THE AGE OF ENRIQUE IV. AND THE CATHOLIC KINGS
1454-1516
The literary movement of Juan II.'s reign is overlapped and continued
outside Spain by poets in the train of Alfonso V. of Aragón, who,
conquering Naples in 1443, became the patron of scholars like George
of Trebizond and Æneas Sylvius. It is notable that, despite their new
Italian environment, Alfonso's singers write by preference in Castilian
rather than in their native Catalan. Their work is to be sought in
the _Cancionero General_, in the _Cancionero de burlas provocantes á
risa_, and especially in the _Cancionero de Stúñiga_, which derives
its name from the accident that the first two poems in the collection
are by Lope de Stúñiga, cousin of that Suero de Quiñones who held the
_Paso Honroso_, mentioned under Lena's name in the previous chapter.
Stúñiga prolongs the courtly tradition in verses whose extreme finish
is remarkable. Juan de Tapia, Juan de Andújar, and Fernando de la
Torre practise in the same school of knightly hedonism; and at the
opposite pole is Juan de Valladolid, son of the public executioner, a
vagabond minstrel, who passed his life in coarse polemics with Antón de
Montero, with Gómez Manrique, and with Manrique's brother, the Conde
de Paredes. A notorious name is that of Pero Torrellas, whose _Coplas
de las calidades de las donas_ won their author repute as a satirist
of women, and begot innumerable replies and counterpleas: the satire,
to tell the truth, is poor enough, and is little more than violent but
pointless invective. The best as well as the most copious poet of the
Neapolitan group is CARVAJAL (or CARVAJALES), who bequeaths us the
earliest known _romance_, and so far succumbs to circumstances as to
produce occasional verses in Italian. In Castilian, Carvajal has the
true lyrical cry, and is further distinguished by a virile, martial
note, in admirable contrast with the insipid courtesies of his brethren.
To return to Spain, where, in accordance with the maxim that one
considerable poet begets many poetasters, countless rhymesters
spring from Mena's loins. The briefest mention must suffice for the
too-celebrated _Coplas del Provincial_, which, to judge by the extracts
printed from its hundred and forty-nine stanzas, is a prurient lampoon
against private persons. It lacks neither vigour nor wit, and denotes
a mastery of mordant phrase: but the general effect of its obscene
malignity is to make one sympathise with the repeated attempts at
its suppression. The attribution to Rodrigo Cota of this perverse
performance is capricious: internal evidence goes to show that the
libel is the work of several hands.
A companion piece of far greater merit is found in thirty-two
octosyllabic stanzas entitled _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_. Like the
_Coplas del Provincial_, this satirical eclogue has been referred
to Rodrigo Cota, and, like many other anonymous works, it has been
ascribed to Mena. Neither conjecture is supported by evidence, and
Sarmiento's ascription of _Mingo Revulgo_ to Hernando del Pulgar, who
wrote an elaborate commentary on it, rests on the puerile assumption
that "none but the poet could have commented himself with such
clearness." Two shepherds—Mingo Revulgo and Gil Aribato—represent
the lower and upper class respectively, discussing the abuses of
society. Gil Aribato blames the people, whose vices are responsible for
corruption in high places; Mingo Revulgo contends that the dissolute
King should bear the blame for the ruin of the state, and the argument
ends by lauding the golden mean of the burgess. The tone of _Mingo
Revulgo_ is more moderate than that of the _Provincial_; the attacks
on current evils are more general, more discreet, and therefore more
deadly; and the aim of the later satire is infinitely more serious and
elevated. Cast in dramatic form, but devoid of dramatic action, _Mingo
Revulgo_ leads directly to the eclogues of Juan del Encina, so often
called the father of the Spanish theatre; but its immediate interest
lies in the fact that it is the first of effective popular satires.
