THE AGE OF CARLOS QUINTO
1516-1556
With the arrival of printing-presses in 1474 the diffusion of foreign
models became general throughout Spain. The closing years of the reign
of the Catholic Kings were essentially an era of translation, and
this movement was favoured by high patronage. The King, Fernando, was
the pupil of Vidal de Noya; the Queen, Isabel, studied under Beatriz
Galindo, _la latina_; and Luis Vives reports that their daughter, Mad
Juana, could and did deliver impromptu Latin speeches to the deputies
of the Low Countries. Throughout the land Italian scholars preached
the gospel of the Renaissance. The brothers Geraldino (Alessandro and
Antonio) taught the children of the royal house. Peter Martyr, the
Lombard, boasts that the intellectual chieftains of Castile sat at his
feet; and he had his present reward, for he ended as Bishop of Granada.
From the Latin chair in the University of Salamanca, Lucio Marineo lent
his aid to the good cause; and, in Salamanca likewise, the Portuguese,
Arias Barbosa, won repute as the earliest good Peninsular Hellenist.
Spanish women took the fever of foreign culture. Lucía de Medrano and
Juana de Contreras lectured to university men upon the Latin poets
of the Augustan age. So, too, Francisca de Nebrija would serve as
substitute for her father, ANTONIO DE NEBRIJA (1444-1522), the greatest
of Spanish humanists, the author of the _Arte de la Lengua Castellana_
and of a Spanish-Latin dictionary, both printed in 1492. Nebrija
touched letters at almost every point, touching naught that he did not
adorn; he expounded his principles in the new University of Alcalá de
Henares, founded in 1508 by the celebrated Cardinal Francisco Jiménez
de Cisneros (1436-1517). Palencia had preceded Nebrija by two years
with the earliest Spanish-Latin dictionary; but Nebrija's drove it from
the field, and won for its author a name scarce inferior to Casaubon's
or Scaliger's.
The first Greek text of the New Testament ever printed came from
Alcalá de Henares in 1514. In 1520 the renowned Complutensian Polyglot
followed; the Hebrew and Chaldean texts being supervised by converted
Jews like Alfonso de Alcalá, Alfonso de Zamora, and Pablo Coronel; the
Greek by Nebrija, Juan de Vergara, Demetrio Ducas, and Hernán Núñez,
"the Greek Commander." Versions of the Latin classics were in all men's
hands. Palencia rendered Plutarch and Josephus, Francisco Vidal de Noya
translated Horace, Virgil's _Eclogues_ were done by Encina, Cæsar's
_Commentaries_ by Diego López de Toledo, Plautus by Francisco López
Villalobos, Juvenal by Jerónimo de Villegas, and Apuleius' _Golden Ass_
by Diego López de Cartagena, Archdeacon of Seville. Juan de Vergara
was busied on the text of Aristotle, while his brother, Francisco
de Vergara, gave Spaniards their first Greek grammar and translated
Heliodorus. Nor was activity restrained to dead languages: the Italian
teachers saw to that. Dante was translated by Pedro Fernández de
Villegas, Archdeacon of Burgos; Petrarch's _Trionfi_ by Antonio
Obregón and Álvar Gómez; and the _Decamerone_ by an anonymous writer of
high merit.
If Italians invaded Spain, Spaniards were no less ready to settle
in Italy. Long before, Dante had met with Catalans and had branded
their proverbial stinginess:—"_l'avara povertà di Catalogna_." A
little later, and Boccaccio spurned Castilians as so many wild men:
"_semibarbari et efferati homines_." Lorenzo Valla, chief of the
Italian scholars at Alfonso V.'s Neapolitan court, denounced the King's
countrymen as illiterates:—"_a studiis humanitatis abhorrentes_."
Benedetto Gareth of Barcelona (1450-?1514) plunged into the new
current, forswore his native tongue, wrote his respectable _Rime_ in
Italian, and re-incarnated himself under the Italian form of Chariteo.
A certain Jusquin Dascanio is represented by a song, half-Latin,
half-Italian, in Asenjo Barbieri's _Cancionero Musical de los Siglos
xv. y xvi._ (No. 68), and a few anonymous pieces in the same collection
are written wholly in Italian. The Valencian, Bertomeu Gentil, and the
Castilian, Tapia, use Italian in the _Cancionero General_ of 1527, the
former succeeding so far that one of his eighteen Italian sonnets has
been accepted as Tansillo's by all Tansillo's editors. The case of the
Spanish Jew, Judas Abarbanel, whom Christians call León Hebreo, is
exceptional. Undoubtedly his famous _Dialoghi di amore_, that curious
product of neo-platonic and Semitic mysticism which charmed Abarbanel's
contemporaries no less than it charmed Cervantes, reaches us in Italian
(1535). Yet, since it was written in 1502, its foreign dress is the
chance result of the writer's expulsion from Spain with his brethren in
1492. It is unlikely that Judas Abarbanel should have mastered all the
secrets of Italian within ten years: that he composed in Castilian, the
language most familiar to him, is overwhelmingly probable.
But the Italian was met on his own ground. The Neapolitan poet, Luigi
Tansillo, declares himself a Spaniard to the core:—"_Spagnuolo
d'affezione_." And, later, Panigarola asserts that Milanese fops,
on the strength of a short tour in Spain, would pretend to forget
their own speech, and would deliver themselves of Spanish words and
tags in and out of season. Meanwhile, Spanish Popes, like Calixtus
III. and Alexander VI., helped to bring Spanish into fashion. It is
unlikely that the epical _Historia Parthenopea_ (1516) of the Sevillan,
Alonso Hernández, found many readers even among the admirers of the
Great Captain, Gonzalo de Córdoba, whose exploits are its theme; but
it merits notice as a Spanish book issued in Rome, and as a poor
imitation of Mena's _Trescientas_, with faint suggestions of an Italian
environment. A Spaniard, whom Encina may have met upon his travels,
introduced Italians to the Spanish theatre. This was BARTOLOMÉ TORRES
NAHARRO, a native of Torres, near Badajoz. Our sole information
concerning him comes from a Letter Prefatory to his works, written by
one Barbier of Orleans. The dates of his birth and death are unknown,
and no proof supports the story that he was driven from Rome because
of his satires on the Papal court. Neither do we know that he died in
extreme poverty. These are baseless tales. What is certain is this:
that Torres Naharro, having taken orders, was captured by Algerine
pirates, was ransomed, and made his way to Rome about the year 1513.
Further, we know that he lived at Naples in the service of Fabrizio
Colonna, and that his collected plays were published at Naples in
1517 with the title of _Propaladia_, dedicated to Francisco Dávalos,
the Spanish husband of Vittoria Colonna. That Torres Naharro was a
favourite with Leo X. rests on no better basis than the fact that in
the Pope's privilege to print he is styled _dilectus filius_.
His friendly witness, Barbier, informs us that, though Torres Naharro
was quite competent to write his plays in Latin, he chose Castilian of
set purpose that "he might be the first to write in the vulgar tongue."
