ROMANTIC FICTION.--CHANGE OF MANNERS PRODUCES A CHANGE OF THE FICTIONS
FOUNDED UPON THEM.--PASTORAL ROMANCE AND ITS ORIGIN: MONTEMAYOR AND
HIS DIANA, WITH ITS CONTINUATIONS BY PEREZ AND POLO: LO FRASSO,
MONTALVO, CERVANTES, ENCISO, BOVADILLA, BERNARDO DE LA VEGA, LOPE
DE VEGA, BALBUENA, FIGUEROA, ADORNO, BOTELHO, QUINTANA, CORRAL,
SAAVEDRA.--CHARACTERISTICS OF PASTORAL FICTION.
The romances of chivalry, like the institutions on which they were
founded, lingered long in Spain. Their grave fictions were suited
to the air of the stern old castles with which the Moorish contest
had studded large portions of the country, while their general tone
harmonized no less happily with the stately manners which the spirit
of knighthood had helped to impress on the higher classes of society,
from the mountains of Biscay to the shores of the Mediterranean.
Their influence, therefore, was great; and, as one natural result of
its long continuance, other and better forms of prose fiction were
discountenanced in Spain, or appeared later than they might have done
under different circumstances;--a fact to which Cervantes alludes,
when, even at the opening of the seventeenth century, he complains that
Spanish books of the latter character were still rarely to be found.[57]
[57] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 28.
Fifty years, however, before that period, signs of a coming change are
perceptible. The magnificent successes of Charles the Fifth had already
filled the minds of men with a spirit of adventure very different from
that of Amadis and his descendants, though sometimes hardly less wild
and extravagant. The cruel wars unceasingly kept up with the Barbary
powers, and the miseries of the thousands of captives who returned from
Africa, to amaze their countrymen with tragical stories of their own
trials and those of their fellow-sufferers, were full of that bitter
romance of real life which outruns all fiction. Manners, too,--the
old, formal, knightly manners of the nobility,--were beginning to be
modified by intercourse with the rest of the world, and especially with
Italy, then the most refined and least military country of Christendom;
so that romantic fiction--the department of elegant literature, which,
above every other, depends on the state of society--was naturally
modified in Spain by the great changes going on in the external
relations and general culture of the kingdom. Of this state of things,
and of its workings in the new forms of fiction produced by it, we
shall find frequent proofs as we advance.
* * * * *
The first form, however, in which a change in the national taste
manifested itself with well-defined success--that of _prose
pastorals_--is perhaps not one which would have been anticipated
even by the more sagacious; though, when we now look back upon its
history, we can easily discover some of the foundations on which it was
originally built.
From the Middle Ages the occupations of a shepherd’s life had prevailed
in Spain and Portugal to a greater extent than elsewhere in Europe;[58]
and, probably in consequence of this circumstance, eclogues and
bucolics were early known in the poetry of both countries, and became
connected in both with the origin of the popular drama. On the other
hand, the military spirit of such a civilization as existed in Spain
down to the sixteenth century may have gladly turned away from such
a monotonous exaggeration of its own character as is found in the
romances of chivalry, and sought refreshment and repose in the peace
and simplicity of a fabulous Arcadia. At least, these are the two
obvious circumstances in the condition and culture of Spain, that
favored the appearance of so singular a form of fiction as that of
prose pastorals, though how much influence either exercised it may now
be impossible to determine.
[58] The laws of the “Partidas,” about 1260, afford abundant
illustrations of the extent and importance of the pastoral life
in Spain at that period, and for a long time before.