Among the poets of this age, the Jewish convert, ANTÓN DE MONTORO, _el
Ropero_ (1404-?1480), holds a place apart. A fellow of parts, Montoro
combined verse-making with tailoring, and his trade is frequently
thrown in his teeth by rivals smarting under his bitter insolence.
Save when he pleads manfully for his kinsfolk, who are persecuted and
slaughtered by a bloodthirsty mob, Montoro's serious efforts are mostly
failures. His picaresque verses, especially those addressed to Juan
de Valladolid, are replenished with a truculent gaiety which amuses
us almost as much as it amused Santillana; but he should be read in
extracts rather than at length. He is suspected of complicity in the
_Coplas del Provincial_, and there is good ground for thinking that
to him belong the two most scandalous pieces in the _Cancionero de
burlas provocantes á risa_—namely, the _Pleito del Manto_ (Suit of
the Coverlet), and a certain unmentionable comedy which purports to
be by Fray Montesino, and travesties Mena's _Trescientas_ in terms of
extreme filthiness. Montoro's short pieces are reminiscent of Juan
Ruiz, and, for all his indecency, it is fair to credit him with much
cleverness and with uncommon technical skill. His native vulgarity
betrays him into excesses of ribaldry which mar the proper exercise of
his undeniable gifts.
A better man and a better writer is JUAN ÁLVAREZ GATO (?1433-96), the
Madrid knight of whom Gómez Manrique says that he "spoke pearls and
silver." It is difficult for us to judge him on his merits, for, though
his _cancionero_ exists, it has not yet been printed; and we are forced
to study him as he is represented in the _Cancionero General_, where
his love-songs show a dignity of sentiment and an exquisiteness of
expression not frequent in any epoch, and exceptional in his own time.
His sacred lyrics, the work of his old age, lack unction: but even
here his mastery of form saves his pious _villancicos_ from oblivion,
and ranks him as the best of Encina's predecessors. His friend, Hernán
Mexía, follows Pero Torrellas with a satire on the foibles of women, in
which he easily outdoes his model in mischievous wit and in ingenious
fancy.
GÓMEZ MANRIQUE, Señor de Villazopeque (1412-91), is a poet of
real distinction, whose entire works have been reprinted from two
complementary _cancioneros_ discovered in 1885. Sprung from a family
illustrious in Spanish history, Gómez Manrique was a foremost leader
in the rebellion of the Castilian nobles against Enrique IV. In
allegorical pieces like the _Batalla de amores_, he frankly imitates
the Galician model, and in one instance he replies to a certain Don
Álvaro in Portuguese. Then he joins himself to the rising Italian
school, wherein his uncle, Santillana, had preceded him; and his
experiments extend to adaptations of Sem Tob's sententious moralisings,
to didactic poems in the manner of Mena, and to _coplas_ on Juan de
Valladolid, in which he measures himself unsuccessfully with the
rude tailor, Montoro. Humour was not Gómez Manrique's calling, and
his attention to form is an obvious preoccupation which diminishes
his vigour: but his chivalrous refinement and noble tenderness are
manifest in his answer to Torrellas' invective. His pathos is nowhere
more touching than in the elegiacs on Garcilaso de la Vega; while in
the lines to his wife, Juana de Mendoza, Gómez Manrique portrays the
fleetingness of life, the sting of death, with almost incomparable
beauty.
His _Representación del Nacimiento de Nuestro Señor_, the earliest
successor to the _Misterio de los Reyes Magos_, is a liturgical
drama written for and played at the convent of Calabazanos, of which
his sister was Superior. It consists of twenty octosyllabic stanzas
delivered by the Virgin, St. Joseph, St. Gabriel, St. Michael, St.
Raphael, an angel, and three shepherds, the whole closing with a
cradle-song. Simple as the construction is, it is more elaborate than
that of a later play on the Passion, wherein the Virgin, St. John, and
the Magdalen appear (though the last takes no part in the dialogue).