This phrase, taken by itself, implies ignorance of Encina's work; in
any case, Torres Naharro develops his drama on a larger scale than that
of his predecessor. His _Prohemio_ or Preface is full of interesting
doctrine. He divides his plays into five acts, because Horace wills it
so, and these acts he calls _jornadas_, "because they resemble so many
resting-points." The personages should not be too many: not less than
six, and not more than twelve. If the writer introduces some twenty
characters in his _Tinellaria_, he excuses himself on the ground that
"the subject needed it." He further apologises for the introduction
of Italian words in his plays: a concession to "the place where, and
the persons to whom, the plays were recited." Lastly, Torres Naharro
divides dramas into two broad classes: first, the _comedia de noticia_,
which treats of events really seen and noted; second, the _comedia de
fantasía_, which deals with feigned things, imaginary incidents that
seem true, and might be true, though in fact they are not so.
Of the _comedia de fantasía_ Torres Naharro is the earliest master. He
adventures on the allegorical drama in his _Trofea_, which commemorates
the exploits of Manoel of Portugal in Africa and India, and brings Fame
and Apollo upon the stage. The chivalresque drama is represented by
him in such pieces as the _Serafina_, the _Aquilana_, the _Himenea_;
while he examples the play of manners by the _Jacinta_ and the
_Soldadesca_. Each piece begins with an _introyto_ or prologue, wherein
indulgence and attention are requested; then follows a concise summary
of the plot; last, the action opens. The faults of Torres Naharro's
theatre are patent enough: his tendency to turn comedy to farce, his
inclination to extravagance, his want of tact in crowding his stage—as
in the _Tinellaria_—with half-a-dozen characters chattering in
half-a-dozen different languages at once.
Setting aside these primitive humours, it is impossible to deny that
Torres Naharro has a positive, as well as an historic value. His
versification, always in the Castilian octosyllabic metre, with no
trespassing on the Italian hendecasyllabic, is neat and polished,
and, though far from splendid, lacks neither sweetness nor speed; his
dialogue is pointed, opportune, dramatic; his characters are observed
and are set in the proper light. His verses entitled the _Lamentaciones
de Amor_ are in the old, artificial manner; his satirical couplets
on the clergy are vigorous and witty attacks on the general life of
Rome; his devout songs are neither better nor worse than those of his
contemporaries; and his sonnets—two in Italian, one in a mixture of
Italian and Latin—are mere curiosities of no real worth, yet they
testify to the writer's uncommon versatility. Versatile Torres Naharro
unquestionably was, and his gift serves him in the plays for which he
is remembered. He is the first Spaniard to realise his personages, to
create character on the boards; the first to build a plot, to maintain
an interest of action by variety of incident, to polish an intrigue, to
concentrate his powers within manageable limits, to view stage-effects
from before the curtain. In a word, Torres Naharro knew the stage,
its possibilities, and its resources. For his own age and for his
opportunities he knew it even too well; and his _Himenea_—the theme
of which is the love of Himeneo for Febea, with the interposition of
Febea's brother, petulant as to the "point of honour"—is an isolated
masterpiece, unrivalled till the time of Lope de Vega. The accident
that Torres Naharro's _Propaladia_ was printed in Italy; the misfortune
that its Spanish reprints were tardy, and that his plays were too
complicated for the primitive resources of the Spanish stage: these
delayed the development of the Spanish theatre by close on a century.
Yet the fact remains: to find a match for the _Himenea_ we must pass to
the best of Lope's pieces.
Thus the Spaniard in Italy. In Portugal, likewise, he made his way. GIL
VICENTE (1470-1540), the Portuguese dramatist, wrote forty-two pieces,
of which ten are wholly in Castilian, while fifteen are in a mixed
jargon of Castilian and Portuguese which the author himself ridicules
as _aravia_ in his _Auto das Fadas_. An important historical fact is
that Vicente's earliest dramatic attempt, the _Monologo da Visitação_,
is in Castilian, and that it was actually played—the first lay piece
ever given in Portugal—on June 8, 1502. Its simplicity of tone and
elegance of manner are reminiscent of Encina, and it can scarce be
doubted that Vicente's imitation is deliberate. Still more obvious
is the following of Encina's eclogues in Vicente's _Auto pastoril
Castelhano_ and the _Auto dos Reis Magos_, where the legend is treated
with Encina's curious touch of devotion and modernity, the whole
closing with a song in which all join. Once again Encina's influence
is manifest in the _Auto da Sibilla Cassandra_, wherein Cassandra,
niece of Moses, Abraham, and Isaiah, is wooed by Solomon. In _Amadís de
Gaula_ and in _Dom Duardos_ there is a marked advance in elaboration
and finish; and in the _Auto da Fé_ Vicente proves his independence by
an ingenuity and a fancy all his own. Here he displays qualities above
those of his model, and treats his subject with such brilliancy that,
a century and a half later, Calderón condescended to borrow from the
Portuguese the idea of his _auto_ entitled _El Lirio y la Azucena_. Gil
Vicente is technically a dramatist, but he is not dramatic as Torres
Naharro is dramatic. His action is slight, his treatment timid and
conventional, and he is more poetic than inventive; still, his dramatic
songs are of singular beauty, conceived in a tone of mystic lyricism
unapproached by those who went before him, and surpassed by few who
followed. That Vicente was ever played in Spain is not known; but that
he influenced both Lope de Vega and Calderón is as sure as that he
himself was a disciple of Encina.
A more immediate factor in the evolution of Spanish letters was the
Catalan Boscá, whom it is convenient to call by his Castilian name,
JUAN BOSCÁN ALMOGAVER (?1490-1542). A native of Barcelona, Boscán
served as a soldier in Italy, returned to Spain in 1519, and, as we
know from Garcilaso's Second Eclogue, was tutor to Fernando Álvarez
de Toledo, whom the world knows as the Duque de Alba. Boscán's
earliest verses are all in the old manner; nor does he venture
on the Italian hendecasyllabic till the year 1526, just before
resigning his guardianship of Alba. His conversion was the work of
the Venetian ambassador, Andrea Navagiero, an accomplished courtier,
ill represented by his _Viaggio fatto in Spagna_. Being at Granada
in the year 1526, Navagiero met Boscán, who has left us an account
of the conversation:—"Talking of wit and letters, especially of
their varieties in different tongues, he inquired why I did not try
in Castilian the sonnets and verse-forms favoured by distinguished
Italians. He not only suggested this, but pressed me urgently to the
attempt. Some days later, I made for home, and, because of the length
and loneliness of the journey, thinking matters over, I returned to
what Navagiero had said, and thus I first attempted this sort of verse;
finding it hard at the outset, since it is very intricate, with many
peculiarities, varying greatly from ours. Yet, later, I fancied that I
was progressing well, perhaps because we all love our own essays; hence
I continued, little by little, with increasing zeal." This passage is
a _locus classicus_. Ticknor justly observes that no single foreigner
ever affected a national literature more deeply and more instantly
than Navagiero, and that we have here a first-hand account, probably
unique in literary history, of the first inception of a revolution by
the earliest, if not the most conspicuous, actor in it. We have at
last reached the parting of the ways, and Boscán presents himself as
a guide to the Promised Land. The astonishing thing is that Boscán, a
Barcelonese by birth and residence, ignores Auzías March.
