazaro's Sincere, a nobleman who goes to the country to escape the political turbulence of the court, is incorporated into the idealized rural atmosphere. In Corral's novel, on the other hand, the atmosphere is one of sumptuousness. The characters are frequently described as bizarros. The plot revolves around Cintia and Fileno. Cintia, having been left an orphan, retires to her posh country estate in Aranjuez, conveniently located only about fifty kilometers from Madrid. There she is surrounded by her friends and their suitors, all ladies and gentlemen of the court, who have come to keep her company. Cintia is engaged to a certain don Juan de Toledo, whom she has never seen, an arrangement made by her relatives that is extremely displeasing to her. Fileno, an unknown gentleman, is injured in a duel near Cintia's home, and nursed to health at the estate, where he is permitted to remain. Fileno and Cintia fall in love, although he decorously delays an overt declaration and she chastely feigns disinterest. Later we learn that Fileno is betrothed to a noblewoman named dona Guiomar, whom he releases from the marriage contract after becoming interested in Cintia. At the end of the novel it turns out that Fileno is actually don Juan and Cintia is really dona Guiomar. By marrying, they satisfy not only the wishes of their families, but also their natural inclinations. The urbanity of La Cintia has been seen by critics as an indication of the degeneration of the genre, and indeed it is. And yet, Corral's work is much more than a pastoral novel that has strayed from the norm. La Cintia helps to 250
elucidate not only the decline of the pastoral genre, but the decline of literary genres in general. Corral's ingeniousness lies in the way in which he plays with the very premise of pastoral. From its inception, the pastoral romance was based on a contrivance. The shepherds who inhabited the bucolic paradises of Sannazaro and Montemayor were never more than poetic inventions, more concerned with affairs of the heart than sheepraising. In Corral's work, the artificialness that was always intrinsic to the genre itself becomes a major theme. That Corral is thoroughly aware of building on a tradition is clear from his reference to "lo hermosamente fingido de Sannazaro, y otros mas antiguos."4 Corral's novel opens with two eclogues, the juxtaposition of which serves to underscore the author's concern with the artificial aspect of pastoral. The first eclogue describes a love-sick bird singing in a tree. The message is that intense emotion cannot be experienced and verbalized simultaneously: Calla tu cuidado No le digas, no. Que diran, si le cantas, Que te faltaamor. (p. 30)
The enamored bird, singing in the sunlight, makes a mockery of love. Does your fervor subside when the sun goes down?, the poet asks. An individual in the throes of emotional distress cannot intellectualize what he feels: (jQual amante sus querellas Tan suaues disfrazo Si el merito del amar Se pierde en la explicacibn? (p. 30)
4
Quotations are from La Cintia de Aranjuez, ed. Joaquin de Entrambasaguas (Madrid: Biblioteca de Antiguos Libros Hispanicos, CSIC, 1945).
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In order to verbalize passion, one must distance oneself. The creation of a poem requires analysis of one's feelings as well as the formulation of rhyme, application of the rules of meter, experimentation with form, image, metaphor. Love poetry is artificial, even fraudulent, in the sense that true ardor defies expression, and explanation requkes a dispassionate examination of feeling. In view of this, the shepherds of the conventional pastoral romances, preoccupied as they are with the poetic expression of their erotic anguish, seem somewhat absurd. It is this sense of absurdity that Corral underscores by juxtaposing a conventional love eclogue reminiscent of Garcilaso alongside this first poem. In the second eclogue the lover describes himself as in a state of emotional turmoil: his memory is wrecked, his spirit seems to have abandoned his body, his will is completely subservient to the overwhelming power of love. He is dying, but the death imposed by the formidable adversary love is sweet and life-giving. These are themes that have permeated renaissance love poetry since Petrarch, but the convincingness of this particular piece is undermined by its appearance immediately after a song in which the truthfulness of this very type of poetry is thrown into question. The message is clear: pastoral love poetry is pure artificio. And yet, its facitiousness makes it no less pleasing to the ear. It is clear that Corral's fingidospastores delight in the poetic interludes, and that the author hopes the reader will do the same. Throughout the book, Corral juxtaposes poetry typical of the pastoral novel—heroic and mythological romances as well as love sonnets—and burlesque poems recited by the gracioso Perecindo. The effect is that the loftiness of the serious poetry is constantly subverted. The reader is rarely made to feel that any of the verse corresponds to real emotion, especially since he is forewarned from the onset 252