On one point, however, we are not left in doubt. We know whence the
impulse came that called forth such a work for the first time in
Castilian literature, and when it appeared there. It was Sannazaro,--a
Neapolitan gentleman, whose family had been carried from Spain to
Naples by the political revolutions of the preceding century,--who
is the true father of the modern prose pastoral, which, from him,
passed directly to Spain, and, during a long period of success in
that country, never entirely lost the character its author had
originally impressed upon it. His “Arcadia”--written, probably,
without any reference to the Greek pastoral of Longus, but hardly
without a knowledge of the “Ameto” of Boccaccio and the Eclogues of
Bembo--was first published entire, at Naples, in 1504.[59] It is a
genuine pastoral romance in prose and verse, in which, with a slight
connecting narrative, and under the disguise of the loves of shepherds
and shepherdesses, Sannazaro relates adventures that really occurred
to him and to some of his friends;--he himself appearing under the name
of Sincero, who is its principal personage. Such a work, of course, is
somewhat fantastic from its very nature; but the fiction of Sannazaro
was written in the purest and most graceful Italian, and had a great
success;--a success which, perhaps, from the Spanish connections of his
family, was early extended to Spain. At any rate, Spain was the first
foreign country where the Arcadia was imitated, and was afterwards the
only one where such works appeared in large numbers, and established a
lasting influence.
[59] Ginguené, Hist. Litt. d’Italie, Tom. X., par Salvi, pp. 87,
92.
It is singular, however, that, like the romances of chivalry, pastoral
romance was first introduced into Spain by a Portuguese,--by George of
Montemayor, a native of the town of that name, near Coimbra. When he
was born we are not told; probably it was before 1520. In his youth he
was a soldier; but later, from his skill in music, he became attached
to the travelling chapel of the prince of Spain, afterwards Philip the
Second, and thus enjoyed an opportunity of visiting foreign countries,
especially Italy and Flanders. But his mind was little cultivated by
study. He knew no Latin, which even those of the humblest literary
attainments were wont to acquire, in the age when he lived; so that
his success is due to his own genius and to the promptings of that
passion which gave its color to his life. Probably he left Spain
from disappointment in love; probably, too, he perished in a duel at
Turin, in 1561. But we know nothing more of him with any tolerable
certainty.[60]
[60] Barbosa, Bib. Lusitana, Tom. II. p. 809, and the Prólogo to
the Diana of Perez, ed. 1614, p. 362.
His “Diana Enamorada,” the chief of his works, was first printed
at Valencia, in 1542.[61] It is written in good Castilian, like his
poetry, which is published separately, though, like that, with some
intermixture of his native Portuguese;[62] and it contains, as he tells
us, stories of adventures which really occurred.[63] We know, too,
that, under the name of Sereno, he was himself its hero; and Lope de
Vega adds, that Diana, its heroine, was a lady of Valencia de Don Juan,
a town near the city of Leon.[64] Montemayor’s purpose, therefore, like
that of Sannazaro, is to give, in the forms of a pastoral romance, an
account of some events in his own life and in the lives of a few of
his friends. To effect this, he brings together on the banks of the
Ezla, at the foot of the mountains of Leon, a number of shepherds and
shepherdesses, who relate their respective stories through seven books
of prose, intermingled with verse. But the two principal personages,
Sereno and Diana, who are introduced at first as lovers, are separated
by magic; and the romance is brought to an abrupt conclusion, little
conformable to all the previous intimations, by the marriage of Diana
to Delio, the unworthy rival of Sereno.
[61] I have never seen any edition of the Diana cited earlier
than that of Madrid, 1545; but I possess one in 4to, 112 leaves,
well printed at Valencia, in 1542, without the name of the
printer. The story of Narvaez, of which I shall have occasion to
speak when we come to Antonio Villegas, does not stand in the
fourth book of this copy, as it does in the copies of subsequent
editions. The Diana of Montemayor was so popular, that at least
sixteen editions of the original appeared in eighty years; six
French translations, according to Gordon de Percel (Bib. de
l’Usage des Romans, Paris, 1734, 12mo, Tom. II. pp. 23, 24);
two German, according to Ebert; and one English. The last, by
Bartholomew Yong, (London, 1598, folio,) is excellent, and some
of its happy versions of the poetry of Montemayor are found in
“England’s Helicon,” 1600 and 1614, reprinted in the third volume
of the “British Bibliographer,” London, 1810, 8vo. The story of
Proteus and Julia, in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” was supposed
by Mrs. Lenox and Dr. Farmer to be taken from that of Felismena,
in the second book of Montemayor’s Diana, and therefore Collier
has republished Yong’s translation of the last in the second
volume of his “Shakspeare’s Library,” (London, s. a. 8vo,)
though he doubts whether Shakspeare were really indebted to it.