There were many Italianates before Boscán—as Francisco Imperial and
Santillana; but their hour was not propitious, and Boscán is with
justice regarded as the leader of the movement. He was not a poet of
singular gifts, and he had the disadvantage of writing in Castilian,
which was not his native language; but Boscán had the wit to see
that Castilian was destined to supremacy, and he mastered it for his
purpose with that same dogged perseverance which led him to undertake
his more ambitious attempt unaided. He does not, indeed, appear to
have sought for disciples, nor were his own efforts as successful
as he believed: "perhaps because we all love our own essays." His
Castilian prose is evidence of his gift of style, and his translation
of Castiglione's _Cortegiano_ is a triumph of rendering fit to take
its place beside our Thomas Hoby's version of the same original. But,
it must be said frankly, that Boscán's most absolute success is in
prose. Herrera bitterly taunts him with decking himself in the precious
robes of Petrarch, and with remaining, spite of all that he can do, "a
foreigner in his language." And the charge is true. In verse Boscán's
defects grow very visible: his hardness, his awkward construction, his
unrefined ear, his uncertain touch upon his instrument, his boisterous
execution. Still, it is not as an original genius that Boscán finds
place in history, but rather as an initiator, a master-opportunist
who, without persuasion, by the sheer force of conviction and example,
led a nation to abandon the ancient ways, and to admit the potency and
charm of exotic forms. That in itself constitutes a title, if not to
immortality, at least to remembrance.
Boscán's influence manifested itself in diverse ways. His friend,
Garcilaso de la Vega, sent him the first edition of Castiglione's
_Cortegiano_, printed at Venice in 1528. This—"the best book that
ever was written upon good breeding," according to Samuel Johnson—was
triumphantly translated into Castilian by Boscán at Garcilaso's prayer;
and, though Boscán himself held translation to be a thing meet for
"men of small parts," his rendering is an almost perfect performance.
Moreover, it was the single work published by him (1534), for his poems
appeared under his widow's care. Once more, in an epistle directed
to Hurtado de Mendoza, Boscán re-echoes Horace's note of elegant
simplicity with a faithfulness not frequent in his work; and, lastly,
it is known that he did into Castilian an Euripidean play, which,
though licensed for the press, was never printed. Truly it seems that
Boscán was conscious of his very definite limitations, and that he
felt the necessity of a copy, rather than a direct model. If it were
so, this would indicate a power of conscious selection, a faculty
for self-criticism which cannot be traced in his published verses.
His earlier poems, written in Castilian measures, show him for a
man destitute of guidance, thrown on his own resources, a perfectly
undistinguished versifier with naught to sing and with no dexterity of
vocalisation. Yet, let Boscán betake himself to the poets of the Cinque
Cento, and he flashes forth another being: the dauntless adventurer
sailing for unknown continents, inspired by the enthusiasm of immediate
suggestion.
His _Hero y Leandra_ is frankly based upon Musæus, and it is
characteristic of Boscán's mode that he expands Musæus' three hundred
odd hexameters into nigh three thousand hendecasyllabics. Professor
Flamini has demonstrated most convincingly that Boscán followed Tasso's
_Favola_, but he comes far short of Tasso's variety, distinction, and
grace. He annexes the Italian blank verse—the _versi sciolti_—as it
were by sheer force, but he never subdues the metre to his will, and
his monotony of accent and mechanical cadence grow insufferable. Not
only so: too often the very pretence of inspiration dissolves, and the
writer descends upon slothful prose, sliced into lines of regulation
length, honeycombed with flat colloquialisms. Conspicuously better is
the _Octava Rima_—an allegory embodying the Court of Love and the
Court of Jealousy, with the account of an embassage from the former to
two fair Barcelonese rebels. Of this performance Thomas Stanley has
given an English version (1652) from which these stanzas are taken:—
"_In the bright region of the fertile east
Where constant calms smooth heav'n's unclouded brow,
There lives an easy people, vow'd to rest,
Who on love only all their hours bestow:
By no unwelcome discontent opprest,
No cares save those that from this passion flow,
Here reigns, here ever uncontroll'd did reign;
The beauteous Queen sprung from the foaming main._
_Her hand the sceptre bears, the crown her head,
Her willing vassals here their tribute pay:
Here is her sacred power and statutes spread,
Which all with cheerful forwardness obey:
The lover by affection hither led,
Receives relief, sent satisfied away:
Here all enjoy, to give their last flames ease,
The pliant figure of their mistresses ..._
_Love every structure offers to the sight,
And every stone his soft impression wears.
The fountains, moving pity and delight,
With amorous murmurs drop persuasive tears.
The rivers in their courses love invite,
Love is the only sound their motion bears.
The winds in whispers soothe these kind desires,
And fan with their mild breath Love's glowing fires._"
Ticknor ranks this as "the most agreeable and original of Boscán's
works," and as to the correctness of the first adjective there can
be no two opinions. But concerning Boscán's originality there is much
to say. Passage upon passage in the _Octava Rima_ is merely a literal
rendering of Bembo's _Stanze_, and the translation begins undisguised
at the opening line. Where the Italian writes, "_Ne l'odorato e lucido
Oriente_," the Spaniard follows him with the candid transcription, "_En
el lumbroso y fértil Oriente_"; and the imitation is further tesselated
with mosaics conveyed from Claudian, from Petrarch, and Ariosto.
None the less is it just to say that the conveyance is executed with
considerable—almost with masterly—skill. The borrowing nowise
belittles Boscán; for he was not—did not pose as—a great spirit
with an original voice. He makes no claim whatever, he seeks for no
applause—the shy, taciturn experimentalist who published never a line
of verse, and piped for his own delight. Equipped with the ambition,
though not with the accomplishment, of the artist, Boscán has a prouder
place than he ever dreamed of, since he is confessedly the earliest
representative of a new poetic dynasty, the victorious leader of a
desperately forlorn hope. That title is his laurel and his garland.
He led his race into the untrodden ways, triumphing without effort
where men of more strenuous faculty had failed; and his results have
successfully challenged time, inasmuch as there has been no returning
from his example during nigh four hundred years. Not a great genius,
not a lordly versifier, endowed with not one supreme gift, Boscán ranks
as an unique instance in the annals of literary adventure by virtue of
his enduring and irrevocable victory.
His is the foremost post in point of time. In point of absolute merit
he is easily outshone by his younger comrade, GARCILASO DE LA VEGA
(1503-36), the bearer of a name renowned in Spanish chronicle and song.
Grandson of Pérez de Guzmán, Garcilaso entered the Royal Body-guard in
his eighteenth year. He quitted him like the man he was in crushing
domestic rebellion, and, despite the fact that his brother, Pedro,
served in the insurgent ranks, Garcilaso grew into favour with the
Emperor.