that the poetry was composed before the novel was written: "todos los versos que contiene este volumen estauan escritos antes del intento; y para hazerlos tolerables, los engarze en estas prosas." (p. 21) Furthermore, the characters in Corral's book really have no reason to sing lamentations. Aside from Danteo, who is obsessively jealous, Corral's characters suffer little in the pursuit of amorous fulfillment. There are few obstacles. There are no cases of unrequited love. For them, poetry is a pastime, not an expression of anguish. The same topic is approached from a slightly different angle through the novela intercalada, in which Fileno explains the circumstances that led him to Aranjuez. Pressed to clarify his origins, Fileno must invent a story in order to occult his true identity. The reader is told from the onset that the story is fiction, and yet, one is drawn into Fileno's narrative and held by it as if it were authentic. Upon finishing the story and being reminded that it is only a ruse to maintain Fileno's condition a secret, the reader is thrown off balance and jolted rudely back into the "reality" of the rest of the novel. Fileno's story is clearly an artificio; no attempt has been made to persuade the reader otherwise. And yet, it has the power to charm and fascinate. For Corral, artifice has an enchantment all its own. Of course, the reader of pastoral novels had always known that Arcadia was a contrivance, but unlike the authors of earlier works, Corral thrusts the artificiality of the situations he creates into the reader's consciousness again and again. For example, when Fileno is found, "en vna silla de manos le Ueuaron al Palacio, y en la parte que la teman compuesta, hallo nueuas admiraciones en el costoso aliho, en el olor, en la caricia..." (p. 76) This is clearly a man-made paradise. Cintia's inseparable friend Filis is described as a "cultissima labradora," who wears "gargantilla, carcillos, y manillas de rubies, por imitar mas preciosamente a los corales." (p. 78) Instead of nature evoking material riches — 253
dewdrops being described as liquido aljofar, for example — in Corral's work material goods imitate nature. Simple peasant garb is replaced with sumptuous imitations. Filis' dress "era de tela riza de plata, sembrada de flores de nacar y verde, con guarnicion de caracolillos de oro sobre pestanas negras, de que era vn curioso sayuelo, y delantal con faldellin de la misma tela desaparecida entre franjones de oro: bolante de plata suelto, y rizo el cabello con adereco de flores." (p. 78) The peasant's frock and apron have been embellished extravagantly, almost to the point of making a mockery of the notion of rustic simplicity. At the end of the novel, Cintia and Fileno as well as their friends celebrate their impending marriages with festivities on an artificial island on the river Jarama. The tableaux are lavish and spectacular; they compete with one another for the most magnificent use of artificios. Here as elsewhere, words such as artifitio, fiction, inventado, fingir and imitar and their derivatives abound, sometimes appearing, in this last section, several times on a page. When the celebration is over, the ladies and gentlemen return to Madrid, abandoning their lodgings to the local peasants. Their stay in Aranjuez had never been more than a delightful game. But Arcadia was never more than a fiction to begin with. Corral's Cintia is, in a sense, a genre looking back on itself and turning its own falsity into a leitmotif. There is, in the constant counterpoint between the courtly verse and the burlesque rhymes, a gentle mockery of the whole premise of pastoral. There is, in the conversion of the simple shepherdess's garment into a luxurious gown, the implication that the peasants depicted in the early examples of the genre were never so simple to being with. It is not uncommon, when a literary style runs its course and begins to lose popular appeal, for it to become subject to transformation, badinage, or parody. Just as Cervantes exaggerates and distorts elements of the novel of chivalry to 254