Malone’s Shakspeare, Boswell’s ed., London, 1821, 8vo, Vol. IV.
p. 3, and Brydges, Restituta, London, 1814, 8vo, Vol. I. p.
498. Poor abridgments of the Diana of Montemayor, and of Polo’s
Continuation, were published at London, 1738, 12mo.
[62] Sometimes he wrote in both languages at once; at least, he
did so in his Cancionero, 1588, f. 81, where is a sonnet which
may be read either as Spanish or as Portuguese.
[63] In his _Argumento_ to the whole romance.
[64] Dorotea, Act II. Sc. 2. Obras Sueltas, Tom. VII. p. 84.
On first reading the Diana of Montemayor, it is not easy to understand
it. The separate stories of which it is composed are so involved with
each other, and so inartificially united, that we are constantly
losing the thread of the principal narration;--a difficulty which is
much increased by the mixture of true and false geography, heathenism,
magic, Christianity, and all the various contradictory impossibilities
that naturally follow an attempt to place in the heart of Spain, and
near one of its best-known cities, a poetical Arcadia, that never
existed anywhere. The Diana, however, better merits the name of a
romance than the Arcadia, which served for its model. Its principal
fiction is ampler and more ingeniously constructed. Its episodes
are more interesting. Much of it is warm with the tenderness of a
disappointed attachment, which, no doubt, caused the whole to be
written. Some of the poetry is beautiful, especially the lyric poetry;
and if its prose style is not so pure as that of Sannazaro, it is still
to be remarked for its grace and richness. Notwithstanding its many
defects, therefore, the Diana is not without an interest for us even
at this remote period, when the whole class of fictions to which it
belongs is discountenanced and almost forgotten; and we feel that only
poetical justice was done to it when it was saved, by the good taste of
the curate, in the destruction of Don Quixote’s library.
The Diana, as has been intimated, was left unfinished by its author;
but in 1564, three years after his death, Alonso Perez, a physician
of Salamanca, to whom Montemayor, before he finally left Spain, had
communicated his plan for completing it, published a second part,
which opens in the enchanted palace of Felicia, where the first ends,
and gives us the adventures and stories of several shepherds and
shepherdesses, not introduced before, as well as a continuation of
the original fiction. But this second part, like the first, fails
to complete the romance. It advances no farther than to the death
of Delio, the husband of Diana,--which, according to the purpose of
Montemayor, was to have been followed by her union with Sereno, her
first and true lover,--and then stops abruptly, with the promise of
yet a third part, which never appeared. Nor was it, probably, demanded
with any earnestness; for the second, protracted through seven books,
and considerably longer than its predecessor, is much inferior to it
in merit. It lacks, in all its many stories, the tenderness which the
disappointment of Montemayor had given to the first portion of the
work; and, what perhaps is of no less consequence in this kind of
composition, the prose is heavy and monotonous, and the verse worse.[65]
[65] The first edition cited (Ant., Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p.
539) is of 1564, and I know of but one other, that which I
have, Barcelona, 1614, 12mo; though I have seen one without a
title-page, which may be different from both. At any rate, its
editions were few, and its popularity was small. It was, however,
translated into French, and by Bart. Yong into English; and
was printed in the original more than once with the Diana of
Montemayor.
But this unfortunate attempt was not the only consequence of
Montemayor’s success. The same year with that in which the work of
Perez was published, another continuation appeared at Valencia, by
Gaspar Gil Polo, a gentleman of that city, who was a Professor of
Greek in its University.[66] The Diana of Polo has the merit of being
shorter than either of its predecessors. It is divided into five books,
and contains an account of the falsehood and death of Delio, and
the marriage of Diana to Sereno, whom she finds when she is seeking
the husband who had basely abandoned her for another shepherdess.