At Pavia, where Francis lost all save honour, Garcilaso distinguished
himself by his intrepidity. For a moment he fell into disgrace
because of his connivance at a secret marriage between his cousin
and one of the Empress' Maids of Honour: interned in an islet on the
Danube,—_Danubio, rio divino_, he calls it,—he there composed one
of his most admired pieces, richly charged with exotic colouring. His
imprisonment soon ended, and, with intervals of service before Tunis,
and with spells of embassies between Spain and Italy, his last years
were mostly spent at Naples in the service of the Spanish Viceroy,
Pedro de Toledo, Marqués de Villafranca, father of Garcilaso's friend,
the Duque de Alba. In the Provençal campaign the Spanish force was held
in check by a handful of yeomen gathered in the fort of Muy, between
Draguignan and Fréjus. Muy recalls to Spanish hearts such memories
as Zutphen brings to Englishmen. In itself the engagement was a mere
skirmish: for Garcilaso it was a great and picturesque occasion. The
accounts given by Navarrete and García Cerezeda vary in detail, but
their general drift is identical. The last of the Spanish Cæsars named
his personal favourite, the most dashing of Spanish soldiers and the
most distinguished of Spanish poets, to command the storming-party.
Doffing his breastplate and his helmet that he might be seen by all
beholders—by the Emperor not less than by the army—Garcilaso led
the assault in person, was among the first to climb the breach, and
fell mortally wounded in the arms of Jerónimo de Urrea, the future
translator of Ariosto, and of his more intimate friend, the Marqués de
Lombay, whom the world knows best as St. Francis Borgia. He was buried
with his ancestors in his own Toledo, where, as even the grudging
Góngora allows, every stone within the city is his monument.
His illustrious descent, his ostentatious valour, his splendid
presence, his seductive charm, his untimely death: all these, joined
to his gift of song, combine to make him the hero of a legend and the
idol of a nation. Like Sir Philip Sidney, Garcilaso personified all
accomplishments and all graces. He died at thirty-three: the fact must
be borne in mind when we take account of his life's work in literature.
Yet Europe mourned for him, and the loyal Boscán proclaimed his debt
to the brilliant soldier-poet. Pleased as the Catalan was with his
novel experiments, he avows he would not have persevered "but for the
encouragement of Garcilaso, whose decision—not merely to my mind, but
to the whole world's—is to be taken as final. By praising my attempts,
by showing the surest sign of approval through his acceptance of my
example, he led me to dedicate myself wholly to the undertaking."
Boscán and Garcilaso were not divided by death. The former's widow, Ana
Girón de Rebolledo, gave her husband's verses to the press in 1543;
and, more jealous for the fame of her husband's friend than were any of
his own household, she printed Garcilaso's poems in the Fourth Book.
Garcilaso is eminently a poet of refinement, distinction, and
cultivation. What Boscán half knew, Garcilaso knew to perfection, and
his accomplishment was wider as well as deeper.[6] Living his last
years in Naples, Garcilaso had caught the right Renaissance spirit, and
is beyond all question the most Italianate of Spanish poets in form
and substance. He was not merely the associate of such expatriated
countrymen as Juan de Valdés: he was the friend of Bembo and Tansillo,
the first of whom calls him the best loved and the most welcome of
all the Spaniards that ever came to Italy. To Tansillo, Garcilaso was
attached by bonds of closest intimacy, and the reciprocal influence
of the one upon the other is manifest in the works of both. This
association would seem to have been the chief part of Garcilaso's
literary training. His few flights in the old Castilian metres, his
songs and _villancicos_, are of small importance; his finest efforts
are cast in the exotic moulds. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say
that fundamentally he is a Neapolitan poet.
The sum of his production is slight: the inconsiderable _villancicos_,
three eclogues, two elegies, an epistle, five highly elaborated songs,
and thirty-eight Petrarchan sonnets. Small as is his work in bulk,
it cannot be denied that it was like nothing before it in Castilian.
Auzías March, no doubt, had earlier struck a similar note in Catalan,
and Garcilaso, who seems to have read everything, imitates his
predecessor's harmonies and cadences. His trick of reminiscence is
remarkable. Thus, his first eclogue is plainly suggested by Tansillo;
his second eclogue is little more than a rendering in verse of picked
passages from the _Arcadia_ of Jacopo Sannazaro; while the fifth of
his songs—_La Flor de Gnido_—is a most masterly transplantation of
Bernardo Tasso's structure to Castilian soil. And almost every page is
touched with the deliberate, conscious elegance of a student in the
school of Horace. In simple execution Garcilaso is impeccable. The
objection most commonly made is that he surrenders his personality, and
converts himself into the exquisite echo of an exhausted pseudo-classic
convention. And the charge is plausible.
It is undeniably true that Garcilaso's distinction lacks the force
of real simplicity, that his eternal sweetness cloys, and that the
thing said absorbs him less than the manner of saying it. He would
have met the criticism that he was an artificial poet by pointing
out that, poetry being an art, it is of essence artificial. That he
was an imitative artist was his highest glory: by imitating foreign
models he attained his measure of originality, enriching Spain, with
not merely a number of technical forms but a new poetic language.
Without him Boscán must have failed in his emprise, as Santillana
failed before him. Besides his technical perfection, Garcilaso owned
the poetic temperament—a temperament too effeminately delicate for the
vulgarities of life. As he tells us in his third eclogue, he lived,
"now using the sword, now the pen:"—
"_Tomando ora la espada, ora la pluma._"
But the clank of the sabre is never heard in the fiery soldier's verse.
His atmosphere is not that of battle, but is rather the enchanted haze
of an Arcadia which never was nor ever could be in a banal world. As
thus, in Wiffen's version:—
"_Here ceased the youth his Doric madrigal,
And sighing, with his last laments let fall
A shower of tears; the solemn mountains round,
Indulgent of his sorrow, tossed the sound
Melodious from romantic steep to steep,
In mild responses deep;
Sweet Echo, starting from her couch of moss,
Lengthened the dirge; and tenderest Philomel,
As pierced with grief and pity at his loss,
Warbled divine reply, nor seemed to trill
Less than Jove's nectar from her mournful bill.
What Nemoroso sang in sequel, tell,
Ye sweet-voiced Sirens of the sacred hill._"
This is, in a sense, "unnatural"; but if we are to condemn it as such,
we must even reject the whole school of pastoral, a convention of which
the sixteenth century was enamoured. When Garcilaso introduced himself
as Salicio, and, under the name of Nemoroso, presented Boscán (or, as
Herrera will have it, Antonio de Fonseca), he but took the formula as
he found it, and translated it in terms of genius. He was consciously
returning upon nature; not upon the material facts of existence as it
is, but upon a figmentary nature idealised into a languid and ethereal
beauty. He sought for effects of suavest harmony, embodying in his song
a mystic neo-platonism, the _morbidezza_ of "love in the abstract," set
off by grace and sensibility and elfin music. It may be permissible
for the detached critic to appreciate Garcilaso at something less than
his secular renown, but this superior attitude were unlawful and
inexpedient for an historical reviewer.