The refrain or _estribillo_ at the end of each stanza goes to show
that this piece was intended to be sung. These primitive essays in
the hieratic drama have all the interest of what was virtually a new
invention, and their historical importance is only exceeded by that of
a secular play, written by Gómez Manrique for the birthday of Alfonso,
brother of Enrique IV., in which the Infanta Isabel played one of the
Muses. In all three experiments the action is of the slightest, though
the dialogue is as dramatic as can be expected from a first attempt.
The point to be noted is that Gómez Manrique foreshadows both the lay
and sacred elements of the Spanish theatre.
His fame has been unjustly eclipsed by that of his nephew, JORGE
MANRIQUE, Señor de Belmontejo (1440-1478), a brilliant soldier and
partisan of Queen Isabel's, who perished in an encounter before
the gates of Garci-Múñoz, and is renowned by reason of a single
masterpiece. His verses are mostly to be found in the _Cancionero
General_, and a few are given in the _cancioneros_ of Seville and
Toledo. Like that of his uncle, Gómez, his vein of humour is thin and
poor, and the satiric stanzas to his stepmother border on vulgarity.
In acrostic love-songs and in other compositions of a like character,
Jorge Manrique is merely clever in the artificial style of many
contemporaries—is merely a careful craftsman absorbed in the technical
details of art, with small merit beyond that of formal dexterity. The
forty-three stanzas entitled the _Coplas de Jorge Manrique por la
muerte de su padre_, have brought their writer an immortality which,
outliving all freaks of taste, seems as secure as Cervantes' own. An
attempt has been made to prove that Jorge Manrique's elegiacs on his
father are not original, and that the elegist had some knowledge of Abu
'l-Bakā Salih ar-Rundi's poem on the decadence of the Moslem power in
Spain. Undoubtedly Valera has so ingeniously rendered the Arab poet as
to make the resemblance seem pronounced: but the theory is untenable,
for it is not pretended that Jorge Manrique could read Arabic, and
lofty commonplaces on death abound in all literature, from the Bible
downwards.
In this unique composition Jorge Manrique approves himself, for once,
a poet of absolute genius, an exquisite in lyrical orchestration. The
poem opens with a slow movement, a solemn lament on the vanity of
grandeur, the frailty of life; it modulates into resigned acceptance of
an inscrutable decree; it closes with a superb symphony, through which
are heard the voices of the seraphim and the angelic harps of Paradise.
The workmanship is of almost incomparable excellence, and in scarcely
one stanza can the severest criticism find a technical flaw. Jorge
Manrique's sincerity touched a chord which vibrates in the universal
heart, and his poem attained a popularity as immediate as it was
imperishable. Camões sought to imitate it; writers like Montemôr and
Silvestre glossed it; Lope de Vega declared that it should be written
in letters of gold; it was done into Latin and set to music in the
sixteenth century by Venegas de Henestrosa; and in our century it has
been admirably translated by Longfellow in a version from which these
stanzas are taken:—
"_Behold of what delusive worth
The bubbles we pursue on earth,
The shapes we chase
Amid a world of treachery;
They vanish ere death shuts the eye,
And leave no trace._
_Time steals them from us,—chances strange,
Disastrous accidents, and change,
That come to all;
Even in the most exalted state,
Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate;
The strongest fall._
_Tell me,—the charms that lovers seek
In the clear eye and blushing cheek,
The hues that play
O'er rosy lip and brow of snow,
When hoary age approaches slow,
Ah, where are they?..._
_Tourney and joust, that charmed the eye,
And scarf, and gorgeous panoply,
And nodding plume,—
What were they but a pageant scene?
What but the garlands gay and green,
That deck the tomb?..._
_O Death, no more, no more delay;
My spirit longs to flee away,
And be at rest;
The will of Heaven my will shall be,—
I bow to the divine decree,
To God's behest...._
_His soul to Him who gave it rose:
God lead it to its long repose,
Its glorious rest!