Several episodes and much pastoral poetry of different kinds are
skilfully inserted; but though the original plan of Montemayor seems
to be completed, the book ends with the promise of a still further
continuation, which, though the author lived nearly thirty years after
he made it, seems never to have been written.[67] His work, however,
was successful. Its prose has always found favor, and so have some
portions of its verse; especially the _cancion_ of Nerea in the third
book, and several of the shorter poems in the last.[68]
[66] Polo’s “Diana Enamorada” was first printed in 1564, and
seven editions of the original appeared in half a century, with
two French translations and a Latin one; the last by Caspar
Barth. It is well translated by Bart. Yong, as the _third_ part
of the Diana, in the same volume with the others; but is really
the _second_ part.
[67] There is, however, a third part to the Diana of Montemayor,
written by Hier. Texada, and printed at Paris, 1627, 8vo, of
which a copy in the Royal Library at Paris is cited by Ebert, but
I have never seen it.
[68] The best edition of Gil Polo’s Diana is that with a life of
him by Cerdá, Madrid, 1802, 12mo; particularly valuable for the
notes to the “Canto de Turia,” in which, imitating the “Canto de
Orfeo,” where Montemayor gives an account of the famous _ladies_
of his time, Polo gives an account of the famous _poets_ of
Valencia. For lives of Polo see, also, Ximeno, Escritores de
Valencia, Tom. I. p. 270, and Fuster, Bib. Valentina, Tom. I.
p. 150. It is singular that Polo, who had such success with his
Diana, should have printed nothing else, except one or two short
and trifling poems.
The “Ten Books of Fortune and Love,” by Antonio de Lo Frasso, a
Sardinian and a soldier, published in 1573, is the next Spanish romance
of the same class with the Diana; but it is without merit, and was
forgotten soon after it appeared.[69] Nine years later, in 1582, a
better one was published,--the “Fílida,”--which passed early through
five editions, and is still valued and read.[70] Its author, Luis
Galvez de Montalvo, was born in Guadalaxara, a town near Alcalá, the
birthplace of Cervantes; and, perhaps from this circumstance, they
soon became acquainted, for they were long friends, and often praised
each other in their respective works.[71] They seem, however, to have
had very different characters; for, instead of the life of adventure
led by Cervantes, Montalvo attached himself to the great family of
Infantado, descended from the Marquis of Santillana, and passed most of
his life as a sort of idle courtier and retainer in their ducal halls,
near the place of his nativity. Subsequently he went to Italy, where
he translated and published, in 1587, “The Tears of Saint Peter,” by
Tansillo, and had begun a translation of the “Jerusalem Delivered” of
Tasso, when he was cut off in the midst of his labors by an accidental
death, in Sicily, about the year 1591.[72]
[69] It is the same book that Cervantes ridicules in the sixth
chapter of the first part of Don Quixote, and in the third
chapter of his “Journey to Parnassus”; and is curious for some
specimens of Sardinian poetry which it contains. But Pedro de
Pineda, a teacher of Spanish in London, taking the irony of the
good curate in Don Quixote on Lo Frasso’s romance to be sincere
praise, printed a new edition of it, in two very handsome
volumes, (London, 1740, 8vo,) with a foolish Dedication and
Prólogo, alleging the authority of Cervantes for its great merit.
Hardly any other of the Spanish prose pastorals is so absurd as
this, or contains so much bad verse; a great deal of which is
addressed to living and known persons by their titles. The tenth
book, indeed, is almost entirely made up of such poetry. I do
not recollect that Cervantes is so severe on any poet, in his
“Journey to Parnassus,” as he is on Lo Frasso.
[70] The best edition of the “Fílida” is the sixth, (Madrid,
1792, 8vo,) with a biographical prologue by Mayans y Siscar;
ill-digested, as are all his similar prefaces, but not without
valuable matter.
[71] Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, pp. 66, 278, 407.
[72] Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. I. p. 77, and Tom. XI. p.
xxviii. Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. I. p. 146, and Tom. III.
p. 14, in the notes. The “Tears” of Tansillo enjoyed the honor of
being four times translated into Spanish.