Time and unanimity settle many questions: and, after all, on a
matter concerning Castilian poetry, the unbroken verdict of the
Castilian-speaking race must be accepted as weighty, if not final.
Garcilaso may not be a supreme singer; he is at least one of the
greatest of the Spanish poets. Choosing to reproduce the almost
inimitable cadences of the Virgilian eclogue, he achieves his end with
a dexterity that approaches genius. Others before him had hit upon
what seemed "pretty i' the Mantuan": he alone suggests the secret
of Virgil's brooding, incommunicable, and melancholy charm. What
Boscán saw to be possible, what he attempted with more good-will than
fortune, that Garcilaso did with an instant and peremptory triumph.
He naturalised the sonnet, he enlarged the framework of the song, he
invented the ode, he so bravely arranged his lines of seven and eleven
syllables that the fascination of his harmonies has led historians
to forget Bernardo Tasso's priority in discovering the resources of
the _lira_. In rare, unwary moments he lets fall an Italian or French
idiom, nor is he always free from the pedantry of his time; but
absolute perfection is not of this world, and is least to be asked of
one who, writing in moments stolen from the rough life of camps, died
at thirty-three, full of immense promise and immense possibilities. To
speculate upon what Garcilaso might have become is vanity. As it is,
he survives as the Prince of Italianates, the acknowledged master of
the Cinque Cento form. Cervantes and Lope de Vega, agreed upon nothing
else, are at one in holding him for the first of Castilian poets. With
slight reservations, their judgment has been sustained, and even to-day
the sweet-voiced, amatorious paladin leaves an abiding impress upon
the character of his national literature.
An early sectary of the school is discovered in the person of the
Portuguese poet, FRANCISCO DE SÂ DE MIRANDA (1495-1558), who so
frequently forsakes his native tongue that of 189 pieces included in
Mme. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos' edition, seventy-four are
in Castilian. Sâ de Miranda's early poems written before 1532—the
_Fábula de Mondego_, the _Canção á Virgem_, and the eclogue entitled
_Aleixo_—are in the old manner. His later works, such as _Nemoroso_,
with innumerable sonnets and the three elegies composed between 1552
and 1555, are all undisguised imitations of Boscán and Garcilaso, for
whom the writer professes a rapturous enthusiasm. Sâ de Miranda ranks
among the six most celebrated Portuguese poets; and, stranger though
he be, even in Castilian literature he distinguishes himself by his
correctness of form, by his sincerity of sentiment, and by a genuine
love of natural beauty very far removed from the falsetto admiration
too current among his contemporaries.
The soldier, GUTIERRE DE CETINA (1520-60) is another partisan of the
Italian school. Serving in Italy, he pursued his studies to the best
advantage, and won friendship and aid from literary magnates like the
Prince of Ascoli, and Diego Hurtado de Mendoza; but soldiering was
little to his taste, and, after a campaign in Germany, Cetina retired
to his native Seville, whence he passed to Mexico about the year 1550.
He is known to have written in the dramatic form, but no specimen of
his drama survives, unless it be sepultured in some obscure Central
American library. Cetina is a copious sonneteer who manages his
rhyme-sequences with more variety than his predecessors, and his songs
and madrigals are excellent specimens of finished workmanship. His
general theme is Arcadian love—the beauty of Amaríllida, the piteous
passion of the shepherd Silvio, the grief of the nymph Flora for
Menalca. His treatment is always ingenious, his frugality in the matter
of adjectives is edifying, though it scandalised the exuberant Herrera,
who, as a true Andalucían, esteems emphasis and epithet and metaphor as
the three things needful. Cetina's sobriety is paid for by a certain
preciosity of utterance near akin to weakness; but he excels in the
sonnet form, which he handles with a mastery superior to Garcilaso's
own, and he adds a touch of humour uncommon in the mannered school that
he adorns.
FERNANDO DE ACUÑA (? 1500-80) comes into notice as the translator
of Olivier de la Marche's popular allegorical poem, the _Chevalier
Délibéré_, a favourite with Carlos Quinto. The Emperor is said to have
amused himself by translating the French poem into Spanish prose,
and to have commissioned Acuña to a poetic version. A courtier like
Van Male gives us to understand that some part of Acuña's _Caballero
determinado_ is based upon the Emperor's prose rendering, and the
insinuation is that Acuña and his master should share the praise of
the former's exploit. This pleasant tale is scarce plausible, for we
know that the Cæsar never mastered colloquial Castilian, and that he
should shine in its literary exercise is almost incredible. Be that
as it may, Acuña's _Caballero determinado_, a fine example of the old
_quintillas_, met with wide and instant appreciation; yet he never
sought to follow up his triumph in the same kind. The new influence
was irresistible, and Acuña succumbed to it, imitating the _lira_ of
Garcilaso to the point of parody, singing as "Damon in absence,"
practising the pastoral, aspiring to Homer's dignity in his blank
verses entitled the _Contienda de Ayax Telamonio y de Ulises_. Three
Castilian cantos of Boiardo's _Orlando Innamorato_ won applause in
Italy; but Acuña's best achievements are his sonnets, which are almost
always admirable. One of them contains a line as often quoted as any
other in all Castilian verse:—
"_Un Monarca, un Imperio, y una Espada,_"
"One Monarch, one Empire, and one Sword." And this pious aspiration
after unity had perhaps been fulfilled if Spain had abounded with such
prudent and accomplished figures as Fernando de Acuña.
A more powerful and splendid personality is that of the illustrious
DIEGO HURTADO DE MENDOZA (1503-1575), one of the greatest figures in
the history of Spanish politics and letters. Educated for the Church at
the University of Salamanca, Mendoza preferred the career of arms, and
found his opportunity at Pavia and in the Italian wars. Before he was
twenty-nine he was named Ambassador to the Venetian Republic, became
the patron of the Aldine Press, and studied the classics with all the
ardour of his temperament. One of the few Spaniards learned in Arabic,
Mendoza was a distinguished collector: he ransacked the monastery of
Mount Athos for Greek manuscripts, secured others from Sultan Suliman
the Magnificent, and had almost all Bessarion's Greek collection
transcribed for his own library, now housed in the Escorial. The first
complete edition of Josephus was printed from Mendoza's copies. He
represented the Emperor at the Council of Trent, and saw to it that
Cardinals and Archbishops did what Spain expected of them. In 1547 he
was appointed Plenipotentiary to Rome, where he treated Pope Julius
III. as cavalierly as his Holiness was accustomed to treat his own
curates. In 1554 Mendoza returned to Spain, and the accession of Felipe
II. in 1556 brought his public career to a close. He is alleged to have
been Ambassador to England; and one would fain the report were true.
His wit and picaresque malice are well shown in his old-fashioned
_redondillas_; which delighted so good a judge as Lope de Vega, and
his real strength lay in his management of these forms. But his long
Italian residence and his sleepless intellectual curiosity ensured his
experimenting in the high Roman manner. Tibullus, Horace, Ovid, Virgil,
Homer, Pindar, Anacreon: all these are forced into Mendoza's service,
as in his epistles and his _Fábula de Adonis, Hipómenes y Atalanta_.