And though the warrior's sun has set,
Its light shall linger round us yet,
Bright, radiant, blest._"
By the side of this achievement the remaining poems of Enrique IV.'s
reign seem wan and withered. But mention is due to the Sevillan, Pedro
Guillén de Segovia (1413-74), who, beginning life under the patronage
of Álvaro de Luna, Santillana, and Mena, passes into the household of
the alchemist-archbishop Carrillo, and proclaims himself a disciple
of Gómez Manrique. His chief performance is his metrical version of
the Seven Penitential Psalms, which is remarkable as being the first
attempt at introducing the biblical element into Spanish literature.
Prose is represented by the Segovian, Diego Enríquez del Castillo (fl.
1470), chaplain and privy councillor to Enrique IV., whose official
_Crónica_ he drew up in a spirit of candid impartiality; but there is
ground for suspecting that he revised his manuscript after the King's
death. Charged with speeches and addresses, his history is written with
pompous correctness, and it seems probable that the wily trimmer so
chose his sonorous ambiguities of phrase as to avoid offending either
his sovereign or the rebel magnates whose triumph he foresaw. Another
chronicle of this reign is ascribed to Alfonso Fernández de Palencia
(1423-92), who is also rashly credited with the authorship of the
_Coplas del Provincial_; but it is not proved that Palencia wrote any
other historical work than his Latin _Gesta Hispaniensia_, a mordant
presentation of the time's corruptions. The Castilian chronicle which
passes under his name is a rough translation of the _Gesta_, made
without the writer's authority. Its involved periods, some of them a
chapter long, are very remote from the admirably vigorous style of
Palencia's allegorical _Batalla campal entre los lobos y los perros_
(Pitched Battle between Wolves and Dogs), and his patriotic _Perfección
del triunfo militar_, wherein he vaunts, not without reason, his
countrymen as among the best fighting men in Europe. Palencia's gravest
defect is his tendency to Latinise his construction, as in his poor
renderings of Plutarch and Josephus. But at his best he writes with
ease and force and distinction. The _Crónica de hechos del Condestable
Miguel Lucas Iranzo_, possibly the work of Juan de Olid, is in no sense
the history it professes to be, and is valuable mainly because of its
picturesque, yet simple and natural digressions on the social life of
Spain.
* * * * *
The very year of the Catholic King's accession (1474) coincides with
the introduction of the art of printing into Spain. Ticknor dates
this event as happening in 1468, remarking that "there can be no
doubt about the matter." Unluckily, the book upon which he relies
is erroneously dated. _Les Trobes en lahors de la Verge María_—the
first volume printed in Spain—is a collection of devout verses in
Valencian, by forty-four poets, mostly Catalans. Of these, Francisco
de Castellví, Francisco Barcelo, Pedro de Civillar, and an anonymous
singer—_Hum Castellá sens nom_—write in Castilian. From 1474 onward,
printing-presses multiply, and versions of masters like Dante,
Boccaccio, and Petrarch, made by Pedro Fernández de Villegas, by Álvar
Gómez, and by Antonio de Obregón, are printed in quick succession.
Henceforward the best models are available beyond a small wealthy
circle; but the results of this popularisation are not immediate.
Íñigo de Mendoza, a gallant and a Franciscan, appears as a disciple
of Mena and Gómez Manrique in his _Vita Christi_, which halts at the
Massacre of the Innocents. Fray Íñigo is too prone to digressions,
and to misplaced satire mimicked from _Mingo Revulgo_, yet his verses
have a pleasing, unconventional charm in their adaptation to devout
purpose of such lyric forms as the _romance_ and the _villancico_. His
fellow-monk, Ambrosio Montesino, Isabel's favourite poet, conveys to
Spain the Italian realism of Jacopone da Todi in his _Visitación de
Nuestra Señora_, and in hymns fitted to the popular airs preserved in
Asenjo Barbieri's _Cancionero Musical de los siglos xv. y xvi_. This
embarrassing condition, joined to the writer's passion for conciseness,
results in hard effects; yet, at his best, he pipes "a simple song
for thinking hearts," and, as Menéndez y Pelayo, the chief of Spanish
critics, observes, Montesino's historic interest lies in his suffusing
popular verse with the spirit of mysticism, and in his transmuting the
popular forms of song into artistic forms.