His “Fílida,” in seven parts, was written while he was attached to the
Duke of Infantado; for he announces himself on the title-page as “a
gentleman and a courtier,” and, in his Dedication to one of the family,
says that “his greatest labor is to live idle, contented, and honored
as one of the servants of their house.” The romance contains, as was
usual in such works, the adventures of living and known personages,
among whom were Montalvo himself, Cervantes, and the nobleman to whom
it is dedicated. But the tone of pastoral life is not better preserved
than it is in the other fictions of the same class. Indeed, in the
sixth part, there is a most inappropriate critical discussion on
the merits of the two schools of Spanish poetry then contending for
fashionable mastery; and in the seventh is a courtly festival, with
running at the ring, in which the shepherds appear on horseback with
lances and armorial bearings, like knights. The prose style of the
whole is pure and good; and among the poems with which it abounds, a
few in the old Spanish measure may be selected that are nearly, if not
quite, equal to the similar poems of Montemayor.
Cervantes, too, as we have already noticed, was led by the spirit of
the times, rather, perhaps, than by his own taste, to begin--as an
offering to the lady of his love--the “Galatea,” of which the first
six books, published in 1584, were all that ever appeared.[73] This
was followed, in 1586, by “Truth for the Jealous”; again a romance in
six books, and, like the last, unfinished. It was written by Bartolomé
Lopez de Enciso, of whom we know from himself that he was a young man
when he wrote it, and that it was his purpose to publish a second part,
of which, however, nothing more was heard. Nor can we regret that he
failed to fulfil his promise. His fictions, which are occupied chiefly
with the nymphs and shepherds of the Tagus, are among the most confused
and unmeaning that have ever been attempted. His scene is laid, from
its opening, in the days of the most ancient Greek mythology; but
the Genius of Spain, in the fifth book, carries the same shepherds
who thus figure in the first to a magnificent temple, and shows them
the statues of Charles the Fifth, of Philip the Second, and even of
Philip the Third, who was not yet on the throne;--thus confounding the
earliest times of classical antiquity with an age which, at the end of
the sixteenth century, was yet to come. Other inconsequences follow, in
great numbers, as matters of course, while nothing in either the prose
or the poetry is of value enough to compensate for the absurdities in
the story. Indeed, few portions of Spanish literature show any thing
more stiff and wearisome than the long declamations and discussions in
this dull fiction.[74]
[73] _Ante_, Vol. II, pp. 61-64.
[74] “Desengaño de Celos, compuesto por Bartholomé Lopez de
Enciso, Natural de Tendilla,” Madrid, 1586, 12mo, 321 leaves.
There is, I believe, absolutely nothing known of the author,
except what he tells us of himself in this romance;--an extremely
rare book, of which I possess the copy that belonged to Cerdá y
Rico, and which Pellicer borrowed of him to make the needful note
on Enciso for his edition of Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 6.
Another pastoral romance in six books, entitled “The Nymphs of the
Henares,” by Bernardo Gonzalez de Bovadilla, was printed in 1587. The
author, who was a native of the Canary Islands, confesses that he has
placed the scene of his story on the banks of the Henares without
having ever seen them; but both he and his romance have long since been
forgotten. So has “The Shepherds of Iberia,” in four books, by Bernardo
de la Vega, supposed to have been a native of Madrid, and certainly a
canon of Tucuman, in Peru, whose ill-written story appeared in 1591.
But that these, and all that preceded them, enjoyed for a time the
public favor is made plain by the fact, that they are all found in the
library of Don Quixote, and that three of them receive high praise from
Cervantes;--much higher than has been confirmed by the decision of
subsequent generations.[75]
[75] Don Quixote, ed. Pellicer, Parte I. Tom. I. p. 67, and ed.
Clemencin, Tom. I. p. 144.
Some time, however, elapsed before another came to continue the series,
except the “Arcadia” of Lope de Vega, which, though written long
before, was not printed till 1598.[76] At last, “The Age of Gold,”
by Bernardo de Balbuena, appeared. Its author, born on the vine-clad
declivities of the Val de Peñas, in 1568, early accompanied his family
to Mexico, where he was educated, and where, when only seventeen years
old, he was already known as a poet. Once, at least, he visited his
native country, and perhaps oftener; but he seems to have spent most
of his life, either in Jamaica, where he enjoyed an ecclesiastical
benefice, or in Puerto Rico, of which he was afterwards bishop, and
where he died in 1627.