It cannot be said that he is at his best in these pseudo-classical
performances, and he dares to eke out his hendecasyllabics by using a
final _palabra aguda_; but the extreme brilliancy of the humour carries
off all technical defects in the burlesque section of his poems, which
are of the loosest gaiety, most curious in a retired proconsul. Yet, if
Mendoza, who excelled in the old, felt compelled to pen his forty odd
sonnets in the new style, how strong must have been its charm! Whatever
his formal defects, Mendoza's authority was decisive in the contest
between the native and the foreign types of verse: he helped to secure
the latter's definitive triumph.
The greatest rebel against the invasion was CRISTÓBAL DE CASTILLEJO (?
1494-1556), who passed thirty years abroad in the service of Ferdinand,
King of Bohemia. Much of his life was actually spent in Italy, but
he kept his national spirit almost absolutely free from the foreign
influence. If he compromises at all, the furthest he can go is in
adopting the mythological machinery favoured by all contemporaries, and
even for this he could plead respectable Castilian precedent; but in
the matter of form, Castillejo is cruelly intransigent. Boscán is his
especial butt.
"_Él mismo confesará
Que no sabe donde va_"—
"He himself will confess that he knows not whither he goes." That,
indeed, appears to have been Castillejo's fixed idea on the subject,
and he expends an infinite deal of sarcasm and ridicule upon the
apostates who, as he thinks, hide their poverty of thought in tawdry
motley. His own subjects are perfectly fitted to treatment in the
_villancico_ form, and when he is not simply improper—as in _El Sermón
de los Sermones_—his verses are remarkable for their sprightly grace
and bitter-sweet wit, which can, at need, turn to rancorous invective
or to devotional demureness. Had he lived in Spain, it is probable that
Castillejo's mordant ridicule might have delayed the Italian supremacy.
As it was, his flouts and jibes arrived too late, and the old patriot
died, as he had lived, a brilliant, impenitent, futile Tory.
In one of his sonnets, conceived in the most mischievous spirit of
travesty, Castillejo singles out for reprobation a poet named Luis de
Haro, as one of the Italian agitators. Unluckily Haro's verses have
practically disappeared from the earth, and the few specimens preserved
in Nájera's _Cancionero_ are banal exercises in the old Castilian
manner. A practitioner more after Castillejo's heart was the ingenious
Antonio de Villegas (fl. 1551), whose _Inventario_, apart from tedious
paraphrases of the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe in the style of Bottom
the Weaver, contains many excellent society-verses, touched with
conceits of extreme sublety, and a few more serious efforts in the
form of _décimas_, not without a grave urbanity and a penetration of
their own. Francisco de Castilla, a contemporary of Villegas, vies with
him in essaying the hopeless task of bringing the old rhythms into
new repute; but his _Teórica de virtudes_, dignified and elevated in
style and thought, had merely a momentary vogue, and is now unjustly
considered a mere bibliographical curiosity.
A student in both schools was the Portuguese GREGORIO SILVESTRE
(1520-70), choirmaster and organist in the Cathedral of Granada,
who, beginning with a boy's admiration for Garci Sánchez and Torres
Naharro, practised the _redondilla_ with such success as to be esteemed
an expert in the art. A certain Pedro de Cáceres y Espinosa, in a
_Discurso_ prefixed to Silvestre's poems (1582), tells us that his
author "imitated Cristóbal de Castillejo, in speaking ill of the
Italian arrangements," and that he cultivated the novelties for the
practical reason that they were popular. It is certain that Silvestre
is as attractive in the new as in the old kind, that his elegance never
obscures his simplicity, that he shows a rare sense of ordered outline,
an exceptional finish in the technical details of both manners. His
conversion is the last that need be recorded here. The _villancico_
still found its supporters among men of letters, and, as late as
the seventeenth century, both Cervantes and Lope de Vega profess a
platonic attachment to it and kindred metres; but the public mind was
set against a revival, and Cervantes and Lope were forced to abandon
any idea (if, indeed, they ever entertained it) of breathing life into
these dead bones.
Didactic prose was practised, according to the old tradition, by Juan
López de Vivero Palacios Rubios, who published in 1524 his _Tratado
del esfuerzo bélico heróico_, a pseudo-philosophic inquiry into the
origin and nature of martial valour, written in a clear and forcible
style. Francisco López de Villalobos (1473-1549), a Jewish convert
attached to the royal household as physician, began by translating
Pliny's _Amphitruo_ in such fashion as to bring down on him the
thunders of Hernán Núñez. Villalobos works the didactic vein in his
rhymed _Sumario de Medicina_ which Ticknor ignores, though he mentions
its late derivatives, the _Trescientas preguntas_ of Alonso López de
Corelas (1546) and the _Cuatrocientas respuestas_ of Luis de Escobar
(1552). But the witty physician's most praiseworthy performance is
his _Tratado de las tres Grandes_—namely, talkativeness, obstinacy,
and laughter—where his familiar humour, his frolic, fantasy, and
perverse acuteness far outshine the sham philosophy and the magisterial
intention of his other work. A graver talent is that of Fernando
Pérez de Oliva (1492-1530), once lecturer in the University of Paris,
and, later, Rector of Salamanca, who boasts of having travelled three
thousand leagues in pursuit of culture. His _Diálogo de la Dignidad del
Hombre_, written to show that Castilian is as good a vehicle as the
more fashionable Latin for the discussion of transcendental matters,
is an excellent example of cold, stately, Ciceronian prose, and the
continuation by his friend, Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, is worthy
of the beginning; but the hold of ecclesiastical Latin was too fast to
be loosed at a first attempt.
Oliva's reputation is strictly Spanish: not so that of Carlos Quinto's
official chronicler, ANTONIO DE GUEVARA (d. 1545), a Franciscan monk
who held the bishopric of Mondoñedo. His _Reloj de Príncipes_ (Dial
of Princes), a didactic novel with Marcus Aurelius for its hero, was
originally composed to encourage his own patron to imitate the virtues
of the wisest ancient. Unluckily, however, Guevara passed his book off
as authentic history, alleging it to be a translation of a non-existent
manuscript in the Florentine collection. This brought him into trouble
with antagonists as varied as the court-fool, Francesillo de Zúñiga,
and a Sorian professor, the Bachelor Pedro de Rhua, whose _Cartas
censorias_ unmasked the imposture with malignant astuteness. But this
critical faculty was confined to the Peninsula, and North's English
translation, dedicated to Mary Tudor, popularised Guevara's name in
England, where he is believed by some authorities to have exercised
considerable influence on the style of English prose. This, however,
is not the place to discuss that most difficult question. An instance
of Guevara's better manner is offered by his _Década de los Césares_,
though even here he interpolates his own unscrupulous inventions
and embellishments, as he also does in his _Familiar Epistles_,
Englished by Edward Hellowes, Groom of the Leash, from whose version
an illustration may be borrowed:—"The property of love is to turn
the rough into plain, the cruel to gentle, the bitter to sweet, the
unsavoury to pleasant, the angry to quiet, the malicious to simple, the
gross to advised, and also the heavy to light. He that loveth, neither
can he murmur of him that doth anger him: neither deny that they ask
him: neither resist when they take from him: neither answer when they
reprove him: neither revenge if they shame him: neither yet will he
be gone when they send him away." These pompous commonplaces abound
in the _Familiar Epistles_, which, though still the most readable of
Guevara's performances, are tedious in their elaborate accumulation of
saws and instances, unimpressively collected from the four quarters of
the earth. But the rhetorical letters went the round of the world, were
translated times out of number, and were commonly called "The Golden
Letters," to denote their unique worth.