Space fails for contemporary authors of _esparsas_, _decires_,
_resquestas_, more or less ingenious; but we cannot omit the name of
the Carthusian, JUAN DE PADILLA (1468-?1522), who suffers from an
admirer's indiscretion in calling him "the Spanish Homer." His _Retablo
de la Vida de Cristo_ versifies the Saviour's life in the manner of
Juvencus, and his more elaborate poem, _Los doce triunfos de los doce
Apóstoles_, strives to fuse Dante's severity with Petrarch's grace.
Rhetorical out of season, and tending to abuse his sonorous vocabulary,
Padilla indulges in verbal eccentricities and in sudden drops from
altisonance to familiarity; but in his best passages—his journey
through hell and purgatory, guided by St. Paul—he excels by force
of vision, by his realisation of the horror of the grave, and by his
vigorous transcription of the agonies of the lost. The allegorical form
is again found in the _Infierno del Amor_ of Garci Sánchez de Badajoz,
who ended life in a madhouse. His presentation of Macías, Rodríguez
del Padrón, Santillana, and Jorge Manrique in thrall to love's
enchantments, was to the taste of his time, and a poem with the same
title, _Infierno del Amor_, made the reputation of a certain Guevara,
whose scattered songs are full of picaresque and biting wit. For the
rest, Sánchez de Badajoz depends upon his daring, almost blasphemous
humour, his facility in improvising, and his mastery of popular forms.
Of the younger poetic generation, PEDRO MANUEL DE URREA (1486-? 1530)
is the most striking artist. His _Peregrinación á Jersualén_ and his
_Penitencia de Amor_ are practically inaccessible, but his _Cancionero_
displays an ingenious and versatile talent. Urrea's aristocratic
spirit revolts at the thought that in this age of printing his songs
will be read "in cellars and kitchens," and the publication of his
verses seems due to his mother. His _Fiestas de Amor_, translated from
Petrarch, are tedious, but he has a perfect mastery of the popular
_décima_, and his _villancicos_ abound in quips of fancy matched by
subtleties of expression. Urrea fails when he closes a stanza with a
Latin tag—a dubious adonic, such as _Dominus tecum_. He fares better
with his modification of Jorge Manrique's stanza, approving his skill
in modulatory effects. His most curious essay is his verse rendering of
the _Celestina's_ first act; for here he anticipates the very modes of
Lope de Vega and of Tirso de Molina. But in his own day he was not the
sole practitioner in dramatic verse.
A distinct progress in this direction is made by RODRIGO COTA DE
MAGUAQUE (fl. 1490), a convert Jew, who incited the mob to massacre his
brethren. Wrongly reputed the author of the _Coplas del Provincial_,
of _Mingo Revulgo_, and of the _Celestina_, Cota is the parent of
fifty-eight quatrains, in the form of a burlesque wedding-song,
recently discovered by M. Foulché-Delbosc. But Cota's place in
literature is ensured by his celebrated _Diálogo entre el Amor y un
Viejo_. In seventy stanzas Love and the Ancient argue the merits of
love, till the latter yields to the persuasion of the god, who then
derides the hoary amorist. The dialogue is eminently dramatic both in
form and spirit, the action convincing, clear, and rapid, while the
versification is marked by an exquisite melody. It is not known that
the _Diálogo_ was ever played, yet it is singularly fitted for scenic
presentation.