[76] _Ante_, Vol. II. p. 125. Perhaps the “Enamorada Elisea” of
Gerónimo de Covarrubias Herrera, printed in 1594, 8vo, should
also be excepted; but I know this work only from the title of it
in Antonio.
Of the manners of the New World, however, or of its magnificent
scenery, his “Age of Gold in the Woods of Eriphile” shows no trace.
It was printed at Madrid, in 1608, and might have been written, if
its author had never been in any other city. But it is not without
merit. The poetry with which it abounds is generally of the Italian
school, but is much better than can be found in most of these doubtful
romances; and its prose, though sometimes affected, is oftener sweet
and flowing. Probably nothing in the nine eclogues--as its divisions
are unsuitably called--is connected with either the history or the
scandal of the times; and if this be the case, we have, perhaps, an
explanation of the fact that it was less regarded by those contemporary
with its publication than were similar works of inferior merit. But
whatever may have been the cause, it was long overlooked; no second
edition of it being demanded till 1821, when it received the rare
honor of being published anew by the Spanish Academy.[77]
[77] The prefatory notice to this edition contains all that is
known of Balbuena.
The very next year after the first appearance of “The Age of Gold,”
Christóval Suarez de Figueroa, a native of Valladolid, a jurist and
a soldier, published his “Constant Amaryllis, in Four Discourses,”
crowded, like all its predecessors, with short poems, and, like most
of them, claiming to tell a tale not a little of which was true.[78]
Its author, who lived a great deal in Italy, was already known by an
excellent translation of Guarini’s “Pastor Fido,”[79] and published, at
different times afterwards, several original works which enjoyed much
reputation.[80]
[78] There was an edition with a French translation in 1614, but
the best is that of Madrid, 1781, 8vo.
[79] It was first printed, I believe, at Naples, in 1602, but was
improved in the edition at Valencia, 1609, 12mo, pp. 278, from
which I transcribe the opening of Act III.:--
O primavera, juventud del año,
Nueva madre de flores,
De nuevas yervezillas y d’ amores,
Tu buelves, mas contigo
No buelven los serenos
Y aventurosos dias de mis gustos;
Tu buelves, sí, tu buelves,
Mas contigo no torna
Sino la remembrança
Miserable y doliente
De mi caro tesoro ya perdido.
p. 94.
This passage is so nearly word for word, that it is not worth
while to copy the Italian, and yet its fluency and ease are
admirable.
There is a translation of the “Pastor Fido,” by a Jewess, Doña
Isabel de Correa, of which I know only the third edition, that
of Antwerp, 1694, 12mo. It is one of the few trophies in poetry
claimed by the fair sex of its author’s faith; but it is not
worthy of much praise. Ginguené complains of the original, which
extends to seven thousand lines, for being too long. It is so;
but this translation of Doña Isabel is much longer, containing, I
think, above eleven thousand lines. Its worst fault, however, is
its bad taste. There is a drama with the same title, “El Pastor
Fido,” in the Comedias Escogidas, Tom. VIII., 1657, f. 106;--but,
though it is said to be written by three poets no less famous
than Solís, Coello, and Calderon, it has very little value.
[80] Antonio (Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 251) gives a list of nine of
the works of Figueroa, some of which must be noticed under their
respective heads; but it is probably not complete, for Figueroa
himself, in 1617, (Pasagero, f. 377,) says he had already
published seven books, and Antonio gives only six before that
date; besides which, a friend, in the Preface to Figueroa’s Life
of the Marquis of Cañete, 1613, says he had written eight works
in the ten years _then_ preceding.
But he seems to have been a man of an unkind and unfaithful character.