produce something quite different in Don Quijote, and Quevedo uses the lexicon of the love sonnet to produce a gross mockery of the genre in his burlesque poetry, and Valle-Inclan transforms the conventional romantic hero into a caricature in the person of the degenerate Marques de Bradomin, so Corral, building upon the artificialty intrinsic to the pastoral novel, creates in his Cintia something quite different from the archetypes of the genre. By the time Corral wrote his Cintia de Aranjuez, the Spanish mentality had evolved from what it had been during the previous century. Economic, political and religious factors had begun to contribute to a more pessimistic view of life. By Corral's time, the idealism of the sixteenth century had commenced giving way to the cynicism of the seventeenth. The themes of engano and desengano dominate much o"f the literature of the period. At the same time, both on the stage and in poetry, there is a new fascination with artificio. This the age of Gongora, whom Corral greatly admired and whom he quotes and imitates in his Cintia, and the beginning of the age of Calderon. While Corral could not be called a cynic, the mentality reflected in La Cintia de Aranjuez is clearly that of the seventeenth century. The characters are worldly, not idealistic. Cunning is used to resolve problems, not magic. When Lisardo, who turns out to be Cintia's brother, unwittingly sets out to court the mistress of Aranjuez, he has recourse to a gypsy woman named Esperanga, who assures him: "no te quiero persuadir (que no me pareces ignorante) que con hechizos podre hazerte dueno de su memoria...; la industria es la que vence con mas seguridad estas dificultades." (p. 209) There is no character in la Cintia comparable to Felicia. And, although Esperanga seems to harken back to an earlier Celestinesque tradition, she lacks Celestina's association with the occult and her almost 255
supernatural power to captivate. like Lisardo, when Fileno decides to court Cintia, he precedes with Gracianesque shrewdness, cautiously cultivating the favor of Cintia's elderly manservant Laurencio, whom he convinces to divulge his mistress' story by making him a present of a gold watch. Much of the poetry that graces Corral's novel also reflects this new worldliness. The epigrams that appear at the beginning are thematically similar (although poetically inferior) to much of Quevedo's burlesque work. They contain a substantial amount of social commentary, touching on the themes of gossip, insincerity, feminine pretentiousness, government and politics. There is also a Vexamen on the sad state of contemporary poets. The philosophical debates that characterize earlier pastoral novels are almost entirely missing from Corral's work. There is a discussion between Danteo and Leriano of jealousy, and a debate between Filis and Elisa on whether it is more appropriate for a lover to express his passion or to remain silent. But, in general, Corral is more concerned with action than with rhetoric. In many ways, La Cintia is more similar to the modern novel than it is to the early pastoral romances. It consists of four books, the first three of which are akin to the modern cliff-hanger. like Lope's Arcadia, La Cintia revolves around only two protagonists whose story unfolds in the present, rather than around a group of characters, each of whom recounts a series of past events. Corral's prose is direct and easy to follow, free from numerous circumventions that characterize the early pastoral romances. The Byzantine element is absent here, and the novelas intercaladas are all related to the principal plot. Two of the secondary stories—Lisardo's and Fileno's sister's—relate to the question of Fileno's and Cintia's identities. Fileno's narrative serves to occult his identity, thereby contributing to the 256
sense of mystery that surrounds him. Much of the action of La Cintia is similar to that of the comedias de capa y espada, with questions of honor and duels between rival suitors the basis of the intrigue. The solution to the Fileno-Cintia affair is similar to the kinds of solutions characteristic oft. comedias de cap ay espada, such as Calderbn's La dama duende. Fileno and a former friend, don Pedro, had both been rivals for dona Guiomar without realizing that the lady in question is really Cintia. When Cintia's true identity is revealed, a duel between the two men seems inevitable, but tragedy is averted when don Pedro agrees to marry dona Alexandra, don Juan's sister, whom he had previously courted. In an extraordinarily contrived ending, once dona Guiomar and don Juan have been united, each of the other couples—including the servants —also pair off. Also like Lope, but unlike earlier writers of pastoral romances, Corral introduces a comic element into his work, by means of a gracioso. The presence of the gracioso is another similarity between Corral's novel and Baroque theater. La Cintia is, perhaps, a logical step in the evolution of the pastoral genre. It is unfair to condemn it, as some critics have done, for departing from the norms of the pastoral, when it is clear that the author's intention was not to reproduce the idealized Arcadia of the mid-sixteenth century romances, but to elevate the very factitiousness of the genre to a theme unto itself. La Cintia is a product of the seventeenth century, not of the sixteenth. In many ways it continues the trajectory already evident in Lope's Arcadia away from the conventional pastoral romance. It is certainly the product of a genre in decline, but it is nonetheless a delightful and thoroughly readable work with its very own raison d'etre.