The earliest known writer for the stage among the moderns was,
as we have already said, Gómez Manrique; but earlier spectacles
are frequently mentioned in fifteenth-century chronicles. These
may be divided into _entremeses_, a term loosely applied to balls
and tourneys, accompanied by chorus-singing; and into _momos_,
entertainments which took on a more literary character, and which found
excuses for dramatic celebrations at Christmas and Eastertide. Gómez
Manrique had made a step forward, but his pieces are primitive and
fragmentary compared to those of JUAN DEL ENCINA (1468-1534). A story
given in the scandalous _Pleito del Manto_ reports that Encina was the
son of Pero Torrellas, and another idle tale declares him to be Juan de
Tamayo. The latter is proved a blunder; the former is discredited by
Encina's solemn cursing of Torrellas. Encina passed from the University
of Salamanca to the household of the Duke of Alba (1493), was present
next year at the siege of Granada, and celebrated the victory in his
_Triunfo de fama_. Leaving for Italy in 1498, he is found at Rome in
1502, a favourite with that Spanish Pope, Alexander VI. He returned
to Spain, took orders, and sang his first mass at Jerusalem in 1519,
at which date he was appointed Prior of the Monastery of León. He is
thought to have died at Salamanca.
Encina began writing in his teens, and has left us over a hundred and
seventy lyrics, composed before he was twenty-five years old. Nearly
eighty pieces, with musical settings by the author, are given in
Asenjo Barbieri's _Cancionero Musical_. His songs, when undisfigured
by deliberate conceits, are full of devotional charm. Still, Encina
abides with us in virtue of his eclogues, the first two being given
in the presence of his patrons at Alba de Tormes, probably in 1492.
His plays are fourteen in number, and were undoubtedly staged. Ticknor
would persuade us that the seventh and eighth, though really one piece,
"with a pause between," were separated by the poet "in his simplicity."
Even Encina's simplicity may be overstated, and Ticknor's "pause" must
have been long: for the seventh eclogue was played in 1494, and the
eighth in 1495. His eclogues are eclogues only in name, being dramatic
presentations of primitive themes, with a distinct but simple action.
The occasion is generally a feast-day, and the subject is sometimes
sacred. Yet not always so: the _Égloga de Fileno_ dramatises the
shepherd's passion for Lefira, and ends with a suicide suggested by the
_Celestina_. In like wise, Encina's _Plácida y Vitoriano_, involving
two attempted suicides and one scabrous scene, introduces Venus and
Mercury as characters. Again, the _Aucto del Repelón_ dramatises the
adventures in the market-place of two shepherds, Johan Paramas and
Piernicurto; while _Cristino y Febea_ exhibits the ignominious downfall
of a would-be hermit in phrases redolent of Cota's _Diálogo_. Simple
as the motives are, they are skilfully treated, and the versification,
especially in _Plácida y Vitoriano_, is pure and elegant. Encina
elaborates the strictly liturgical drama to its utmost point, and his
younger contemporary, Lucas Fernández, makes no further progress, for
the obvious reason that no novelty was possible without incurring a
charge of heresy. As Sr. Cotarelo y Mori has pointed out, the sacred
drama remains undeveloped till the lives of saints and the theological
mysteries are exploited by men of genius. Meanwhile, Encina has begun
the movement which culminates in the _autos_ of Calderón.
In another direction, the Spanish version of _Amadís de Gaula_ (1508)
marks an epoch. This story was known to Ayala and three other singers
in Baena's chorus; and the probability is that the lost original was
written in Portuguese by Joham de Lobeira (1261-1325), who uses in
the Colocci-Brancuti _Canzoniere_ (No. 230) the same _ritournelle_
that Oriana sings in _Amadís_. GARCÍA ORDÓÑEZ DE MONTALVO (fl. 1500)
admits that three-fourths of his book is mere translation; and it may
be that he was not the earliest Spaniard to annex the story, which, in
the first instance, derives from France. Amadís of Gaul is a British
knight, and, though the geography is bewildering, "Gaul" stands for
Wales, as "Bristoya" and "Vindilisora" stand for Bristol and Windsor.