In a curious account of his own life which appeared in his “Traveller,”
he speaks harshly and insidiously of many of his contemporaries; and
towards Cervantes--who had just died, after praising every body most
generously during his whole life--he is absolutely malignant.[81]
His last work is dated in 1621, and this is the last fact we know
in relation to him. His “Amaryllis,” which, as he intimates, was
composed to please a person of great consideration, did not satisfy
its author.[82] It is, however, written in an easy and tolerably pure
style; and though it contains formal and wearisome discussions, like
that in the first part on Poetry, and awkward machinery, such as a
vision of Venus and her court in the second, it is the only one of his
works that has been reprinted or much read within the last century.
[81] Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, pp. 179-181, and elsewhere.
The very curious notices given by Figueroa of his own life, which
have never been used for his biography, are in his “Pasagero,”
from f. 286 to f. 392, and are, like many other passages of that
singular book, full of bitterness towards his contemporaries,
Lope de Vega, Villegas, Espinosa, etc.
[82] Pasagero, f. 96. b.
A few pastoral romances appeared in Spain after the Amaryllis, but
none of so much merit, and none that enjoyed any considerable degree
of favor. Espinel Adorno;[83] Botelho, a Portuguese;[84] Quintana, who
assumed the name of Cuevas;[85] Corral;[86] and Saavedra,[87] close up
the series;--the last bringing us down to just about a century from the
first appearance of such fictions in the time of Montemayor, and all of
them infected with the false taste of the period. Taken together, they
leave no doubt that pastoral romance was the first substitute in Spain
for the romances of chivalry, and that it inherited no small degree of
their popularity. Most of the works we have noticed were several times
reprinted, and the “Diana” of Montemayor, the first and best of them
all, was probably more read in Spain during the sixteenth century than
any Spanish work of amusement except the “Celestina.”
[83] “El Premio de la Constancia y Pastores de Sierra Bermeja,
por Jacinto de Espinel Adorno,” Madrid, 1620, 12mo, 162 leaves.
I find no notice of it, except the slight one in Antonio, Bib.
Nov., Tom. I. p. 613; but it is not worse than some that were
more valued.
[84] “El Pastor de Clenarda de Miguel Botelho de Cavalho,”
Madrid, 1622, 8vo. He wrote, also, several other works; all in
Castilian, except his “Filis,” a poem in octave stanzas. Barbosa,
Bib. Lus., Tom. III. p. 466.
[85] “Experiencias de Amor y Fortuna, por el Licenciado Francisco
de las Cuevas de Madrid,” Barcelona, 1649, 12mo. See, also,
Baena, Hijos de Madrid, Tom. II. pp. 172 and 189. Francisco de
Quintana dedicated this pastoral to Lope de Vega, who wrote him a
complimentary reply, in which he treats Quintana as a young man,
and this as his first work. There were editions of it in 1626,
1646, 1654, as well as the one at Barcelona, above noted, and one
at Madrid, 1666, 12mo; and in the nineteenth volume of Lope’s
Obras Sueltas, pp. 353-400, is a sermon which Quintana delivered
at the obsequies of Lope, in the title of which he is called
Lope’s “intimate friend.”
[86] “La Cintia de Aranjuez, Prosas y Versos, por Don Gabriel de
Corral, Natural de Valladolid,” Madrid, 1629, 12mo, 208 leaves.
I know of no other edition. He lived in Rome from 1630 to 1632,
and probably longer. (Antonio, Bib. Nova, Tom. I. p. 505.) He is
Gongoresque in his style, as is Quintana.
[87] “Los Pastores del Betis, por Gonzalvo de Saavedra,” Trani,
1633, 4to, pp. 289. It seems to have been written in Italy; but
we know nothing of its author, except that he was a Veintiquatro
of Córdova. His style is affected. In my copy, which in the
colophon is dated 1634, there are, as a separate tract, four
leaves of religious and moral advice to the author’s son, when he
was going as governor to one of the provinces of Naples; better
written than the romance that precedes it.