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Conclusion "If you wish to understand the pscyhological and spiritual temper of any historical period, you can do no better than to look long and searchingly at its art," writes Rollo May.1 As well as any other genre, pastoral encompasses the dynamism of the Renaissance—the tension between chaos and order, between experience and ideal, between reality and perfection. Pastoral captures Renaissance man's constant striving, his "tentative de depasser les limites de 1'histoire humaine."2 Pastoral motifs permeated not only Renaissance literature, painting and sculpture, but even domestic art.3 Ornamention on candelabra, clocks, mirror frames, toilet articles, porcelain dinner services, and furniture of the period often depicted bucolic scenes, sometimes based on mythological themes. In daily life the elite of Renaissance society was reminded constantly of the bucolic ideal at the same time that it experienced intrigue, corruption, war. "Escapist creativity," affirms May, "is that which lacks encounter."4 By encounter he means absorption, intensity, and a quality of engagement. By this definition, pastoral art is not escapist, for it brings the artist into direct confrontation with his utopic vision and forces him to deal in some way with his inability to achieve it. The ways in which characters grapple with the discrepancy between present reality and an ideal projected either into the past l
Tbe Courage to Create, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), p. 46.
2
Monga,p. 56.
3
On pastoral themes in art, see Damiani, Montemayor's Diana, Music, and the Visual Arts. Sixteenth-century household objects depicting pastoral motifs are on display at the National Gallery, Washington, D. C.
*The Courage to Create, p. 35.
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through memory or into the future through hope constitute much of the content of the pastoral romance. Whether or not the characters' predicaments are resolved through magic or fortune, pastoral contains an element of rebellion. Characters revolt against the imperfection of their actual situations. For the most part, they refuse to succumb to reality. They cling tenaciously to their vision, withdrawing into projections of past or future happiness, or else, they struggle to bring about a change in circumstances that will make possible the realization of their goals. Even Montemayor's characters are defiant in their very passivity, for, while they view themselves as victims of love, they willingly embrace their tormentor, rejecting a world in which love does not reign. It is not until Lope's Anfriso hands himself over to Polinesta, a development that signals the beginning of the decline of the genre, that the element of rebellion shows signs of diminishing. Before Anfriso, no pastoral character is willing to say, "Oh, well, my loved-one doesn't love me, so I'd better forget her/him and get on with my life." Lope introduces an element of pragmatism into pastoral that initiates the erosion of its visionary core. His is the first major work of the genre to end with a rejection of the amorous ideal on the part of the protagonist. The creative force of pastoral arises from the characters' struggle against the limitations imposed by circumstance. The tension between these constraints and the erotic ideal produces the music that permeates the genre. The shepherd's songs are the expression of their yearning. Music demands tension; "harmony consists of opposing tension, like that of the bow and the lyre."5 Pastoral music communicates the characters' rejection of circumstance, which is temporal and cohibitive, in favor of a timeless, liberating absolute. 5
Heraclitus. Quoted by May, Courage, p. 119-
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Art, continues Rollo May, is the "fountainhead of human experience," not just decorative frosting.6 Pastoral expresses the aspirations, anguish, and attitudes of the artists who produced it and of their age. When pastoral's underlying values ceased to thrive, pastoral convention became pastoral cliche. As Spain sinks into a political and economic decline, baroque pessimism permeates the intellectual elite and prevails. Polyphemus replaces Sireno as an image for the times. But while pastoral may fall into disfavor, it inevitably revives in one form or another, for pastoral embodies a basic human need—the need to transcend the immediate circumstance in order to achieve spiritual peace in communion with God and nature.
6
May, Courage, p. 130.
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