The chronology is no less puzzling, for the action occurs "not many
years after the Passion of our Redeemer." Briefly, the book deals
with the chequered love of Amadís for Oriana, daughter of Lisuarte,
King of Britain. Spells incredible, combats with giants, miraculous
interpositions, form the tissue of episode, till fidelity is rewarded,
and Amadís made happy.
Cervantes' Barber, classing the book as "the best in that kind,"
saved it from the holocaust, and posterity has accepted the Barber's
sentence. _Amadís_ is at least the only chivalresque novel that
man need read. The style is excellent, and, though the tale is too
long-drawn, the adventures are interesting, the supernatural machinery
is plausibly arranged, and the plot is skilfully directed. Later
stories are mostly burlesques of _Amadís_: the giants grow taller,
the monsters fiercer, the lakes deeper, the torments sharper. In his
_Sergas de Esplandián_, Montalvo fails when he attempts to take up
the story at the end of _Amadís_. One tedious sequel followed another
till, within half a century, we have a thirteenth _Amadís_. The
best of its successors is Luis Hurtado's (or, perhaps, Francisco de
Moraes') _Palmerín de Inglaterra_, which Cervantes' Priest would have
kept in such a casket as "that which Alexander found among Darius'
spoils, intended to guard the works of Homer." Nor is this mere
irony. Burke avowed in the House of Commons that he had spent much
time over _Palmerín_, and Johnson wasted a summer upon _Felixmarte de
Hircania_. Wearisome as the kind was, its popularity was so unbounded
that Hieronym Sempere, in the _Caballería cristiana_, applied the
chivalresque formula to religious allegory, introducing Christ as
the Knight of the Lion, Satan as the Knight of the Serpent, and the
Apostles as the Twelve Knights of the Round Table. Of its class,
_Amadís de Gaula_ is the first and best.
From an earlier version of _Amadís_ derives the _Cárcel de Amor_ of
Diego San Pedro, the writer of some erotic verses in the _Cancionero
de burlas_. San Pedro tells the story of the loves of Leriano and
Laureola, mingled with much allegory and chivalresque sentiment.
The construction is weak, but the style is varied, delicate, and
distinguished. Ending with a panegyric on women, "who, no less than
cardinals, bequeath us the theological virtues," the book was banned
by the Inquisition. But nothing stayed its course, and, despite all
prohibitions, it was reprinted times out of number. The _Cárcel de
Amor_ ends with a striking scene of suicide, which was borrowed by many
later novelists.
The first instance of its annexation occurs in the _Tragicomedia de
Calisto y Melibea_, better known as the _Celestina_. This remarkable
book, first published (as it seems) at Burgos, in 1499, has been
classed as a play, or as a novel in dialogue. Its length would make
it impossible on the boards, and its influence is most marked on the
novel. As first published, it had sixteen acts, extended later to
twenty-one, and in some editions to twenty-two. On the authority of
Rojas, anxious as to the Inquisition, the first and longest act has
been attributed to Mena and to Cota; but the prose is vastly superior
to Mena's, while the verse is no less inferior to the lyrism of Cota's
_Diálogo_. There is small doubt but that the whole is the work of the
lawyer FERNANDO DE ROJAS, a native of Montalbán, who became Alcaide of
Salamanca, and died, at a date unknown, at Talavera de la Reina.
The tale is briefly told. Calisto, rebuffed by Melibea, employs the
procuress Celestina, who arranges a meeting between the lovers. But
destiny works a speedy expiation: Celestina is murdered by Calisto's
servants, Calisto is accidentally killed, and Melibea destroys herself
before her father, whom she addresses in a set speech suggested by the
_Cárcel de Amor_. Celestina is developed from Ruiz' Trota-conventos;
Rojas' lovers, Calisto and Melibea, from Ruiz' Melón and Endrina;
and some hints are drawn from Alfonso Martínez de Toledo. But,
despite these borrowings, we have to deal with a completely original
masterpiece, unique in its kind. We are no longer in an atmosphere
thick with impossible monsters in incredible circumstances: we are in
the very grip of life, in commerce with elemental, strait passions.