All this seems remarkable and strange, when we consider only the
absurdities and inconsequences with which such fictions necessarily
abound. But there is another side to the question, which should not be
overlooked. Pastoral romance, after all, has its foundation in one of
the truest and deepest principles of our common nature,--that love of
rural beauty, of rural peace, in short, of whatever goes to constitute
a country life, as distinguished from the constrained life of a city,
which few are too dull to feel, and fewer still so artificial as wholly
to reject. It has, therefore, prevailed more or less in all modern
countries, as we may see in Italy, from the success that followed
Sannazaro; in France, from the “Astrea” of Durfé; and in England, from
the “Arcadia” of Sir Philip Sidney;--the two latter being pastoral
romances of enormous length, compared with any in Spanish; and the
very last enjoying for above a century a popularity which may well be
compared with that of the “Diana” of Montemayor, if, indeed, it did not
equal it.[88]
[88] Portugal might have been added. The “Menina é Moça” of
Bernardino Ribeyro, printed 1557, is a beautiful fragment; and
the “Primaveira” of Francisco Rodriguez de Lobo, in three long
parts, printed between 1601 and 1614,--the first of which was
translated into Spanish by Juan Bart. Morales, 1629,--is among
the best full-length pastoral romances extant. Both for a long
time were favorites in Portugal, and are still read there.
Barbosa, Bib. Lus., Tom. I. p. 518, Tom. II. p. 242.
No doubt, in Spain, as elsewhere, the incongruities of such fictions
were soon perceived. Even some of those who most indulged in them
showed that it was not entirely from a misapprehension of their nature.
Cervantes, who died regretting that he should leave his “Galatea”
unfinished, still makes himself merry more than once in his “Don
Quixote” with all such fancies; and, in his “Colloquy of the Dogs,”
permits one of them, who had been in shepherd service, to satirize
the false exhibition of life in the best pastorals of his time, not
forgetting his own among the rest.[89] Lope de Vega, too, though he
published his “Arcadia” under circumstances which show that he set a
permanent value upon its gentle tales, could still, in a play where
shepherds are introduced, make one of them--who found a real life among
flocks and herds in rough weather much less agreeable than the life he
had read of in the pastorals--say, when suffering in a storm,--
[89] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 6, in the examination of the
library, where his niece begs that the pastorals may be burnt as
well as the books of chivalry, lest, if her uncle were cured of
knight-errantry, he should go mad as a shepherd;--and Parte II.
c. 67 and 73, where her fears are very nigh being realized.
And I should like just now to see those men
Who write such books about a shepherd’s life,
Where all is spring and flowers and trees and brooks.[90]
[90] Comedias, Parte VI., Madrid, 1615, 4to, f. 102. El Cuerdo en
su Casa, Act. I.
Still, neither Cervantes, nor Lope, nor any body else in their
time, thought seriously of discountenancing pastoral fictions. On
the contrary, there was in their very style--which was generally an
imitation of the Italian, that gave birth to them all--something
attractive to a cultivated Castilian ear, at a time when the school
of Garcilasso was at the height of its popularity and favor. Besides
this, the real events they recorded, and the love-stories of persons
in high life that they were known to conceal, made them sometimes
riddles and sometimes masquerades, which engaged the curiosity of
those who moved in the circles either of their authors or of their
heroes and heroines.[91] But more than all, the glimpses they afforded
of nature and truth--such genuine and deep tenderness as is shown by
Montemayor, and such graceful descriptions of natural scenery as abound
in Balbuena--were, no doubt, refreshing in a state of society stiff
and formal as was that at the Spanish court in the times of Philip the
Second and Philip the Third, and in the midst of a culture more founded
on military virtues and the spirit of knighthood than any other of
modern times. As long, therefore, as this state of things continued,
pastoral fictions and fancies, filled with the dreams of a poetical
Arcadia, enjoyed a degree of favor in Spain which they never enjoyed
anywhere else. But when this disappeared, they disappeared with it.
[91] “The Diana of Montemayor,” says Lope de Vega, in the
passage from his “Dorotea” already cited, (n. [64],) “was a lady of
Valencia de Don Juan, near Leon, and he has made both her and
the river Ezla immortal. So the Fílida of Montalvo, the Galatea
of Cervantes, and the Filis of Figueroa, were real personages.”
Others might be added, on the authority of their authors, such
as “Los Diez Libros de Fortuna y Amor,” “La Cintia de Aranjuez,”
etc. See a note of Clemencin, Don Quixote, Tom. VI. p. 440.