More serious and less attractive historians are Pedro Mexía
(1496-1552), whose _Historia Imperial y Cesárea_ is a careful
compilation of biographies of Roman rules from Cæsar to Maximilian,
and Florián de Ocampo (1499-1555), canon of Zamora, and an official
chronicler, who, taking the Deluge as his starting-point, naturally
enough fails to bring his dry-as-dust annals later than Roman times,
and endeavours to follow the critical canons of his time with better
intention than performance. The _Comentarios de la Guerra en Alemania_
of Luis de Ávila y Zúñiga are valuable as containing the evidence of an
acute, direct observer of events; but Ávila's exaggerated esteem for
his master causes him to convert his history into an elaborate apology.
Carlos Quinto's own dry criticism of the book is final:—"Alexander's
achievements surpassed mine—but he was less lucky in his chronicler."
The conquest of America begot a crowd of histories, of which but few
need be named here. González Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (1478-1557),
once secretary to the Great Captain, gives an official picture of the
New World in his _Historia general y natural de Indias_, and a similar
study from an opposed and higher point of view is to be found in the
work of Bartolomé de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa (1474-1566), whose
passionate eloquence on behalf of the American Indians is displayed in
his _Brevísima relación de la destrucción de Indias_ (1552); but here
again history declines into polemics, the offices of judge and advocate
overlapping. The famous HERNÁN CORTÉS (1485-1554), _El Conquistador_,
was a man of action; but his official reports on Mexico and its
affairs are drawn up with exceeding skill, and in energy of phrase and
luminous concision may stand as models in their kind. Cortés found his
panegyrist in his chaplain, Francisco López de Gómara (1519-60), whose
interesting _Conquista de Méjico_ is an uncritical eulogy on his chief,
whom he extols at the expense of his brother adventurers. The antidote
was supplied by BERNAL DÍAZ DEL CASTILLO (fl. 1568), whose _Historia
verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España_ is a first-class example
of military indignation. "Here the chronicler Gómara in his history
says just the opposite of what really happened. Whoso reads him will
see that he writes well, and that, with proper information, he could
have stated his facts correctly: as it is, they are all lies." The
manifest honesty and simplicity of the old soldier, who shared in one
hundred and nineteen engagements and could not sleep unless in armour,
are extremely winning; his prolix ingenuousness has been admirably
rendered in our day by a descendant of the Conquistadores, M. José
María Heredia, whose French version is a triumph of translation.
Incredible tales from the Western Indies stimulated the popular
appetite for miracles in terms of fiction. Paez de Ribera added a sixth
book to _Amadís_, under the title of _Florisando_ (1510); Feliciano de
Silva wrote a seventh, ninth, tenth, and eleventh—_Lisuarte_ (1510),
_Amadís de Grecia_ (1530), _Florisel de Niquea_ (1532), and _Rogel de
Grecia_; and he would certainly have supplied the eighth book had he
not been anticipated by Juan Díaz with a second _Lisuarte_. Parallel
with _Amadís_ ran the series of _Palmerín de Oliva_ (1511), which
tradition ascribes to an anonymous lady of Augustobriga, but which
may just as well be the work of Francisco Vázquez de Ciudad Rodrigo,
as it is said to be in its first descendant _Primaleón_ (1512).
_Polindo_ (1526) continues the tale, and an unknown author pursues it
in the _Crónica del muy valiente Platir_ (1533), while _Palmerín de
Inglaterra_ (1547-48) closes the cycle. Curious readers may study this
last in the English version of Anthony Munday (1616), who commends
it as an excellent and stately history, "wherein gentlemen may find
choice of sweet inventions, and gentlewomen be satisfied in courtly
expectations." These are but a few of the extravagances of the press,
and the madness spread so wide that Carlos Quinto, admirer as he was
of _Don Belianís de Grecia_, was forced to protect the New World
against invasion by books of this class. Scarcely less numerous are the
continuations of the _Celestina_, due to the indefatigable Feliciano de
Silva, to Gaspar Gómez de Toledo, to Sancho Muñoz, and others.
A new species begins with the first picaroon novel, _Lazarillo de
Tormes_, long ascribed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, an attribution
now commonly rejected on the authority of that distinguished Spanish
scholar, M. Alfred Morel-Fatio. There is something to be said in favour
of Mendoza's claim which may not be said for lack of space. As to
_Lazarillo de Tormes_, authorship, date and place of publication are
all uncertain: the three earliest editions known appeared at Antwerp,
Burgos, and Alcalá de Henares in 1554. It is the autobiography of
Lázaro, son of the miller, Tomé González, and the trull, Antonia
Pérez. He describes his adventures as leader of a blind man, as servant
to a miserly priest, to a starving gentleman, to a beggar-monk, to a
vendor of indulgences, to a signboard painter, to an alguazil, ending
his career in a Government post—_un oficio real_—as town-crier
of Toledo. There we leave him "at the height of all good fortune."
Lázaro's experience with the hungry hidalgo may be quoted from the
admirable archaic rendering by David Rowland, of Anglesea:—
"It pleased God to accomplish my desire and his together, for when as I
had begun my meat, as he walked, he came near to me, saying: 'Lázaro,
I promise thee thou hast the best grace in eating that ever I did see
any man have; for there is no man that seest thee eat, but seeing thee
feed, shall have appetite, although they be not a-hungered.' Then
would I say to myself, 'The hunger which thou sustainest causeth thee
to think mine so beautiful.' Then I trusted I might help him, seeing
that he had so helped himself, and had opened me the way thereto.
Wherefore I said unto him, 'Sir, the good tools make the workmen good:
this bread hath good taste, and this neat's-foot is so well sod, and
so cleanly dressed, that it is able, with the flavour of it only, to
entice any man to eat of it.' 'What? is it a neat's-foot?' 'Yes, sir.'
'Now, I promise thee it is the best morsel in the world: there is no
pheasant that I would like so well.' 'I pray thee, sir, prove of it
better and see how you like it.'... Whereupon he sitteth down by me,
and then began to eat like one that hath great need, gnawing every one
of those little bones better than any greyhound could have done for
life, saying, 'This is a singular good meal: by God, I have eaten it
with a good stomach, as if I had eaten nothing all this day before.'
Then I, with a low voice, said, 'God send me to live long as sure as
that is true.' And, having ended his victuals, he commanded me to reach
him the pot of water, which I gave him even as full as I had brought it
from the river.... We drank both, and went to bed, as the night before,
at that time well satisfied. And now, to avoid long talk, we continued
after this sort eight or nine days. The poor gentleman went every day
to brave it out in the street, to content himself with his accustomed
stately pace, and always I, poor Lázaro, was fain to be his purveyor."