Rojas is the first Spanish novelist who brings a conscience to his
work, who aims at more than whiling away an idle hour. He is not great
in incident, his plot is clumsily fashioned, the pedantry of his age
fetters him; but in effects of artistry, in energy of phrasing, he
is unmatched by his coevals. Though he invented the comic type which
was to become the _gracioso_ of Calderón, his humour is thin; on the
other hand, his realism and his pessimistic fulness are above praise.
Choosing for his subject the tragedy of illicit passion, he hit on
the means of exhibiting all his powers. His purpose is to give a
transcript of life, objective and impersonal, and he fulfils it, adding
thereunto a mysterious touch of sombre imagination. His characters
are not Byzantine emperors and queens of Cornwall: he traffics in
the passions of plain men and women, the agues of the love-sick, the
crafts of senile vice, the venality and vauntings of picaroons, the
effrontery of croshabells. Hence, from the first hour, his book took
the world by storm, was imprinted in countless editions, was continued
by Juan Sedeño and Feliciano da Silva—the same whose "reason of the
unreasonableness" so charmed Don Quixote—was imitated by Sancho Muñón
in _Lisandro y Roselia_, was used by Lope de Vega in the _Dorotea_, and
was passed from the Spanish stage to be glorified as _Romeo and Juliet_.
Between the years 1508-12 was composed the anonymous _Cuestión de
Amor_, a semi-historical, semi-social novel wherein contemporaries
figure under feigned names, some of which are deciphered by the
industry of Signor Croce, who reveals Belisena, for example, as Bona
Sforza, afterwards Queen of Poland. Though much of its first success
was due to the curiosity which commonly attaches to any _roman à clef_,
it still interests because of its picturesque presentation of Spanish
society in Italian surroundings, and the excellence of its Castilian
style was approved by that sternest among critics, Juan de Valdés.
History is represented by the _Historia de los Reyes católicos_ of
Andrés Bernáldez (d. 1513), parish priest of Los Palacios, near
Seville, who relates with spirit and simplicity the triumphs of the
reign, waxing enthusiastic over the exploits of his friend Columbus.
A more ambitious historian is HERNANDO DEL PULGAR (1436-?1492), whose
_Claros Varones de Castilla_ is a brilliant gallery of portraits,
drawn by an observer who took Pérez de Guzmán for his master. Pulgar's
_Crónica de los Reyes católicos_ is mere official historiography, the
work of a flattering partisan, the slave of flagrant prejudice; yet
even here the charm of manner is seductive, though the perdurable value
of the annals is naught. As a portrait-painter, as an intelligent
analyst of character, as a wielder of Castilian prose, Pulgar ranks
only second to his immediate model. He is to be distinguished from
another Hernando del Pulgar (1451-1531), who celebrated the exploits of
the great captain, Gonzalo de Córdoba, at the request of Carlos V. In
this case, as in so many others, the old is better.
One great name, that of Christopher Columbus or CRISTÓBAL COLÓN
(1440-1506) is inseparable from those of the Catholic kings, who
astounded their enemies by their ingratitude to the man who gave them
a New World. Mystic and adventurer, Columbus wrote letters which are
marked by sound practical sense, albeit couched in the apocalyptic
phrases of one who holds himself for a seer and prophet. Incorrect,
uncouth, and rugged as is his syntax, he rises on occasion to heights
of eloquence astonishing in a foreigner. But it is perhaps imprudent to
classify such a man as Columbus by his place of birth. An exception in
most things, he was probably the truest Spaniard in all the Spains; and
by virtue of his transcendent genius, visible in word as in action, he
is filed upon the bede-roll of the Spanish glories.