Written in the most debonair, idiomatic Castilian, _Lazarillo de
Tormes_ condenses into nine chapters the cynicism, the wit, and the
resource of an observer of genius. After three hundred years, it
survives all its rivals, and may be read with as much edification and
amusement as on the day of its first appearance. It set a fashion, a
fashion that spread to all countries, and finds a nineteenth-century
manifestation in the pages of _Pickwick_; but few of its successors
match it in satirical humour, and none approach it in pregnant
concision, where no word is superfluous, and where every word tells
with consummate effect. Whoever wrote the book, he fixed for ever the
type of the comic prose epic as rendered by the needy, and he did it
in such wise as to defy all competition. Yet ill-advised competitors
were found: one, who has the grace to hide his name, at Antwerp,
continuing Lázaro's adventures by exhibiting the gay scamp as a tunny,
and a certain Juan de Luna, who, so late as 1620, converted Lázaro to a
sea-monster on show.
Mysticism finds two distinguished exponents, of whom the earlier is
the Apostle of Andalucía, the Venerable JUAN DE ÁVILA (1502-69), a
priest, who, educated at the University of Alcalá, is famous for his
sanctity, his evangelic missions in Granada, Córdoba, and Seville.
The merest accident prevented his sailing for the New World in the
suite of the Bishop of Tlaxcala, and his inopportune fervour led to
his imprisonment by the Inquisition. Most of his religious treatises,
beautiful as they are, are too technical for our purpose here; but
his _Cartas Espirituales_ are redolent of religious unction combined
with the wisest practical spirit, the most sagacious counsel, and the
rarest loving-kindness. Long practice in exhorting crowds of unlettered
sinners had purged Juan de Ávila's style of the Asiatic exuberance in
favour with Guevara and other contemporaries; and, though he considered
letters a vanity, his own practice shows him to be a master in the
accommodation of the lowliest, most familiar language to the loftiest
subject.
In the opposite camp is JUAN DE VALDÉS (d. 1541), attached in some
capacity to the court of Carlos Quinto, and suspect of heterodox
tendencies in the eyes of all good Spaniards. Francisco de Encinas
reports that Valdés found it convenient to leave Spain on account of
his opinions; but, as his twin-brother, Alfonso, continued in the
service of Carlos Quinto, and as Juan himself lived unmolested at Rome
and Naples from 1531 to his death, this story cannot be accepted. None
the less is it certain that Valdés, possibly through his friendship
with Erasmus, was drawn into the current of the Reformation. His
earliest work, written, perhaps, in collaboration with his brother,
is the anonymous _Diálogo de Mercurio y Carón_ (1528), an ingenious
fable in Lucian's manner, abounding in political and religious malice,
charged with ridicule of abuses in Church and State. Apart from its
polemical value, it is indisputably the finest prose performance of the
reign. Boscán's version of the _Cortegiano_ most nearly vies with it;
but Valdés excels Boscán in the artful construction of his periods, in
the picturesqueness and moderation of his epithets, in the variety of
his cadence, and in the refined selection of his means. It is possible
that Cervantes, at his best, may match Valdés; but Cervantes is one
of the most unequal writers in the world, while Valdés is one of the
most scrupulous and vigilant. Hence, sectarian prejudice apart, Valdés
must be accounted, if not absolutely the first, at least among the very
first masters of Castilian prose.
A curious fact in connection with one of Valdés' most popular works,
the _Ciento y diez Consideraciones divinas_, is that it has never been
printed in its original Castilian.[7] Even so the book was translated
into English by Nicholas Farrer (1638), and found favour in the eyes of
George Herbert, who commends Signior Iohn Valdesso as "a true servant
of God," "obscured in his own country," and brought by God "to flourish
in this land of light and region of the Gospel, among His chosen." It
may be expedient to give an illustration of Valdés from the version
to which Herbert stood sponsor:—"Here I will add this. That, as
liberality is so annexed to magnanimity that he cannot be magnanimous
that is not liberal, so hope and charity are so annexed unto faith
that it is impossible that he should have faith who hath not hope and
charity; it being also impossible that one should be just without
being holy and pious. But of these Christian virtues they are not
capable who have not experience in Christian matters, which they only
have who, by the gift of God and by the benefit of Christ, have faith,
hope, and charity, and so are pious, holy, and just in Christ." The
Arian flavour of this work explains its non-appearance in Castilian,
and we must suppose that Herbert esteemed it for its austere doctrinal
asceticism rather than its crude anti-trinitarianism. A Quaker before
his time, Valdés owes no small part of his recent vogue to Wiffen, who
first heard of the _Consideraciones_ through a friend as an "old work
by a Spaniard, which represented essentially the principles of George
Fox." Whatever its defects, it is the one logical presentation of the
dogmas of German mysticism, at the same time that it is a powerful,
searching psychological study of the springs of motives and the
innermost recesses of the human heart.
In another and a less contested field, we owe to Valdés the admirable
_Diálogo de la Lengua_, written at Naples in 1535-36. The personages
are four: two Italians, named Marcio and Coriolano; and two Spaniards,
Valdés himself, and a Spanish soldier, called indifferently Pacheco
and Torres. For all purposes this dialogue is as important a monument
of literary criticism as was the conversation in Don Quixote's library
between the Priest and the Barber. In almost every case posterity has
ratified the personal verdict of Valdés, who approves himself the
earliest, as well as one of the most impartial and most penetrating
among Spanish critics. Moreover, he conducts his dialogue with
extraordinary dramatic skill in the true vein of highest comedy. The
courtly grace of the two Italians, the military swagger of Pacheco,
the unwearied sagacity, the patrician wit and disdainful coolness of
Valdés himself, are given with incomparable lightness of touch and
felicity of accent. For the first time in Castilian literature we have
to do with a man of letters, urbane from study, and accomplished from
commerce with a various world. Valdés overtops all the literary figures
of Carlos Quinto's reign in natural gift and acquired accomplishment;
nor in later times do we easily find his match.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Garcilaso's forty-eight Latin stanzas, written after the Danubian
imprisonment, are sufficiently unknown to justify a brief quotation
here. They occur in Antonius Thylesius' _Opera_ (Naples, 1762), pp.
128-129: _Garcilassi di Vega Toletani ad Antonium Thylesium_:—
"_Uxore, natis, fratribus et solo
Exul relictis, frigida per loca
Musarum alumnus, barbarorum
Ferre superbiam, et insolentes
Mores coactus jam didici, et invia
Per saxa voce in geminantia
Fletusque, sub rauco querelas
Murmure Danubii levare._"
[7] Boehmer gives thirty-nine _Consideraciones_ in the _Tratatidos_
(Bonn, 1880); for the sixty-fifth see Menéndez y Pelayo, _Historia de
los Heterodoxos Españoles_ (Madrid, 1880), vol. ii. p. 375.